Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) seemed to hit a personal breaking point Tuesday, going off on Donald Trump and calling on Indiana voters to save the country from the current Republican presidential frontrunner.
Heading into the make-or-break Indiana primary, Cruz did not hold back in front of reporters in an extended diatribe played live on national TV. He accused Trump of lying to voters and painted the real estate mogul as an amoral narcissist. The Texas senator was set off by Trump’s Tuesday morning comments floating a conspiracy theory that Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was somehow linked to Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
“I’m going to do something I haven’t done for the entire campaign. For those of y’all who have traveled with me all across the country, I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump,” Cruz told reporters in Indiana. “This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”
Cruz added that Trump is “amoral” and a “narcissist.”
“Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and goes, ‘Dude, what’s your problem?’ Everything in Donald’s world is about Donald,” Cruz said.
The Texas senator said that he understands the anger that has fueled support for Trump’s candidacy, but he warned Indiana voters that Trump does not mean what he says.
“Donald will betray his supporters on every issue. If you care about immigration, Donald is laughing at you. And he’s telling the moneyed elites he doesn’t believe what he’s saying. He’s not going to build a wall,” Cruz told reporters.
Cruz also argued that Trump has a problem with women because he is insecure and noted that the real estate mogul is a “serial philanderer.”
“I want everyone to think about your teenage kids. The president of the United States talks about how great it is to commit adultery, how proud he is, describes his battle with venereal disease as his own Vietnam — that’s a quote, by the way, on the Howard Stern Show. Do you want to spend the next five years with your kids bragging about infidelity?” Cruz asked.
Cruz made a final pitch to Indiana voters, lamenting that the media has determined that the Republican primary is already over.
“The mainstream media is doing everything they can to convince Hoosiers this race is over, so they only report on the polls showing Donald up,” he said. “Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes at Fox News have turned Fox News into the Donald Trump network.”
The Texas senator said that only Indiana voters can save the country from Trump.
“I would say to the Hoosier state, the entire country is depending on you. The entire country is looking to you right now. It is only Indiana that can pull us back. It is only the good sense and good judgment of Indiana that can pull us back. We are staring at the abyss,” Cruz said.
“If Indiana does not act, this country could well plunge into the abyss. I don’t believe that’s who we are. We are not a proud, boastful, self-centered, mean-spirited, hateful, bullying nation,” he later added.
Watch part of Cruz’s press conference via NBC News:
