Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday said he would not discipline any campaign staffers for notifying Iowa caucusgoers that Ben Carson had plans to drop out of the race even though the retired neurosurgeon only had plans for a quick trip home to Florida.
Cruz said on “The Mike Gallagher Show” that members of his campaign were “passing on news reports.”
“I don’t make a practice of scapegoating staff members when it’s politically convenient,” Cruz added.
The Texas senator reiterated that he has apologized to Carson for his campaign’s actions. In a Tuesday statement, Cruz said that while sharing news reports is “fair game,” he was sorry his campaign did not send out an update clarifying that Carson would remain in the race. The Cruz campaign circulated a CNN story about Carson’s plans to head to Florida following the Iowa caucus, and the campaign allegedly urged caucusgoers to vote for Cruz instead.
On Wednesday, Cruz told Gallagher that the media was reporting on Carson’s claims and the Cruz campaign’s actions in a “misleading way.”
Shortly before Cruz’s interview on “The Mike Gallagher Show,” Donald Trump accused Cruz of “fraud” and called for “either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.”
In response to Trump’s accusations, Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told CNN that Trump was merely trying to get attention.
“The reality hit the reality TV star in Iowa so nobody is talking about him now. So he’s trying to regain some attention on Twitter,” he said in a statement to CNN.
Tyler added that “there are Twitter addiction support groups, so he should seek out his local chapter.”
