Well that was awkward. Ted Cruz’s failure to endorse Donald Trump during his convention speech last night really put the cat among the pigeons. The junior senator from Texas left the Cleveland stage to a chorus of boos (after arriving to a standing ovation), alleged threats of violence and his wife having to be escorted out of the arena for her own safety and all because he refused to genuflect with abstemious benediction and kiss The Donald’s ring and exhort conservatives to vote for the GOP nominee in November.
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Move over Kanye-Taylor, the real long-running beef in America right now is Cruz-Trump. Cleveland was just the latest, and perhaps most dramatic, edition of the Ted and Donald show and here, for your convenience, is a quick recap of all the times the two leading lights of the GOP went at each other.
The Republican primaries, for many, was a race to the bottom when it came to mudslinging, but Trump showed everyone he was the alpha when he compared his wife Melania, a former model, with Cruz’s wife Heidi on Twitter. The backlash and accusations of sexism was swift and even drew a withering response from Fox News’ Megyn Kelly.
Trump, Cruz and the Kennedy Assassination
Trump again. A noted conspiracy theorist (who can forget his devotion to the Birther cause), Trump danced around the idea that Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination.
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Unlike other Republicans, Cruz hasn’t backed down in the face of Trump’s bully-boy posturing and he’s landed a few good shots of his own. Perhaps his best was suggesting that a Trump presidency wouldn’t be too dissimilar to a Biff Tannen one, adding that like the Back to the Future character Trump was a “caricature of a braggadocious, arrogant buffoon who builds giant casinos with giant pictures of him everywhere he looks.” Zing.
Trump is a big fan of the National Enquirer, even more so when the tabloid went after Cruz and his alleged infidelity. A barely able to contain himself Trump said: “while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin’ Ted Cruz.”
After Trump had gone for Heidi, Cruz got mad. Real mad. So mad he called out Trump, describing him as a “sniveling coward.”
Whereas Trump loves straight hectoring, repetition and exclamation marks, Cruz loves to incorporate pop culture in his trash talk and he won points for comparing the real estate mogul to Fat Bastard from Austin Powers.
