Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump stumbled to defend his recent attacks on his top rival’s wife during an interview on a Wisconsin radio station Monday. Trump joined WTMJ’s Charlie Sykes, a prominent conservative talk-radio host in Milwaukee and a supporter of Ted Cruz, to discuss the state of the race. Wisconsin’s primary is on April 5.
Sykes pressed Trump on a retweet the New York businessman published last week that included an unflattering photograph of Heidi Cruz, Cruz’s wife. “Wouldn’t be a good way to start off your Wiscosnin campaign by saying that wives should be off-limits and that you apologize for mocking her looks?” Sykes asked. Trump countered that he was prompted to respond because of a negative online ad against him that featured a provocative photograph of his wife, Melania Trump, who was at the time a supermodel. “He knew totally about that,” Trump said of Cruz. “If he didn’t know about that, it would be a totally different thing.”
There’s no evidence that Trump is right. The offending ad was from an unaffiliated super PAC, and Cruz himself denounced the ad after Trump first criticized it last week. Trump’s assertion that Cruz “knew” about the targeted, low-dollar Facebook ad that ran in just two states is simply that: an assertion, with no basis in fact. Sykes, to his credit, did not let Trump off the hook on this.
“So is this your standard? That if a supporter of another candidate, not the candidate himself, does something despicable, it’s okay for you personally, the candidate for president of the United States, to behave in that same way? I mean, I expect that from a 12-year-old bully on the playground, not somebody who wants the office once owned by Abraham Lincoln,” Sykes said.
“I did a retweet, and it was a retweet by somebody else,” Trump responded, adding that he “didn’t even necessarily know it was a bad picture” of Heidi Cruz.
Later in the interview, Sykes pressed Trump again about not apologizing for the mocking photo of Heidi Cruz. Trump continued to incorrectly claim that Cruz “started it.” Sykes again pointed out the offending ad about Melania Trump was from an independent group, not Cruz himself or the Cruz campaign (or even a Cruz-supporting group).
“No it wasn’t,” Trump said, incorrectly. “No, he knew about that. Is Ted Cruz going to apologize for starting it and sending out that photograph?”
Sykes asked him if Trump ever apologizes.
“I do apologize. I believe in apologizing, but I think before I would think about apologizing, he owes me an apology, because what he did was wrong. He sent out a picture to people in Utah,” Trump said. Sykes repeatedly corrected Trump for falsely stating that Cruz sent out the photo of Melania Trump or was in some way involved with it.
“I know he knew about it,” Trump kept saying. “I didn’t start it. He started it. If he didn’t start it, it would have never happened,”
“Remember, we’re not on the playground, we’re running for president of the United States,” Sykes said.
Listen to the whole interview here.
