Donald Trump surrogate Roger Stone escalated his ongoing war of words with Ted Cruz Wednesday, and accused the Texas senator of being “unhinged.”
“Now you know why Donald Trump calls him ‘Lyin’ Ted,'” the longtime political operative said in an interview with talk radio host Fernand Amandi. “Literally nothing that comes out of the man’s mouth is the truth.”
His remarks come on the heels of Cruz saying this week that the former Trump adviser is a “henchman and dirty trickster” who is likely calling the shots behind the scenes for the billionaire businessman’s presidential campaign.
Stone raised eyebrows earlier this year when he said in an interview that he would make public the hotel room numbers of all non-Trump supporting Republican National Convention delegates.
He clarified Tuesday in an interview with noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones that he wasn’t suggesting intimidation, and said he was merely suggesting Trump supporters visit delegates to encourage them to sign a pledge vowing to support the casino tycoon.
Cruz didn’t seem impressed this week, however, and maintained in an interview with TheBlaze’s Dana Loesch that Stone was encouraging violence.
“I don’t know if the next thing we’re going to see is voters or delegates waking up with horses’ heads in their beds,” Cruz said. “This doesn’t belong in the electoral process.”
“And I think Donald needs to renounce this incitement of violence, he needs to stop asking his supporters at rallies to punch people in the face. And he needs to fire the people responsible. … Roger Stone, and his campaign team that is encouraging violence, and he needs to stop doing it himself,” he added.
Stone, who served as an adviser to Trump until his abrupt exit from the campaign in August 2015, responded Wednesday by suggesting he may bring legal action against Cruz.
“Ted Cruz is becoming unhinged,” he said, maintaining again that he never encouraged violence against Republican delegates. “The pressure must be getting to [Cruz]. He’s seeing me in his sleep.”
“I’ve never called for violence. Ted keeps saying that I might be forced to sue him. He’s a Superlawyer, but let’s get him in for a deposition. I’ve never called for violence,” he added.
Stone also defended Matt Drudge, creator of the Drudge Report, from Cruz.
“The Drudge Report … is a groundbreaking development for alternative media,” he said. “Matt Drudge is a friend of mine. He decides what to put on his website. Sometimes he posts things I write. Sometimes he does not. But the idea that the Trump campaign is in control of Matt Drudge is absurd.”
Cruz claimed this week that the Drudge Report had become little more than a propaganda arm for the Trump campaign.
“In about the past month the Drudge Report has basically become the attack site for the Donald Trump campaign. And so every day they have the latest Trump attack. They’re directed at me,” Cruz, an outspoken evangelical Christian, said in response.
“By all appearances, Roger Stone now decides what’s on Drudge, and most days they have a six-month-old article that is some attack on me, and it’s — whatever the Trump campaign is pushing that day will be the banner headline on Drudge,” the senator added.
Stone claimed Wednesday that the notion he would dictate how Drudge runs his site is absurd.
“[Drudge] is allowed to own his own media organ and he is allowed to decide what to post,” he said. “This is called a free press. I think it’s known as the First Amendment.”
“So Ted Cruz, the ‘Constitutionalist,’ can’t take a little criticism from the free press,” he added. “I think he would find that the … Drudge Report has, on occasion, published pieces that were pro-Cruz.”
