Sen. Ted Cruz is “a nasty person,” Donald Trump said Monday, projecting himself as the comparatively reasonable alternative in the Republican presidential primary.
Speaking with CNN host Wolf Blitzer, Trump also spoke approvingly of legislative compromise and the Founders’ vision of federalism. Here is a partial transcript:
BLITZER: You say the establishment is against you. Why do you say that? TRUMP: I think the establishment actually is against me, but really coming online, because they see me as opposed to Cruz, who is a nasty guy, who can’t get along with anybody. Look, at a certain point, you got to make deals. We can’t have a guy who stands in the middle of the Senate floor and now every other senator thinks he’s a whack job, right? You have to make deals. You have to get along. That’s the purpose of what our Founders created. And Ted cannot get along with anybody. He’s a nasty person. You don’t see that. And even when he was supportive of me, I kept saying, ‘Watch what’s gonna happen, he’s a nasty guy.’ And he brought it up at the debate — he started it, I finished it — but he started getting very bad at the debate.
The Republican front-runner also said Cruz “tells lies,” a reference to an advertisement from Cruz about Trump’s efforts to use eminent domain in Atlantic City for his own gain. THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s John McCormack wrote about Trump’s misleading response to that ad here.
Video of Trump’s interview with Blitzer is below:
