Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz on Thursday charged that the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is biased in against him and in favor of his rival Marco Rubio because of their positions on immigration reform.
“Listen, the Journal’s hobby horse is, they love amnesty [for illegal immigrants],” Cruz said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” referring to the paper’s editorial board, which has written in favor of immigration reform. “They are focused obsessively on amnesty. And so the Journal is supporting Marco Rubio.”
“For the next three months, the Journal should change their header to the ‘Marco Rubio for president’ newspaper, because their attacks, and it’s going to keep coming because Marco fights for the principles they care about,” he said.
Rubio is widely known for having championed immigration reform that included a path to citizenship for illegals currently living in the U.S., which is often disparaged as “amnesty” by more conservative Republicans.
The Journal’s editorial page had backed Rubio’s plan, but the first-term senator distanced himself from it as it grew unpopular with conservative voters.
The Journal continues to call on Congress to push for immigration reform while at the same time assailing Cruz for his confrontational tactics in the Senate, which have frazzled many of his own colleagues in the GOP.
The Journal’s editorial board, representing the moderate wing of the GOP, has not endorsed any candidate for president. But Rupert Murdoch, whose corporate media empire includes the Journal, has made public comments in support of Rubio. In 2013, Murdoch said that Rubio’s immigration proposal was “good bipartisan immigration reform.”
A spokesman for the Rubio campaign declined to comment on Cruz, but noted that the Journal has in the past criticized Rubio’s tax reform proposals.
Rubio’s tax plan includes a $2,500 credit for families with children. In November, the Journal called it an “expensive political pander.”
