ATLANTA — Although Donald Trump’s pejorative comments about Fox News personality Megyn Kelly have exposed a fault line in the Republican Party that divides the field of GOP presidential candidates, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz thinks if the activists attending the RedState Gathering stand together, the “primaries are effectively over.”
Cruz drew a standing-room-only crowd on Saturday morning and continued his verbal onslaught against GOP leadership. On stage, Cruz criticized moderate Republicans and called out former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
“It is amazing what happens on the campaign trail,” Cruz told the crowd of RedState activists. “Have you noticed that they run as us? By the way they say if you’re actually us, you’re not electable. But yet when they’re running they understand their message doesn’t sell.”
Cruz courted the conservatives in the room by saying that he has relied on conservative bloggers and grassroots organizers that flock to RedState to win his Senate seat and hopes to do the same on the path to the White House. He compared President Obama’s criticism of his tone to remarks made by other Republicans.
“The rhetoric is too much, don’t use language like that; that’s what Mitt Romney tweeted, that’s what Jeb Bush has said. “No, no, no, don’t say such things,” Cruz said. “Truth is not rhetoric.”
In remarks to reporters afterward, Cruz said he admired and respected each of the other GOP candidates running for higher office and chose not to directly criticize Trump. He evaded questions that asked him to specifically address Trump’s remarks but offered his support for Kelly, whom he called a “terrific journalist.” He decried the controversial “soap opera” he claimed the media wanted to cover.
“What I’m working to do is unite conservatives, bring together that old Reagan coalition, bring together conservatives, evangelicals, libertarians, young people, Hispanics, women, Reagan Democrats,” Cruz told reporters. “My message to RedState was is if conservatives unite, we can turn this country around.”
