Texas Sen. Ted Cruz apologized to fellow Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson Tuesday on behalf of several of his campaign staffers. Those staffers falsely told Iowa voters Carson had exited the race during last night’s Republican caucus.
Without naming Cruz, Carson said in a statement Monday night that some of the retired neurosurgeon’s opponents “resorted to political tricks by tweeting, texting and telling precinct captains to announce that I had suspended my campaign.”
“One of the reasons I got into this race was to stop these deceptive and destructive practices, and these reports have only further steeled my resolve to continue and fight for ‘We The People,’ and return control of the government back to them,” Carson said.
During an interview on Fox News Tuesday morning, Carson pointed to a tweet by Iowa Congressman Steve King, who endorsed Cruz and joined him during his victory speech Monday night.
Carson looks like he is out. Iowans need to know before they vote. Most will go to Cruz, I hope. https://t.co/lW5Js50EMA
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) February 2, 2016
“Last night, when our political team saw the CNN post saying Dr. Carson was not carrying on to New Hampshire and South Carolina, our campaign updated the grassroots leaders just as we would with any breaking news story,” Cruz said Tuesday in a statement to CNN.
“That’s fair game,” he added. “What [my] team should have done is send around the follow-up statement from the Carson campaign clarifying that he was indeed staying in the race when that came out.”
“That was a mistake from our end, and for that I apologize to Dr. Carson,” Cruz said.
While Carson, who finished fourth in Iowa’s Republican caucus, told Fox News he would have fired staffers of his if they made a similar mistake, the Cruz campaign has not signaled the termination of any of its staff.
