Thread: Ted Cruz ‘Affair’ Rumors Peddled by Marco Rubio’s Allies

Sleazy Does It03.25.16 4:45 PM ET

Ted Cruz ‘Affair’ Rumors Peddled by Marco Rubio’s Allies
The senator accused Donald Trump of planting a National Enquirer sex scandal story. If that’s true, Trump wasn’t the only Cruz opponent trying to traffic in smears.

If you enjoy daydreaming about Ted Cruz’s sex life, then today is your lucky day.

The National Enquirer alleged on March 23 that the senator has had five extramarital affairs. And the descriptions it provided of the women—along with barely-pixelated headshots of them—left little to D.C. insiders’ imaginations as to who the Enquirer had accused of being Cruz paramours.

“A HOOKER, A TEACHER & COWORKERS: 5 romps that will destroy Ted Cruz!” the Enquirer piece boldly claims, in an article that includes a wild “sex-in-closet” allegation.

Cruz fired back on Friday, charging that the piece was baseless and that the Enquirer was taking its marching orders straight from “Donald Trump and his henchmen.”

The truth behind the rumor-mongering, however, is a little more complex. A half-dozen GOP operatives and media figures tell The Daily Beast that Cruz’s opponents have been pushing charges of adultery for at least six months now—and that allies of former GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio were involved in spreading the smears.

For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications’ representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article.

Breitbart News, the notoriously Trump-friendly conservative outlet, was also pitched the story of Cruz’s extramarital affairs, according to a source close to the publication. That source said an operative allied with Marco Rubio—but not associated with his official campaign—showed the publication a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the outlet opted not to report on the video, which demonstrated no direct evidence of an affair.

“We got it from a Rubio ally,” said the source. “It was too thin, so [Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.”

A Rubio spokesman wasn’t immediately available for comment.

The Cruz campaign team has been aware of the sex-scandal rumors for months. But it took the National Enquirer’s report to force the story into the mainstream media conversation.

Friday afternoon, Trump disavowed any connection to the Enquirer’s story—while giving their credibility a backhanded boost.

“I have no idea whether or not the cover story about Ted Cruz in this week’s issue of the National Enquirer is true or not, but I had absolutely nothing to do with it, did not know about it, and have not, as yet, read it,” he said in a statement.

He then proceeded to praise the publication.

“Ted Cruz’s problem with the National Enquirer is his and his alone, and while they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards, and many others, I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin’ Ted Cruz,” he said.

National Enquirer interior pages, accusing Ted Cruz of five extra-marital affairs.
The Daily Beast

You can’t blame Cruz for seeing Trump’s tiny fingerprints on the story—and it’s fully plausible that the mogul or one of his allies (rather than a Rubio booster) gave the story to the tabloid. After all, the supermarket tabloid is, for all intents and purposes, the Trump Train’s caboose.

“TRUMP MUST BE PREZ!” began the Enquirer’s endorsement of the mogul, published earlier this month. “INSIDE: VOTE FOR HIS VICE PRESIDENT!” (One of the options is Sen. Cruz, who the publication had previously dubbed, “Boozin’ Ted.”)

In that same issue, the editors call Marco Rubio “NERDY.” The issue, dated March 14, 2016, also features bombshell exposes on the Illuminati taking control of Hollywood to erect “totalitarian world government,” as well as Dr. Phil’s “REIGN OF TERROR.”

David Pecker—the CEO of American Media, Inc., which publishes the Enquirer—is tight with Trump.

Trump has repeatedly praised Pecker and tweeted several times in 2013 that his pal should be named the new CEO of Time magazine.

The tabloid has provided Trump’s presidential bid with glowing coverage, and has been rewarded with “exclusive” interviews. In January, “America’s most popular presidential candidate” gave a two-part interview on the “most intimate details of [his] amazing life!” Trump is even an occasional National Enquirer contributor.

“Trump is a big friend of Pecker,” an anonymous source told the New York Daily News, claiming that the billionaire reality TV star is “protected” by the Enquirer. “So no John Edwards-type investigations … Some of the staff are furious. Trump’s such fertile ground, and it drives them crazy to not only be staying away from it, but running puff pieces for him.”

A source close to the tabloid also told New York magazine in October that Trump’s campaign was the source for an Enquirer cover story on one of the mogul’s former rivals.

“Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient’s Brain!” the headline bellowed. (The Trump campaign and Pecker flatly denied this allegation.)

The Enquirer has also savaged other Trump foes, including Rubio, Cruz, Carly Fiorina, and Jeb Bush. It recently reported that Bush, as governor of Florida, was embroiled in “sleazy cheating scandals…[with a] Playboy Bunny turned lawyer,” a rumor Bush publicly denied over a decade ago.

“There have been few presidential candidates in recent history that have generated the kind of discussion that Donald Trump has,” Pecker told The Daily Beast earlier this month. “It’s no surprise that the readership of the Enquirer recently told us that they wanted to read more about Trump than any other 2016 candidate. The coverage of the Enquirer reflects what its 6 million readers want, and expect, from the publication which has shown no hesitation in presenting an unvarnished look at past or current candidates for president.”

But unvarnished isn’t the same thing as true. Cruz and several of the women accused in the Enquirer’s story have denied its lurid claims.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-s-allies.html

Well, based on the length of time this story has been stifled, Daily Beast says at least 6 months, it's pretty clear Trump didn't have anything to do with it. Also, Trump wouldn't push a story that implicated his own spokesperson, Katrina Pierson. What this reveals is that the MSM withholds stories, that's probably the biggest problem here. Is it because they don't care about extramarital affairs? Or they don't want to distract themselves from time and resources hating on Donald Trump to vet the other candidates?

Probably so. The same way they want to protect the Anti-Melania instead of Melania. Bias is becoming the new Four Letter Word idescribing America's MSM.

Is it possible that the article describing Heidi Cruz' breakdown on the side of the road might have something to do with her being enlightened about matters mentioned in the "affair" article? This is how you tie stuff together and things that were unexplainable then, now may make a little more sense.

March 25, 2016

Everything You Need To Know About The Ted Cruz Sex Scandal

TEXAS - The National Enquirer just dropped a bombshell on the Cruz campaign and the internet exploded overnight. Reports claim investigators found Ted Cruz allegedly had an affair with five different women. UPDATE #1: Ted Cruz Denies Affair. UPDATE #2: Trump Responds.

According to the Enquirer:

“Private detectives are digging into at least five affairs Ted Cruz supposedly had,” claimed a Washington insider. “The leaked details are an attempt to destroy what’s left of his White House campaign!” The ENQUIRER reports that Cruz’s claimed mistresses include a foxy political consultant and a high-placed D.C. attorney!

The publication did not name names and only printed pixelated photos. Internet users on Twitter, Reddit and 4chan quickly went to work to determine the identity of all five women while using the hashtag #CruzSexScandal.

8 things you need to know about Ted Cruz's sex scandal:

1. The National Enquirer Was Right About John Edwards, Tiger Woods and Jesse Jackson

The National Enquirer Was Right About John Edwards, Tiger Woods and Jesse Jackson

Surprisingly The National Enquirer has a good track record reporting scandals like this. This same magazine broke the John Edwards scandal, Tiger Woods scandal, Jesse Jackson scandal, and the Gary Hart scandal.

2. Washington Times Reporter Confirms Story

Washington Times Reporter Confirms Story

Drew Johnson of the Washington Times confirmed on Twitter Thursday night that two of Ted Cruz's mistresses named by the National Enquirer are accurate.

3. Breitbart Had Story But Chose Not To Publish

Breitbart Had Story But Chose Not To Publish Allum Bokhari

Breitbart reporter Allum Bokhari confirmed on twitter he was scooped. Breitbart had the story about Ted Cruz's affair back in February but did not publish. Ben Shapiro?

4. #CruzSexScandal Is Trending on Twitter

#CruzSexScandal Is Trending on Twitter

5. The Internet Claims To Have Identified Who Most Of The Women Are

Ted Cruz Sex Scandal Katrina Pierson, Sarah Isgur Flores, Amanda Carpenter

6. Donald Trump Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson Made Her Instagram Private Last Night

Donald Trump Spokeswoman Katrina Pierson Made After Instagram Private Last Night After #CruzSexScandal Started Trending

Donald Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson made her Instagram private last night after #CruzSexScandal started trending online. Pierson previously worked for Ted Cruz.

7. Texas Police Report From 2005 Claims Heidi Cruz Was "A Danger To Herself" When Officers Found Her Sitting Near Austin Expressway

Texas Police Report From 2005 Claims Heidi Cruz Was "A Danger To Herself" When Officers Found Her Sitting Near Austin Expressway

8. Cruz Allegedly Paid "Hush Money" To Carly Fiorina

Cruz Allegedly Paid "Hush Money" To Carly Fiorina

Sarah Isgur Flores worked for Carly Fiorina as deputy campaign manager. In July 2015 an unusual $500,000 donation was made by Ted Cruz-affiliated Super PAC, Keep the Promise to Carly Fiorina’s official campaign fund.

http://www.conservativeoutfitters.co...zs-sex-scandal

Click on the link for the tweet comments by the reporters. One says one of the women may be Michelle Fields, another one tweets "it is".

____________________________

It looks it might be Ted Cruz who has the problem with strong women.

Michelle Fields starts that crap about Corey, Trump's Campaign Manager.

Amanda Carpenter is an emotional wreck in her interviews commenting on the campaign in favor of Cruz to the point that another female commentator told her you need therapy.

Flores works for Carly and Carly ends up with a $500,000 donation from a Cruz Super PAC.

It was clearly a story started by Rubio's people not Trump months and months ago, yet Cruz blames Trump for it without any evidence at all.

Brietbart has the story and sits on it, as does the Washington Times, as does the Washington Post they admitted today on MSNBC.

Carly endorses Ted Cruz.

Good grief. That's a lot. That's worthy of questions and MSM investigative reporting. Can you imagine if there was the same set of information and rumors out there on Trump? Holy Cow!! MSM would have been all over this for months, every employee would be on the trail of trying to get to the bottom of it. Why haven't they asked Cruz and Cruz Super PAC about the $500,000? Maybe it was just a purchased endorsement, which JohnDoe2 says is legal, but it should still be reported by the MSM so people know that. Remember all the effort Steve King made in Iowa to try to insinuate Trump paid Sarah Palin for her endorsement? He didn't, but the Cruz campaign sure thought it was worth telling the voters about. Remember that sleaze by Steve King? It was proved false, but still the Media was all over it.

The reporting in this campaign has been so focused against Trump that no vetting has been done on these other candidates, even when the stories are sitting in their laps. Pathetic journalism in 2016 because they're more interested in what Trump jested on a Howard Stern program or some men's magazine 25 years ago than why the Cruz Super PAC made a $500,000 donation to Carly Fiorina's campaign.

cruz said last month he had dirt to unleash @ trump - he & his group couldn't wait to unleash Melania pics - but NOW it's
"You leave Heidi alone coward" -
What? Who is the real coward here?.....


Now the RUBIO camp is implicated in Cruz's alleged sex scandal: Rumors of FIVE affairs 'came from an ally of defeated rival,' claims report as Trump taunts his rival on Twitter

• The National Enquirer published a story that claims that Ted Cruz cheated with five women - which he denies
• The story 'came from a Marco Rubio ally' and not Donald Trump's camp, according to Breitbart News, who turned down the lead
• It said Cruz was unfaithful with a 'hot babe', a 'sexy schoolteacher', a 'foxy political consultant', a 'pretty lawyer' - and a $1,000 a night prostitute
• It was initially believed the rumor came from Trump, who has threatened Cruz with 'spilling the beans' on his wife, Heidi Cruz
• Then Cruz accused Trump of 'rat copulation' and posted a message on Facebook blaming Donald Trump and his 'henchmen' for the claims
• Trump hit back saying he 'hoped' story was untrue and he had nothing to do with Enquirer but added: 'They were right about John Edwards'
• National Enquirer denied being influenced by any candidates in 'unflinching' reporting
• Later in the afternoon Cruz and Trump attacked each other's mental health

By Nikki Schwab, U.s. Political Reporter For Dailymail.com and Kalhan Rosenblatt For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:32 EST, 25 March 2016 | Updated: 12:21 EST, 26 March 2016

Rumors surrounding Ted Cruz and allegations he cheated on his wife with five women are believed to have steamed from Marco Rubio's camp - not Donald Trump's, as initially believed.

'For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications,' The Daily Beast has reported.

Breitbart News claims it was one of those outlets that was pitched a 'Cruz Sex Scandal' story.

The news site said the pitch came from a video peddled by a 'Rubio ally'.


Very public display: Ted Cruz hugged his wife Heidi today as he issued an unprecedented public denial of claims he had affairs with five women - two of whom were named by the strategy head of a super PAC which earlier this week published a pro-Cruz poster of Melania Trump naked



Breitbart News revealed on Friday that a 'Marco Rubio ally' has been peddling a story about Cruz's sex scandal for approximately six months, according to the Daily Beast

The 'Marco Rubio ally' who pitched the story showed Breitbart a video compilation of Cruz with other women

In one video it is alleged 'Cruz and a woman other than his wife' can be seen 'coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant'

The video shows 'a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays', according to The Daily Beast.

In the end Breitbart News turned the story down because 'there was no way to verify the claims'.

However, the video was enough for Nation Enquirer to run with it.

Cruz believed it was Donald Trump and his 'henchmen' who were spreading a smear, prompting a scathing response from the Republican frontrunner.

Cruz publicly denied cheating on his wife Heidi with five woman - described in the National Enquirer as including a 'hot babe' and a '$1,000 a night call girl'.

\Another clip in the video is said to show the GOP presidential hopeful coming out of 'a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays'

And he accused Donald Trump and his henchmen of being behind it saying his rival had acted to 'enlist' the Enquirer to spread a smear.

That prompted Trump to issue a lengthy statement denying being involved, but which said of the National Enquirer 'they were right about O.J. Simpson, John Edwards and many others.'

'I certainly hope they are not right about Lyin' Ted Cruz,' he said.

Cruz went after Donald Trump, but didn't realize the story of the alleged affair had come from Rubio's camp

The extraordinary spectacle of the Christian conservative candidate defending the integrity of his marriage unfolded in the space of hours.

He first found himself facing extraordinary claims of five affairs when a story in the National Enquirer magazine became the subject of Washington gossip on Thursday night, and two women were named as potential mistresses by a Republican operative on Friday morning.

The Enquirer had never named the women with whom it accused Cruz of cheating on his wife Heidi.









Donald Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson (left) pushed back on allegations - that started with a National Enquirer story - that she had an affair and 'came on' to Sen. Ted Cruz - and so did Amanda Carpenter (right)

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THE ENQUIRER FIVE

The National Enquirer accused Ted Cruz of five affairs - all of which he denied today.
It did not name the women but said they were:
'FOXY POLITICAL CONSULTANT'
One worked for Cruz, now associated with another political campaign, said the magazine.
'"Randy Ted" supposedly had a romp with her in a closet at a Republican state convention.''
'PRETTY LAWYER'
Worked for his Senate campaign when they had affair - and it continued as she worked elsewhere.
'HOT BABE'
Caught 'getting cozy' on the campaign trail.
'SEXY AUSTIN SCHOOLTEACHER'
Allegedly had 'fling' after he was made Texas solicitor general.
'$1,000 A NIGHT CALL GIRL'
'Ted supposedly had it on with a prostitute,' the magazine said.

AND HERE'S WHAT THE MAGAZINE SAYS ABOUT CLAIMS IT WAS INFLUENCED BY TRUMP

No one influences the reporting that the National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors.

We stand by the integrity of our coverage and remain committed to our aggressive reporting on such an important topic.

The more than any other publication, has been unflinching in its reporting on the 2016 presidential candidates.
Issued by AMI, Enquirer parent company, to the Hollywood Reporter

But then the Republican behind an attack on Donald Trump earlier this week which featured a naked picture of his wife Melania named two women she said were alleged to be his mistress.

Liz Mair, a respected Republican strategist, used her Twitter to name Amanda Carpenter, a former spokeswoman for Cruz who is now a CNN contributor, and a Trump spokeswoman, Katrina Pierson, who is a former Cruz ally.

Both denied the claim robustly - but it lit a fire which Cruz then had to act to put out.

'Let me be clear. This National Enquirer story is garbage,' Cruz said this afternoon. 'It is complete and utter lies. It is a tabloid smear and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen.'

Then he launched into an attack on Trump saying his rival was a 'rat' - 'but I have no desire to copulate with him'.

He blamed Roger Stone, a former Trump aide labeled a 'ratf****r' over claims he was involved in dirty tricks for the Nixon administration for the 'garbage', saying Stone had '50 years of dirty tricks behind him'.

'He’s a man for whom a term was coined for copulating with a rodent. Well, let me be clear. Donald Trump may be a rat but I have no desire to copulate with him.'

Then he used Facebook to blame Trump directly.

'For Donald J. Trump to enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won’t go,' he said.
'These smears are completely false, they’re offensive to Heidi and me, they’re offensive to our daughters, and they’re offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack.'

But the claim that Trump had influenced it incensed the National Enquirer.

Its parent company AMI issued a statement saying: 'No one influence the reporting that the National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors.'

By 5pm in the afternoon the rival candidates attacked each other's mental health.

Jeff Roe, Cruz's campaign manager tweeted an accusation that Trump was hiding some form of mental illness.
'MISSING#SleazyDonald Why no events in 4 days; none planned for 8. Ever had psychological eval? What is hiding in medical records! Release!'

Trump's rapid response was to retweet a suggestion Cruz was having a breakdown.

His message read: '@11phenomenon: #LyingTed blames @realDonaldTrump for so many things I am starting to think he is having a mental health crisis.'

Cruz, who has made his Christian faith and family values the centerpiece of his campaign for the White House, using campaign time to deny five affairs, sent shocks through Washington.

On twitter, the hashtag 'TedCruzAffairs' was one of the most popular across the nation.

Both women named by Mair denied they had committed adultery with Cruz.

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And finally: The Cruz camp's late afternoon response to the day's developments



Last word: Donald Trump hit back by retweeting a suggestion that Cruz was having 'a mental health crisis'

'Speaking for myself, the article is trash and 100 percent false,' Pierson told Daily Mail Online.

'What’s out there is tabloid trash. If someone wants to comment on it, they can talk to my lawyer,' said Carpenter of the allegations.

Mair had named them both on Twitter this morning. She wrote tweets directed at both Pierson and Carpenter suggesting that they should sue as the allegations are 'obviously false.'

'Ted Cruz should sue over [obviously] false allegation he had an affair [with] Katrina Pierson, [though] I've heard she may have come onto him. Who knows,' Mair wrote.

The tweet incensed Pierson, who wrote back earlier this morning.
'What's worse? People who actually believe the trash in tabloids, or the ones who know it's false & spread it anyway? #stupidity on all levels,' Pierson tweeted.

Pierson, a Dallas-based tea party leader had prominently been a Cruz supporter before switching her allegiance and vocally supporting Trump.

She eventually became a paid member of The Donald's campaign.

Contacted by email, Mair's out-of-office reply indicated that had already left for the Easter holiday and would be back next week.

Turning to the Carpenter allegation, Mair had wrote: 'As for people suggesting Amanda Carpenter slept [with] Cruz, she should sue them.'

'That is [obviously] false, as anyone who knows Amanda knows,' Mair continued.






Republican strategist Liz Mair - whose super PAC Make America Awesome produced a controversial nude Melania Trump ad - outed Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson as one of the five women the National Enquirer suggested slept with Ted Cruz after Twitter users started identifying her

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Liz Mair also named CNN's Amanda Carpenter, a former communicators director for Sen. Ted Cruz, as one of the women whose blurred face appeared in the National Enquirer story



Donald Trump's spokeswoman Katrina Pierson wrote this tweet this morning after Republican strategist publicly named her as one of the five women the National Enquirer claimed had an affair with Sen. Ted Cruz

She did this too: Liz Mair was behind this campaign image distributed in Utah to attack Donald Trump earlier this week - to the fury of the Republican frontrunner, who blamed 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' for it


'It would also be fun to get access to Trump comms staff, Trump Org emails as part of discovery in a defamation suit,' Mair added in another tweet, tagging Carpenter's Twitter handle.

Carpenter was forced to respond to the story during a live television segment.

The CNN contributor appeared alongside Trump supporter Adriana Cohen, a columnist for the Boston Herald.

The two women were supposed to be discussing this week's tiff between the Cruz and Trump camps, but instead Cohen brought the tabloid story up.

'If we're going to call Donald Trump's character into question, I would like Ted Cruz to issue a statement on whether or not the story is true, that he has had affairs with may women, including, you were named, Amanda,' Cohen said, pointing to her co-panelist.

'Will you denounce this story or will you confirm it?'

carpenter denounced, with an assist from host Kate Bolduan, who said that CNN had done no reporting to lend credibility to the Enquirer's account and the subsequent Twitter claims as to who its unnamed women were.

'It's categorically false,' Carpenter said. 'You should be ashamed for spreading this smut. Donald Trump supporters should be held to account for it.'

Cohen blasted back: 'I'm not spreading smut,' she said.

'I will not be intimated,' Carpenter replied. 'I will continue to make my thoughts known about Donald Trump. I am not backing down.'



Ted Cruz spent much of his week defending his wife Heidi Cruz against attacks made by Donald Trump and his allies



What the Enquirer got right: The news magazine correctly found that John Edwards was cheating on his wife with a campaign aide who had his love child



And this too: Trump did not say which of the tabloid's many stories on O.J. Simpson he was referring to but this was one of the most high-profile stories it ran raising questions over how truthful his murder defense was

On her Twitter page, Carpenter retweeted a show of support from prominent conservative pundit, who's also on CNN, Mary Katherine Ham.

I am so with you, Amanda Carpenter & all the other women Trump & supporters casually smear,' Ham wrote, including a block quote of Carpenter defending herself against Cohen on CNN.

Cruz also railed against the story on his Facebook page.
'I want to be crystal clear: these attacks are garbage. For Donald J. Trumpto enlist his friends at the National Enquirer and his political henchmen to do his bidding shows you that there is no low Donald won’t go,' he wrote.

'These smears are completely false, they’re offensive to Heidi and me, they’re offensive to our daughters, and they’re offensive to everyone Donald continues to personally attack, he continued.

Donald Trump’s consistently disgraceful behavior is beneath the office we are seeking and we are not going to follow,' he added.

The original Enquirer story, which doesn't appear online, but has been picked up by gossip sites like Gawker, says that political operatives are compiling a 'dirt file' on Cruz with private investigators looking into claims that he had affairs with a who's who of Republican party politics – as well as a 'sexy Austin schoolteacher' and a 'Washington, D.C. call girl.'

Besides Pierson and Carpenter, the third political type worked for a different presidential campaign, which has now aligned itself with Cruz.

The only on-the-record source for the story is Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally who previously worked for the campaign.

'These stories have been swirling around Cruz for some time,' Stone told the tabloid. 'I believe where there is smoke, there is fire. I have to believe that this will hurt him with his evangelical Christian supporters.'

The attack on the credibility of Cruz's marriage comes at an interesting time in the campaign as he has spent the week vehemently defending his wife.

Once Trump saw the ad featuring naked Melania, he unleashed on Cruz, even though the spot was produced by Mair's super PAC.

In his most bold defense of Heidi Cruz yet, the candidate tore into The Donald during a campaign stop yesterday in Wisconsin.

'Donald, you're a sniveling coward and leave Heidi the hell alone,' Cruz said.

While lines seem to be drawn between the Cruz and Trump people in today's spat, Pierson squarely stayed on team Donald, ripping into Heidi Cruz this morning on MSNBC.

Pierson suggested that 'spilling the beans' on Heidi Cruz, a threat that Trump had issued over Twitter, was simply shedding light on her record of working for Wall Street.

'So spilling the beans on Heidi Cruz simply means that her her entire career has been spent working against everything Ted Cruz says he stands for,' Pierson said.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti....html?AID=7236

The ‘Massive Game Of Telephone’ That Preceded The Ted Cruz Tabloid Rumors

Reporters and operatives spent months caught up in unsubstantiated claims of a sex scandal before they ran in the National Enquirer.
03/26/2016 01:39 pm ET

Michael Calderone
Senior Media Reporter, The Huffington Post

Ted Cruz called Trump a “sniveling coward” in front of reporters Thursday following the candidate’s attack on his wife. On Friday, Cruz accused him of spreading rumors to the National Enquirer.

NEW YORK — Rick Wilson got a call earlier this month from a reporter asking about a potentially explosive, campaign-ending piece of opposition research: a Ted Cruz sex tape.

Wilson is the type of plugged-in Republican consultant who reporters would expect to know if such a bombshell exists — and perhaps even when a campaign was ready to drop it. This time, he had no idea. But at the reporter’s request, Wilson contacted a journalist friend at a TV network to see if they’d had it. The TV journalist didn’t have the goods, but had heard another network did.

“This became a massive game of telephone,” said Wilson, who recalled fielding calls from upwards of 20 journalists in one day, hailing from major newspapers and networks. They all essentially wanted to know if the Texas senator, who frequently touts his Christian faith on the campaign trail, wasn’t so faithful to his wife.

In the days leading up to the March 15 Florida primary, Wilson — a supporter of former candidate Marco Rubio and boisterous critic of front-runner Donald Trump — cryptically tweeted about a would-be blockbuster nicknamed “The Thing.”

Though Wilson never named names, his tweets were taken, by some, as bolstering an unsubstantiated rumor circulating on social media, and promoted by a little-known political website, that Cruz had an affair with Katrina Pierson, a former adviser to the senator and current Trump national spokeswoman. Pierson even blamed Wilson and another Republican operative for spreading the rumor in a tweet on the morning of Florida’s primary — long before any mainstream outlets covered it. But Wilson insists he wasn’t the source of the Cruz infidelity rumors.

“I never pushed the rumors because I’m an old hand at this business,” the veteran Florida-based operative told The Huffington Post. “When the opposition research is pitched to you as, ‘This is a silver bullet, this will end the campaign,’ it’s always bullshit.”

There’s no evidence to support the National Enquirer’s report Friday that Cruz had an affair with not just one but five women. Major news outlets that looked into the rumor before or after its publication in the Enquirer haven’t substantiated the claims. Two of the women identified in the story, Pierson and CNN contributor Amanda Carpenter, denied the allegations Friday morning. The candidate himself called an impromptu news conference that afternoon to dismiss them. “It is complete and utter lies” said Cruz, who also accused Trump and his “henchmen” of planting the story, a charge the candidate denied.
X

The tabloid frenzy on Friday capped off a particularly ignoble week in the 2016 Republican primary, in which the leading candidates’ Twitter-fueled spat over their wives diverted the campaign media’s attention from Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels and the looming question about how the next commander in chief will tackle the self-described Islamic State.

The Cruz rumors also put the national media in a familiar bind. It’s one thing to call sources to find out if a potentially campaign-ending scandal is on the way. But it’s another to put those unsupported claims in print or on air. And even as Twitter and Facebook have helped flatten the media landscape, major news organizations still cling to their traditional gatekeeper role when it comes to alleged sex scandals. Even skeptically covering such rumors, it’s believed, can give them too much credence.

Complicating matters is that the Cruz story was published Friday in the National Enquirer, which — though not considered reliably credible by most journalists — was famously right about John Edwards’ infidelity and other sex scandals. The national media couldn’t confirm the Edwards rumors during the 2008 race and given his denial, tried to ignore them even as the scandal was percolating in the blogosphere. Similarly, while people were buzzing on Twitter about the Cruz rumors Friday morning, national media outlets and the typically chatty journalists they employ were noticeably silent.

CNN hadn’t yet covered the Enquirer’s claims around 11:15 a.m. when they were thrust into the mainstream by a scheduled guest, Boston Herald columnist and Trump supporter Adriana Cohen. She was booked to spar with Carpenter, a former Cruz spokeswoman and Trump critic, about the kerfuffle involving the Republican candidates and their wives. But Cohen shifted the conversation to Carpenter and asked the CNN contributor on air whether the allegations involving her and Cruz were true. (Though the Enquirer somewhat blurred the five women’s faces, both Pierson and Carpenter were quickly identified).

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan interjected to clarify that the network, which was now inadvertently amplifying the rumors, had no follow-up reporting on them. Carpenter took the opportunity to dismiss the report as “tabloid trash” and told Cohen she “should be ashamed for spreading this smut.”

Bolduan said she would be more comfortable shifting the conversation back to the presidential race.

X

Cruz let the national media off the hook a couple hours later by shooting down the claims before reporters in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. This gave them permission to report on the developing scandal, since a candidate’s on-camera denial of an infidelity rumor clearly meets the bar that news executives and editors require for publication even if the unsubstantiated rumor, on its own, wouldn’t.

The rumors about Cruz would presumably be in Trump’s interest to circulate. And they came just days after Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife, Heidi, as part of an escalating feud between the two that began after an anti-Trump super PAC, unaffiliated with Cruz’s campaign, ran an ugly, negative ad involving Trump’s wife, Melania.

During Friday’s news conference, Cruz reminded reporters that the National Enquirer had recently endorsed Trump and that the candidate is longtime friends with David Pecker, CEO of Enquirer parent company American Media Inc.

The pair do have a history. Trump invited Pecker to his 2005 wedding and the media executive attended an Elton John concert the following year at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, according to reports at the time. In early 2013, Pecker appointed David Hughes, a top executive at Trump Entertainment Resorts, to American Media’s board of directors. Later that year, Trump pitched Pecker to lead Time magazine.

The National Enquirer’s laudatory coverage of Trump this cycle also stands in sharp contrast to that of his rivals, who’ve faced blaring headlines tying them to drugs and scandal. The Daily News reported in August that the tabloid was going easy on Trump, and New York Magazine traced an October Enquirer story about Dr. Ben Carson having once left a sponge in a patient’s brain back to Trump’s campaign.

The National Enquirer denied suggestions it’s doing Trump’s bidding.

“No one influences the reporting that The National Enquirer does other than our own reporters and editors,” an American Media spokesman told HuffPost Friday. “We stand by the integrity of our coverage and remain committed to our aggressive reporting on such an important topic. The National Enquirer, more than any other publication, has been unflinching in its reporting on the 2016 presidential candidates.”
The National Enquirer

Cruz also pointed out Friday that Roger Stone, a notorious political “dirty trickster” since the Nixon years, was the only on-the-record source in the Enquirer’s breathless report. Stone, who had previously advised Trump and remains a booster of his candidacy, told The Enquirer that “these stories have been swirling around Cruz for some time” and he believed “where there is smoke there is fire.”

“Donald Trump may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him,” Cruz told reporters, a muddled reference to the expletive “rat****ing” — political slang for dirty tricks made famous in the Watergate chronicle All the President’s Men.

When The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel asked Stone about Cruz’s suggestion he was the source, the famed operative responded, “Most of what I know about this matter I learned from reporters at your newspaper.”

Stone later tweeted that The Post was far from the only outlet looking into the rumors.

The threads have become only more tangled. The Daily Beast reported Friday that the Post — along with outlets such as The New York Times, Politico and ABC News — had been pitched the affair rumors for months by anti-Cruz operatives, apparently to help Rubio.

One journalist, Texas Monthly senior editor Erica Grieder, said she’d heard the rumors for months. She tweeted Friday that a reporter from a different tabloid outlet asked her in January about the rumor involving Cruz and the Texas-based Pierson. She found the rumor — that the pair had sex in a closet at a Republican event — to be dubious. “If the controversial Cruz had snuck off with the controversial [Pierson] at a public event in 2012, I’d have heard about it, years ago,” she tweeted.

Grieder heard the rumor again from a journalist while reporting in Iowa and put the claim before Cruz sources, none of whom found it credible. She added that given several outlets were chasing the rumor, one would presumably “have the evidence by now.”

“So, overall: those of you hyping #CruzSexScandal are pushing a smear against 5 innocent woman,” Grieder tweeted. “That’s pathetic & you should be ashamed.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0a372181a17fa

So "The Thing" is a sex tape, not just the scandal. And a "network" has it. So what "network" would have a sex tape on Cruz and be sitting on it? The network that hates Trump the most? Fox News?!

Oh my God. Would they do that? Sit on a tape like that? Maybe they would.

PROOF: Ted Cruz Cheating Scandal Not Linked to Trump Campaign – Was Started by GOP Elites
These rumors did not start with Donald Trump
Jim Hoft | Gateway Pundit - March 26, 2016 390 Comments

The National Enquirer published a story this week accusing Texas Senator Ted Cruz of multiple extramarital affairs.

On Friday Ted Cruz blamed Donald Trump and his former consultant Roger Stone for the National Enquirer article on his alleged extramarital affairs.

Ted Cruz Cruz told reporters in Wisconsin the story was “all lies.” Cruz then went on to blame the article on Donald Trump and his “henchmen.” Cruz argued Roger Stone has been forwarding the article today on the internet. He thinks Trump campaign is behind this story. Cruz also said the publisher of the National Enquirer is a friend of Donald Trump’s.

But these rumors did not start with Donald Trump.

The rumors were started by the Rubio Campaign and GOP elites.
Conservative Treehouse reported:

It was discovered that weeks ago a large number of Marco Rubio operatives and supporters were trying to bring the sex scandal story to the MSM attention.

Under the open guise of #TheThing they were communicating via various twitter feeds and following along to see if the story had been picked up. Most of the activity was centered around March 10th – March 15th.

Yesterday the hashtag CruzSexScandal went viral. Today, many of those DC operatives, participants, supporters, consultants, Super-PAC’s and campaign advisors have spent a great deal of time deleting their (The Thing) participation. The peak of their scrubbing coincided with Senator Ted Cruz accusing Donald Trump of planting the story.

Obviously, the Rubio Clan didn’t want to see themselves outed as the originating entities.

Virtually everyone in the blog-o-sphere who supported Marco Rubio was active, tweeting, re-tweeting, or following the events related to #TheThing. Now they’re running for cover and trying to hide their fingerprints.

Anti-Trump Republican operative Rick Wilson tweeted this out weeks ago.

(He has since deleted it.)

rick wilson cruz tweet

More from Rick Wilson…

** Cuban Mistress Crisis=> Rumors of Cruz Tryst “Compilation Video”?

Then there’s this…

The GOP establishment #StopTrump Twitter page, which is dedicated to destroying Donald Trump, posted this tweet on Cruz’s affairs back on March 13th.
stop trump tweet on cruz

This tweet was also deleted.

The GOP establishment is trying to hide their tracks.

But the internet is forever.

It looks like Lyin’ Ted Cruz owes Donald Trump an apology.

http://www.infowars.com/proof-ted-cr...by-gop-elites/

(click on link for tweets etc., they didn't all paste.)

It looks like Lyin’ Ted Cruz owes Donald Trump an apology.

The entire MSM owes Donald Trump an apology. They spent 4 days on a 1 sentence tweet by Donald Trump defending Melania, but sit on this Cruz story and a possible sex tape to go with it for months?

Disgusting.

It's just like Cruz's Supreme Court cases he goes on and on about and misleads people into thinking he's some great Constitutionalist, which he isn't.

REPORT ON CRUZ'S US SUPREME COURT CASES. Let these people know what kind of person and lawyer he really is. If by some strike of lightning from hell, this man should become President of the United States, he will appoint Supreme Court Justices. REPORT ON HIS CASES so the people know what they'd really be getting handed to them.

CRUZ OWE'S TRUMP AN APOLOGY!!!

Daily Beast: Marco Rubio Allies Spread Cruz Affair Story
http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-s-allies.html