WASHINGTON – Donald Trump threatened to sue Republican presidential primary rival Ted Cruz over his eligibility to run for president, if the Texas senator doesn’t “retract his lies.”
In a news conference Monday in Hanahan, South Carolina, Trump accused Cruz of lying about the real estate mogul’s stance on abortion, gun rights and who Trump would nominate to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.
He demanded an apology from Cruz and said that if he didn’t get one, he would file a lawsuit “pretty quick.”
During Saturday’s GOP debate, Cruz attacked Trump for having a liberal record on abortion.“For most of his life, he has described himself as very pro–choice,” Cruz said. “Right now todayas a candidate, he supports federal taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.”
“You are the single biggest liar,” Trump shot back, before turning to the crowd and claiming that Cruz’s campaign was putting out “robo–calls” attempting to confuse voters by claiming that Trump would not be running in South Carolina.
“If Donald Trump is president, he will appoint liberals,” Cruz continued, warning about a potential President Trump’s Supreme Court nominations. “If Donald Trump is president your Second Amendment will go away.”
“He’ll apologize,” Trump said Monday, “but I don’t want an apology after the election, I want the apology before. And if he doesn’t, I’m going to bring a lawsuit because in my opinion…he doesn’t have the right to serve as president or even run as president.” Trump wants to challengeCruz’s eligibility to serve as president because the senator was born in Canada.
In his own meeting with reporters Monday, Cruz responded simultaneously to allegations fromDonald Trump and Sen. Marco Rubio that he has lied.
“Whenever anyone points out their record, they simply start screaming ‘liar, liar, liar,’” Cruz said. “But truth matters. You cannot simply scream liar when somebody points out the actual position of Donald Trump.”
Trump said the Republican National Committee should intervene to “stop (Cruz’s) lies” and added that the organization was “in default” of the loyalty pledge Trump signed agreeing not to run as a third-party candidate.The latest RealClearPolitics average of polling data in South Carolina shows Trump with a 20-point lead over Cruz five days before the primary.
