Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said that his refusal to go after fellow candidate Donald Trump early in the campaign was because “I needed to take care so that I was on a strong foundation first before I could take him on” during CNN’s coverage of Super Tuesday.
Cruz was asked, “[I]f you think Donald Trump is so antithetical to conservatism, what took you so long to say so? Because you really cozied up to him for the majority of this campaign.”
He answered, “Well, listen, Dana, for the last couple of months I’ve been taking Donald on directly. And in fact, the last few debates, prior to this one last week, nobody else was willing to jump into the fray. And, in order to — the way this primary has played out, it’s a winnowing process. And so, there were some candidates that took Donald on when there were 17 of us, and they didn’t have a strong enough base, and you couldn’t do that. From my end, I needed to build my base of support. I needed to take care so that I was on a strong foundation first before I could take him on, and that was a natural process. But let’s be clear, this has now winnowed down, that the only way to beat Donald Trump is to go head to head.”
(h/t Mediaite)
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.