Cruz: Trump has taken advantage of ‘the little guy’ for decades

by Jesse Byrnes - 02/26/16 5:42 PM ET

Ted Cruz on Friday unloaded on Republican presidential rival Donald Trump’s business record as he sought to paint the real estate tycoon as hypocritical on jobs.

Cruz referenced Trump’s remarks in a post-debate interview Thursday night where Trump said it was difficult to get Americans to fill part-time positions at his club in Palm Beach, Fla.

{mosads}”Donald Trump is really maintaining there are no Americans he can find willing to be waiters and waitresses at a fancy hotel in Palm Beach?” the Texas senator asked reporters in Nashville, referring to Trump’s “really chichi hotel.”

“What he’s really saying is from his perspective he’d rather [have] foreign workers who can’t quit, who are captive, who he can pay a lot lower wages,” Cruz claimed.

“A man who has a multi-decade history of exploiting the immigration laws to take advantage of the little guy is not someone we can trust to stand with the working men and women of this country.”

Cruz invoked a New York Times report this week that said that nearly 300 U.S. residents had applied or been referred for waiters, cooks or housekeeping jobs at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach since 2010.

Of those, just 17 have been hired, according to federal records cited by the Times, which reported that “in all but a handful of cases, Mar-a-Lago sought to fill the jobs with hundreds of foreign guest workers from Romania and other countries.”

Trump has pushed back on questions about the hiring practice, telling CNN Thursday night that most Americans are not interested in part-time gigs and want full-time jobs.

Tags 2016 GOP primary Donald Trump Ted Cruz