Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said on Tuesday that front-runner Donald Trump needs to stop menacing the GOP over its presidential primary rules.
“Donald needs to stop threatening the voters,” the Texas senator said on “The Glenn Beck Show.” “He needs to stop threatening the delegates.
{mosads}“Donald needs to understand that he’s not Michael Corleone,” Cruz said, referencing the mafia boss from “The Godfather.” “The presidency should not be La Cosa Nostra. Donald Trump keeps hiring people with records of dirty tricks, lies and threats of violence. He is not a mobster.”
Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, has drawn fire after being accused of roughly grabbing a reporter at a campaign event.
Cruz said it’s Trump’s mismanagement that is costing him recent voting contests, not Republican presidential primary guidelines.
“Donald’s ground game is nonexistent,” he told Beck, a Cruz supporter. “Apparently, when anyone votes against him, it’s an act of theft.”
On Monday, Trump bashed the GOP primary process, calling it a “rigged, disgusting, dirty system” in light of Cruz’s complete sweep of delegates in Colorado, a state with an especially complex primary voting system.
“Donald’s whole pitch is that he’s a great businessman. … Yet his campaign right now, it looks like he can’t run a lemonade stand,” Cruz said. “If Donald were an apprentice on his show, Donald would say to himself, ‘You’re fired,’ ” a jab at Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice.”
Cruz also said that Trump is responsible for the violent clashes that have erupted at some of his campaign events.
“I am very troubled by this,” he said. “Donald Trump now has a consistent pattern of inciting violence, of Donald and his henchmen pushing for violence.
“No politician has a right to threaten violence against American citizens. Even lefty numbskulls are American citizens, and you don’t threaten violence against them.”
Cruz added that he abhors Trump’s treatment of Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.), who endorsed the billionaire in late February, saying the former GOP presidential contender is now “trapped in his own private hell.”
“You know what gets me,” Cruz said. “The servility of Chris Christie being forced to call him, ‘Mr. Trump.’ Chris Christie is a good man.”
Trump leads the Texas lawmaker by about 7 points nationwide, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls. He is ahead of Cruz in the delegate count by about 200 delegates, with 743 of the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination before the convention.
–This report was updated at 1:55 p.m.