A prominent Ted Cruz supporter lit into a Donald Trump surrogate Thursday during a heated CNN segment.
“Kayleigh, I don’t know you. Seriously, do you have any integrity at all?” Iowa radio host Steve Deace said to Trump backer Kayleigh McEnany as CNN host Brooke Baldwin shook her head.
{mosads}Baldwin interjected to ask Deace to keep it professional as the conservative radio host continued to rip McEnany.
“I am keeping it professional. She’s the one lying,” said Deace, who criticized McEnany for arguing that Cruz had silenced voters in Colorado by winning delegates elected at a convention.
“There is no voterless elections. Every delegate is elected. Including Pennsylvania,” Deace continued. “This is the biggest lie and the biggest scam from a guy that lied repeatedly in the entire campaign and whose campaign is built on a lie.”
He went on to repeatedly shout at McEnany to “stop lying,” accusing Trump surrogates of misleading the American people.
“This whole thing is a scam. There are millions of Americans that watch people like you sit here and go on these shows and Scottie Hughes and the rest of this cabal of motley crew of advisers who just sit here and defend this guy and lie about him and for him every single day,” he said.
Baldwin then stepped in again to try to defuse the situation.
“Hang on a second. No one comes on my show and calls anyone a liar,” she said.
But Deace repeatedly interrupted McEnany and Baldwin as they tried to get their points in.
“Ad hominem attacks are the last line of defense, and the facts are not on your side. It’s a fact that Colorado canceled the presidential preference poll in August. Yes, resorted to a four-tier caucus system with the intent of disenfranchising the voters,” McEnany said, adding that Colorado is considering restoring its primary vote.
Heated interactions between surrogates for the presidential contenders are almost a daily matter on cable television, but it’s relatively uncommon for a host to ask a gues to be professional.
The exchange comes at a tense moment for Cruz, who on Wednesday picked Carly Fiorina as his vice presidential pick in a bid to change the race’s momentum. Trump won five East Coast primaries on Tuesday, bringing him closer to winning the GOP nomination.
Deace was particularly heated over McEnany framing Colorado as having thown “out the popular vote and the will of the people.”
Colorado held a series of elections to ultimately choose which delegates will represent the state at the GOP convention in July. Cruz’s campaign successfully angled to get supporters in each of those delegate slots in a move that Trump has criticized as proof the nominating process is “rigged” against him.
Deace continued to rant on Twitter after the interview, lashing out at critics and defending his forceful attack on the “Trump cult.”
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