Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio clash over immigration reform
Republican presidential candidates spar at the 7th GOP debate in Des Moines, Iowa
A spokesman for Ted Cruz dismissed criticism from a political opponent’s campaign accusing the Texas senator of being a liar because he doctored a photo in a campaign ad.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s campaign blasted Cruz for photoshopped image of Rubio shaking hands with Obama.
But Rick Tyler, Cruz’s spokesman, brushed off the criticism, saying altering images is common in politics.
“Every picture in a political campaign is Photoshopped,” Tyler told Fox News. “It is absolutely true.”
When host Martha McCallum continued to question him on the photo, Tyler said he’d be happy to swap it out – with one condition.
“Marco Rubio and Barack Obama have shaken hands. There are plenty of photos of him shaking hands,” he said. “If they don’t like the picture we picked, then send me a picture they like of Marco Rubio shaking hands with Barack Obama and we’ll swap it out.”
The photo at issue was posted on therealrubiorecord.com, which accused Rubio of supporting amnesty for undocumented immigrants, a cap-and-trade carbon emissions program as well as other Obama policies.
Rubio senior adviser Todd Harris said that even the tie and watch Rubio sported in the allegedly doctored photo are not owned by him.
“There is a culture of dishonesty from top to bottom in the Cruz for president campaign,” Harris said, according to Politico. “It is reflected in what Ted Cruz himself says. It’s reflected by phony Facebook pages that his supporters put up. It’s reflected by calls to Iowa voters saying Ben Carson dropped out … And now the latest example is a completely invented photo of Marco Rubio, attacking us for a position that Ted Cruz himself held a few short months ago.”
The Rubio campaign suspects that Cruz may be sensing that his rival is gaining steam and is looking for ways to slow his momentum.
"[Cruz] is obviously seeing something in his internal polling numbers that is creating a sense of desperation in his campaign,” Harris said.
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