Republican presidential candidate Texas Senator Ted Cruz declared that fellow candidate Donald Trump’s campaign has a “consistent pattern of inciting violence, and threatening violence” and “Donald is behaving like a mobster. His campaign is behaving like Democratic union thugs” on Tuesday’s “Sean Hannity Show.”
Cruz said, “I am very troubled at the Trump campaign’s consistent pattern of inciting violence, and threatening violence. Just today, I spoke to the Chairman of the Colorado Republican Party [Steve House], the Trump supporters put out his phone number, put out his address. He’s been receiving death threats. They’re telling people to come to his house with guns, because the Trump campaign is so unhappy that they lost the election.”
Cruz added that the CO GOP chairman had “received over 3,000 phone calls. He’s received vicious death threats from Trump supporters.”
He continued, “And it’s a systematic Trump strategy. Roger Stone, who has been Trump’s chief political advisor, threatened at the convention, he said, we’re going to make public, the hotel rooms of any delegates who cross Donald, threatening violence.” Cruz further stated that Stone “is pulling the strings on Donald Trump. He planned the Trump campaign, and he is Trump’s henchman and dirty trickster. And this pattern, Donald keeps associating himself with people who encourage violence. Donald himself, at his rallies, if a protester stands up, Donald has told the people there, punch them in the face. We should not be inciting violence. Donald is not Michael Corleone. And I think it is wrong to be threatening delegates, to be threatening voters with physical violence. Donald is behaving like a mobster. His campaign is behaving like Democratic union thugs, threatening violence. We are campaigning to work for the voters, not trying to scare them and intimidate them with threats of violence.”
Cruz further stated that the people threatening House were Trump supporters, “But it is consistent with what Trump does. Trump himself has directed his supporters to punch protesters in the face. Trump himself has tried to incite riots. He said if he’s not the nominee, there will be riots. He’s trying to incite riots. And Roger Stone, who has been his henchman for years, has explicitly threatened the delegates with violence, said, we are going to make public your hotel numbers. By the way, that’s exactly what the Trump supporters did here. Notice they’re following the Roger Stone of engaging in violence. And these are the tactics — I mean, Sean, you’re familiar with Democratic union bosses and thugs and what they do, the intimidation that happens. Now, that’s the world Trump comes from, and it’s the people he hires, are people who are imbued with that culture. And I think it is profoundly disturbing to see a campaign that is threatening violence against the voters and the delegates.”
Cruz also argued that isn’t “right or fair to say, ‘Well, both sides are equally guilty.’ I have never incited violence towards anybody.”
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