South Carolina: Cruz Hammers Trump's Conservative Bona Fides, Judgment

From Dave Weigel and Katie Zezima in the Washington Post:

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) continued his rhetorical onslaught against Donald Trump on Saturday, casting him as a false conservative and questioning the real estate mogul’s temperament and judgment.

“Donald’s record does not match what he says as a candidate,” Cruz told reporters after a forum in Fort Mill, S.C. “It seems Donald has a lot of nervous energy. For whatever reason, Donald doesn’t react well when he’s going down in the polls.”

The remarks are part of an aggressive escalation in a relationship that had been strategically chummy. For months, Cruz had effusively praised Trump, stating there was a benefit to having the New Yorker in the race and chiding the media for “the little game” of pitting Republicans against one another.

Thursday’s Republican debate marked the end of that. Cruz, with unconcealed delight, chided Trump for raising questions about whether he met the Constitution’s “natural born” standard for president; with less success, he started raising questions about whether a Manhattan mogul could be trusted by conservatives.

Trump escalated his attacks Saturday morning, saying in a tweet that additional lawsuits will be filed questioning Cruz’s eligibility to be president. At a rally in Portsmouth, N.H., he knocked Cruz for not reporting loans from Goldman Sachs and Citibank that he used to fund his 2012 Senate campaign.

“How do you control . . . these big powerful banks, you’re a senator and yet you owe them money with a personal guarantee?” Trump said to a crowd of about 500.

Trump said Goldman “owns” Cruz and he will “Do anything they demand.” Cruz’s wife is on leave from her job as a managing director at Goldman.

In another tweet, Trump called Cruz the “ultimate hypocrite,” linking to a story about how Cruz attended an event at the New York home of two wealthy gay businessmen.

Read the rest of the article here.