Wednesday at an event in Myrtle Beach, SC, Republican presidential hopeful responded to a question about a statement he had made about his competitor Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) coming off of a third-place finish in Iowa a week earlier.
Cruz had said “bronze was the new gold.” But after coming off his own third-place finish in New Hampshire, Cruz took a jab at Fox News for its coverage of third-place finishers by seemingly mocking it as he said he was looking forward to their coverage of his third-place finish.
“I’m looking forward to a wall-to-wall coverage of Fox News of the impressive third-place finish, which Marco Rubio got,” Cruz said. “So, I’m sure that’s what we’ll see on every show on Fox today, the shockingly impressive third-place finish of Cruz.”
Cruz went on to tout his finishes and declared himself to be the only one that could beat last night’s New Hampshire GOP primary winner Donald Trump.
“Listen part of the reason – number one, we won Iowa,” he continued. “We won Iowa despite all of the predictions and we beat Donald Trump. Number two, listen, everyone said a conservative cannot compete in a more moderate New England state like New Hampshire. Those predictions proved wrong. This is a national campaign and one of the most important conclusions coming out of these first two states is that the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump is me. The other candidates are unable to do so. So if you don’t believe Donald is the right person to be the Republican nominee, if you don’t believe he’s the right person to go head to head with Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, if you don’t feel he’s the right person to be the commander-in-chief – what we’re seeing is conservatives uniting behind our campaign. I think Iowa and New Hampshire together played a critical role in that and then South Carolina is going to play an even more critical role.
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