WASHINGTON — An irate Donald Trump unleashed a torrent of insults at chief rival Ted Cruz on Monday, calling him “unstable,” “a disgusting liar” and a “basket case” — while threatening a lawsuit to challenge his qualifications to run for president.
“We will bring a lawsuit if he doesn’t straighten his act out,” Trump said of Cruz at a boisterous press conference in Hanahan, SC. “This guy’s just a plain-out liar.
“He doesn’t even have the right to serve as president or even run as president.”
Earlier, Trump said Cruz has become “unhinged” and warned he’ll file the birther lawsuit “immediately” if he doesn’t “take down his false ads and retract his lies.”
The timing of the attack wasn’t a coincidence.
Cruz has gone after Trump in a new ad for his past liberal leanings and has called into question whether Trump could pick a true conservative successor to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia or enact socially conservative policies.
Cruz responded that a rattled Trump can’t “simply start screaming ‘liar, liar, liar’ when his past record is revealed.
“Truth matters,” Cruz said.
“You cannot simply scream liar when somebody points out the actual position of Donald Trump or the actual position of Marco Rubio. I will continue to focus on substance and truth and let other candidates focus on the insults.”
Trump also went after former President George W. Bush for supposedly not keeping the US safe during 9/11, and accused Rubio of breaking out in a sweat under pressure from Chris Christie at a previous debate:
“I was standing next to Rubio, and I thought he just got out of a swimming pool. He was soaking wet,” Trump said.
Rubio’s campaign, however, chose to respond by going after Cruz — who is just ahead of Rubio in the polls — for employing “underhanded tactics” and “outright lies.”
Trump also accused the Republican National Committee of being in “default” of its agreement to treat him fairly by stacking Saturday’s debate hall with booing critics, which he claimed relieves him of his pledge to not run as a third-party candidate.
The Donald called on the RNC to intervene in his ongoing war with Cruz, warning of consequences if it doesn’t.
“When somebody’s in default, that means the other side can do what they have to do,” Trump said of his pledge to not launch an independent run. “The RNC is in default.”
A spokesman for the RNC said the pledge has nothing to do with charges candidates fling at one another.