WASHINGTON — (CNN) Donald Trump continued lighting into Ted Cruz Monday, calling him the most “dishonest person I’ve ever met in politics” and saying the Texas senator’s win in Iowa should be disqualified.
“I’ve been in a business where you know, it’s pretty sharp. You meet sharp people, I don’t mean sharp like sharp, although they’re that also. But you meet people that really go to the edge,” Trump told a small crowd in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. “I’ve never met people like politicians, they are the most dishonest people I’ve ever met … I think Jeb (Bush) is just Jeb. But this guy Ted Cruz is the most dishonest person I’ve ever met in politics.”
He then complained that Cruz effectively stole the Iowa caucuses from him by having staff tell Ben Carson supporters that the retired neurosurgeon was dropping out of the race — which was not true.
“He apologized to Carson after the event, he should have apologized to me,” Trump said. “If Iowa had any guts, the people from the Republican Party, they should disqualify him from winning Iowa. I really mean it. Because what he did was a fraud.”
Trump has repeatedly called Cruz a “liar” in recent weeks, but he amped up that message Monday, with just five days left before the South Carolina primary.
Throughout his roughly 45-minute talk, including a question-and-answer session, Trump veered between favorite topics — including defending his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border — but repeatedly came back to his criticism of Cruz.
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