Ted Cruz Campaign Apologizes for Claiming Marco Rubio Renounced Christianity
A spokesman for the Ted Cruz presidential campaign apologized for posting a story that claimed Republican primary opponent Marco Rubio renounced his Christian faith.
Rick Tyler, communications director for the campaign, wrote on Facebook late Sunday evening that he posted a false story and wanted "to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today."
"The story showed a video of the Senator walking past a Ted Cruz staffer seated in the lobby of a hotel reading his Bible. The story misquoted a remark the Senator made to the staffer. I assumed wrongly that the story was correct," wrote Tyler.
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"According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct. I've deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story."
Last weekend the Daily Pennsylvanian posted a video that purportedly showed Florida Senator and presidential hopeful Marco Rubio renouncing his Christian faith.
The scene involved Rubio walking by a Cruz campaign staffer who was apparently reading the Bible and Rubio supposedly commenting to him he's "Got a good book there. Not many answers in it."
Quickly picked up by the Cruz campaign, critics of the claim noted that the video's audio was not very clear, leading the DP to post an editor's note about the transcript for the footage.
"We have been receiving lots of questions about the contents of this video, and some have disagreed with our transcript," stated DP.
"We stand by our original transcript, but the video is here for you to see for yourself and make your own judgement."
On Twitter, the Rubio campaign's communications director Alex Conant posted a link to the same footage, but with the transcript reading: "Got a good book there, all the answers are in there."
The initial posting of the video whose transcript claimed Rubio was bashing the Bible is not the first time that Cruz and his campaign have questioned the sincerity of Rubio's conservative Christian beliefs.
Earlier this month at the Carolina Values Summit, Cruz attacked Rubio and Republican frontrunner Donald Trump for calling the Supreme Court's legalization of gay marriage as the law of the land.
Even though Rubio has stated his support for traditional marriage and believes the case can eventually be overturned, Cruz said that Rubio's position "are word for word the talking points of Barack Obama."
"The more striking thing was seeing my two leading competitors in the Republican primaries both publicly say following that decision that the decision is the settled law of the land, that we must accept it, surrender and move on," asserted Cruz.
"There is something profoundly wrong when Republican presidential candidates are repeating Barack Obama's talking points on gay marriage, saying 'we surrender, we give up, we might as well light the White house up in rainbow colors.'"
Tyler's apology comes not long after the South Carolina primary vote took place, in which Trump placed first and Rubio narrowly beat Cruz for second.
