Ted Cruz says he declined to directly attack Trump for much of the Republican primary. Why? Because those who did ended up “as roadkill.”
According to Buzzfeed, Cruz used those words to explain to radio host Charlie Sykes of WTMJ why he hasn’t attacked Trump earlier. On Wednesday Cruz said:
“When we started, there were 17 candidates in this race. It was a wonderfully diverse, talented, dynamic, young field. It had really incredible talent. If you look at a number of the candidates that took on Donald Trump early on, they ended up as roadkill.”
Cruz explained on Wednesday how he had to build his base before he could take on Trump.
“Our objective was simple from the beginning, it is to win this race, to win the nomination and then beat Hillary Clinton and turn this country around.”
In order to build his base, he felt the importance of keeping relations with Trump somewhat smooth:
“And not be roadkill. […] I am very strongly committed on the anti-roadkill approach. And so our approach was quite simple, we needed to build our base first. We needed to get my positive message out, my record out, and build and assemble our team.”
However, things took a drastic turn after Trump’s Twitter attack on Cruz’s wife. Cruz retaliated by calling Trump a “sniveling coward”. Recent tweets by Cruz strangely attempt to paint a picture of Trump as a Democrat, while Trump repeatedly calls Cruz a liar.
By now, their respective Twitter accounts @TedCruz and @realDonalTrump are both very involved in discrediting each other, and Cruz has overcome his fear to attack Trump.
It remains to be seen who’ll be the survivor and who’ll be the roadkill.
Featured image screengrab from YouTube video.
