Back in May, Donald Trump visited one more humiliation on Ted Cruz before decisively beating him in primary season. That is, he linked Cruz’s father to President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Now that Trump has officially become the Republican Party’s nominee for president, the RNC chairman has weighed in on that controversy after Cruz refused to endorse Trump at the Republican convention.
According to the Washington Examiner, Trump again brought up the rumor — which was printed in the National Enquirer — that Cruz’s father may have been involved in JFK’s assassination because Rafael Cruz was supposedly with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to the assassination. He referenced it again after Cruz trolled Trump at the RNC, but Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort says that Trump only referred to the rumor after Cruz brought it up again himself.
To all this, RNC chairman Reince Priebus says, “who cares?” He even thinks that Trump didn’t mean to make the whole Cruz/JFK thing a big deal:
“I think he mentioned it in passing and everybody glommed onto it and it became a controversy, but I think as far as the overall picture of Donald Trump –” Priebus said, “I mean, that is one rhetorical issue that you can all debate until the cows come home, but it doesn’t identify the Donald Trump campaign.”
True! There are many other controversies surrounding the Donald Trump campaign for us to get worked up about. And many of those are actually bigger deals than straight up spreading a rumor in order to defeat your political rival. Remember, this is the guy who wants to build a wall to keep out undocumented immigrants and ban immigration from all countries that might have ties to ISIS. Priebus says that since Trump meant no harm to Ted Cruz in this specific incident, “We can move on from it.” If only to brace ourselves for what happens next.
(Via Washington Examiner)