Ted Cruz Fires Campaign Spokesman Over False Marco Rubio Video

Texas Sen. and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz announced Monday that he was firing communications director Rick Tyler, after Tyler shared a video that seemed to show Florida Sen. Marco Rubio denouncing the bible.

It was apparently the final straw in a string of communications incidents that have given Cruz’s GOP rivals plenty of reason to call Cruz’s campaign dishonest, and Cruz had apparently had enough.

“I have made clear in this campaign that we will conduct this campaign with the very highest standards and integrity,” Cruz said Monday

In the latest blunder, Tyler shared a video of Marco Rubio walking up to a Cruz staffer Saturday and noticing his bible. The video is subtitled and the audio appears slightly altered.

“Got a good book there,” Rubio said. Then, the video claimed, Rubio said, “Not many answers in it, especially that one.”

Rubio, in fact, said “all the answers” are in the bible. You can watch the subtitled video that Tyler shared here:

In an apology posted to Facebook, Tyler admitted that the video he posted misquoted Rubio and said, “I should not have assumed the story was correct.”

Cruz said that he “asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation” Monday, after “investigating” the incident. Cruz also called him a “good man.”

“It turned out the news story he sent around was false, but I’ll tell you, even if it was true, we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate,” Cruz said.

The Rubio campaign was quick to fire back with a sarcastic statement.

“Rick is a really good spokesman who had the unenviable task of working for a candidate willing to do or say anything to get elected,” the statement read. “There is a culture in the Cruz campaign, from top to bottom, that no lie is too big and no trick too dirty.”

The Cruz communications team was also called deceptive when it seemingly misled voters about Ben Carson’s status in the race before the Iowa Caucuses.

When Carson announced he was going home to Florida, the Cruz campaign told supporters that “Carson is taking time off from the campaign trail,” which many took to mean that he was dropping out.

“We simply as a campaign repeated what Ben Carson had said in his own words,” Tyler told Morning Joe the day after the caucuses, defending the decision.

Cruz apologized to Carson multiple times, including on national TV at a Republican debate.

Donald Trump has also frequently targeted the Cruz campaign for what he says are untrue ads that depict the real estate mogul as pro-abortion.

Trump didn’t wait to pounce once the news of Tyler’s firing came out.

“Ted Cruz should be disqualified from his fraudulent win in Iowa,” he tweeted. “Weak RNC and Republican leadership probably won’t let this happen! Sad.”

Image via Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons