Cruz Shreds Media for Wanting 'Coronation' of Trump as GOP Nominee So He Can Lose to Hillary

NewsBusters ^ | March 6, 2016 | Curtis Houck

[SoConPubbie]

Republican presidential candidate and Senator Ted Cruz (Tex.) sat for an interview with CBS’s John Dickerson Friday afternoon in National Harbor, Maryland that aired on Face the Nation and lambasted the media for “hav[ing] a coronation” of Donald Trump as the GOP nominee so he could be viciously defeated by Hillary Clinton in November. 

While discussing the possibility of a brokered Republican National Convention, Cruz pointed to how he’s remained close to Trump in the delegate count but at the same time, “the media wants to just have a coronation” of Trump “because the media knows Donald can't win the general, that Hillary would wallop him.”

Dickerson was unsuccessful in interjecting while Cruz continued to rip the media’s well documented attempts to push Trump on Republican primary voters despite what many foresee as a less than fruitful result for the party in November:

Donald may be the only person on the face of the planet that Hillary Clinton can beat and all of the attacks on Donald that the media is not talking about now, you better believe, come September, October, November, if he were the nominee, every day on the nightly news would be taking Donald apart and the stakes are too high for us to risk that.

The CBS News political director eventually forced his way in and offered the measly defense that the media collective didn’t believe that Trump would “get this far” and Cruz agreed that few saw Trump coming, but added that once Trump rose to the top, the liberal media have done all they could to hang on his every word:

The media has given Donald Trump hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising. When you put Donald — when every press conference is carried live on every television station, and you essentially have a massive in-kind contribution from the media, that’s helped create this phenomenon[.]

Similarly to how Democrat Hillary Clinton surprised Dickerson when she admitted she was pleased a former staffer was granted immunity by the FBI to cooperate in her private e-mail server investigation, Cruz dropped this hammer on Dickerson by touting rumors he’s heard that reporters have numerous negative stories on Trump that they’ve held off on publishing:

CRUZ: I think an awful lot of reporters — I can't tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great expose on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings, or his past, but they said, you know what, we're going to hold it to June or July. We're not going to run it now.

DICKERSON: You're saying reporters have told you that? They have told —

CRUZ: Absolutely. We have gotten multiple —

DICKERSON: — and from which organizations have they told you?

CRUZ: You know, look, I'm not going to out media outlets, but I can tell you there is so much there. When was the last time people are bringing up his tax returns, for example? We had a debate last night, didn't hear a word about his tax returns. 

Again defending the media’s handling of Trump, Dickerson complained that Cruz himself “could have brought” these matters to the surface and Cruz noted that he has plus other figures like Mitt Romney who’s suggested that there’s a “bombshell” in Trump’s tax returns. 

At the conclusion of the two-part interview, Cruz maintained:

You know, I promise you, come the general election, that will be the singular focus of the media and I think Republicans, we have been burned by that before. We're not interested in losing again, particularly when the stakes, I think, are catastrophic.

Editor’s Note: This writer attended the event in which this taped interview was conducted.

The relevant portion of the transcript from CBS’s Face the Nation on March 6 can be found below.

CBS’s Face the Nation
March 6, 2016
10:51 a.m. Eastern

JOHN DICKERSON: But any of these conversations in terms of jointly acting to deny him, not coming together behind Ted Cruz?

REPUBLICAN SENATOR TED CRUZ (Tex.): Look, my focus is very simple. It is on winning 1,237 delegates to be the Republican nominee. We are on a path to do so. Coming out of Super Tuesday, fewer than a hundred delegates separate Donald Trump and me and so as much as the media wants to just have a coronation and, listen, frankly, one of the reasons the media wants Donald to be the nominee is because the media knows Donald can't win the general, that Hillary would wallop him.

DICKERSON: But the media —

CRUZ: Donald may be the only person on the face of the planet that Hillary Clinton can beat and all of the attacks on Donald that the media is not talking about now, you better believe, come September, October, November, if he were the nominee, every day on the nightly news would be taking Donald apart and the stakes are too high for us to risk that.

DICKERSON: The media also thought that he wasn't going to get this far, so, that's hardly —

CRUZ: That's true at first, but let's be clear. The media has given Donald Trump hundreds of millions of dollars of free advertising. When you put Donald — when every press conference is carried live on every television station, and you essentially have a massive in-kind contribution from the media, that’s helped create this phenomenon and then I think an awful lot of reporters — I can't tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great expose on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings, or his past, but they said, you know what, we're going to hold it to June or July. We're not going to run it now.

DICKERSON: You're saying reporters have told you that? They have told —

CRUZ: Absolutely. We have gotten multiple —

DICKERSON: — and from which organizations have they told you?

CRUZ: You know, look, I'm not going to out media outlets, but I can tell you there is so much there. When was the last time people are bringing up his tax returns, for example? We had a debate last night, didn't hear a word about his tax returns. Every other serious candidate —

DICKERSON: Well, you could have brought it up.

CRUZ: I could have and I do often, but as Mitt Romney rightly observed, the fact that Donald won't hand over his tax returns suggests there's a bombshell in there. The fact that journalists are not raising the question of what Donald Trump told The New York Times editorial board, the reports are —

DICKERSON: But the journalists brought it up, which gave you the platform to talk about it. So, surely they are. BuzzFeed wrote about it, so they are talking about it.

CRUZ: You know, I promise you, come the general election, that will be the singular focus of the media and I think Republicans, we have been burned by that before. We're not interested in losing again, particularly when the stakes, I think, are catastrophic.

[joesbucks]

This is the most unique season I’ve ever seen. Half of the conservatives say the media is out to get Trump. The other half claims he’s being propped up.

[HiTech RedNeck]

It does seem weird how people have been estimating a Trump vs. Hillary contest without either having said a substantive word about one another. That’s like estimating a court case before anybody argues.

[trebb]

Funny how those who thought it sick that Obama was referred to as "The One" and then the "I Won", don't get any twinges when Cruz proclaims himself the "Only Possible One", yet they see all sorts of "scary things" in the most open comments of Trump.

Twilight Zone music begins .... ,,,, ;;;;

[Old Yeller]

Cruz, is just mad that a majority of the voting public think he is “creepy”

Right. And the only reason why Trump isn't creepy is because he's a billionaire celebrity. Money is the ultimate aphrodisiac. If Trump were a grocery store produce manager in Kokomo Indiana, with that orange musckrat on his head, the orange spray on tan, the way he forms his mouth when he speaks, and the arm waving. I'm sure you would scoot your little kids out of that area of the grocery store real fast.

[Smokin' Joe]

It really doesn’t matter what he does, Y’all just don’t like him. If Trump does the same thing, it’s not just okay, it’s glorious? Is that how it works, because I thought double standards were mostly a Liberal thing. I’m just trying to get some clarity.

[Old Yeller]

Cruz, is just mad that a majority of the voting public think he is “creepy”

Right. And the only reason why Trump isn’t creepy is because he’s a billionaire celebrity. Money is the ultimate aphrodisiac. If Trump were a grocery store produce manager in Kokomo Indiana, with that orange musckrat on his head, the orange spray on tan, the way he forms his mouth when he speaks, and the arm waving. I’m sure you would scoot your little kids out of that area of the grocery store real fast.

And he’ll stand by the cucumber display all day long telling the ladies that walk by “don’t worry mine’s bigger. I can tell you that. Trust me.”.

[Stentor]

I’m just trying to get some clarity.

Clarity involves understanding that the Ich factor makes Cruz unelectable on a national level. It is what it is. If Cruz supporters want to sail out on that burning Viking ship to conservative Valhalla, it's fine with me. Just hastens the death of the stupid party.

[Smokin' Joe]

It ain’t over ‘till it’s over. Let’s say, though, that Cruz won the nomination. Would you vote for him?

[NoDRodee]

Go Cruz, The one candidate that tells it like it is.

[DaveA37]

“It has been reality teevee banter all the way.....”....

Exactly! Too damn many circus acts paraded in disguise as “debates”. Time to get moving and go after Hitlary.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Regarding a nerfed thread ....

Without knowing the web address, I assume that it’s a banned web site. For example, ‘infowars’. Banned due to propaganda that muslims supposedly did not cause 9-11. It’s an arbitrary policy.

At other times, you have to realize that some threads are banned because at first blush they appear to be hoaxes. Happened to my first report about the UN wanting to regulate methane emissions and cow farts. Too crazy to believe. I completely understood why that thread was deleted. It hurt, but that’s the way it is.

So first step — you can work around arbitrary rules by trying to find an acceptable website that reports something.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Back to what Cruz said: Coronation?

Coronation?????

If taking all the flak is a coronation, then yeah, Trump wears a crown of shrapnel.

I’ve been glad that Cruz is doing so well in the primary, but he’s beginning to be part of the problem now.

Trump coronated? By who? MadMax Kelly, the Drive-By of FoxNews? NYT?

And unless the Alphabet Channels are closet klansmen, how does hyping up the David Duke nonsense put a crown on Trump’s head?

Senator Cruz, you prove Trump to be correct.

That is a LIE. You are a nasty liar and more people are waking up to it.

You sound like a desperate prosecutor, Senator. Why demean yourself this way and destroy your credibility? Your future is bright if only you quit campaigning like an Establishment drone.

Trump made fighting uphill look easy and low cost. That’s why it appears to be a coronation.

At some point, you have to ask yourself, “Should we still be bashing the front runner?”

Maybe Cruz needs federal matching funds, and so he soldiers on to raise his delegate count, but how does he expect to win short of a split convention?

Even Trump told Rubio to drop out of the primary, clearly unafraid of the anti-Trumps unifyring. As Hannity frequently points out, not all candidates’ supporters are block votes for another candidate. Trump is ‘second favorite’ for many voters. Well he should be.

I’ve a good mind to go negative on Cruz in a big way. No matter how great a sheep dog is, if it starts killing sheep you need to put it down. In a political sense, the same is true with politicians.

And Trump just tweeted [Mar 07/16] that he was cracking open his wallet ...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3406055/posts

So he might be thinking along the same lines. Too bad. I like Cruz. My recommendation — apologize to Trump. Just send him a signal of some kind. Make a gesture and quit going negative on him. Not fair to such a provocotive character, I realize, but ....

Do it QUICKLY. Once the ad contracts are signed, it’s too late. He won’t waste his money stopping them.

The best time for vetting was before the South Carolina vote. After that, the Establishment made the primary too front-loaded. Just the way it is. But its never too late to take out problems for the front-runner.

Time is up. Time to crank the gears of your big guns and aim your best political shots at the demon-rat party. I hope Trump can withstand flack from Cruz stoically and aim for bigger threats to the USA, but it has never been his way to ignore challenges.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Coronation?????

If taking all the flak is a coronation, then yeah, Trump wears a crown of shrapnel.

I’ve been glad that Cruz is doing so well in the primary, but he’s beginning to be part of the problem now.

[I have a longer post above. Thought you might appreciate it.]

[RoosterRedux]

If taking all the flak is a coronation, then yeah, Trump wears a crown of shrapnel.

I like it.

[chrisnj]

‘We’re not interested in losing again, particularly when the stakes, I think, are catastrophic.’

We agree with you, Ted Cruz, the born in Canada to a Cuban father Ted Cruz!
We don’t want to lose again. YOU, Ted Cruz, shouldn’t want to lose again!
Why then do you, the constitutionally ineligible person, want to be the nominee, so Hillary and her democrats and media will and can remove your name from the state ballots?
You, Ted Cruz, is the one (if nominated) who will cause the catastrophic result of a Hillary win!!!

[tatown]

I didn’t see it plus articles are reposted all the time...

[Stentor]

Let’s say, though, that Cruz won the nomination. Would you vote for him?

I'd almost certainly be an unwelcome passenger on the ship sailing to conservative Valhalla. I'll bring a boombox and play Siegfried's funeral music.

As an aside, I watched Triumph of the Will again last night and was unable to detect any similarities between Donald Trump and Hitler.(Ask David Pinky Brooks) Shocking eh? Those Krauts could throw a hell of a rally. My favorite part was the slow playing of Ich hatt einen kameraden.

[DannyTN]

LOL, yeah if the MSM is coronating Trump, it’s got to be the best played round of reverse pyschology ever!!!

[Psalm 144]

Good post. Yeah, Raphael has lost his mind. He is compromising decades of future possibilities to act the fool today. The Beck effect, I think. Or his equally deranged father.

[Just mythoughts]

Yeah, Misissipians just love themselves Cuban faggot midgets. He’s got the state sewn up.

The GOPe is the gay mafia.