I went to my caucus on Monday. There were 7 precincts in the same room. I heard one rumor being passed around before we got started - a candidate was going to show up. Sure enough, Ted Cruz walked in about an hour into the caucus - after 8 or 9 of the candidates had already been given 2 minutes to share why they were supporting their candidate. Some candidate-representatives speeches went a bit long, and we got started a little late because of the high turnout. After the anthem, pledge, an invocation, and the representatives for each candidates spoke, Cruz was given 7 minutes to speak to the roughly 2k people there.
Ted didn’t say anything about Carson, and Carson’s supporter didn’t say anything about false reports. First I heard of this issue was back home when checking things here at FR.
I can’t vouch for ‘all over the state’, but I hung out quite a bit after the vote/counting was done, and I heard zero about this issue.
My understanding of the timeline (all times are ‘ish’):
4:45(I don’t know if iowa/CST time?) tweet from Moody/CNN - reporting Carson returning to Floriday, raising eyebrows
5:30 2 tweets from Moody clarifying stuff
6:30 Rubio supporter tweet says Rubio campaign is alerting precincts
6:45 CNN ‘breaking news’ tv report claims ‘you don’t do this if you want to win’ and stuff like that.
7:00 Cruz staff/rep posts screen capture of CNN report
I don’t know when CNN went back on the air to clarify what they had reported. I don’t know what tweets followed, from who, and I don’t know all of their followers and such...
Cruz apologizes. Carson accepts. Trump and CNN still pointing fingers...CNN still trying to say they had no part in this...they just reported, as breaking news, that Ben was running home to change clothes...really...that is what they are saying...
C'mon buddy...the Cruz campaign posted much more than just a screen shot, they sent instructions to their precinct captains to use a false Carson is out narrative to convince his caucus goers to vote for Cruz.
Did that happen at your caucus...did Cruz PCs make that pitch?