Daily Beast: Rubio allies shopped Cruz affair rumors to the media

Hot Air ^ | 3/25/2016

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Man, this is going to make the inevitable “Rubio endorses Cruz” photo op next week awkward — unless it torpedoes the possibility of an endorsement altogether. Better that it comes out now than after the Cruz/Rubio “unity ticket” forms, eh?

It may very well be that Trump’s allies handed the story off to the Enquirer, say Betsy Woodruff and Asawin Suebsaeng, given Trump’s chumminess with CEO David Pecker. But Rubioworld was there first.

For months and months, anti-Cruz operatives have pitched a variety of #CruzSexScandal stories to a host of prominent national publications, according to Republican operatives and media figures. The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, Politico, and ABC News—reporters at all those outlets heard some version of the Cruz-is-cheating story. None of them decided to run with rumors. Those publications’ representatives all declined to provide on-the-record comments when The Daily Beast reached out for this article.

Breitbart News, the notoriously Trump-friendly conservative outlet, was also pitched the story of Cruz’s extramarital affairs, according to a source close to the publication. That source said an operative allied with Marco Rubio—but not associated with his official campaign—showed the publication a compilation video of Cruz and a woman other than his wife coming out of the Capitol Grille restaurant and a hotel on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But the outlet opted not to report on the video, which demonstrated no direct evidence of an affair.

“We got it from a Rubio ally,” said the source. “It was too thin, so [Breitbart’s Washington political editor Matt Boyle] decided not to run it. There was no way to verify the claims.”

[Duchess47]

What a wonderful idea. Two illegal aliens running for president. Well, one illegal and one anchor baby. Doesn’t the constitution mean anything any more?

[a fool in paradise]

Nonsense.

The MSM would have been much happier with Rubio.

And what of the sex island visits of Bill Clinton and ‘others’?

Donald has the balls to say that his affairs were different than Bill’s.

[GodGunsGuts]

Sure they do, they send me PM’s thanking me all the time. Would you like to read some?

[jennychase]

Lyin’ Cruz should apologize Trump.

Lyin Cruz knew it and still blame Trump. Really a pathetic person. This is a religious week and he lied and knowingly blamed Trump.
Sinner.

[mabelkitty]

Rubio alone doesn’t have this kind of money or pull.
GOPe does.
Bush Crime Family has years of this type of crap.

[protest1]

It occurs to me they they sat on the story to ensure Ted played ball. One way to ensure your pick for President does what he is told... blackmail.

Just a thought!

[scooby321]

Mabel

Rubio's Pac said they had this story

[stockpirate]

You left out the man who bought the picture of Trumps wife used in the smear, hint, he’s Ted campaign manager

[Lurkinanloomin]

My thoughts exactly

[BlackFemaleArmyColonel]

Yeah, right.

[Vince Ferrer]

If it is true, it most likely started with Bush. Cruz and his wife worked for George W., and people associated with W. in his administration would have noticed Cruz’s behavior. It would be remembered and passed to Jeb. Then it was passed to Rubio when Jeb went nowhere. From Rubio it went to the press, until it found a willing publisher.

[MamaB]

How about all those millions Bush used? Where did it go and for what?

[irishjuggler]

Maybe I've missed it but what I haven't seen from Cruz supporters is a defense of "Impossible! Ted Cruz would NEVER do that!" That's because even Cruz supporters are (subconsciously) afraid that there might some truth to this story since it becomes more obvious every day that he is not quite the guy we were sold.

With all due respect, that's a very weak argument. How many of us are in a position to say that ANY candidate would NEVER engage in some activity? How many of us know any of these candidates personally? Even among those who are personally acquainted with a candidate, how many know the candidate so well as to have absolute certitude about predicting their behavior? I mean, maybe based on the information that we have, we could say that Chris Christie would NEVER turn down a chocolate eclair or something. But even that is just speculation. Maybe Chris Christie hates chocolate eclairs. Who knows? On something like extramarital sexual activity, how can anyone claim to know for certain that some other person would NEVER do it. Maybe we can be confident in our judgment if the person were a family member or close friend, but even then people can be wrong about each other.

[DoughtyOne]

And Cruz, super sleuth Pink Pandtherer that he is, devined it was Trump.

Ha!

[Zenjitsuman]

the allegation is already proven true because Cruz would have filed a restraining order to prevent the rumor from being published if it weren’t true

[Zenjitsuman]

John Edwards was a great lawyer who also lied with a straight face, the great ones can do that.

[JoSixChip]

this STINKS TO HIGH HEAVEN!

It always does when you get caught.

[Rashputin]

Ted saying Bill's affairs were off the table was an olive branch tossed toward the Hillary campaign, probably in hopes of at least keeping this quiet until after the convention.

I hope Cruz and none of his people were stupid enough to believe it would have kept it out of the news were he the nominee, though.

[jospehm20]

What if it turns out to be true? It should not take long to find out.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Give it up Triple G.

Giggety!