Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are here to remind you that no, you cannot defeat a fellow candidate for the presidential bid by sticking to political relevancy. These days, you win the general election by being a probable racist, probable sexist whose rhetoric I would kindly describe as “babble-vomit,” or a guy whose most recent statement makes him seem totally chill with the occasional Islamophobic police state.
Apparently, the way you nab your party’s coveted nominee spot these days is lobbing insults at each others’ wives on Twitter, because if that doesn’t say “moral compass,” I don’t know what does.
On Tuesday evening, Trump tweeted to Cruz in response to an ad created by an anti-Trump group based in Utah. The ad featured a photo of autonomous human Melania Trump, the GOP hopeful’s wife, taken 15 years ago at a shoot for GQ .
The tweet in question targeted Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz—the first version of which Trump promptly deleted. (Coincidentally, Mrs. Cruz is also an autonomous human.)
“Wow Sen. Ted Cruz,” wrote Trump, “that is some low-level ad you did using a picture of Melania in a G.Q. shoot. Be careful or I will spill the beans on your wife.”
Trump, who The Washington Post noted is known for deleting and rewriting tweets, then brandished Twitter Threat v. 2.0.
Cruz then fired back with a response, referring to Trump as a “coward.”
The Washington Post had some thoughts as to what the “beans” alluded to in this kerfuffle actually are:
“It’s also not clear what ‘beans’ there are to spill on Cruz’s wife, Heidi. Heidi Cruz left a job at Goldman Sachs to support Ted Cruz’s presidential bid, and her struggle with depression (and one acute episode in particular) have been previously reported. Trump consistently brags about having done no polling, and it’s not clear that his team has done basic opposition research, so the odds are decent that the apparent threat may be nothing more than something Trump heard.”
Contact the author at jamie.reich@jezebel.com.
Image via Getty.