So close to an apology! GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump admitted to the New York Times on Saturday, April 2, that he made a mistake by recently retweeting an unflattering photo of Ted Cruz‘s wife, Heidi Cruz.
“Yeah, it was a mistake,” Trump, 69, told columnist Maureen Dowd. “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have sent it.”
Trump, though, reiterated that he didn’t see the shot that he tweeted of Heidi “necessarily as negative.” When Dowd stopped his train of thought, Trump complained that Ted Cruz “did it first” and “that wasn’t nice.”
“@Don_Vito_08: “A picture is worth a thousand words” @realDonaldTrump #LyingTed #NeverCruz @MELANIATRUMP pic.twitter.com/5bvVEwMVF8“
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 24, 2016
This particular spat between the Republican candidates started last month when Trump believed a digital ad that featured his wife, former model Melania, posing provocatively for British GQ in a 2000 editorial, was planted by Ted Cruz. Trump told the Times that he wasn’t pleased with the photo of Melania. “I think she’s taken better pictures. It wasn’t a nude photo, either,” he noted. “It wasn’t nude!”
Texas senator Cruz, however, denied he had any involvement with the Super PAC’s advertisement, and the feud quickly intensified. On March 22, Trump blasted an ominous tweet, threatening to “spill the beans” on Heidi Cruz. He followed up by sharing an unflattering snapshot of Heidi beside his wife. A furious Ted Cruz told various outlets the following morning that Trump’s actions were anything but classy, and questioned his possible disposition in the White House.
In a town hall with CNN last week, Trump stood by his actions. “I thought it was a nice picture of Heidi,” Trump told Anderson Cooper. “I thought it was fine. I thought it was fine. She’s a pretty woman … Excuse me. Excuse me! I didn’t start it. I didn’t start it!”
Cooper’s response to Trump subsequently went viral. “Sir, with all due respect, that’s the argument of a 5-year-old,” the Anderson Cooper 360 host replied. “The argument of a 5-year-old is ‘He started it.'”
Watch the video above for more info about the ongoing feud, and read his first wife Melania Trump’s new, tell-all interview with the New York Post here.
