Cruz staffer apologizes for posting 'inaccurate' video of Rubio
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign once again has to backtrack on an attack on rival presidential candidate, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
UPDATE: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has asked his campaign's national spokesman Rick Tyler to resign on Monday following a gaffe over a viral video that misrepresented what rival Marco Rubio said about the Bible.
"Our campaign should not have sent it. That’s why I’ve asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation,” Cruz said, according to Politico.
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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign once again has to backtrack on an attack on a rival presidential candidate.
Cruz campaign spokesman Rick Tyler posted a video on his Facebook page that apparently showed Florida Sen. Marco Rubio trashing the Bible in front of Cruz’s evangelical preacher father and one of his staffers.
The 21-second video shows Rubio strolling through a hotel lobby past Rafael Cruz and a staffer; then he pauses and looks down at the Bible the staffer is reading.
“Got a good book there,” Rubio said, according to the subtitles of the video.
“Yes sir,” the staffer replies.
And then Rubio drops the purported anti-scripture bomb.
“Not many answers in it,” Rubio said, according to the video subtitles. “Especially that one.”
Tyler’s post quick went viral on the conservative blogosphere.
“Look, I can see why he would want to poke fun at Cruz’s book because he’s his opponent but to mock the Bible in front of his preacher dad is an unbelievably douche bag thing to do,” the conservative website the Right Scoop wrote. “Was he saying that because Rafael Cruz is evangelical and he’s Catholic? That seems like small justification to be so snide about the Bible. Good luck with evangelicals after that, Marco.”
The only problem with the video is that Rubio never said “Not many answers in it.”
Rubio’s communications director Alex Conant shared a video with the actual audio exchange between the candidate and the Cruz staffer.
Rubio: “Got a good book there.”
Staffer: “Yes, sir.”
Rubio: “All the answers are in there. Especially in that one.”
With the truth revealed, Tyler was forced to take down the video from his Facebook page and issued an apology.
“I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today,” Tyler wrote on Facebook. “The story misquoted a remark the Senator made to the staffer. I assumed wrongly that the story was correct. According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct.”
He added: “I’ve deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake.”
This is not the first time that the Cruz campaign has been busted for messing with Rubio.
Last week, the Cruz campaign was slammed for a photoshopped image of Rubio shaking hands with President Barack Obama.
Unlike his post about the video, Tyler did not back down when defending the photo.
“Marco Rubio and Barack Obama have shaken hands. There are plenty of photos of him shaking hands,” he told Fox News’ Martha McCallum. “If they don’t like the picture we picked, then send me a picture they like of Marco Rubio shaking hands with Barack Obama and we’ll swap it out.”
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