Sen. Ted Cruz, hot on the heels of front-running GOP candidate
Donald Trump in Iowa, is taking him head-on in New Hampshire too, where the Texas lawmaker called out his rival by name for having less-than-conservative credibility.
NBC News reports the challenge is a first for Cruz, who's previously refused to engage with Trump in a
"cage match."
"There are many people that are observing this race nationally [who say it] is coming more and more down to a two-man race between me and Donald Trump," Cruz said at a campaign event in Whitefield, N.H., NBC reports.
"And we're at the phase in the race where the voters are beginning to look very, very carefully at the records of the candidates."
Speaking about the 2013 debate in the Senate over a comprehensive immigration measure, the Texas lawmaker asked the crowd to think about where Trump was during the conservative backlash to the measure.
"We were on the verge of losing this fight and 12 million people here illegally being granted amnesty," Cruz said. "And yet, when that fight was being fought, Donald was nowhere to be found," adding voters have "reason to doubt the credibility" of a candidate who takes hardline positions only after tossing his hat in the ring.
Cruz also brought up the 2008 bank bailout known as TARP, as well as the stimulus package passed by Congress in 2009.
"On both of those, I opposed it," Cruz stated. "On both of those, Mr. Trump supported them."
He also slammed on eminent domain, suggesting he "supports using government power to seize private people's homes to give them to giant corporations to, say, hypothetically build a casino."
But Cruz insists he won't be using Trump's "insults" tactics to trash him.
"I will continue to sing his praises personally," Cruz said. "But I do think policy difference are fair game."
Trump has laid into Cruz in recent days, calling him "a nasty guy," and hitting him on his
birth in Canada to an American mother.
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