Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has fired Rick Tyler, his national spokesman, after Tyler made a social media post of a video claiming Florida Sen. Marco Rubio suggested to a Cruz staffer who was reading the Bible there "aren't many answers in it."
The video shows Rubio walking past Cruz's father Rafael Cruz and the staffer, who had his Bible open, in a South Carolina Hampton Inn, where both presidential campaigns were staying.
Rubio's words are not easy to understand, but a caption on the original video posted on the Daily Pennsylvanian states that Rubio is saying, to the staffer he has "a good book there. … not many the answers are in there. Especially in that one."
Rubio's communications director Alex Conant posted his own video with the transcript reading "All the answers are in there." Conant said he was present when the video was made and heard what Rubio said.
"Same dirty tactics," Rubio's faith outreach director Eric Teetsel tweeted. "Marco said 'All the answers are in there,'" he said, adding that when he saw a specific book said, "especially that one."
Cruz apologized for the incident on Monday.
"Our campaign should not have sent it. That's why I've asked for Rick Tyler's resignation," Cruz said.
Tyler apologized on Facebook,
Politico reports, but has since deleted the post.
"I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today," Tyler wrote. "The story showed a video of the Senator walking past a Ted Cruz staffer seated in the lobby of a hotel reading his Bible. 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."
Front-runner Donald Trump wasted no time using the incident to remind voters of past allegations against the Cruz campaign in Iowa suggesting that Ben Carson had dropped out of the race.