Well, well, well. Another lie from the Trump campaign, and another grudging admission of the truth much later.
Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, finally admitted what anyone with half a brain knew all along: Ted Cruz was not responsible for the ad that showed Donald Trump’s wife Melania lying naked on a rug while handcuffed.
The ad was run before the Utah primary, in which Cruz crushed Trump, garnering nearly 70% of the vote.
Speaking on the John Fredericks show on Tuesday, Lewandowski denied the Trump campaign was behind the vicious National Enquirer story using quotes from veteran Trump aide Roger Stone alleging Ted Cruz had affairs with five different women. He then admitted that a super PAC, not Cruz, was responsible for the Melania nude ad.
Lewandowski spouted:
I have no control over what Roger Stone does, doesn’t work for the campaign. He’s an independent individual who has no relationship with the campaign in any way, shape, or form. For them to intimate otherwise is completely inaccurate and it’s a narrative that they want to continue to perpetuate. The bottom line is Roger Stone is as much tied to this campaign as the super PAC that leaked that is tied to the Cruz campaign.
Funny how the Trump campaign works. Roughly one week ago, Trump himself tweeted this:
On Sunday, Trump doubled down on ABC’s This Week, saying:
And by the way, [Cruz is] the one that started it. And from what I hear, he and his campaign went out and bought the cover shoot. She did — Melania did a cover shoot for GQ, a very strong modeling picture. No big deal. But it was a cover shoot for GQ, a big magazine. And it was, you know, fine. And from what I hear somebody bought the rights to it and he was the one or his campaign bought the rights and they gave it to the super PAC. … And just so you understand, that super PAC is very friendly to Ted Cruz. He knew all about it 100 percent. So he started. I didn’t start it.
The Melania ad was run by the anti-Trump super PAC, Make America Awesome, which used a photo published in a 2000 photo spread in British GQ, which republished photos from the picture shoot last March.
What is truly astonishing is the insistence of Trump in calling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” when the Trump campaign is replete with every kind of lie imaginable.