Former National Enquirer published David Pecker claimed on Tuesday that he worked with Trump to smear Cruz in 2016.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz is being pressured to turn on former President Donald Trump after former National Enquirer published David Pecker testified that he helped Trump’s 2016 campaign by manufacturing fake stories about Cruz.
Pecker made the remarks at Trump’s hush-money criminal trial in New York City on Monday and Tuesday, testifying that he helped the then-future president win the White House by agreeing to publish negative and false stories about Cruz and his other political rivals before the 2016 presidential election.
According to Pecker, Cruz, his fellow Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Ben Carson—all of whom were running against Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination—were targeted by the fake stories, as was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s eventual general election opponent.
After purportedly agreeing to the plan during a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower, Pecker said that he helped manufacture stories that falsely claimed Cruz had multiple mistresses and attempted to establish a link between the senator’s father and the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy.
While Cruz lashed out at Trump for repeating the Kennedy story at the time, calling him a «pathological liar» who «doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies,» he went on to endorse Trump and has repeatedly praised him with little criticism since 2016.
