Trump links Cruz's father to JFK assassin

Donald Trump, in a Tuesday televised telephone conversation with Fox News, added fuel to a fiery report recently circulated by the National Enquirer that questioned Rafael Cruz's alleged appearance by Lee Harvey Oswald's side before John F. Kennedy was shot and killed.

The gist of the Enquirer report was to raise this point: Was Cruz, who was pictured with Oswald distributing pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in 1963 in New Orleans, tied to Kennedy's assassination?

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The Enquirer, in its report, included this statement: "Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz's Cuban-born dad was caught on camera in New Orleans – alongside Lee Harvey Oswald – just three months before the assassin killed President John F. Kennedy!"

The problem with that claim, however, is that no confirmation exists.

Sen. Ted Cruz holds a controversial copy of the National Enquirer.

As the Miami Herald wrote, Twitchy posted: "Gus Russo, an author and journalist who has written extensively about the JFK assassination and Oswald, is dubious. Russo told McClatchy in an interview that Oswald, who was living in New Orleans in 1963, was not connected to the Cuban community there and would not have had a Cuban supporter helping him. 'He was the ultimate loner,' said Russo. ... As for the photo 'evidence,' Russo said, 'it's very subjective. It's not proof. It's just an opinion. To charge something this big, you'd better have better proof than that 'it looks like him.'"

A spokesman for Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign has already labeled the Enquirer story as "another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage," the Miami Herald reported.

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But Trump gave the story an extra boost on national television, saying: "His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being – you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it. I mean, what was he doing – what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting? It's horrible."

In the same interview, Trump also condemned Cruz's plea to God for intervention and aid in his son's presidential race, decrying how the minister used the influence of his pulpit to advance his political beliefs.

Cruz said, in widely reported recent remarks to fellow church members, via a video conversation with the American Family Association of Indiana: "I implore, I exhort every member of the Body of Christ [church] to vote according to the word of God and vote for the candidate that stands on the word of God and on the Constitution of the United States of America. And I am convinced that man is my son, Ted Cruz. The alternative could be the destruction of America."

Trump said the call to godly arms was disgraceful.

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"I think it's a disgrace that he's allowed to do it," he said, to Fox News. "I think it's a disgrace that he's allowed to say it. You look at so many of the ministers that are backing me more so than they're backing Cruz and I'm winning the evangelical vote. It's disgraceful that his father can go out and do that. And just, and so many people are angry about it. And the evangelicals are angry about it, the way he does that. But I think it's horrible. I think it's absolutely horrible that a man can go and do that, what he's saying there."