Outmaneuvered

Trump accuses Cruz of theft

He is upset that Cruz's forces may have outmaneuvered his in Louisiana.

By Zachary Warmbrodt

GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday said Sen. Ted Cruz is trying to "steal" delegates the New York businessman needs to become the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, which he called "a disgrace."

Trump appeared by phone on ABC's "This Week," where he was asked about news that Cruz could end up with more delegates than him in Louisiana, where Trump won the primary earlier this month.

"He's trying to steal things, because that's the way Ted works," Trump said. "The system is a broken system. The Republican tabulation system is a broken system. It's not fair."

The comments were the latest escalation in a bitter and personal fight with Cruz over the past few days.

A move by an anti-Trump super PAC to post a nude magazine photo of his wife, Melania, was followed by Trump on Twitter threatening to "spill the beans" about Cruz's wife, Heidi, and then retweeting an image comparing the two wives. Cruz later accused Trump of being involved with a National Enquirer story accusing the Texas Republican of extramarital affairs.

Trump on Sunday denied having anything to do with the story, but he tried again to connect Cruz to the super PAC ad targeting his wife, an accusation Cruz has denied. Trump said, "from what I hear, somebody bought the rights to it [the magazine photo], and he was the one, or his campaign bought the rights, and they gave it to the super PAC."

"That super PAC is very friendly to Ted Cruz," he said. "He knew all about it, 100 percent. So he started it. I didn't start it."

Trump declined to explain what he meant when he said he would "spill the beans" on Heidi Cruz.

"Well, there are things about Heidi that I don't want to talk about, but I'm not going to talk about them," he said. "I mean, you know, you can look, but I wouldn't talk about them."