Cruz fires communications director over Rubio-Bible flap | The Kansas City Star

Ted Cruz, under fire from Marco Rubio for his campaign spreading false quotes about Rubio and the Bible, Monday asked for the resignation of spokesman Rick Tyler.

“It was a grave error of judgment,” said Cruz about Tyler re-posting the inaccurate video on Twitter and Facebook that quoted Rubio as saying there were not many answers in the Holy Bible.

“Even if it was true, we are not a campaign that questions the faith,” of others, said Cruz, looking very tense as he spoke to the press before a Las Vegas event.

“The standards of conduct of this campaign have been made absolutely clear,” he said.

Tyler apologized Sunday on social media and Monday on Fox News, saying on Facebook “I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today. . . I've deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake.”

Rubio blew up over Tyler’s re-tweet and posting on Facebook of a short video of Rubio walking through a hotel lobby in South Carolina right by a Cruz staffer and Cruz’s father. It was originally posted by a student journalist at the University of Pennsylvania newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian.

The problem wasn’t the video itself, which has hard-to-hear audio, but the subtitles: RUBIO: Got a good book there.

STAFFER: Yes, sir.

RUBIO: Not many answers in it. (points) Especially in that one.

What Rubio actually said: "All the answers are in there." And upon seeing specifically the page was open to, Rubio said, "especially that one."

Tyler posted the item from the Daily Pennsylvanian and tweeted: “Watch Marco Rubio’s awkward remark about the book a Cruz staffer was reading in the hotel lobby. What book was it?”

Social media erupted, as did Rubio’s campaign, complaining about the “dirty tricks” that he, Donald Trump and Ben Carson have accused the Cruz campaign of engaging in through the course of the primaries, especially suggesting that Carson was about to drop out of the race in Iowa.

"I know exactly what I said to that young man," Rubio told reporters in Las Vegas. "I said the answer to every question you'll ever have is in that book. And then I pointed to the Book of Proverbs which he was reading, and I said particularly that one which is a book of wisdom."

Alex Conant, Rubio’s spokesman, said in a statement, “There is a culture in the Cruz campaign, from top to bottom, that no lie is too big and no trick too dirty. Rick did the right thing by apologizing to Marco. It's high time for Ted Cruz to do the right thing and stop the lies."