Two Republican presidential candidates—Ben Carson and Donald Trump—are accusing rival Ted Cruz of dishonesty, tainting the latter's victory in the Iowa caucuses on Monday.
Cruz has already issued an apology to Carson for what he called a mistake by his campaign when it told precinct leaders than Carson was dropping out of the race and that Carson supporters should be given that news and urged to vote for Cruz instead, Newsmax reported.
Carson said "as a Christian," he has accepted Cruz's apology but insisted that the people in Cruz's camp responsible for the disinformation should be fired.
"This was absolutely deliberate. I have no question about that," Carson said on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren" on Thursday.
Carson questioned Cruz's honesty and integrity, asking, "Where is the truth and honesty and the integrity?"
The Cruz campaign blamed the mistake on a misunderstanding of a CNN report, but CNN insisted that it never carried a report that Carson was suspending his campaign. The network said it reported only that Carson was going back home to Florida after the caucuses and not straight to New Hampshire or South Carolina as did other candidates.
Republican strategist Karl Rove told Van Susteren that the Cruz campaign statement was "a complete phony deal."
Rove noted that the Cruz campaign circulated the statement that Carson was quitting the race to all 1,500 precinct leaders in Iowa, and Cruz beat Trump by 6,239 votes.
"So all it took was changing the minds of roughly four people per precinct and Cruz's lead could have been erased," Rove said.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad also blasted Cruz, saying his campaign used "unethical and unfair" tactics against Carson, Newsmax said.
"This thing that they distributed on caucus night saying that Dr. Carson was likely to drop out and his supporters should support Cruz, that is, I think, unethical and unfair," Branstad said Thursday on Radio Iowa. "I think there'll be repercussions to that."
Earlier, Trump took to Twitter to slam Cruz, saying the senator "stole" the votes for Carson, WND reported.
He also called for a new caucus process or the nullification of the Iowa results.
In a tweet, he wrote: "Ted Cruz didn't win Iowa, he stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong and why he got far more votes than anticipated. Bad!"
In an interview with Boston Herald Radio, Trump said he'd "probably" file a complaint.
"What [Cruz] did was unthinkable," he said, adding that Cruz was a "really fraudulent" person.
Cruz belittled Trump's attack, saying he already expected his chief rival's insulting tirades, Newsmax reported.
"We have now gotten used to the temper tantrums, or Trumper Tantrums, that he throws," Cruz said Wednesday. "Whenever he's unhappy, he melts down and he explodes on Twitter. It is odd behavior for a grown man."
Cruz told reporters in Iowa that his 5-year-old and 7-year-old daughters are better behaved than Trump.
Meantime, Senator Rand Paul and former senator Rick Santorum have joined former Governor Mike Huckabee in dropping out of the GOP presidential race.
The next electoral contest is set on Tuesday, Feb. 9, when New Hampshire holds its primary.
Trump holds big leads in opinion polls in New Hampshire where Cruz's evangelical Christian credentials will not be as helpful as they were in Iowa, according to The Washington Times.
Trump registered 36 percent support among likely GOP primary voters in the UMass Lowell/7News tracking poll on Thursday, with Senator Marco Rubio in second place at 15 percent. Cruz is at third with 14 percent.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was next at 8 percent, followed by Ohio Gov. John Kasich at 7 percent, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson at 4 percent and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina at 3 percent.
