Cruz supporters boo Trump at conservative gathering

In New Hampshire earlier Saturday, Trump called Cruz a “great hypocrite” for campaigning as an anti-establishment critic of big banks.

At the SC debate Thursday, Cruz and Trump engaged in a heated back and forth, in which Cruz said that Trump “represented NY values”. Ted Cruz by name during the town hall-style meeting, the first of four scheduled campaign appearances to court Iowa voters ahead of the state’s February 1 caucuses.

Trump and Cruz are surging in the polls, in part, because they’ve successfully tapped into conservative anger about the direction of the country.

In his Portsmouth event, Trump referenced Cruz’s failure to disclose a 2012 loan in campaign finance reports, saying, “So as it turns out, he finally went off the wagon a little bit and went a little insane”. When pressed to explain what “New York values” meant, Cruz said that, “not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan”.

Complementing Cruz’s attack was a tweet sent out by his campaign Saturday morning, embedding the 1999 Russert interview on “Meet the Press”.

“So, today, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City all demanded I apologize…Who am I say to no?”

On Twitter, Trump said the banks “own him (Cruz)”. “I told you so”, Trump tweeted shortly before 7 a.m. ET, referring to a lawsuit filed by a Houston man challenging the eligibility of Cruz, who was born in Canada to an American mother, to be president. The phrase “New York values” has gotten buzz over the last week in a way “flip-flopper” never would have.

“Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage”, Cruz said, adding that New Yorkers are focused “around money and the media“. “And I’ve been with the people of NY for a long time, but when the World Trade Center came down I watched these incredible people rebuild from the day it came down”.

“For whatever reason, Donald doesn’t react well when he’s going down in the polls”, Cruz said Saturday. I am already hearing more and more people getting fed up with the low road you’re taking against Cruz, which has obviously intensified this morning. Brown’s gatherings with presidential candidates are generally held in Brown’s backyard, or in the barn of a friend nearby, but they moved Trump’s event to a Toyota dealership due to weather and the larger expected crowd. He’s an unapologetic and proud New Yorker. “We don’t have snow like this in NY”, he said.