amanda s point, i kind of take the other side. i think it s a horrible attack because no one really knows what it means. it can mean different things to different people. but here s what ted cruz is in for. you know, he went a long time trying to have a bromance with donald trump. now he s aiming fire at him and the fire is going to come back. and every single person that has done this so far with donald trump has not fared well. we ve seen cruz s numbers fall in iowa, for example, after trump raised the birther issue. but let me say this. as a democrat and to coin a phrase, if it s cruz and trump on the stump, for us it s christmas all yearlong. i mean, the fact that these are the people that we re talking about being the nominees of the republican party is a gift to democrats. it s a horrible situation for republicans in the general election. these are the two most bombastic, angry and extreme candidates that the republicans could possibly nominate. and one of them will be the nomine
reporter: right. this idea that he s this populist tea party crusader, this warrior, who rails against the big banks yet is taking loans from goldman sachs, citibank, loans he did disclose on his personal financial disclosures but not filed with the s.e.c. something as you played ted cruz calls an inadvertent mistake, the campaign saying it is checking to see how to rectify this. the bottom line, this is something that yet again is knocking ted cruz off his message. do you think he wants to be talking about this? no. do you think he wants to be talking about the birther issue and other attacks from donald trump? no. he wants to be hitting his own message of constitutional conserco conservativism and instead he s trying to push back against this story that contradicts frankly or potentially could for voters his narrative. of course, when we talk about donald trump and how he goes after people, nobody knows this better than you, katy, how has trump played this and tried to
or less from iowa. he s got to get in there and sort of seal the deal. right now you look at the polling numbers, donald trump is right there within striking distance. so cruz has to do something. now, i just spoke with the communications director for the campaign, telling me that as you heard last hour, cruz will defend himself if donald trump brings up the birther issue, the fact that ted cruz was born in canada to an american mother. the campaign convinced that this is not resonating with voters, but we ll see. he s dropped some six points according to the latest des moines register poll over the last four weeks or so. some of that cannot be contributed to the birther issue since that just came up. we do expect that bromance beginning to crumble. absolutely. we knew that the candidates, hallie, would have to make it a line, a distinguishing point regarding their policies. but i don t think anyone really saw this one coming about birther issues as it relates to senator ted cruz.
donald trump was helping in the attacks. an update said the cruz campaign gets in touch with us to say we are seeing changes in polling around the birther issue. i view that as an attempt by the cruz campaign to try and get some of the right wing media folks to help them out on this issue and maybe, you know, try to neutralize it a little bit. the reality is it s something that many of those commentators whether it s rush limbaugh, ann colter, or others have been quiet on this. and they ve been otherwise defensive of cruz. that s clearly not the case anymore. and just got to show you one moment. a red carpet moment, if you will. john kerry a shoutout to john kerry about what he s wearing. secretary, who are you wearing? [ laughter ] just a moment. anyway. sounded a little bit like our
completely this birther issue. cruz being the front runner is under attack interest all sides including marco rubio. and the poll showed just 15% of the folks they talked to showed they were bothered by or concerned about cruz s citizenship. 83% said they weren t concerned. maybe this isn t baked in. we know trump is continuing to hammer on this. we know from our folks at trump and cruz events on the ground in iowa tha this issue was coming up. the poll was conducted between thursday and sunday. it is possible these birther attacks are continuing to sink? b in but in a larger sense the race is very very tight. no matter the poll it is a battle between trump and cruz. sometimes who s on top changes a bit but trump a and cruise on top. there is a built for thinker place going on between rubio and carson. everyone else is five percent or