tonight. carol? athena jones reporting live from los angeles. the stage is set. everyone is anticipating fair works between donald trump and the surging senator ted cruz. while that is a possibility, other candidates may take on trump. not just because they believe he s unqualified to be president. joining me, terra setmeier, and mike shields, former chief of staff for the rnc and current president of the congressional leadership fund which works to expand the republican majority in the house. welcome to both of you. so, if trump wants to squash cruz, should he just confront cruz as, quote, a maniac who s unable to compromise? no. i think actually donald trump made a huge mistake by calling ted cruz that. if you listen to conservative talk radio, very influential in the gop primaries, rush limbaugh and mark lavin and others have said, hold on there, trump,
ponder why cruz is so disliked by his senate colleagues. the question then will be this will they still feel the same way about him when they find out? the iowa caucuses are just seven weeks away, megyn. james, great to see you. joining me now, steve hayes, and guy benson. great to see you both. steve, the gloves are off, they are. and it takes a lot to get the ire of levin and limbaugh but trump has managed here. you wondered all along when people like rush limbaugh and mark levin would turn on donald trump. he s made a series of errors and gaffes and offensive statements, misstatements, that haven t won the ire of both of them. but this, the attack on ted
raises the stakes in a way we haven t seen before for trump. he always goes after people threatening him, and he doesn t back down, and yet you ve got limbaugh and levin saying don t do this, what does trump do? a lot of conservative pundits don t like donald trump and he s managed to survive that. not those guys. they ve been defending him. they ve been defending him on talkradio. if ted cruz finds himself under attack by donald trump, lit be a real dilemma, because he has been very disciplined in hugging the strategy no, it won t. i don t think you re right. ted cruz is going to do what he s been doing, but what does trump do with these clear lines in the sand being drawn by limbaugh and levin is i don t think i would put my chips in the casinos in vegas on donald trump not calling ted cruz a bit of a maniac. he tends to be on better
cruz, seems to have done that. i think that could really mark a turning point. if levin and limbaugh and other conservative talkradio types turn on donald trump right now in favor of ted cruz, because they think trump has gone too far, that really could signal to others who have supported donald trump that this is sort of the end of it. now it s time to get behind a real conservative as republicans make this push for the white house. this happens, guy, as cruz is surging. support for cruz is up by 13.5%. support for him in the latest poll in des moines is up 21 points. trump s support has peaked, and so this happening at an important time in the race. yeah. this is what donald trump does. when he feels threatened by someone, he goes on the attack. what s been interesting is to see how he s gone after ted
accordingly, in response to that maniac comment, cruz tweeted back. for months now, cruz mostly stood alone in the gop field and declined to criticize trump. instead compliments the established front-runner for bringing attention to the issues. but recently, cruz has questioned whether trump has the judgment to have his finger on the nuclear button. mark lavin calling trump fool h foolish. and rush limbaugh, who has raised trump s courage and guts, wasn t seeing either of those qualities in this latest dust-up. handful of guys, cruz, lee,