In an interview released on Tuesday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz argued that President Donald Trump’s attacks on Hunter Biden are ineffective, The Hill reported.
Speaking with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Cruz suggested that most voters simply don’t care about the purported scandals involving Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son.
To illustrate his point, Cruz pointed to the final presidential debate, during which Biden brushed off Trump’s claims, telling voters that their families are what truly matters.
“One of Biden’s best points was when he said all these attacks back and forth about my family and [Trump’s] family, they don’t matter. What matters is your family. That may have been Biden’s best moment, actually,” the Republican lawmaker said.
Asked to clarify his opinion on the Hunter Biden story, Cruz said that he doesn’t think it “moves a single voter.”
Cruz competed against Trump in the 2016 Republican Party primaries. Much like the Democratic nominee, he was the target of multiple allegations.
At one point during the contest, Trump attacked the senator’s father, suggesting that he was involved in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. He also took aim at Cruz’s wife.
But, according to the senator, these claims didn’t resonate with voters back then, and they don’t resonate with them now.
“That I don’t see as moving votes significantly,” he told Swan.
At the final debate, Trump repeatedly brought up allegations of corruption, suggesting that the younger Biden effectively sold access to his father and made deals with several Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs.
“He is the vice president of the United States, and his son, his brother and his other brother are getting rich, they’re like a vacuum cleaner,” Trump argued.
“His son walked out with a billion and a half dollars from China,” he said at one point.
. @tedcruz : “I’m very worried about the debt…Now, to be fair, Trump didn’t campaign on cutting the debt.” @jonathanvswan : “He did. He said he was gonna eliminate the national debt in 8 years.” @dctvny @hbodocs pic.twitter.com/JRjn8OEDDO
— Axios (@axios) October 27, 2020
Other Republicans have issued similar warnings. George W. Bush’s deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove , argued last week that Trump should stop attacking Hunter Biden and focus on issues the American people actually care about, such as the economy.
Nevertheless, since the debate, Trump has only doubled down on his accusations. In a Saturday tweet , he called Biden a “corrupt politician,” suggesting that the former Delaware senator is compromised by China.
Allegations regarding Hunter Biden have had little to no impact on the presidential race, it seems. Per the RealClearPolitics average of polling data, Trump is trailing his rival in the key swing states of North Carolina, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
