George Clooney mocks Ted Cruz and calls him a 'yutz' for supporting Trump despite the president ‘calling his wife ugly’ during a heated Twitter exchange in 2016
George Clooney mocked Ted Cruz for supporting Donald Trump despite him suggesting that the Texas senator's wife was ugly during a heated Twitter exchange in 2016.
During an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Clooney was asked if he agreed that President-elect Joe Biden will be able to find support from Republicans during his administration.
'No, not about that. The world is different now. I mean, Ted Cruz, think about what a yutz this guy is!' Clooney, 59, said.
'I don’t care what your political view is: If a guy said that my wife was ugly and my father killed Kennedy, there is no way in the world you could have me come out and say, “I’ll defend you".'
George Clooney recently mocked Ted Cruz for supporting Donald Trump despite him suggesting that the Texas senator's wife was ugly during a heated Twitter exchange in 2016
Clooney called Cruz (with his wife) out for supporting Trump, saying: 'I mean, Ted Cruz, think about what a yutz this guy is! I don’t care what your political view is: If a guy said that my wife was uglyy, there is no way in the world you could have me come out and say, “I’ll defend you"'
Clooney was referring to the 2016 Twitter exchange between Trump and Cruz that escalated from name-calling to wife comparisons. The two men were both campaigning to become the Republican nominee for president when the exchange occurred.
At the time Trump said that Cruz should 'be careful' or he would 'spill the beans' on the senator's wife, Heidi Cruz.
'Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his presidential ad,' Trump tweeted.
'Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!'
That tweet prompted a response from Cruz who wrote at the time: 'Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought. #classless.'
Trump then shared a side-by-side comparison of their wives, which featured a glamour shot of Melania and an image of Heidi.
'No need to "spill the beans" the images are worth a thousand words,' Trump's caption reads.
Cruz retweeted the image and wrote: 'Donald, real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life.'
Clooney was referring to the 2016 Twitter exchange between Trump and Cruz that escalated from name-calling to wife comparisons. The two men were both campaigning to become the Republican nominee for president when the exchange occurred
Trump shared a side-by-side comparison of their wives, which featured a glamour shot of Melania and an image of Heidi. 'No need to "spill the beans" the images are worth a thousand words,' Trump's caption reads
Cruz retweeted the image and wrote: 'Donald, real men don’t attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life.' Cruz is seen with his wife Heidi in May 2016
During the interview, Clooney also referenced Trump’s baseless suggestion that Cruz’s father was involved with John F Kennedy’s assassination.
In May 2016, Trump made an effort to link Cruz's father Rafael with a 1963 photo of Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
The National Enquirer had used a single photograph, from New Orleans in 1963, which depicts Oswald, alongside a man who was never identified by the Warren Commission. The Enquirer pinpointed that individual as Rafael.
Trump created a firestorm at the time when he repeated the claim from the National Enquirer that the elder Cruz appeared in a picture alongside the future killer, handing out pro-Castro literature on a New Orleans street corner.
'You know his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being shot,' Trump told Fox & Friends just hours before Cruz dropped out of the race.
'The whole thing is ridiculous.'
Ted and his father both denied the National Enquirer report.
'It's ludicrous. It's ludicrous. I was never in New Orleans at that time,' Rafael Cruz told ABC at the time. 'That's typical of Donald Trump – just attack and make all kinds of innuendo and attacks with no substance.'
Ted Cruz said at the time: 'This is nuts. This is just kooky. And while I'm at it, I guess I should go ahead and admit, yes, my dad killed JFK, he is secretly Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa is buried in his backyard.'
Clooney also brought up other Republicans during the interview with the Times.
The actor said: 'Every single one of these guys have aspirations for bigger things — Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Pence, all of them. They think people will travel with them because, “I’ve stuck with you, Don,” but the truth is, they won’t.
'They stay with Donald because Donald, for all of his immense problems as a human being, is a charismatic carnival barker,' Clooney said.
Clooney's remarks come a day after his new film The Midnight Sky debuted on Netflix.
The Midnight Sky, which Clooney directed and stars in, is an apocalyptic sci-fi drama with some striking solitude.
A thickly bearded Clooney plays an astronomer with terminal cancer living at the Barbeau Observatory in the Arctic Circle in the year 2049.
When cataclysm covers the globe, he - and a young, unspeaking girl (Caoilinn Springall) - are potentially all that remains, along with the returning crew of a space expedition to a Jupiter moon.
The movie is based on Lily Brooks-Dalton's novel Good Morning, Midnight, and is Clooney's seventh film as director and his biggest scaled production yet.