Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) called Donald Trump a "pathological liar" and "utterly amoral" Tuesday in light of recent accusations that Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of former president John F. Kennedy.
Earlier Tuesday in a phone interview with Fox, Trump referenced a photo that allegedly shows Rafael Cruz with Lee Harvey Oswald right before JFK was murdered.
The photo and story were originally reported by the National Enquirer a couple weeks ago.
"His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald's being— you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous," Trump said. "What is this, right prior to his being shot, and nobody even brings it up. They don't even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it."
When confronted with questions about these statements, Cruz decided to tell the public what he really thought about the Republican front-runner, but not without starting in on the National Enquirer first.
He not only called the story idiotic but said they were spreading lies.
Cruz started by explaining the life his father endured. He came from Cuba to the United States, citing that he's "exactly the kind of person Donald Trump looks down on."
"I'm going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump," he started.
He then went on to explain all the reasons why he does not like Trump. These included calling him a narcissist, a pathological liar, and utterly amoral, among other qualities.
"This man is a pathological liar," he said. "He doesn't know the different between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. And, in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying."
He got even more detailed and explained the extent to which Donald Trump is a pathological liar.
"And I say pathological because I actually think Donald– if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory, and he'd pass the lie detector test each time," he said. "Whatever lie he's telling, at that minute, he believes it."
The rant did not end there.
"Let me finish this please," Cruz said as a reporter interrupted. "Morality does not exist for him," he said. "It's why he went after Heidi directly and smeared my wife. He attacked her."
He concluded by calling Trump a bully, which is not a new insult from Cruz, and saying that Trump will betray his voters.
Trump took no time to respond to Cruz's insults:
Trump hit back in a statement blasting Cruz as a "desperate candidate trying to save his failing campaign."
"It is no surprise he has resorted to his usual tactics of over-the-top rhetoric that nobody believes," Trump said. "Over the last week, I have watched Lyin’ Ted become more and more unhinged as he is unable to react under the pressure and stress of losing, in all cases by landslides, the last six primary elections– in fact, coming in last place in all but one of them."
Trump added: "Today's ridiculous outburst only proves what I have been saying for a long time, that Ted Cruz does not have the temperament to be President of the United States."