Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas took a few shots at the press on Tuesday after a story of his telling a 3-year-old girl in New Hampshire over the weekend that “your world is on fire” took off.
“I actually talked to the mother yesterday, called her, because she was very dismayed,” Mr. Cruz said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“The Obama economy is a disaster. Obamacare is a train wreck and the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind — the whole world’s on fire,” Mr. Cruz, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, said in Barrington on Sunday, according to video captured by Raw Story.
“The whole world’s on fire?” the girl asked.
“The world is on fire, yes — your world is on fire. But you know what, your mommy’s here, and everyone’s here to make sure that the world you grow up in is even better,” Mr. Cruz said to applause.
Mr. Cruz said Tuesday it’s blown up in the media and has gotten “worse and worse.”
“It was first ’girl startled,’ then it became ’girl terrified,’ ” he said. “By the end of it, I’m Freddy Krueger torturing this girl in her nightmares.”
The girl’s mother, Michelle Trant, told a Boston radio station that her daughter was not terrified and there were no tears.
Mr. Cruz said there’s a “big divide” between local press and national press.
“I spent two days up in New Hampshire; the local press would all cover the substance of what I said, the reactions of what happened,” he said. “National press — [it] was all about the little girl and me terrifying her. You [could] literally read the stories side-by-side as if they’re covering Mars and Venus.”
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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