You’ve probably heard that Donald Trump implied that Ted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, is ugly after a pro-Cruz super PAC implied that Trump’s wife, Melania, is a skank. (If you hadn’t heard, I’m happy to have been the one to have told you about it.) Thursday in Wisconsin, Cruz called Trump a “sniveling coward” in a tone of what seemed to be genuine anger and disgust. About a half-second later, as Politico’s Blake Hounshell observes, a quick-thinking reporter asked Cruz if he still planned on supporting Trump if he’s the party’s general-election nominee:
In a normal human situation, the answer to this question would self-evidently be “no, I do not believe that the man who suggested my wife is a grotesque troll-faced monster should be president.” But this is not a human situation; it’s politics in 2016, the year we had a Republican debate during which every non-Trump candidate (including Cruz) accused Trump for two solid hours of being a liar, a con artist, and an idiot … and then ended the debate by pledging to support him if he became the nominee.
This time, Cruz dodged the question:
For the record, Heidi Cruz’s face is perfectly nice and everyone is beautiful in their own way. And you know what? Ted Cruz probably will support Donald Trump when he’s the Republican nominee.
Update, 9:55 p.m.: Here’s the full exchange with the reporter who asked the question, NBC’s Hallie Jackson.
