Beto O'Rourke Borrows Trump's Line, Calls Cruz "Lyin' Ted"
TAPPER: Yes, that's CNN election music. I like it. Tonight, President Trump weighing in on the heated Texas race in -- Senate Texas race, tweeting that, "Democrat Beto O'Rourke wants higher taxes and far more regulations," and calling him a "flake." A flake. Follows a fiery debate between O'Rourke and Cruz, a debate in which we saw O'Rourke throw some real punches for the first time.</s>O'ROURKE: He's dishonest. It's why the President called him Lyin' Ted and it's why the nickname stuck.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Its clear Congressman O'Rourke's pollsters have told him to come out on the attack. So if wants to insults me and call liar, that's fine.</s>TAPPER: The big question, of course, will Beto O'Rourke's strategy work? Ed Lavandera is "OutFront" with our "Race of the Day."</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Ted Cruz.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ted Cruz has mastered the postcard size political punch.</s>CRUZ: If you want a big government gun-grabbing liberal, well, the Democrats have given you one.</s>LAVANDERA: The rapid fire jabs at Democrat Beto O'Rourke are designed to deflate the El Paso congressman's soaring campaign.</s>CRUZ: On job-killing regulations, he's for them, I'm against them. Guns, I'm for them, he's against them. On taxes, he's for them, I'm against them.</s>LAVANDERA (on camera): In the last few weeks, Senator Cruz has unleashed a wave of television ads criticizing O'Rourke, painting him as dangerous and radically liberal. O'Rourke has been hesitant to fire back directly, saying he prefers to follow the positive path that has brought him to this point so far.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beto O'Rourke is no friend of Texas energy.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): The Cruz television campaign and laser- focused message seem to have halted O'Rourke's forward march in the polls. A CNN poll shows O'Rourke 7 points behind.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beto O'Rourke wants to be a senator.</s>LAVANDERA: For weeks, as O'Rourke has literally run and barn stormed through every corner of the state, we've asked him how he would respond to the Cruz campaign's criticisms, which seem to be working. (on camera) Are you worried that those critiques and those things are going to stick?</s>O'ROURKE: Yes.</s>LAVANDERA: Are you fighting back with them?</s>O'ROURKE: I think people are sick of the pettiness and the partisanship and the smallness.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you take the gloves off and fight a little bit tougher and dirtier if you have to?</s>O'ROURKE: We're fighting for a positive future for this country. We're not fighting against anyone. It's not against another party.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): But with early voting starting next week, O'Rourke is shedding the nice guy approach.</s>O'ROURKE: Senator Cruz is not going to be honest with you. He's going to make up positions and votes that I've never held or have ever taken. He's dishonest. It's why the president called him Lyin' Ted and it's why the nickname stuck because it's true.</s>LAVANDERA: Democratic Strategist Harold Cook worked for Ann Richards, one of the last Democrats to hold statewide office in Texas. Cook says O'Rourke must sharpen his attacks before it's too late.</s>HAROLD COOK, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You can be high-minded while you're drawing a clear contrast between yourself and your opponent.</s>LAVANDERA (on camera): And Beto hasn't done enough of that.</s>COOK: He hasn't done it yet and he needs to get on it because it's time.</s>LAVANDERA (voice-over): An anti-Ted Cruz PAC has rolled out an ad roasting Cruz for cozying up to President Trump who once said the Texas senator had done nothing for Texans.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If somebody called my wife a dog and said my daddy was in on the Kennedy assassination, I wouldn't be kissing their ass.</s>LAVANDERA: O'Rourke has rarely talked about Ted Cruz and President Trump in his campaign speeches, but in recent days, that has changed.</s>O'ROURKE: We need a full-time senator.</s>LAVANDERA: He ripped into Cruz for shutting down the federal government and rolling back health care protections and even unleashed his sharpest criticism yet of the Texas senator for campaigning with the President.</s>O'ROURKE: Senator Cruz will put his political ambition, his prospects in the next election ahead of anything else, including his family, including those he's sworn to represent here in Texas. Texas has lost its voice in the U.S. Senate in Senator Cruz.</s>LAVANDERA: The showdown will continue for another three weeks in a race that's captivated a state not used to this kind of political clash.</s>LAVANDERA: And Jake, Cruz' campaign manager reacted to this new O'Rourke strategy by saying last night after the debate that, "When an unconventional candidate goes conventional, that's typically when they get split open like a cantaloupe." Now, Cruz's embrace of Donald Trump which he has fully done on the campaign trail has pitfalls of its own. CNN poll released yesterday shows that even though Trump won the state of Texas by nine points in 2016, his approval and disapproval rate here in the state are even at this point -- Jake.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much. OUTFRONT now, Karine Jean-Pierre, senior adviser and national spokesperson for moveon.org and Scott Jennings, former adviser to Senator Mitch McConnell and former special assistant to President George W. Bush. Karine, I'll start with you. Beto O'Rourke now sharpening his attacks against Ted Cruz but with less than three weeks until the election, O'Rourke is down by seven points among likely voters in the CNN poll, 89 percent of whom say their minds are made up. Can he really actually hope to make up any difference here?</s>KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, SENIOR ADVISER & NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON, MOVEON.ORG: I think it's -- I think he can. Look, we're talking about Texas, deep red Texas, and you have someone who is -- and you have someone, Beto O'Rourke, who's actually making it competitive. And like you mentioned in 2016, Trump won it by nine points. In 2012, Mitt Romney won it by 16 points. He has this amazing war chest which I think also is showing the grassroots energy around him, small dollars, not accepting money, PAC money or corporate money. And another thing, too, is since the midterms, it was 1.6 million new voters on the voter rolls in Texas, 1.6 compared to 2002 and 2004 where it was 100,000. So, Beto O'Rourke can take that money and really do a ground game, I think that it will be a very tight race at the end and we'll see if he can pull it out.</s>TAPPER: Scott, in races all over the country, we're seeing Democrats outraised Republicans. According to "The National Journal", 92 House Republican incumbents were outraised by their Democrat challenger. Obviously, we see a stark example of that in Texas. Does that concern you as a Republican?</s>SCOTT JENNINGS, FORMER ADVISER TO SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, it concerns me in a lot of these House races, absolutely. I think some Republicans are going to lose House races because they didn't raise enough money and they didn't prepare themselves. I think in the case of the Texas Senate race, though, Democrats are going to look at this the day after the election and wonder, boy, oh boy, if only we'd had another couple million in North Dakota or Missouri or Indiana or West Virginia or Florida or any of these other states where Democrats are actually running close races. You know, Democrats every cycle, they're always looking for a southern messiah, they're looking for the next -- you know, which Democrat can compete in the South and they fall in love with these candidates and they pour money into these races and it never pans out. A Democrat hasn't won in Texas in 24 years, one's not going to win this year. This is not a close race. I can't believe any Democrat in Texas is getting a good night's sleep given the loud flushing sound of flushing $61 million down the toilet trying to knock off Ted Cruz. It's not going to happen.</s>TAPPER: Karine, I know you disagree with everything he said.</s>JEAN-PIERRE: Everything he just said.</s>TAPPER: But I want to ask you, President Trump is campaigning with Cruz in Texas on Monday. You heard Ed say the president's approval ratings in Texas, even though he won that state handily, it's pretty even, 49 percent, 48 percent. Do you think that Trump actually will be a boost to Ted Cruz, especially considering the bad blood between them historically, not anymore, but historically and the fact that, as Beto O'Rourke puts it, you know, he went after his family. He insulted his wife, he insulted his dad.</s>JEAN-PIERRE: And Ted Cruz still goes back to the person who started all of it, insulting your wife and your dad? That's pretty low. That's lower than we've ever seen, even if people do this in the past where they go after each other and then come back together. Look, Beto O'Rourke just recently had a event where 55,000 people, Donald Trump said he wanted the biggest stadium, and he's going to one of the smallest stadium of 8,500. I'm not worried at all.</s>TAPPER: You're really not worried. Scott, President Trump and Ted Cruz obviously have had a really ugly relationship. Here's just a small sample.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Donald, you're a sniveling coward, and leave Heidi the hell alone.</s>DONALD TRUMP, THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: His father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to Oswald being, you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous.</s>CRUZ: The man cannot tell the truth, but he combines it with being a narcissist.</s>TRUMP: Lying Ted Cruz, Lyin' Ted. Lies. Oh, he lies.</s>TAPPER: So is it all just water under the bridge now?</s>JENNINGS: Well, I think Republicans want it to be water under the bridge, and look, if I were Ted Cruz, I'd still be super pissed about some of the things that Donald Trump said. But I'm not a U.S. senator and I don't need to get reelected, so I guess I could be super pissed about it. Look, Ted Cruz has done what he had to do. He's gone to the Senate, played nice with the White House, helped Trump, and he's helped the Senate leadership, Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn when he used to be a thorn in their side, so Ted Cruz learned a lesson. He was chastened by the presidential campaign and he's now become more of a team player, which is precisely what the Republicans in Texas want him to do. The reason they have a good voice in Texas right now is because Ted Cruz has actually started playing ball with the party and the party is getting results, and that's the agenda that the people in Texas most want to see.</s>JEAN-PIERRE: I just want to say one thing. A year ago, Alabama, we had -- we didn't win that U.S. Senate seat in 25 years and it happened. So, just wanted to throw that out there.</s>TAPPER: All right.</s>JENNINGS: Whoa, whoa, are you saying --</s>JENNINGS: Are you saying there are comparable conditions in Alabama and Texas? That is an outlandish assertion.</s>TAPPER: I don't think she's saying that. Anyway, Scott Jennings, Karine Jean-Pierre, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Don't miss the special CNN town hall on the Texas Senate race with Dana Bash. That's tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. OUTFRONT next, this is what happened when a reporter dared to ask Jared Kushner a question on an airplane.</s>ERROL BARNETT, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, CBS NEWS: Hey there, Jared. Errol Barnett with CBS. Any comment on --</s>TAPPER: Why did the Secret Service react like that? Is that their job? Plus, a stunning eight-month investigation into the Trump Organization and what was uncovered is a troubling history of lies and deception. Stay with us.