Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks to guests at the 2016 South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention on January 16, 2016 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Along with Trump, Republican presidential candidates Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee spoke at the convention. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) — Donald Trump is running afoul of some tea party activists by attacking Republican presidential rival Ted Cruz.
Trump suggested Saturday that the Texas senator is owned by big banks like Citi and Goldman Sachs. The billionaire businessman made the comments at a tea party convention in South Carolina in front of crowd split among supports of the two leading GOP White House contenders.
Trump has hammered Cruz for not disclosing in Federal Elections Commission filings that he used loans from the financial giants to help finance his 2012 Senate bid.
At the end of his speech, Trump said, “If you give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz you get whatever the hell you want.”
Many Cruz supporters booed. Cruz did not directly mention Trump in his appearance earlier Saturday.
