A top aide to Ted Cruz late Sunday issued an apology to Marco Rubio after distributing a video that appeared to show the Republican presidential rival dismissing the Bible.
“I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today,” Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler wrote in a public note posted to Facebook.
“The story misquoted a remark the Senator made to the [Cruz] staffer. I assumed wrongly that the story was correct,” Tyler wrote. “I’ve deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story.”
The story the Cruz aide mentioned was about a video showing Rubio in a hotel lobby walking past Cruz’s father, Rafael, and a Cruz staffer who was reportedly reading a Bible.
“Got a good book there,” Rubio tells the staffer in the video, which has unclear audio and uses subtitles to depict Rubio as adding, “Not many answers in it.”
Rubio spokesman Alex Conant posted a corrected version of the video quoting Rubio as saying, “Got a good book there. All the answers are in there.”
“According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct,” Tyler continued, expressing regret.
The flap comes on the heels of Rubio narrowly edging out Cruz in the South Carolina primary on Saturday behind Donald Trump. The trio are battling heading into the Nevada caucus on Tuesday.