NEW YORK — (CNN) Donald Trump escalated his feud with Ted Cruz on Twitter Tuesday — but this time he also involved the Texas senator’s wife.
The real estate mogul tweeted that the Texas senator should “be careful” or he would “spill the beans on your wife” Heidi Cruz.
“Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!,” he tweeted Tuesday evening, just minutes before polls closed in Arizona.
Trump tweeted and deleted a similar version of the Tweet about 10 minutes earlier.
Trump appears to be referring to a Facebook advertisement targeted to Mormons that shows Trump’s wife, Melania, posing nude. That ad was produced by an anti-Trump super PAC, Make America Awesome, which has no known connection to the Cruz campaign.
Cruz responded on Twitter by saying that the ad was not from him and if he went after his wife, then Trump is a “coward.”
“Pic of your wife not from us. Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought. #classless,” Cruz tweeted.
Heidi Cruz is a senior executive for Goldman Sachs, and took a leave from in order to help her husband’s campaign. She has become one of the campaign’s most accomplished fundraisers.
CNN has reached out to the Trump and Cruz campaigns for comment.
Trump previously has used Twitter to threaten the Ricketts family, which has financed a negative ad campaign against him.
The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2016 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (PHOTO: Make America Awesome)
