Rubio nixes the possibility of a deal with Cruz

Rubio-Cruz? Not so fast, says Rubio.
(Image credit: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Swatting aside suggestions that he partner up with Ted Cruz to stop Donald Trump, Marco Rubio insisted Wednesday he won't consider any deal between candidates.

"First of all, both Ted and I are both running vibrant national campaigns, so the voters are going to have to provide the consolidation — it’s not going to be a deal between candidates," Rubio said while speaking with Fox News. "And that just never happens, and it isn't going to happen now."

Meanwhile, writing at the conservative National Review, Jonah Goldberg holds out hope for just such a partnership:

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One possibility would be for Rubio and Cruz to cut a deal... If the two factions — which make up the overwhelming majority of Republican voters — could be unified, it might be enough to stop Trump.What would the deal look like? A Rubio–Cruz ticket. Cruz won't work at the top of the ticket for the simple reason that too many GOP quislings fear Cruz more than Trump. But a unity ticket — a la Reagan–Bush in 1980 — in the form of Los Hermanos Cubanos might just do the trick. [National Review]

"Maybe there's another way," Goldberg concludes, "but I haven't heard it."

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.