Donald Trump just kind of accused Ted Cruz's father of helping to assassinate JFK

Perch where Lee Harvey Oswald is thought to have assassinated JFK.

(Image credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

published 3 May 2016

Hold on to your tinfoil hats — Donald Trump just accused Ted Cruz's father of possibly having a hand in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The comment was made during Trump's phone-in to Fox and Friends on Tuesday, when the Republican frontrunner was asked about Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, who has been actively imploring evangelical voters to support his son.

"You look at so many of the ministers that are backing me, and they're backing me more so than they're backing Cruz, and I'm winning the evangelical vote. It's disgraceful that his father can go out and do that," Trump ranted.

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Then things get weird. Trump goes on to claim that Rafael Cruz is an unidentified man in an August 1963 photograph with JFK-assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, where the pair is seen handing out pro-Castro pamphlets in New Orleans.

However, the theory that the mystery man in the photograph is Rafael Cruz was first floated by the dubious tabloid National Enquirer, and has since been dismissed as "another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage" by Cruz's campaign. Experts on the JFK assassination also agree there is no evidence at all to corroborate Rafael Cruz's affiliation with Oswald in any way.

Not everyone is convinced, apparently. "Nobody talks about it...What [Rafael Castro] was doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death — before the shooting. It's horrible," Trump said.

Watch below, beginning at 5 minutes in. Jeva Lange

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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.