Ted Cruz's Father and JFK Smear in National Enquirer: What We Now Know

Donald Trump's hush money trial in Manhattan has unveiled revelations about an alleged agreement by the National Enquirer to publish smear stories about Senator Ted Cruz, his 2016 political opponent.

As he was questioned during the trial this week, former Enquirer publisher David Pecker testified that he helped Trump manufacture stories about Cruz and others.

Pecker said that Cruz, fellow Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Ben Carson—all of whom were running against Trump for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination—were targeted by the fake stories, as was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump's eventual opponent in the general election.

After purportedly agreeing to the plan during a 2015 meeting at Trump Tower, Pecker said, he helped manufacture stories that falsely claimed Cruz had multiple mistresses and attempted to establish a link between the senator's father and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Trump's critics have suggested that Trump had a direct influence over the JFK story in particular.

What Actually Happened?

In 2016, the Enquirer ran a widely discredited and debunked story that said Rafael Cruz, Ted Cruz's father, could be seen in a photograph with JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel-Castro leaflets.

The Enquirer put the story on its front page with the headline "TED CRUZ FATHER LINKED TO JFK ASSASSINATION!"

On Thursday, a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Republican Voters Against Trump, which has been viewed 746,900 times, said: "Here's Donald Trump in 2016, denying he was involved with planting fake stories about Ted Cruz's father and JFK. This week we learned that's exactly what he was doing."

The post included a video in which Trump said he had highlighted the National Enquirer story about Cruz, repeating a claim that there was a photo of Rafael Cruz and Oswald. Trump added that it had "nothing to do with me, except I might have pointed it out, but it had nothing to do with me. I have no control over anything."

As reported elsewhere, the evidence for the article was based on a photo expert's view that an unidentified man seen in a photograph handing out leaflets with Oswald had "more similarity than dissimilarity" with Rafael Cruz.

However, a 2016 debunking by fact-checkers at FactCheck.org contacted that same expert, who said he never claimed that the man was Rafael Cruz and criticized Trump's assertion it was.

In 2016, Cruz denied the story's claims and Trump's statements about it, calling it "nuts," "not a reasonable position" and "kooky." Cruz also pointed out at the time that the Enquirer was run by Pecker, saying that the tabloid had "become his [Trump's] hit piece that he uses to smear anybody and everybody."

After being asked about Pecker's testimony, Cruz told NBC News on Tuesday that he was "not interested in revisiting ancient history."

Did Trump Request the Story?

"At that meeting, Donald Trump and Michael, they asked me what I can do and what my magazines could do to help the campaign," Pecker testified at this week's trial. "Thinking about it as I did previously, I said what I would do is I would run or publish positive stories about Mr. Trump and I would publish negative stories about his opponents."

Pecker also told Trump and his attorney Michael Cohen that he would be the "eyes and ears" for the campaign and if he heard that anything negative about Trump was being shopped around, he would notify Cohen and the attorney would have those stories killed. Pecker said he had anticipated that a lot of women would try to sell their stories about Trump.

During his testimony, Pecker was presented with several headlines that the National Enquirer ran about then-GOP presidential candidates Carson, Cruz and Rubio, all of which he confirmed the magazine published when those Republicans were seeing a surge in polling during the Republican primaries.

However, as reporting from Pecker's testimony shows, the former publisher said that while there was an agreement in place, Trump did not have direct conversations with him about these stories. Pecker added that Cohen would have conversations about stories, and was sent PDFs of them before they ran.

When Pecker was asked if Cohen ever spoke about receiving ideas for stories from "the boss," he replied, "I don't recollect that."

It's not confirmed that the story about Cruz's father or the other stories were planned or suggested by Trump. Although Pecker has said there was an understanding about what the Enquirer could do for Trump, we do not know if Trump directed that particular stories should be printed, if such an arrangement existed.

While the Republican Voters Against Trump post on X says "he was involved with planting fake stories about Ted Cruz's father and JFK"—which is what Pecker alleged, in a manner of speaking—it was not said that the story was published at Trump's request, as this claim may be interpreted.

Newsweek has contacted representatives for Trump and Cruz via email for comment.

What Happens Now?

Trump has become the first former president to undergo a criminal trial. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg charged him in a 34-count indictment, alleging that he falsified business documents in connection to an alleged hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. Bragg has accused Trump of making the payment to prevent her from discussing her allegation that she had an affair with him.

Trump has denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case. He has also accused Bragg and others of targeting him for political purposes, saying the trial is a form of election interference.

Testimony began in the trial on Monday after jury selection lasted all of last week. On Thursday, the trial's third day began after a break on Wednesday. Pecker continued to testify about his involvement in "catch and kill" activities related to damaging stories that could have hurt Trump's campaign in 2016. The tactic involves buying the rights to such stories and declining to publish them.