Longtime political operative and Donald Trump supporter Roger Stone on Tuesday accused Ted Cruz of being anti-free speech.
"Ted Cruz has a problem with the First Amendment," Stone said Tuesday in interview with noted conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
His remarks came after the Texas senator said that the Drudge Report, a popular news aggregator, has become the propaganda arm of the Trump campaign.
"In about the past month the Drudge Report has basically become the attack site for the Donald Trump campaign. And so every day they have the latest Trump attack. They're directed at me," Cruz said of the site, which was founded in 1996 by Matt Drudge.
"By all appearances, [former Trump aide and longtime political operative] Roger Stone now decides what's on Drudge, and most days they have a six-month-old article that is some attack on me, and it's — whatever the Trump campaign is pushing that day will be the banner headline on Drudge," the senator added Monday in an interview with talk radio host Mike Slater.
For Stone and Jones, these remarks are beyond the pale.
"The idea that anyone controls Matt Drudge is offensive," said Stone, who was an adviser to Trump until last August.
Jones added that he is "so honored to be associated with Matt Drudge" and with Trump.
"Real patriots!" he said, adding of Cruz's attempts to best the billionaire businessman in the 2016 GOP primary, "This is the attempted takeover of America you're witnessing. That's not hype! … When they're cancelling elections … it's a new level."
Stone raised eyebrows this year when he said in a radio interview that he would make public the hotel room numbers of all non-Trump supporting Republican National Convention delegates.
He clarified Tuesday in his interview with Jones that he wasn't suggesting intimidation, but that he was only saying Trump supporters should visit these delegates and have them sign a pledge vowing to support the casino tycoon.