US faces possible ‘Biff Tannen’ presidency — Cruz

Ted Cruz is launching a blistering attack on his rival Donald Trump, saying that if Indiana lets Trump win Tuesday’s presidential primary, America is “looking, potentially, at the Biff Tannen” presidency, a reference to the 1980’s film “Back to the Future.”

“We are not a proud, boastful, self-centered, mean spirited, hateful, bullying nation,” Cruz told reporters in Evansville, Indiana, before citing the film “Back to the Future II.” The film’s screenwriter said in an interview with The Daily Beast last year that the film’s character Biff Tannen was based on Trump.

“The screenwriter says that he based the character Biff Tannen on Donald Trump — a character of a braggadocios, arrogant buffoon who builds giant casinos with giant pictures of him everywhere he looks,” Cruz says. “We are looking, potentially, at the Biff Tannen presidency.”

Cruz also denounces accusations Trump made Tuesday about his father, Rafael Cruz, that he was acquainted with John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, calling his dad “my hero.” Cruz calls Trump’s claims “kooky” and “nuts,” says that Trump “doesn’t know the differences between truth and lies” and most of what he says is a “mindless yell.”

Cruz also calls Trump utterly amoral, a pathological liar, a serial philanderer and a narcissist at a level this country has never seen.

Cruz unloads on Trump as voters in Indiana were casting their ballots in that state’s primary. Polls show Cruz significantly behind Trump in a state that Cruz has said is crucial to stopping the billionaire businessman.

Despite Cruz’s criticisms of Trump, he has not ruled out supporting him if he becomes the Republican nominee.

— AP