It looks like Ted Cruz decided someone was going to take the fall for his earned reputation of playing dirty tricks on opponents. Rick Tyler got the axe for his smear of Marco Rubio earlier today.

.@tedcruz announces he asked for resignation of campaign spokesman @rickwtyler for RTing false video questioning Rubio's faith

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 22, 2016

Tyler's termination comes as he came under fire for tweeting a video slamming Rubio. He posted an apology on Facebook:

I want to apologize to Senator Marco Rubio for posting an inaccurate story about him here earlier today. The story showed a video of the Senator walking past a Ted Cruz staffer seated in the lobby of a hotel reading his Bible. The story misquoted a remark the Senator made to the staffer. I assumed wrongly that the story was correct. According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct. I've deleted the post because I would not knowingly post a false story. But the fact remains that I did post it when I should have checked its accuracy first. I regret the mistake.

Apparently the damage was done.

Tyler received the news while on the set of MSNBC, and left the set immediately.

It really couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Rick Tyler was Newt Gingrich's spokesman for years. While working for Newt, Tyler said nice things about Democrats just wanting to abort black babies, slammed Sarah Palin for endorsing Donald Trump, and more.

I thought Cruz and Tyler were a match made in heaven, but apparently one of them has been consigned to hell now.