Recent addition to Ted Cruz's finance committee, Neil Bush, admitted to CNN's Michael Smerconish this Saturday that he's only supporting Cruz so he can throw him under the bus at the convention.
March 20, 2016

As we already discussed here, not only are Ted Cruz's foreign policy consultants a bunch of crazy, wingnut, neocon Islamophobes, he also recently added Neil Bush, the sleazebag younger brother of former President George W. Bush and failed presidential candidate Jeb! Bush, as a member of his financial committee.

So how bad are things looking for Cruz and whether the Republicans might accept him as an alternative to Trump should we end up with a brokered convention this year? It seems even someone who's calling himself a Cruz adviser and a member of his team basically admitted that he can't stand him and the only reason he's supporting him is because he believes Trump is worse.

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Smerconish, of course, didn't bother asking Bush, given his background and his part in the S&L scandal in the late '80's, why in holy hell anyone should be hiring him as a member of their finance committee. I wish I could say that comes as some sort of surprise. Our Fourth Estate is dead.

Here's the transcript via CNN:

SMERCONISH: While the power brokers try to broker a convention, there are two candidate who can actually win this thing and Mitt Romney who people were trying to draft just announced that he'll vote for Ted Cruz in Tuesday's Utah caucuses and he encouraged others to do the same. That has to be good news for my next guest who recently joined Ted Cruz' national finance team and who thinks taking away the nomination from anybody is a bad idea.

Neil Bush, he's the son of 41, brother of 43 and sibling of Jeb. Neil, thank you for being here. What do you make of my previous guests not rallying to embrace your guy, Ted Cruz. What do you read into that?

NEIL BUSH, TED CRUZ COMMITTEE FINANCE MEMBER: Well, I think it's very early in the process and I have great respect for all three of your guests. Ron Kaufman has been an old friend and political mentor of mine personally. I think they are wrong, though, in the following way.

Ed threw out the statistic which I think is flawed that Donald Trump would have to get 100 percent of the delegates going forward in order to lock it up. He only needs 55 percent of the delegates going forward to lock up the nomination. Ted Cruz needs 79 percent. Kasich is mathematically eliminated from this and Michael, if you look at the process going forward, there are 22 contests that remain. 14 of which are closed contests, which means only Republicans can vote.

Donald Trump does poorly in closed contests. And in most of these, they are winner take all consequences and so we need to rally the party in a one on one contest, Donald Trump cannot win. It's just clear. The evidence is there as the pack is narrowed, Cruz' numbers have gone up. Trump has a very solid core, you know, base of support from an art and following. No one is going to peel any of those voters away. But there are more people that have come out to vote for other candidates and against Trump, so to his credit, he is bringing more people to the polls, but I'm not so sure all these people will stay in the Republican Party when he loses and he will lose in an open transparent process if not before the convention, at the convention.

SMERCONISH: Neil, is yours a full throated endorsement of Ted Cruz or are you engaged in strategic voting?

BUSH: I'm engaged in strategic participatory politics. I made it clear that Ted Cruz wasn't my first choice. I admired and was heartbroken that my brother Jeb's lack of success. He had a track record and the temperament that proves he could be a great leader. Ted Cruz wasn't my second or third choice. I don't particularly like his style.

He went to Washington to be disruptive and he clearly did that and he has lost a lot of friends in Washington. He'll rebuild friendships when he becomes president. So mine is a strategic move to try to bring our party together. I think it would be a disaster to put up the most flawed candidate as the head of our ticket. Donald Trump has proven - yes, go ahead, please.

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