What a strange soundbite for a Republican frontrunner, suggesting that his famously crooked would-be Democratic opponent has more integrity than the most conservative candidate in the race. Gosh, I don’t think even Mitch McConnell would say that. Not publicly, anyway.

This is a smear, by the way. He’s seizing on the revelation last week that Cruz never disclosed a margin loan from Goldman Sachs, where his wife works, during his first Senate run. That’s true, sort of — he never disclosed it to the FEC, which Cruz blamed on a “filing error.” But it’s not true that he never disclosed the loan publicly. Phil Kerpen dug up this form from Cruz’s filing with the Secretary of the Senate before the runoff with David Dewhurst in 2012.

https://twitter.com/kerpen/status/687461435522285568/photo/1

The Goldman Sachs loan was noted by the media no later than June 2013, in a story by Roll Call. Trump wants you to believe that Cruz deliberately tried to withhold information about it from the public, but if that were true then obviously he would have omitted it from the Senate filing as well. It’s a smear. And the cherry on top, as you’re about to see, is Trump going out of his way to suggest that Cruz played dumb about the FEC filing the same way he supposedly played dumb about his Canadian dual citizenship. The first time I watched this, in fact, I thought Trump was suggesting that Cruz screwed up the filing because he’s a Canadian and doesn’t know American law. He couldn’t have meant that. Could he?

He’s saying this, by the way, at a moment when Clintonworld is under FBI investigation for possibly having traded government favors for donations to the Clinton Foundation. The Democratic frontrunner is being scrutinized by federal law enforcement for public corruption and Trump wants you to believe that Cruz is arguably the shadier operator of the two. Here’s a question to ask yourself the next time Trump accuses one of his opponents of being “owned” by special interests: Who would own Trump the politician if he hadn’t inherited many millions of dollars from his father to build a business that made him financially independent today? Between the two of them, Trump and Cruz, who’s the self-made man? Independence from donors is no trick when you started your career with a pile of money and then eagerly handed cash to crony politicians in both parties to make it grow. When Trump fans say he has balls, they’re right. It takes brass balls for this guy to accuse anyone else of cronyism.

Oh, by the way: Apparently, he’s now a hit in some sectors of the GOP donor class. Let’s see how long his insistence on not taking big money from the Chamber of Commerce set lasts. Exit question: Where’s Sarah? Wasn’t she supposed to be there with him today?