On Tuesday, half-melted creamsicle Donald Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on the wife of his Republican rival, former mime Ted Cruz. The nature of Trump’s beans are still unclear, but this attempt at intimidation demanded a forceful response from Cruz, a response he apparently copied from Michael Douglas’ chief executive in The American President (1995).
https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/712629063605739520
We already know that Cruz is a film aficionado. His love for ’80s teen sex comedy The Malibu Bikini Shop is well-documented:
As is his obsession with The Princess Bride:
And we also know that Cruz has been on a quest to become president since he was a teenager. So it’s not entirely surprising that he’d be familiar with the work of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, America’s leading advocate of pithy dialogue and Great Men.
The problem is, so is everyone else—particularly everyone in the political media. When Cruz suggested he’d best Trump in a character fight, and said that his wife, Heidi, was way out of The Donald’s league, people who knew the score tweeted about it immediately.
A question left unanswered, though: When Cruz imagines himself in a lionizing Sorkin script, fighting the good fight and getting briefed by his staff in dramatic walk-and-talks, does he picture Michael Douglas or Martin Sheen?
Screengrab via ABC News