Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] says “the Washington establishment, they’re abandoning [crscore]Marco Rubio[/crscore] because they’ve determined Marco can’t win and they’re rushing full speed to embraced Donald Trump.”

Wednesday on “The Mark Levin Show,” Cruz said Trump “has for a long time been an advocate of cronyism and corporate welfare.”

Levin began by questioning Cruz about his stance on ethanol subsides and Cruz said, “Well, my position on ethanol and my position on energy generally is that I believe that we should pursue all of the above. We have tremendous energy resources in this country: oil and gas and coal and nuclear, wind, and solar and biofuels and ethanol. We should pursue all of them. But there should be no mandates, no government subsidies.”

“Washington shouldn’t pick winner and losers,” Cruz argued. “And so I’ve introduced legislation to phase out the ethanol mandate over five years. My tax plan, a simple flat tax ends all of the energy subsidies, all of the energy mandates. No subsidies or mandates for oil and gas, for wind, for solar, for anything. So that it is a level playing field and the market place decides, I think that is the right answer.”

Levin replied, “Donald Trump seeks to expand the use of ethanol beyond what the Obama administration is doing and obviously in some aspects, in some parts of Iowa this is popular. I mean, to me this seems like quintessential crony capitalism.” (RELATED: Rush: Trump Supporting Ethanol Subsidies ‘Reeks Of Political Insiderism’ [AUDIO])

“[L]ook, that fits the pattern of Donald’s history,” Cruz claimed. “Which is Donald has for a long time been an advocate of cronyism and corporate welfare. You know, when I talked about ‘New York values’ and the mainstream media went nuts and Donald went nuts, you know initially they focused on his telling Tim Russert that he supported partial birth abortion and was open to gay marriage because of New York values because grew up in New York.” (RELATED: Trump Stuns Cruz Into Silence During ‘New York Values’ Fight [VIDEO])

“But another part of New York values is favoring cronyism and corporate welfare and that’s why Donald for example supported the TARP, big bank bailout,” Cruz argued. It’s why Trump supported “Barack Obama’s stimulus plan and in fact said it should have been bigger and it’s why on Obamacare he said we should expand Obamacare to make it socialized healthcare for everybody.”

“Those are New York values and I’ll tell you Mark, an amazing thing is happening in this race. What we’re seeing is the Washington establishment, they’re abandoning Marco Rubio because they’ve determined Marco can’t win and they’re rushing full speed to embraced Donald Trump,” Cruz claimed. “You know, we’ve seen in the last couple of days, Iowa governor Terry Branstad who is a big fan of the cronyism and corporate welfare. Has been heaping praise on Donald Trump and has been saying the one guy who can’t win is Cruz ’cause he’ll stop the gravy train.” (RELATED: Iowa’s Republican Governor: Don’t Vote For Ted Cruz)

“Bob Dole today, said Donald Trump, ‘We can work with Donald Trump. He’ll cut deals. He’ll cut deals with [crscore]Harry Reid[/crscore] and Chuck Schumer and [crscore]Nancy Pelosi[/crscore]. He’ll grow government. Cruz scares the heck out of us,’ the Texas senator claimed. “And we’re seeing establishment leaving Rubio and coalescing behind Donald Trump and we’re seeing conservatives uniting and coalescing around our campaign and that’s happening more and more each and every day.” (RELATED: Bob Dole Says He Prefers Donald Trump Over Ted Cruz)

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