Donald Trump said Monday he will launch a third-party run for the White House and file a birther lawsuit against Ted Cruz if the Texas senator doesn't remove "false ads and retract his lies."
Trump also called on the Republican National Committee to intervene and force Cruz to revise his campaign tactics. And he accused the RNC of giving too many GOP debate tickets to donors.
Trump said the pledge he signed to support the GOP nominee was "a double-edged pledge," and the RNC isn't honoring its end.
"The RNC is in default," Trump said at a news conference Monday in Charleston, South Carolina.
"The RNC is controlled by the establishment, and the special interests and the donors."
The threat came the same day he warned he'd file a birther lawsuit against Cruz after he released an attack ad targeting Trump's past liberal positions on hot-button issues.
"Ted Cruz is a totally unstable individual," Trump said in a news release posted on his website and also posted on Facebook.
"He is the single biggest liar I’ve ever come across, in politics or otherwise…Cruz says I am pro-choice, when in fact I am staunchly pro-life and have been for a long time. Like Ronald Reagan, on many issues, I have evolved."
In Cruz's "Supreme Trust" ad, a narrator claims "Life, marriage, religious liberty, the Second Amendment. We're just one Supreme Court justice away from losing them all."
"One of the ways I can fight back is to bring a lawsuit against him relative to the fact that he was born in Canada and therefore cannot be President," Trump said in the news release on his website.
"If he doesn’t take down his false ads and retract his lies, I will do so immediately.
"Additionally, the [Republican National Committee] should intervene and if they don’t they are in default of their pledge to me."
It's not the first time Trump has raised the spectra of legal action over Cruz's eligibility to run for president. At a campaign rally in New Hampshire earlier this month,
Trump warned if Cruz wins the nomination, Democrats would "sue his ass off."
Meanwhile, Trump also is floating a potential third-party run, accusing the Republican National Committee of giving too many GOP debates tickets to donors, saying the pledge he signed to support the GOP nominee was "a double-edged pledge," and the RNC isn't honoring its end.
Cruz blasted out a Twitter response to Trump's charges, saying "You cannot simply scream 'liar' when someone points out your actual positions."
Newsmax wire services contributed to this report.
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