Despicable Me casting impetus for running mate consideration; Trump revises nicknames to Stupid Lyin' Ted and Ugly Lyin' Carly

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

Breaking News: Cruz considering Carly Fiorina for Veep

Blatant attempt to appeal to the "despicable" branch of the Republican base

Senator Ted Cruz, now running second in the Republican presidential race, is considering Carly Fiorina as his vice-presidential candidate NBC news reported today.

While the choice of Ms. Fiorina may be surprising to many, given her her well-documented lies* while on the campaign trail, she did endorse Mr. Cruz after she dropped out of the race.

But the real reason for her potential inclusion on the ticket is based on the relationship Ms. Fiorina developed with the senator when they were both chosen to star in the upcoming film, Despicable Me 3.

As reported by Around The Block in March:

In a rare case of Hollywood and the GOP coming together, Variety reported today that Universal Pictures announced that the next release of their Despicable Me franchise, Despicable Me 3, will feature the voices and animated images of Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.

According to Variety, the Despicable Me creative team made the decision to scrap the original storyline for Despicable Me 3 after seeing Senator Cruz and Ms. Fiorina on stage together at a campaign rally in Miami where Ms. Fiorina endorsed the senator for president.

“It was one of those ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before’ creative inspirations,” said Donatella Devereaux, spokesperson for NBCUniversal. “After all, when you think about the most despicable people in the world, who comes to mind -- Ted Cruz and Carly Fiorina.”

Although at this point there has been no confirmation from the Cruz campaign about the possibility of Ms. Fiorina as vice-president, reaction from Republican front-runner Donald J. Trump was immediate.

“There goes Lyin’ Ted again. Picking Carly as vice-president? Maybe I should start calling him Stupid Lyin’ Ted, and start calling her Ugly Lyin'  Carly because we all know about her face and her lies,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Maryland when informed of the news.

He went on to say, “Look, back in the fall I said, ‘Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?’ Well, has anything changed? Has her face changed? I said then, “Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?’ Now I’ll say can you imagine that face as our next vice-president? Don’t worry, not going to happen, not a ticket of Stupid Lyin' Ted and Ugly Lyin' Carly.

* A Sampling of Carly Fiorina’s Well-Documented Lies

• The Nonexistent Planned Parenthood Video – Fiorina claimed seeing a video showing an official from Planned Parenthood harvesting the brain from "“a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking.” The video did not exist.
• Abortion Statistics – Fiorina lamented the “record number of abortions year after year after year" when, in fact, the abortion rate in the U.S. has been steadily decreasing since 1990.
• Ousted Generals – While Fiorina claimed that President Obama had fired a long list of generals because he didn’t like their advice, one of those she mentioned had resigned because he shared classified materials with his mistress, another due to a controversial interview he gave with Rolling Stone, and one left before Obama took office. Despite this, Fiorina claimed she “didn’t misspeak.”
• Jobs Lie  – Fiorina claimed that “92 percent of the jobs lost during Barack Obama's first term belonged to women.” The 92 percent number was never verified and according to CNN “There were actually more women working at the end of Obama's first term than when he started.”