Daily Pennsylvanian Article at Center of Marco Rubio Bible Quote Flap

UPDATE: Rick Tyler, Cruz’s communications director, has been asked to resign after posting the DP story in question. “Rick Tyler is a good man. This was a grave error of judgement,” said Cruz in a Monday press conference. “It turned out the news story he sent out was false, but I’ll tell you, even if it was true, we are not a campaign that is going to question the faith of another candidate.”

ORIGINAL: The Ted Cruz camp is apologizing today after reposting a story that originated in The Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper.

The article detailed an interaction between Republican Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio and a Cruz staffer at the Columbia Hampton Inn in South Carolina.

In the video posted with the article, Rubio walks by Rafael Cruz (Ted Cruz’s father) and a Cruz staffer who was reading a book — which was later revealed to be a bible. The DP’s original transcript apparently had Rubio making a comment that was being read by some as anti-scripture.

As per the original captioning of the video, Rubio remarks to the staffer “Got a good book there.”

“Yes, sir,” the staffer responds.

“Not many answers in it,” Rubio was quoted saying. “Especially that one.”

The Washington Post details the upheaval that the video caused after right-wing websites condemned Rubio’s choice of words and predicted a slide in support from Evangelical voters.

However, Rubio’s camp and others contend that he actually said “All the answers are in there. Especially in that one.”

A huge difference in meaning.

Cruz’s communications director, Rick Tyler, apologized to Rubio on Facebook (having shared the story) and then again on Fox News.

“The story misquoted a remark the Senator made to the staffer. I assumed wrongly that the story was correct. According to the Cruz staffer, the Senator made a friendly and appropriate remark. Since the audio was unclear, I should not have assumed the story was correct,” Tyler wrote.

The Daily Pennsylvanian has updated its article, and removed the original quote.

“This article has been updated to remove a quote in the video by Marco Rubio that has been called into question, regarding the book the staffer was reading. We have replaced the video above with the raw footage without subtitles. Though our original transcription reflects what we originally heard, after reviewing the audio, we feel it is too unclear to say for sure.”

The paper also specifies that they did not originally know that the book he was reading was the bible.

However, the damage may have already been done.

The WaPo included a reaction tweet condemning the Cruz Campaign’s actions:

https://twitter.com/JessicaHeddings/status/701549057471344645?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Take a look at the video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4s6CU-88l8

Follow @MariamDembele on Twitter.