Credit: AP

Responding to Rafael Cruz’s allegations that God wants his son, Ted, to be president—and that if anyone else were to be president, it could result in “the destruction of America”—Donald Trump implied in an interview with Fox News that the elder Cruz had something to do with killing John F. Kennedy.

“What was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death—before the shooting. It’s horrible,” Trump said, referring to the man who assassinated JFK. Last month, the National Enquirer claimed to have identified Rafael Cruz in photographs with Oswald, handing out pro-Castro leaflets in New Orleans in 1963.

“This is another garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage,” Cruz communications director Alice Stewart told the McClatchy news service. “The story is false; that is not Rafael in the picture.”

The Enquirer doesn’t present any actual evidence for its claim, but quotes a number of experts and analysts. “The feature that is most interesting and similar is his insincere smile,” Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist and expert witness at UCLA, said.

The tabloid has previously endorsed Trump, who on Tuesday seemed incensed that Rafael Cruz, an evangelical pastor, would use his pulpit to rally support for anyone but him. “You look at so many of the ministers that are backing me, and they’re backing me more so than they’re backing Cruz, and I’m winning the evangelical vote,” Trump told Fox. “It’s disgraceful that his father can go out and do that. And just—and so many people are angry about it. And the evangelicals are angry about it, the way he does that.”

The elder Cruz has asserted that God told his son’s wife, Heidi, that Ted should run for president:

My son Ted and his family spent six months in prayer seeking God’s will for this decision. But the day the final green light came on, the whole family was together. It was a Sunday. We were all at his church, First Baptist Church in Houston, including his senior staff. After the church service, we all gathered at the pastor’s office. We were on our knees for two hours seeking God’s will. At the end of that time, a word came through his wife, Heidi. And the word came, just saying, “Seek God’s face, not God’s hand.” And I’ll tell you, it was as if there was a cloud of the holy spirit filling that place. Some of us were weeping, and Ted just looked up and said, “Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want.” And he felt that was a green light to move forward.

Speaking to a group of pastors in Indiana last week, Rafael Cruz also claimed that God wanted everyone to vote for his son. “I implore, I exhort every member of the body of Christ to vote according to the word of God and vote for the candidate that stands on the word of God and on the Constitution of the United States of America,” he said.

“And I am convinced that man is my son, Ted Cruz. The alternative could be the destruction of America.”