The former communications director for Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz Tuesday vehemently denied a report published last week that she had an extramarital affair with the Texas senator, slamming it as "a really ugly smear that seems all too common this campaign season."
"I had a purely professional relationship with Sen. Cruz," Amanda Carpenter, 34, now a CNN commentator, told
"The Lead" host Jake Tapper. "I want to go further than that: I've been 100 percent faithful to my husband.
"There's nothing more important to me than being a good wife and a good mother. It's been very hard the past few days to have my character called into question. I hope no one else has to go through this."
The National Enquirer reported Friday that Cruz had extramarital affairs with Carpenter and four other women.
On Monday, Dan Scavino, social media director for the Trump campaign, re-tweeted a video on that alleged to show "evidence" of an affair between Carpenter and the senator.
Scavino later accused Carpenter of trying to have him banned from Twitter as she labeled the re-tweet an attack upon her by the Trump campaign.
Carpenter joined Cruz's office as a speechwriter and senior communications adviser in early 2013. She was promoted to communications director that fall and left the senator's office last July.
She also worked as a columnist for The Washington Times. She told Tapper that she is married with two children.
Carpenter attributed the fracas to "conspiracy theories being pushed online."
"I can't fathom why the Trump campaign would be doing this," she told Tapper. "No other campaign would touch this sort of stuff. It's really conspiracy theory."
The commentator said that she was wanted to "address" that matter in talking to CNN because "I don't want to run away from this.
"But at the same time, the hardest thing about doing this is defending myself without making it worse," she added.
Trump campaign adviser Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that "the entire situation is really sad," telling Tapper that the alleged affair was "well documented started and pushed" by former candidate Marco Rubio's campaign "over six months ago."
"The Cruz campaign continues to try to pin it on Donald Trump and our campaign." Sanders said. "It certainly did not originate there.
"I think the whole thing is unfortunate."
Sanders said that both Cruz and Carpenter should sue the Enquirer to "put this thing to rest."
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.