Ted Cruz responds after ex-National Enquirer boss revealed stories about his 'porn star shame' and father's link to JFK's assassination were faked to help Trump

Sen. Ted Cruz and his Senate Republican colleagues were unflustered by explosive court testimony Tuesday by ex-National Enquirer publisher David Pecker about his 'secret deal' with Donald Trump as his paper cranked out brutal exposes on Trump's 2016 rivals.

Pecker testified about what he said were near-daily contacts during the 2016 campaing with former Trump fixer Michael Cohen about which stories to run about Trump's GOP rivals and which ones to bury through 'catch-and-kill' payoffs. He said the contacts came around key events like presidential debates, and would take on candidates who were on the rise.

'Michael Cohen would call me and say we would like for you to run a negative article on a certain – let's say it's on Ted Cruz. He would send me information about Ted Cruz or about Ben Carson or Marco Rubio, and that was the basis for our story,' he told a courtroom. Trump looked on while his longtime friend testified for the prosecution. 'We would embellish it from there,' he said.

All three of those targets were running against Trump in the 2016 free-for-all for the Republican nomination. Cruz was the last rival standing in a race that featured repeated 'smears' on Cruz and his wife Heidi, as well as a thinly-sourced Enquirer story linking his Cuban immigrant father to Lee Harvey Oswald and the 1963 JFK assassination.

'Not interested in revisiting ancient history,' said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, on a day David Pecker delivered bombshell testimony about a 'deal' with Trump to suppress negative stories and go after Trump rivals in the National Enquirer. Headlines linked his dad to the JFK assassination and claimed he had 'five secret mistresses'

'We mashed the photos and the different picture with Lee Harvard Oswald,' Pecker said, describing an infamous black and white cover photo showing Rafael Cruz standing next to Oswald. 'We mashed the two together.'

'That's how that story was prepared — created, I would say,' he testified.

Cruz, who ripped the stories at the time as a 'smear' directed by Trump's 'henchmen,' brushed the matter off when asked about the new testimony,

'Not interested in revisiting ancient history,' he told reporters in the Capitol.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo asked Pecker – who says Trump introduced him to Cohen in 2015 and made an arrangement to suppress stories that could be damaging to Trump – who was the 'we' Cohen was speaking about when asking him to run a story. 

'I assumed he was talking to Mr Trump,' he said.

Pecker said Cohen often simply mentioned 'the boss,' which he took as a reference to Trump. 

Prosecutors read aloud Enquirer headlines that took on Trump's Republican rivals

Another story covered a patient's complaint about former presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson

The paper also ran reports alleging Cruz carried on affairs. He furiously denied the claims at the time

'Donald, you're a sniveling coward, and leave Heidi the hell alone,' Cruz said in 2016

Prosecutors read aloud Enquirer headlines tearing into Trump rivals. 

‘Bungling surgeon Ben Carson left sponge in patient’s brain’, read one story, which took on Carson as he was orienting his campaign around his life story to rise from poverty to become a top surgeon.

'Had Ben Carson been gaining in popularity in the polls then?' asked prosecutor Matthew Colangelo.

'Yes,' Pecker replied. 'Were these headlines run in accordance with your agreement stuck in Trump Tower in 2015?' the prosecutor followed up. 'Yes.'

'Ted Cruz Sex Scandal - 5 Secret Mistresses,' said another. 

'Ted Cruz Shamed By Porn Star,' said one headline read in court. 'Perv Ted Cruz Caught Cheating,' was another.

Trump allies in the Senate, including some who were themselves once Trump critics, also brushed off the new information.

'Am I concerned that an American presidential candidate used the media to criticize his opponents? No,' Ohio Republican Sen. J.D. Vance told DailyMail.com. 

'When you play at this level, sometimes people say mean things about you in the press, and that's just the price of doing business,' he said. 

''I don't know anything about it,' 2016 Trump rally Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told DailyMail.com. 'I've paid zero attention – I think the whole trial's a bunch of bull****,' he added.

The attacks on Trump rivals were just part of the arrangement. Suppressing potentially damaging stories about Trump – including claims by former Playboy model Karen McDougal – were another. 

Pecker described a 'highly confidential' deal with Cohen that he briefed to editor Dylan Howard. 

‘I said any stories that are out there about Donald Trump, his family, the election, whatever it might be. I want you to vet the stories, I want you to bring them to me,' Pecker recalled saying during his testimony.

'We’ll have to speak to Michael Cohen. You’ll call him or I will, and we’ll tell him what the stories are.’

Sometimes the hit pieces were linked to rivals' rising status against Trump, according to Pecker.

'After the Republican debates and based on some of the success some of the candidates had I would receive a call from Michael Cohen, and he would direct me on which candidate and which direction we should go. That’s the process,' he said. 

Cruz's low key reaction Tuesday contrasts with his fury in the final days of his primary campaign. 

At the time Cruz called the report about his Cuban-born father a 'garbage story in a tabloid full of garbage' while also dismissing the report claiming he had five affairs.

'It is a tabloid smear, and it is a smear that has come from Donald Trump and his henchmen,' he said.