Marco Rubio calls out Ted Cruz for using poorly Photoshopped image of him shaking hands with President Obama

Despite getting lambasted for his own media mishaps, Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio is on the attack after coming across a Photoshopped image being used by Ted Cruz’s campaign to show Rubio shaking hands with President Barack Obama.

Using a microsite titled The Real Rubio Record, Cruz’s campaign team attempted to call out Rubio for being buds with Obama using an obviously Photoshopped image, seen above, with the words ‘The Rubio-Obama Trade Pact’ overlaid on it, a nod to the support Rubio showed for the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

In response to the image, Rubio advisor Todd Harris told reporters in South Carolina, where the next caucus will be held, that ‘this is how phony and deceitful the Cruz campaign has become,’ a scene depicted in the image below.

Rubio camp's @dtoddharris w/photoshopped of Rubio/Obama, slamming Cruz camp as "dishonest from top to bottom." pic.twitter.com/GD1uULORcU

— Sabrina Siddiqui (@SabrinaSiddiqui) February 18, 2016

In response to the image, CNN reporter Teddy Schleifer said that Cruz’s campaign denied the image was photoshopped stating, ‘I am confident that our campaign would not use a photo that is not authentic.’

That position wasn’t held long though.

A mere half-hour later, Cruz’s Senior Communications Advisor Rick Tyler gave a non-admittal response to CNN saying, ‘If Rubio has a better picture of him shaking hands with Barack Obama I’m happy to swap it out […] Two days before presidential primary in South Carolina, they want to talk about a picture we used.’

In other words, we’ll deflect the question in hopes it doesn’t get brought back up.

It’s the internet though. Nothing ever dies completely. Thus, it wasn’t too much of a surprise when Twitter user Jimmy Princeton shared what appears to be the stock photo used in the composited image. From the looks of it, the image not only swapped out the heads of the two parties and changed the background, but also flipped the image horizontally, which made the right-handed Cruz appear as though he was shaking with his left hand.

I did a quick google search. Is this the stock photo they used? @rickwtyler pic.twitter.com/srY2U0zqtR

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) February 18, 2016

Here are the images side-by-side:

Side by side: pic.twitter.com/mBNj1I5gI2

— Jimmy (@JimmyPrinceton) February 18, 2016

The Photoshopped image has since been taken down and replaced with the image below. Unfortunately, the poor kerning of the text hasn’t been fixed yet.