My colleagues Moe Lane and Sara Gonzales have posts on the ongoing spat between Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

Last week, the tiny but noisy super PAC Make America Awesome ran a Facebook ad, part of a flight of three anti-Trump ads, aimed at social conservatives in Utah:

Liz Mair, a Republican strategist whose anti-Trump super PAC Make America Awesome launched the Facebook campaign last week, said each ad is expected to reach around 10,000 Mormons of voting age a day. The goal is twofold: increase turnout among LDS voters, and urge them to strategically consolidate around Ted Cruz, who is close to the 50% winner-take-all threshold in Utah.

The group is running three ads: one that features Mitt Romney, one that emphasizes Trump’s past support for pro-choice policies, and a third that shows Melania Trump posing nude. The Melania ad, which is by far the most provocative, invites viewers to meet “your next first lady.” Mair said that one is being promoted on Instagram as well, but only to LDS women.

Trump and his flying monkeys have gone bats*** crazy. Liz has received what she believes to be real and credible threats against her and her family causing her to send out this statement earlier today:

“I’m not sure which 1930’s European country Trump’s supporters think they’re living in, but in America, it is not acceptable to respond to three-figure-spend political ads you don’t like by harassing the ad-maker and her family and threatening violence. Donald Trump should publicly urge his supporters to desist from this behavior, though of course, he won’t— he’s repeatedly demonstrated he has no problem with encouraging and defending violence against his political adversaries, including those behaving peacefully. It’s one thing for Trump supporters to routinely lob insults like ‘tranny’ and ‘k*ke’ at Trump opponents like me on Twitter (which has become a hundreds-of-times-a-day occurrence). It’s another to engage in actual harassment and threaten violence, and we fully intend to report all such behavior to the police and press charges, wherever possible— including, where relevant, against anyone demonstrated to be inciting or otherwise aiding such behavior. And for the latter purpose, yes, we intend to scrutinize phone numbers and IP addresses, as our initial view is that this may be an organized effort.”

The irony is that a) Melania Trump got paid for the picture and b) it is nowhere near the nudest or most provocative image starring She Who Would Be First Lady. It is easy to understand why Trump is upset. If you are an elderly, out of shape guy with very tiny hands and you are married to a former supermodel who is about the age of your first set of kids, you have every right to wonder if Raul the pool boy is cleaning more than your pool. On the other hand, even though there is something unseemly about the thought of thousands, maybe tens of thousands, adolescent males masturbating to the image of the First Lady it isn’t like she wasn’t a voluntary participant or that the photo shoots were unknown to Trump. Maybe he should sue anyone who googles “melania trump nude”.

Now, somehow, Trump has gotten the thought into his head that the Cruz campaign is behind it. Naturally, Trump does what any adult who hopes to be president would do, he goes on a Twitter rage.

Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

One really doesn’t know what Trump is talking about in terms of “spilling the beans” here. It could be literally turning over a bowl of beans on Corey Lewandowski’s head in a fit of rage or it could be a Trumpian exposition on Heidi Cruz’s single, limited bout with clinical depression a decade ago, or in could be more of Trump’s Goldman Sachs conspiracy nonsense wherein Cruz taking a loan secured by his brokerage account to finance his Senate campaign has become, again to Trump’s flying monkeys, a symbol of unbridled greed. And when Cruz denied having anything to do with the ad — and by the way, the people running Make America Awesome are NOT Ted Cruz fans, at least one of them has been soft-pushing a scurrilous rumor about Cruz for a couple of months now — which is obvious from the authority line on the ad, Trump came back with this mature, adult response:

Lyin’ Ted Cruz denied that he had anything to do with the G.Q. model photo post of Melania. That’s why we call him Lyin’ Ted!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016

I can’t help it if Melania Trump made a living by taking her clothes off for strangers (NTTAWWT) and that she features in the sexual fantasies of pimply teenage boys but when you do that for a living your husband loses the ability to be offended on your behalf.