Amanda Carpenter, former communications director for Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore], described her relationship with him as “purely professional.”

In an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead” on Tuesday, Carpenter said, “I’m stuck in this box where I am forced to try to defend every smear that comes after me, my husband, my children, online or suffer in silence.”

The National Enquirer alleged in an anonymously sourced story that Carpenter was one of five women who have had affairs with Cruz.

Tapper asked Carpenter, “Have you had ever any sort of intimate relationship with Sen. Cruz, Anything at all? Anything that could be considered inappropriate?”

Carpenter, who is now a CNN political commentator replied, “No, I had a purely professional relationship with Sen. Cruz. And I want too go further than that. I have been 100 percent faithful to my husband. There’s nothing more important to me than being a good wife and a good mother and it’s been very hard the past few days to have my character called into question and watch this blow back on them. So thank you for having me here to talk about it. And I hope no one else has to go through this.”

Following up, Tapper said, “This video that [the Trump campaign social media director] put out, the Trump campaign was pushing, it appears to show him not wearing a sports jacket and then like you’re wearing a sports jacket or something. I don’t really understand it. Did you understand it? Can you explain what they’re trying to say?”

“It’s conspiracy theories being pushed online,” Carpenter said. “I can’t fathom why the Trump campaign would be doing this. No other campaign would touch this sort of stuff. It’s really conspiracy theory. They’re looking at every picture I’ve ever put out in my Instagram, rummaging through my personal life to find any kind of connection to me and this immoral behavior.”

“I don’t want to run away from this. I want to address it but at the the same time, the hardest thing about doing this is defending myself but not making it worse,” Carpenter said. “It’s a weird conundrum that I’ve found myself in and so many other women who have to confront the sexist smears.”

“You have to remember, I was one of five women chosen at random it seems by the National Enquirer. They put a barely pixilated image of me in their paper that everyone could quickly identify largely because I am fortunate to have a good media platform.”

“And so I just want to encourage everyone to look at the broader context of the campaign. There is a toxic culture being produced this season and I think we all need to recognize what’s happening, look at the facts and go into this with our eyes wide open and be unafraid to confront it.”

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