Robert Costa has outlined how Rafael Cruz, the father of Ted Cruz, could be a force on the campaign trail for his son.

But his unfiltered passion and red hot rhetoric also have the potential to knock a future campaign off message.

New audio from an appearance at a Lincoln Day dinner in Colorado catches Rafael saying “if the winds shift, [Obama] will side with the Muslims.”

A woman yells, “he is a Muslim.”

It’s unclear by listening to the audio, which sounds edited, whether Cruz’s father means John McCain couldn’t call Obama a Muslim because “it wasn’t politically correct.”

He later got back on message proclaiming there are “too many RINOS in the Republican Party,” an acronym referring to “Republicans In Name Only,” and called for primary challenges in order to put more constitutional conservatives in place.

Follow Dave’s blog at TheRun2016.com