Chelsea Clinton Slams Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's Wife Wars

Chelsea Clinton spoke up about Ted Cruz and Donald Trump's feud over their respective wives on Thursday, likening their social media battle to "vitriol and hate speech."

"Well I wouldn't defend anything that Sen. Cruz and Mr. Trump says, or believes in, or stands for," Clinton said at a Wisconsin campaign stop for her mother, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "I think that the level of vitriol goes beyond anything that we certainly have seen in contemporary times in this election, and I think that anyone who is involved in politics."

Her remarks come after Trump's re-Tweet late Wednesday that showed a split-screen meme juxtaposing Mrs. Cruz, a former economic policy adviser and Goldman Sachs investment manager, next to a glamor shot of his own wife Melania.

The photo, which referenced Trump's threat's to "spill the beans" on Heidi after an anti-Trump super PAC reportedly shared a nude photo of Melania, is captioned, "No need to 'spill the beans' the images are worth a thousand words."

Cruz responded with a Tweet of his own, "Donald, real men don't attack women. Your wife is lovely, and Heidi is the love of my life," he wrote after midnight on Thursday.

Clinton dismissed the Republican's back-and-forth, claiming that "the Democratic side continues to both stand up against that type of vitriol … as well as continue to stand for the types of substantive debates that they and certainly Democrats believe we need to be having in this country," Clinton told reporters.