Trump’s tirade came after Cruz snubbed him in a prime-time speech at the Republican National Convention, withholding his endorsement and later telling delegates he wasn’t inclined to support the nominee after the billionaire’s attacks on Cruz’s family. He was imitating, picking up Trump’s positions.
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Yet, on the final night of the convention, Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation as he pledged to take back a country that he said is plagued by crime, terrorism and ineffective leadership. But it is clear he’ll need more than that if he is to end his four days in the spotlight achieving more good than harm.
Speaking to the New York Times, Mr Trump said the U.S. would only come to the aid of allies if they fulfilled their obligations to America. “And his answer – more fear, more division, more anger, more hate – was yet another reminder that he is temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be President of the United States”, the Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta said in a statement. “There’s only one group where the only reason they are here is to cause disruption, chaos and damaging property, but we are keeping tabs on them”, Williams said.
A day after accepting the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump pivoted back to the GOP primaries on Friday, choosing to re-litigate a pair of months-old battles with rival Ted Cruz. “None of us could have predicted the records he would break, the stadiums he would fill, the movement he would start”, Eric Trump said.
The candidate himself tweeted: “No big deal!” Ted Cruz was loudly booed by the crowd Wednesday when he refused to endorse his former primary rival.
Beyond that, the two men have a history of animosity. It’s a clusterfuck because the Trump campaign has made it so.
What should have been the best moment of the first night – an otherwise solid speech by Trump’s wife Melania – blew up in Trump’s face when it emerged that she’d plagiarized key sections from Michelle Obama’s 2008 Democratic National Convention speech. Whether they saw the speech ahead of time or not, they had to know that Cruz was going to be up to something in his speech. “There were some mixed feelings and some hurt feelings in the Texas delegation today”, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, an ardent Cruz supporter who chaired his Texas campaign. On the convention stage, however, Cruz did what he always has. “I am going to be listening to how he and his campaign will conduct themselves every day from now until November”. He said he’ll vote for the “candidate I trust to defend our freedom and be faithful to the Constitution”. He insisted he would not be a “servile puppy dog”, especially after Trump’s criticism of his wife and father. But it also comes as the media has moved on to Hillary Clinton’s impending selection of a running-mate, and ensures Trump will remain in the news through the weekend. Mr. Cruz should at the very least stand by a proven conservative leader like Mr. Pence, but he did not even mention him in his speech.
He told Inside Edition the Trump family was “disapointed” with Cruz, adding: “Senator Cruz signed the same pledge all the other candidates did”.
“Ronald Reagan would be ashamed”, he said.
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“It is fair to assume that Vladimir Putin is rooting for a Trump presidency”, said Jake Sullivan, a senior Clinton policy adviser. “And that a very left-leaning Ginsburg clone is put on the Supreme Court next spring because I couldn’t bring myself to support Donald Trump”. But his economic proposals Thursday night were vague, centering on unspecified plans to create millions of jobs. Though some seats in the Quicken Loans Arena were still empty, it was far fuller than it had been earlier this week.
