Donald Trump says people who want a conservative justice to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court have no choice but to vote for him.
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After Trump attacked Heidi Cruz and insinuated that Rafael Cruz was somehow connected to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Texas senator said he would not “go like a servile puppy dog” and endorse the Republican nominee.
For all the Cruz move suggested a fractured party at the convention, though, reports indicated that it may have unified more of the delegates behind Trump. As a writer, I find plagiarism to be pretty offensive, but I can also understand how this particular mistake might have happened to her – not by her.
He also praised the “unity” the convention created despite the floor fight over the convention’s roll call and the loud boos that Ted Cruz received when he declined to endorse Trump in his convention speech.
Turning to his campaign manager, Jeff Roe, Cruz said, “Jeff, did you email them to fly the plane right when I said that?” Refusing to endorse Trump doesn’t make Cruz a “coward” or, in the words of alleged human Ann Coulter, “a little bitch”; it makes Cruz the last man in the state of OH who has any idea what the hell is going on.
Attendees literally booed Cruz offstage when he pointedly refused to endorse Trump during his 20-minute speech, exhorting Republicans to “vote your conscience” (a phrase quickly picked up by the Clinton campaign). They knew exactly what I was going to say.
After the private Thursday morning delegation discussion, in which several people spoke, Cuccinelli did his best to maintain a positive tone while briefing reporters in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in the Cleveland suburb of Strongsville.
“I won’t be talking negative about Trump going forward”, he promised.
The election, he said, is “about principles and ideals and about standing for what we believe in”.
It was somewhat dismaying, he said, that apparently some of Donald’s biggest partisan supporters, when they heard him say people should vote for someone they trust and they know will defend the Constitution, they immediately began booing. “I am proud to be gay, I am proud to be a Republican, but most of all I am proud to be an American”. I’m watching, I’m listening. But when it was discovered her remarks repeated lines from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama, the wife of the Democratic president, the uproar lasted for three days. Trump branded Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and insulted his wife during the primaries, but Cruz accepted Trump’s invitation to speak Wednesday in Cleveland. “I can tell you I’m not voting for Hillary”. “Ted, stay home. Relax”.
Donald Trump conjured a dire picture Thursday of an America sliding deeper into poverty, violence and corruption and declared himself the only person who could avert disaster.
“Together, we will lead our party back to the White House”, he told the giant sports arena in Cleveland, vowing to get tough faced with the recent shootings and attacks that have rocked the country. Cruz made a quick quip about cantankerous New Yorkers and forged on. “Well offer a positive vision for the future based on lifting America up, not tearing Americans down”, he added.
His address barely touched on the issue of Republican disunity that plagued much of the 2016 convention – culminating in Cruz’s dramatic speech Wednesday.
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Yet, indisputably, regardless of how it all affects Trump’s candidacy, the drama gave die-hard politics junkies exactly what a television executive may hope for: a jaw-dropping spectacle from which you can’t look away.
