“And when Donald asked me to, he didn’t ask me to endorse, and indeed, three days ago I talked on the phone with him and told him I’m not going to endorse you”.
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Ted Cruz, who had a bitter primary campaign against Donald Trump, began his speech saying: “I want to congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night”.
But for Republicans on the floor of the convention Wednesday night listening to Cruz, his decision not to endorse Trump was a huge deal.
The only reference Cruz made to a potential endorsement was when he asked people to vote, according to The Wall Street Journal.
It was an enthusiastic welcome for Ted Cruz at the Republican National Convention.
The campaign’s other Granite State co-chairman, state Rep. Steve Stepanek of Milford, said “I am very disappointed in his speech”.
“A vote for anyone other than Donald Trump in November is a vote for Hillary Clinton”, he said – an offering of support Trump wasn’t counting on earlier in the race.
Pressed on this point Thursday morning at a Texas delegation breakfast, Cruz said that he would not act like a “servile puppy” and support a man who had made personal attacks on his wife and father.
However, he added, “we’re going to unite the party with or without Ted Cruz”. If he did not plan on supporting the eventual nominee, he should have refused to sign the pledge and simply suffered the political ramifications. Trump also took jabs at the appearance of Cruz’s wife, Goldman Sachs executive Heidi Cruz, and the Texas senator responded that Trump is a “sniveling coward” and later “a pathological liar”. “In this election, there is only one candidate who will uphold the constitution”, said Gingrich.
But as Cruz closed his remarks, and as the crowd of more than 2,000 delegates at the Quicken Loans Arena waited for Cruz to say something – anything – kind about Trump, he demurred. “They were booing somebody off the stage who wasn’t 100 percent in lockstep with that message”.
Whitmer said he was sitting next to the Texas delegation during Cruz’s speech “and they were livid when his speech ended”.
“We think it became very clear to everybody that Donald Trump has been very magnanimous in his outreach program – he invited all the presidential candidates who ran” to speak, and “everyone did attend and, in his own way, endorse the ticket”.
“You see this room when people like to make the story and create the dialogue about disunity”, Trump Jr. said.
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The uproar over the withheld endorsement overshadowed well-received speeches by Eric Trump, the nominee’s son, and Governor Mike Pence of IN, the party’s nominee for vice president.
