“Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who can uphold the Constitution”.
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Booed for failing to endorse Mr Trump, though he did congratulate the businessman on winning the nomination. Quicken Loans Arena erupted in boos and passionate Trump delegates went apoplectic.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of Cruz and Trump’s 2016 rivals, fully endorsed Trump in his speech, but declined to criticize the Texas senator for his non-endorsement.
Cruz also told one of the delegates that moving forward, he’d suggest that Trump listen to his speech to understand how to move forward, as he outlined his criteria in his convention speech. He thought that what Cruz said – even without an explicit endorsement – more or less amounted to an expression of support.
Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, who came to the Senate in 2014 as the first female combat veteran in the chamber, was a headliner on the convention’s first night – though her speech got pushed out of prime time – and spoke to the New Hampshire delegation as well as her own.
As it became obvious no endorsement was in the works, the delegates from NY seated front and center on the convention floor began to boo.
“It’s like a slow crawl”, former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said of the unity drive as he made the rounds at the convention. “You’re kind of doing it”.
But nearly from the start there were blatant signs of party disunity. Well, as recently as a few weeks ago, 48 percent of Republicans wanted the delegates at the RNC to somehow deny Trump the GOP presidential nomination.
OK, let’s leave aside the question of whether Cruz’s refusal to endorse Trump onstage was kosher. His remarks were a reminder of the sort of insults that many Republicans had hoped would disappear after a brutal primary season that was characterized by Trump’s often personal attacks on his opponents. At the same time hundreds stood to applaud the runner-up who refused to roll over for Donald Trump.
“Pence is arguably about the best Trump could do”, said Michael Tomasky, editor of Democracy, a quarterly liberal journal. Ryan asked thousands of convention attendees on Tuesday night. It was the biggest applause line of his speech – delegates cheered, clapped and waved signs.
Trump further pledged to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico unless they negotiate new terms that include discouraging USA companies from moving their operations out of the country. “What a jerk!” a delegate standing behind me screamed.
It sets up a huge night Thursday, when Trump faces the challenge of sending the audience soaring while also reaching a TV audience that includes the women, Latinos and more who he’ll need to win in November. “They didn’t vote for him”, the New York Republican told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota Wednesday on “New Day”. If Trump wins, Cruz may wind up on the wrong side of the president’s lovely new wall.
Later, senator Ted Cruz, who lost the race to be the presidential nominee, was booed off the stage – and his wife, Heidi, had to be escorted from the floor over fears for her safety – after he failed to endorse Mr Trump.
“If we’re not going to do that, why do we have elections?”
A convention source had told NPR’s Domenico Montanaro before Cruz’s speech that the campaign expected “severe blowback” when the Texas senator withheld a Trump endorsement. He then proceeded to ignore the nominee through the rest of his speech, instead encouraging his legion of fans within the party to focus on fighting for their principles.
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“He needs to do one thing and one thing only in Cleveland, and that’s make a really good acceptance speech and a persuasive acceptance speech”, said Charlie Black, a longtime Republican strategist who has worked on multiple conventions and supported Ohio Governor John Kasich in primary campaign. Not all of the 51 percent of Republicans who felt otherwise were enthusiastic about the prospect of a Trump candidacy either.
