Two nights later, Trump delegates booed and cat-called Cruz when the Texas senator pointedly refused to endorse the party nominee during a prime-time speech.
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Given that Trump won the plurality of the primary vote and most of the states – getting more votes than any candidate in Republican primary history – denying Trump would be undemocratic.
Before a television audience of tens of millions, the bombastic billionaire will have to prove to the American people that he is worthy of the White House and capable of being commander-in-chief.
And though Trump has secured the nomination – awaiting only his formal acceptance tonight – it’s not as if Cruz’s misgivings about the candidate have been absent from the convention.
California delegate Shawn Steel said Ivanka Trump’s speech was “the high point of the entire convention for me”.
Ted Cruz did exactly the right thing Wednesday night. How could they let him do his best to humiliate the party’s newly minted nominee?
Cruz was alluding to the bitter final weeks of the primary fight, when Trump essentially declared Heidi Cruz unattractive on Twitter and floated a conspiracy theory that Cruz’s father, Rafael Cruz, was complicit in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
When another Texas man shouted to ask whether he would even vote for Trump, he said merely, “I’m not voting for Hillary”.
More boos could be heard on the floor of the convention as Cruz left the stage. But he later said Cruz did not honor the pledge that Republican primary candidates had made to support the eventual nominee.
Instead he lived up to the “Lying Ted” label Trump had hung on him by weaseling out of the pledge he’d made to support the primary victor.
In claiming party unity during Friday’s informal remarks, Trump said “we may be missing a couple of people”, but overall the Republicans are behind him.
As conventions go, this one has been chaos.
In naming Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate, Trump had tried to smooth hard relations with conservatives and unite the party. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump received the number of votes needed to secure the party’s nomination. And during his speech that evening, he mentioned Trump only once – in connection with his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who is popular among the party’s establishment. “I feel so badly”, he continued.
Cruz then signaled to a man in the back of the room.
Meanwhile, a string of Republican speakers savaged his Democratic opponent, describing Clinton as a liar who should be jailed. The Trump campaign would struggle to arrange a two-car funeral. Voters are overwhelmingly rejecting the political establishment, and overwhelmingly rejecting big government.
Pence told Fox News that a Trump administration would tell USA allies “the time has come for them and for their citizens to begin to carry the financial costs of these global obligations”.
The GOP presidential nominee told ABC’s “Good Morning America” Thursday that he appreciated Meredith McIver’s apology. He vowed to continue to do the right thing “whether or not it is politically helpful or convenient”.
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The most unifying aspect of the convention has been savage assaults on Clinton, portraying her as a criminal and a liar who should be jailed, with cries of “lock her up, lock her up”. His explicitly transphobic campaign ran our country’s first anti-trans ad for president of the United States.
