Tuesday night it was a virtual appearance, live from NY thanking delegates for awarding him the party’s presidential nomination.
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Speaking to the convention for the first time since winning the nomination, Trump appeared on a video screen from NY promising to win the election in November, create jobs, strengthen the military, safeguard U.S. borders and “restore law and order” in the United States. Wednesday brings two conservative stalwarts to the stage – running mate and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Trump’s most tenacious primary opponent, Texas Sen.
“Don’t stay in home in November”, Cruz said towards the end of his otherwise very well-received speech.
New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, who has been at odds with Trump, led her state delegation on the floor to vote for Trump, but had someone else make the formal announcement.
There are two big things to unpack in one little retort.
Either way, as the 2016 Republican National Convention nears its end, Cruz’s confrontation with the party’s delegates was a striking reminder that all is not well in this party – and the gathering that was meant to heal old wounds has found them ripped open anew.
Trump blamed Cruz for an anti-Trump ad including a nude photo of Melania – a charge Cruz denied.
“Congratulations, Dad. We love you”, he said.
Cruz, his party’s runner-up, uttered Trump’s name just once – to congratulate him – and instead pitched the ideological brand of conservatism that endears him to the GOP’s base.
He also took a swipe at the media, which he has repeatedly alleged is biased against him and favors Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who herself has recently been mired in an e-mail scandal. “We have to do better. We owe our fallen heroes more than that”. He said Cruz did not honor the pledge that Republican primary candidates had made to support the eventual nominee.
“I can’t move on because you keep lying”, Cuomo said. Ralph Alvarado, who delivered part of his speech in Spanish, and Lynne Patton, vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation.
Earlier in the night, longtime Cruz adviser Jason Johnson suggested Trump had known what was coming for much longer. “Now, when Trump is your candidate, there’s nothing lower than that!”
“There was a delegate who said she should be shot for treason”, he continued.
“This was my mistake and I feel bad for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as Mrs. Obama”.
“You know what I call those?” he asked. “He didn’t need to say that”.
Cruz did not back down from his non-endorsement on Thursday, saying that “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father”. As my friend Terry Teachout once pointed out to me, highlighting as few as seven words of your own writing, and searching them in Google surrounded by quotation marks, to restrict the search to exact matches, is likely to produce exactly one hit: your work. That search returned no hits when I searched it Monday morning, and will return exactly one after this column is published. ” ‘I have a dream.’ Just words?”
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The campaign is calling the event A Family and Friends Welcome.
