Trump spoke two days after Republican delegates booed the Texas senator off the stage at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland when it became clear Cruz would not endorse the party’s candidate. On Wednesday, Cruz shocked the convention hall in a speech in which he failed to endorse Trump. “In that speech last night I did not say a single negative word about Donald Trump”, Cruz said.
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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”.
Trump’s past statements on women in the workplace have included calling pregnancy “an inconvenience” and telling a voter in New Hampshire previous year that women will receive the same pay as men “if they do as good a job”.
Clinton, who is expected to be formally nominated by her party at its convention in Philadelphia next week, has led Trump most of the year in the poll. The Iowa congressman added that Cruz “wrote a speech that was created to bring it to a quiet, thoughtful close, and he didn’t get to do that”.
Mike Pence, making his first appearance in Cleveland since being named Donald Trump’s running mate, tried to reassure Republicans nervous about the celebrity businessman’s conservative credentials by vouching for his character and comparing him to Ronald Reagan. But the GOP nominee spent most of the news conference pounding Cruz, who finished second to Trump in a bruising primary campaign that began as a field of 17.
But don’t look for Trump to change much now that he’s the nominee. The likely candidate is Kaine who, not coincidentally, comes from an important swing state. He brought up old feuds with Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich.
“Then when I saw somebody tweeted a picture of Melania and a picture of Heidi who I think, by way, is a very nice woman and a very handsome woman”, said Trump.
And Cruz wasn’t the only subject of Trump’s post-RNC scorn Friday. “They knew exactly what I was going to say”, Cruz said at Thursday’s breakfast meeting.
“I love children”, he responded at the time. The ad was put out by a PAC with no official ties to the Cruz campaign, but Trump said Friday that he doesn’t buy that.
Ms Trump’s influence with her father is nearly unrivalled in their family. Trump mentioned the story in multiple interviews, clearly angering Cruz. Trump even said we needed to get beyond the “petty politics of the past”. “If he gives it, I will not accept it, just so you understand”.
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“This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton – death, destruction and weakness”, he said, in one of the speech’s darker lines.
