“That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go ahead and attack Heidi that I’m going to come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father'”.
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Ted Cruz defended his speech at the Republican National Convention and again refused to endorse Donald Trump because of attacks the nominee made on the senator’s family during the primary, The Washington Post reports. That’s code for “don’t support the nominee”.
Facing his home state delegation over breakfast, Cruz was met with alternating choruses of cheers and shouts of disapproval from the crowd clad in Texas flag shirts and cowboy hats.
But at the more private event, Duffy, of Wisconsin, was striking a much different tone, speaking candidly about how hard it is to hold your nose and vote for Trump. “But you know what?”
All these words were broadsides against Donald Trump’s candidacy. What I wanted to do last night was lay out principles I believe we should stand for as Republicans. Each time, Cruz pivoted to a different line of critique. Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out of the convention center because a mob of Trump fans was threatening her. A man in a donor suite had to be restrained when Cruz walked by. All that talk about the Constitution offended Trump’s fans because they know well that the candidate has little, if any, interest in preserving the document.
Throughout his session, Cruz was heckled by members of his own delegation. “I support Donald Trump because we must defeat Hillary Clinton in November”. Despite his earlier promise not to criticize Trump, he decried Trump supporters who at the convention have been “blindly chanting a name and yelling down dissenters”. To boot, Trump also snuffed out any lingering coverage of the Melania Trump plagiarism story with a plateful of drama that cable producers are absolutely devouring. Cruz (R-Texas) – whom Trump defeated in the Republican presidential primary – declined to endorse the businessman, instead calling on people to “vote your conscience”, a move that drew jeers from the audience.
On the question of not endorsing Trump, Cruz remarked, “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father”, Cruz said.
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Annie Dickerson, an adviser to Republican megadonor Paul Singer and a delegate from NY, said, “I’ve been at these conventions since 1980”. Let’s just say this is the sort of risk aversion that falls well within the normal parameters of politically expedient behavior-the kind we all supposedly hate. “This was my mistake, and I feel bad for the chaos I have caused Melania and the Trumps, as well as to Mrs. Obama”, McIver said. I will tell the truth, I will not malign, I will not insult, I will not attack, I will tell the truth. It is not politics. “Right and wrong matters”.
