“Endorse!” King said, recounting the moment Cruz spoke to the Republican National Convention. “No big deal!” Earlier in the campaign season, Cruz vowed to back the eventual nominee. “If this was all for politics, none of this would happen”. “Many have witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims”, Trump said.
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Trump needed a strong performance on Thursday night to improve his chances of getting a boost in opinion polls as Democrats prepare for their own, more scripted convention next week in Philadelphia. Thousands of supporters who were gathered in the convention hall roared their approval.
Closing the four-day convention in Cleveland, Trump pledged that as president he’ll end crime and violence around the country, and said he would speak for those who don’t feel they are heard by government. He also will come up for reelection to the Senate in 2018.
The address, according to CSPAN, was the longest acceptance speech in modern convention history.
Ivanka Trump, the daughter of GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, cast her father as a “fighter” for working people, particularly working women, in her remarks to the Republican National Convention Thursday night. “If you love Trump, you saw it as a betrayal. America is better than Donald Trump”.
“I think he will be a force to be reckoned with in 2020”.
None of the controversy seemed to bother Cruz on Thursday.
Former 2016 presidential hopeful Sen. Trump purposefully arrived in the arena midway through Cruz’s speech, and stood, glowering at him, as the endorsement pointedly didn’t come. Which version are we to believe is real?
“The day that was abrogated was the day this became personal”, he said. Asked point-blank if he would vote for Mr. Trump, Mr. Cruz responded that he is still watching and listening to the campaign. Some booed and shouted at him, and pro-Cruz and anti-Cruz delegates yelled at each other.
It was as if the Texas senator had taken out a contract on himself. Trump won the primary by running on these issues while other candidates hewed to well-worn “establishment” or “conservative” paradigms, and identifying a coalition of Republican primary voters whose hard-line views on immigration combined with economic populism had not found an outlet with the other candidates.
“That’s right”, a woman said. On world affairs he said, “America is far less safe and the world is far less stable than it was when President Obama made the decision to put Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy”.
But that did little to appease them.
“So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m with you, and I will fight for you, and I will win for you”. The choice of music played at the convention and its association with Trump also angered another musician, for the second time this week. In his speech, the Texas Republican defiantly urged delegates to “vote your conscience”, which thrilled the #NeverTrumpers but infuriated a vast majority of the GOP convention delegates. “He is color-blind and gender-neutral”, she said.
But Trump’s staff and supporters sounded a very different note publicly.
“Cruz used very bad judgment. He understood what the responsibilities are of somebody in his position, and he didn’t meet them”. Trump understands the value of relating to voters.
For months, the two were unusually close for primary rivals, meeting at Trump Tower and appearing at a rally together.
Tonight Trump will finally claim the Republican Party nomination, even if the party hasn’t quite claimed him.
The Trump family in the VIP box was stony-faced. And much of it was available to the press and public hours before he delivered it. A Republican staffer leaked it to the pro-Clinton group Correct the Record, just one in a series of snafus in a week Trump had hoped would help unify the party and show America that he’s ready to be its commander-in-chief.
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Cruz built a massive grass-roots operation during his presidential campaign, and Roe said that will continue.
