Donald Trump’s children (left to right): Donald Trump Jr, Ivanka Trump, Eric Trump, Eric Trump’s wife Lara Yunaska and Tiffany Trump, celebrate after announcing the votes of the NY delegation to put their father over the top to win the Republican presidential nomination during the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland on Tuesday. The crowd booed as he ended his speech and Trump entered the arena.
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Cruz said he Trump never asked for his endorsement and that he told Trump hours in advance of the speech that he would not be offering a formal endorsement, prompting a member of the audience to yell, “Why not?”
Other reporters at the convention also said that they saw Heidi Cruz being ushered out amid heckling from the crowd.
Much of the day has been dominated by speculation about whether Cruz would endorse Trump, a man who once tweeted an unflattering picture of the Texas senator’s wife during the campaign and frequently referred to him as, “Lyin’ Ted”.
The gathering’s open secret was that Cruz came to audition for 2020 – an ambition that largely counts on Trump losing this year and leaving an open field for the next election. Most speakers used a portion of their time on stage to confirm their confidence in Trump instead of Clinton.
As in: “And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November”. “Stand and speak and vote your conscience”. The campaign struggled to respond to plagiarism charges involving Melania Trump’s Monday night address, finally releasing a statement Wednesday from a speechwriter who took blame for including lines from a Michelle Obama speech in the remarks.
As in: “We’re fighting, not for one particular candidate or one campaign, but because each of us wants to be able to tell our kids and grandkids … that we did our best for their future and for our country”.
The Trump campaign is hoping Pence, a staunch social conservative who spent more than a decade on Capitol Hill, will help unify the party behind his candidacy. “Anything you can do in your dreams, you can do now, ‘” Spicer said. Not so for Colorado delegate Kendal Unruh, a leader of the outmaneuvered anti-Trump contingent, who said it’s time to “cancel the convention, stop the sham”, and who warned Trump might run into a “show of displeasure” in his acceptance speech ending the convention Thursday night.
The crowd continued to boo loudly as Cruz left the stage at the end of his speech. But it was a bitter primary fight, and the degree to which Cruz would offer support to Trump in his speech was one of the most anticipated moments of the convention. Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who will uphold the Constitution.
And candidates are fully aware that the insults they hurl in campaigns will remain alive into the next election cycles.
John Kasich, governor of OH, which is hosting the convention, continued to stay away and his state’s delegates cheered every vote he picked up during the roll-call on the floor.
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The stunning political theater between the top two contenders in the Republican primary race blew open divisions in the party that the convention is created to heal, and suggested Cruz believes Trump will lose in November. He finished a distant second in the delegate accumulation during the Republican nominating process. And when Donald Trump does his talking, he doesn’t tiptoe around the thousand new rules of political correctness.
