For his part, Cruz told the Texas delegation that “when I addressed the convention, I did it because Trump asked me to, and when he did, he didn’t ask me to endorse him”.
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US Representative Peter T. King, a Long Island Republican, told the New York GOP delegation if Cruz didn’t have “the common decency and goodness to endorse a man who has given you the opportunity to speak on national television in prime time, then that shows he’s a fraud, he’s a liar…” “Like you, I want to see the principles that our party believes in prevail in November”, he said before running through a list of bread-and-butter conservative causes that didn’t include tracking down and forcing all Muslims to register in a national database.
The Texas senator stressed that he did not utter a single negative word about Trump directly, even though he did encourage Republicans to vote their “conscience”, language that originated in the anti-Trump movement. I’m not going to get into criticizing or attacking Donald Trump, but I’ll just give you this response: “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father”.
Trump allies were infuriated, including New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who said Mr Cruz’s decision was “totally selfish”.
Rapert said he supported Cruz and loves him, but the race is over.
“I do think it was a mistake for him to proceed the way he did”, said John Hancock, a Missouri delegate and chairman of the Missouri GOP.
Cruz reaffirmed that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton, and it was unclear whether the Texans confronted him were more than a vocal minority.
Hutchinson said he was disappointed in the speech because he “felt like we were coming together as a party”.
The more cautious strategy would have been to endorse Trump as some others have done this week, because if Trump loses by a small margin, Cruz could find himself with even fewer friends in the party than he has now, as many Republicans would no doubt argue that his personal petulance and anger toward Trump contributed to a narrow loss.
“We think it became very clear to everybody that Donald Trump has been very magnanimous in his outreach program – he invited all the presidential candidates who ran” to speak, and “everyone did attend and, in his own way, endorse the ticket”.
“What does it say when you stand up and say, “Vote your conscience, ‘ and rabid supporters of our nominee begin screaming, ‘What a awful thing to say”?”
Cruz spoke to the convention Wednesday but declined to formally support Trump.
Donald Trump’s campaign came back swinging at Sen.
Ted Cruz hasn’t changed his mind on Donald Trump.
Cruz didn’t tell the convention crowd that he plans to vote for Trump.
Not to be outdone, Trump tweeted that he knew about the speech prior to the address.
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Cruz, speaking over the boos, continued: “The case we have to make to the American people…the case each person in this room has to make to the American people is to commit to each of them that we will defend freedom and be faithful to the Constitution”.
