When the vice presidential nominee spoke later in the night, he opened by admitting he didn’t have the same flash as the billionaire businessman.
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Lawmakers backing Trump who have worked with Cruz in the Senate, or have watched his career in Congress, say Cruz’s move Thursday evening was hardly surprising or out of character. One delegate yelled “Goldman Sachs!” at her – a reference to the company that has employed her, a job that Mr Trump attacked during the primaries.
From there, Pence offered the most robust case for Trump so far at the convention. “But this week with this united party, he’s got backup!”
This kiss between Donald Trump and Mike Pence was very uncomfortable. “He’s a doer in a game usually reserved for talkers”, the vice presidential nominee continued. Specifically the New Yorker retweeted a meme of his own wife, Melania, and Ms Cruz, that was clearly meant to be an unflattering comparison. “Where else would an independent spirit like his find a following than in the land of the free and the home of the courageous?”
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who have attacked my wife and attacked my father”, Cruz defiantly said.
Ted Cruz’s speech during the third night of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Wednesday, July 20, 2016. Mr Trump tweeted afterwards that Mr Cruz had broken a pledge that the losing candidate would endorse the nominee. That may have happened, but other important speakers, namely Pence, got completely lost in the shuffle.
Cruz’s wife had to be escorted from the hall because Trump supporters were in the words of one politician “approaching in a threatening manner”.
“Now I think you misunderstood one paragraph that Ted Cruz, who is a superb orator, said, and I just want to point it out to you, Ted Cruz said you can vote your conscience for anyone who will uphold the Constitution”.
The big problem is that the main thing nominating conventions accomplish in the post McGovern-Fraser era (the reforms implemented in 1972 that required delegates to be picked in primaries and caucuses) is to unite the party behind the nominee. Instead, Cruz declined to endorse his primary-season rival, magnifying the divisions among Republicans as Trump prepares to take on Hillary Clinton in the fall.
“I don’t know what the future is going to hold”.
“I decided I was going to speak to him, and relay the anger that we all felt”, she said.
Yet for Cruz politics is at the heart of the matter as he eyes another run for president in 2020. “The consequences are too great”.
Mrs. Trump gave a moving speech to the convention Monday night, highlighting a personal side of her husband that many people have never seen.
The invitation to attend the convention came directly from Trump when the two met in Washington recently. “He put himself above party unity, appearing self-centered”.
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Donald Trump Jr. said there’s been some “back and forth” between both camps about a potential endorsement from Cruz, who dropped out of the presidential race in early May.
