CLEVELAND — Republican presidential runner-up Ted Cruz pointedly refused to say he would vote for Donald Trump, and said his pledge to support the GOP nominee was broken when Donald Trump attacked Cruz’s wife and family.
Before a rowdy and divided Texas delegation, Cruz attempted to explain his decision not to endorse Trump during his speech at the Republican National Convention. Cruz noted that he did not offer a negative word about Trump during his speech at the convention, and said he wouldn’t criticize the nominee going forward, but many of the Texans — including Cruz delegates — were furious at their senator.
When Cruz took questions from the delegation, Geraldine Sam, a Cruz delegate and former mayor of La Marque, chastised Cruz for reneging on his pledge to support the GOP nominee.
“I am one of your delegates, senator. I supported you. And I expected you to keep your word and say that your word is your bond,” Sam said to loud applause. She then said he shouldn’t have signed the pledge if he didn’t intend to follow through and turned her back on Cruz and walked away before he offered a response.
“When I stood on that debate stage,” Cruz replied, “and they asked every candidate there if you don’t win, will you support the nominee, I raised my hand and I raised my hand enthusiastically with full intention of doing exactly that.” He explained: “And I’ll tell you the day that pledge was abdicated. The day that was abdicated was the day this became personal.”
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said. “And the pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I am going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my family.'”
Another attendee asked Cruz, “Are you going to vote for Trump?” Cruz declined to say yes. “I am watching. I am listening,” for which candidate will best defend the Constitution. “I can tell you, I am not voting for Hillary Clinton,” Cruz said to loud cheers.
Sam was not satisfied. Outside the ballroom where Cruz spoke, she blasted Cruz as a liar for his failure to back Trump. She entered the convention as a Cruz delegate, left it backing Trump, and said she expected the senator to do the same.
“I think that he has damaged himself by not being a man of his word,” Sam said, her eyes welling with tears. “When you find out that a person is a liar and not standing up for what they are supposed to be standing up for, then you lose all respect for that person. And guess what? This time, I love him, I wish him well, I wish his family well, I wish everybody well, but I lost respect for him.”
Cruz was speaking in a hotel ballroom at the delegation breakfast, typically a tame affair. Each of the other half-dozen speakers pleaded with delegates to support Trump despite their disagreements with him. Cruz’s remarks were a dramatic departure.
The delegates were visibly divided. Cruz’s comments at times elicited cheers from some Texans but glowers from others. Delegates generally applauded Ted Cruz, and Cruz received a handful of standing ovations, but many Texans in the room criticized his refusal to get behind Trump.
“This is more important than Ted Cruz,” Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling told the Examiner just before Cruz entered the conference room. “It’s more important than Donald Trump. It’s the future of the republic. If you care about freedom, if you care about free enterprise, if you care about the lot of the common man, we have no option, no option but to come together and unify. I’m sorry Ted didn’t get there last night.”
Some delegates wholeheartedly defended Cruz. “These people don’t want Hillary Clinton as president,” said Cruz delegate Randall Dunning. “They really don’t. But they also don’t want to be beaten into submission.”
“There a lot of people in this room who couldn’t even utter the words ‘I endorse Donald Trump,’ delegate Sondra Ziegler, vice chairman of the Lubbock County GOP, said from the podium near the end of the breakfast. “Ted Cruz articulated a way forward for conservatives” opposed to Trump, Ziegler said, pleading with delegates to understand Cruz. “I can’t pick up the pompoms for Donald Trump.”
The Trump campaign knew days before that Cruz wouldn’t endorse Trump, Cruz said. And they had the text of his speech hours ahead of time. They could have disinvited him, they said.
Cruz also noted he spoke at the convention Wednesday night because Trump asked him too, even though he would rather not have done so. He said the easiest thing for him to do would have been to skip traveling to Cleveland altogether, but he felt obliged to offer remarks.
“This isn’t just a team sport, we don’t just put on red jerseys or blue jerseys and ‘yay!'” Cruz said. “This is about principles and ideals.”
Cruz said no matter how much Trump supporters want to him to acquiesce and pantomime an endorsement of Trump, he would not do it.
“The politically easy option is to pledge your allegiance to whoever the party nominee might be no matter what,” Cruz said. “And I’m going to tell you something sir, I’m not going to lie to you. Whether you want me to or not, I’m not going to lie to you.”
He also blasted the Trump voters’ reaction to his speech at the convention, which he said foreshadowed near certain defeat.
“What does it say when you stand up and say ‘vote your conscience’ and rabid supporters of our nominee begin screaming ‘what a horrible thing to say?'” Cruz said. “If we can’t make the case to the American people that voting for our party’s nominee is consistent with voting your conscience, is consistent with defending freedom and being faithful to the Constitution, then we are not going to win and we do not deserve to win.”
Cruz added that he thought former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s attempt to paraphrase his remarks as painting Trump as preferable to Hillary Clinton were accurate.
On the question of party unity, Cruz said, “It’s not a club. We either stand for shared principles, or it’s not worth anything.”
But Cruz did not complete his interaction with the Lone StarSstate’s delegation without a shot at Trump that questioned the nominee’s level of interaction with Republican voters.
“Can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters answering questions like this?” Cruz asked.
A chorus of Texans shouted back, “No.”
