CLEVELAND — Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said Ted Cruz’s controversial speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday was “the most public suicide note in American history.”
In an interview with the Weekly Standard, which is owned by the Washington Examiner‘s parent company, Krauthammer said he was bewildered by Cruz’s speech.
“Cruz could have given that speech off campus and that would have been a statement of principle,” he said. “But when you accept the invitation of the guy you’re about to take down, even by omission [of his name in the speech], you’ve sort of cross the boundary of, I don’t know, maybe Trump would call it political correctness, or maybe you’ve crossed the boundary of simple elementary manners.”
Krauthammer said he is unable to support Donald Trump as the GOP nominee, but that Cruz’s speech was unseemly.
“You don’t go to a guy’s party and essentially denounce him,” he said.
Cruz did not endorse his former rival for the nomination in his speech, as many had expected. Instead, he seemed to passively suggest that, on principle, voters might not support Trump in the election, and called on them to vote with their “conscience.”
When Cruz was asked at an event here Thursday morning whether he would end up voting for Trump, he declined to say, but said he would not be voting for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
