Ted Cruz endorses man who called his wife ugly and suggested his dad helped kill JFK

Politics

Ted Cruz endorses man who called his wife ugly and suggested his dad helped kill JFK

Ted Cruz announced Friday he will vote for Donald Trump, a dramatic about-face for the Texas senator who previously called the New York businessman a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral." Cruz had faced intensified political pressure to back his party’s presidential nominee after refusing to do so at the Republican National Convention this summer. The senator said he will vote for Trump in November, but he stopped short of an official endorsement in a statement posted Friday on Facebook. The distinction may matter little to voters, but it helps Cruz to save face among his loyal supporters still unwilling to forgive Trump’s attacks on the Texas senator’s wife and father during the ugly and often intensely personal primary campaign. Cruz noted that he was booed by Trump supporters at the convention for encouraging Republicans to "vote your conscience.”

Cruz finished second to Trump in a bitter primary battle and balked at previous promises to endorse the eventual Republican nominee. He said Trump made things too personal when he called him “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife, Heidi, and repeated discredited accusations linking Cruz’s Cuba-born father to the John F. Kennedy assassination. "This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth,“ Cruz said of Trump in May, hours before ending his presidential campaign. "Donald will betray his supporters on every issue,” the Texas senator added, while calling Trump “utterly amoral,” a “narcissist,” a “bully,” and a “serial philanderer,” among other things. Since the convention speech, polls have suggested that Cruz’s popularity was slipping nationally and in Texas — where he could face a primary challenge for re-election in 2018.