Ted Cruz: I’m not going to support Trump ‘like a servile puppy dog’ after he attacked my wife and father
Hours after getting booed for not endorsing Donald Trump in his primetime speech at the Republican National Convention, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said he wasn’t going to be a “servile puppy dog” to the party’s nominee given Trump’s personal attacks against him during the primary season.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz told his state’s GOP delegation at a breakfast in Cleveland Thursday morning.
Trump’s former GOP rival, who like the rest of the field signed a pledge during the primaries to support the party’s nominee, said that agreement was “abdicated” when the brash real estate mogul mocked his wife, Heidi, and suggested that his father was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
“That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father,‘” Cruz said.
During the late stages of the bitter GOP primary race, Trump threatened to “spill the beans” on Cruz’s wife after an anti-Trump super-PAC ran ads featuring a racy photo of Melania Trump. Donald Trump then shared a photo on Twitter featuring an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife next to a flattering photo of his own. Trump also at one point gave credence to a sketchy National Enquirer report that linked the elder Cruz to Kennedy’s assassin.
Fielding questions from the Texas delegation, Cruz assured them he would not be voting for Hillary Clinton, but would not commit to voting for the Republican nominee.
At one point, Geraldine Sam, a Texas GOP delegate and former La Marque mayor, stood up and yelled, “This is not about you. This is not about your wife … your word is your bond.”
“Let me be very clear: This is not a social club,” he said. “We either stand for shared principles, or we’re not worth anything.”
During his primetime address Wednesday, Cruz urged the crowd inside Quicken Loans Arena to vote for someone who embodies the “principles that our party believes in.”
“Stand, and speak, and vote your conscience. Vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,” Cruz said.
In response, thousands of delegates booed and turned their backs on the Texas senator, choosing instead to face Trump, who had materialized on the other side of the Quicken Loans Arena in silent, seething protest.
“Endorse Trump! Endorse Trump!” they shouted. “Go home, Ted!”
“I think it was awful,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told CNN. “I think it was selfish. To say cute things like ‘You should vote for the candidate you believe in from the top of the ticket to bottom’ — this is the kind of Washington talk that people in this country are repelled by. I sat there shaking my head.”
Cruz was unapologetic.
“What I said last night is what I believe,” Cruz said Thursday morning. “If anyone here thinks I was eager to come to this convention and give a speech laying out and supporting many of the principles Trump laid out during the campaign … despite the fact he nor his campaign has ever taken back anything he’s said about my family … let me assure you, I was not.”
He added: “This is not a game, this is not politics. Right and wrong matter.”
On Twitter, Trump said he saw a copy of Cruz’s prepared remarks before the speech but allowed the Texas senator to speak at the convention as scheduled.
“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge!” Trump tweeted. “I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!”
Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2016
But in March, Trump himself said he would not honor the pledge, either.
During a CNN town hall in Milwaukee, Trump was asked if he would continue his pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee.
“No, I don’t anymore,” Trump said. “No, we’ll see who it is.”
— With Yahoo News’ Andrew Romano contributing reporting
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