Sen. Ted Cruz has refused to endorse Donald Trump on Wednesday night, leaving the Republican National Convention arena stocked with the New Yorker’s supporters shouting angrily at him and booing.
In an emotional, precedent-shattering address Wednesday, Trump’s vanquished primary rival Cruz followed his own conscience — and pursued his own agenda — by refusing to endorse his party’s newly minted nominee while implicitly putting himself forward as an alternative party leader should Trump crash and burn in November.
For days the media buzzed about whether Cruz would show support for Trump. But after a primary in which the tycoon mocked him as “Lyin’ Ted” and linked his father — erroneously — to Lee Harvey Oswald, Cruz couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The most Cruz could muster was a curt congratulations.
“I congratulate Donald Trump on winning the nomination last night,” Cruz said 20 seconds into his speech. He went on to add — in a line that wasn’t part of his prepared remarks — that, “like each of you, I want to see the principles that our party believes in prevail in November.”
Not the nominee. The principles. Cruz didn’t mention Trump again.
