Republicans were not pleased when Ted Cruz gave a rousing speech about voting one’s conscience at the Republican National Convention without endorsing Trump, and he explained he spoke as he did because he is not a “servile puppy dog”.
He also explained,
“I’m not going to get into criticizing or attacking Donald Trump, but I’ll give you this response: I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father.”
During the Republican Primary Trump tweeted a split-screen meme with Heidi Cruz next to a shot of his wife, Melania, with the tag lines “A picture is worth a thousand words”, and “No need to ‘spill the beans’ the images are worth a thousand words.”
The last implying that there was some deep, dark secret about Mrs. Cruz that was best not to come out.
Cruz responded by calling Trump a “sniveling coward.”
Heidi’s reaction was,
“You probably know by now that most of the things Donald Trump says have no basis in reality. So we are not worried in the least – we’re focusing on our campaign and we’re going to continue to do that.”
Ted also said,
“It reveals a lot about class — that Donald’s instinct is to try to attack my wife and sully her, that should be beneath Donald, but the reason he’s doing that is he had a very bad night. If Donald wants to get in a character fight, he’s better off sticking with me because Heidi’s way out of his league.”
All of this was because just before the Utah primary vote, which Cruz won an Trump lost, a group supporting Cruz has published a rather risqué picture of Melania from her modeling days bearing the legend, “Meet Melania Trump. Your next first lady”.
At one point he even told reporters,
“Sadly, I wasn’t surprised. We have grown to see a pattern with Donald. When he’s worried, when he’s upset, when he’s scared, he begins reacting predictably. He begins screaming, he begins yelling, he begins often cursing and then he tried to attack and bully people and that’s his pattern he does over and over again. Now I will say, even for Donald, he reached a new low. It’s one thing to try to attack another candidate, it’s another thing to come after my wife.”
Forget the attack on the wife, though, because now Cruz has endorsed Trump.
Why?
“I have had many, many disagreements with Donald Trump. And some of them you’ve catalogued. I don’t think it’s productive to criticize the Republican nominee today.”
Yet he admitted that Trump had not apologized to his family, but explained,
“My faith teaches me to forgive, with or without an apology.”
In other news, Heidi Cruz’s self-esteem left town.