Crucial donors slam Cruz for speech at convention,
In an extraordinary pub- lic rebuke, two influential donors who were among the biggest supporters of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign excoriated Cruz on Saturday for his decision not to endorse Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention.
The remarks from Robert Mercer of Long Island and his daughter Rebekah Mercer suggest widening fallout over Cruz’s convention speech, in which he did not endorse his former rival and, instead, suggested that Republicans should “vote your conscience” for candidates “up and down the ticket.”
“Last summer and again this year, Sen. Ted Cruz pledged to support the candidacy of the nominee of the Republican Party, whomever that nominee might be,” the Mercers, who rarely com- ment in the news media, said in the statement to The New York Times. “We are profoundly disappointed that on Wednesday night he chose to disregard this pledge. “The Democratic Party
will soon choose as their nominee a candidate who would repeal both the First
and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights, a nominee who would remake the Supreme Court in her own image. We need ‘all hands on deck’ to ensure that Mr. Trump prevails.
“Unfortunately,” the statement added, “Sen. Cruz has chosen to remain in his bunk below, a decision both regret- table and revealing.”
The Mercers invested at least $11 million in Keep the Promise I, one of a group of interlocked super PACs that supported Cruz in his presidential run. During the con- tentious primary race, Cruz had early praise for Trump in the misguided belief that the tycoon’s candidacy would eventually fade and that Trump’s supporters would move over to the senator’s camp.
Cruz is up for re-election in 2018 and is said to be look- ing at a second campaign for president in 2020, should Trump lose in November. But, in both cases, he will need his donor base to stay with him.
A spokeswoman for Cruz, Catherine Frazier, said Saturday: “Sen. Cruz consid- ers Bob and Rebekah to be patriots and friends. As Sen. Cruz urged in Cleveland, Hillary Clinton would be a disaster for America. Repub- licans need to unite, and the only way to unite is behind shared principles. His speech laid out a path — vigorously defending freedom and the Constitution — for our nominee to unite the party and for Republicans to win up and down the ticket.”
Mercer in recent weeks has helped fund a new effort for donors who want to defeat Hillary Clinton, but who do not want to donate to a group that is openly supporting Trump. That group is being operated by David Bossie, president of the group Citizens United.
Kellyanne Conway, who was the president of a proCruz super PAC and now is an adviser to Trump, said the statement reflects the Mercers’ feelings about defeating Clinton in the fall and “how grievously piqued they were to watch Ted’s convention stunt on Wednesday night.”
Conway added, “They supported Ted because they thought he was a man of his word who, like them, would place love of country over personal feelings or political ambition.”