NICE VALUES, TED!
Cruz’s Texas two-face: I’ll vote for Trump
WASHINGTON — He went from being “Lyin’ Ted” to just rolling over.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) said Friday he will endorse Donald Trump for President after all — reversing course after telling the Republican National Convention this summer to “vote your conscience.”
“After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump,” Cruz wrote in a Facebook post Friday afternoon, seemingly timed to get the least amount of attention.
The Trump camp nevertheless embraced the last minute endorsement.
“Hell froze over today, and it is feels like heaven. #thankyou#NeverHillary,” Trump’s grammatically-challenged campaign manager Kellyanne Conway tweeted.
Cruz said his promise to vote for Trump — something Cruz allies sought to characterize as something less than a full endorsement — was made because he’d promised to back the nominee last year.
“I’ve made this decision for two reasons. First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word,” Cruz said in his post. “Second, even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable — that’s why I have always been #NeverHillary.”
Trump won the Republican Party’s nomination this past spring, beating out Cruz and 15 other candidates.
The bizarre endorsement of his political rival — after nearly 10 months of mud-slinging — focuses exclusively on Clinton and Trump’s promise to nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court.
The senator’s decision was viewed by some Cruz backers — and anti-Trump Republicans — as the ultimate betrayal and capitulation aimed at pleasing donors ahead of the 2020 campaign.
“Politically, I believe it’s a disastrous decision for reasons that are too numerous to mention on Twitter,” Steve Deave, a prominent Iowa conservative radio host and big 2016 Cruz backer, tweeted after the announcement.
“Ted is still one of the best senators we have. And I hope he’s happy there, because odds he’ll be President (are now) severely diminished.”
The decision comes after Cruz gave a very public snub of Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland — refusing to back him while sticking his finger in the eye of Trump supporters.
In his speech, Cruz told dele-
I don’t get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that’ll do it every time. Donald, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.
gates — and voters watching on TV — to vote their conscience. Cruz was booed off the stage — but cheered by hardline conservatives and Texas delegates wary of Trump’s brand of unpredictable populism and outright racist views.
Oddly, the two started out as allies — with Cruz pumping up Trump’s standing with the party.
However, things grew increasingly testy — and eventually nasty — as the two warred viciously as the primary season wore on.
The two lobbed attacks at each other — Trump even accusing Cruz’s father this past May of playing a role in assassinating President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Trump branded Cruz “Lyin Ted,” with Cruz shooting back that the real estate mogul was unfit to be the party’s nominee because he was a liberal who embodied “New York values.” That wasn’t all. In March, Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife Heidi, alongside one of his wife Melania — the internet meme created by a Trump supporter was meant to highlight his wife’s beauty.
Cruz took the attack on his family personally. On March 25, for instance, he blasted Trump as a “sniveling coward.”
“I don’t get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that’ll do it every time,” he said.
“Donald, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”
After Trump was officially nominated by delegates in Cleveland, Cruz used a breakfast meeting with the Texas delegation to continue his attacks on Trump. Asked why he would not endorse Trump at the convention, Cruz said: “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father.”
Cruz has been widely viewed as a likely 2020 presidential candidate.
The endorsement comes just days after RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said that Trump’s primary opponents who haven’t endorsed better “get onboard” — or face consequences from the party if they want to run in the future.
After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, Sept. 23