Posted on 03/29/2016 7:31:50 PM PDT by BlackFemaleArmyColonel
Sen. Ted Cruz refused to say Tuesday whether he would still back Donald Trump if the GOP presidential front-runner wins their party’s nomination, backing away from a firm pledge he made earlier in the campaign.
Mr. Cruz, whose coziness with Mr. Trump last year had pundits saying they were in the middle of a bromance, said that faded once the billionaire businessman began to turn nasty, and particularly in recent days when Mr. Trump has said he would go after Mr. Cruz’s wife.
“I’m not an easy person to tick off, but when you go after my wife, when you go after my daughters, that does it,” Mr. Cruz said at a town hall hosted by CNN in Wisconsin Tuesday night.
He accused Mr. Trump of being behind a thinly sourced story last week in the National Enquirer tabloid that reported Mr. Cruz had engaged in affairs with a handful of women. The story aggregated rumors, and the only named source was Roger Stone, an adviser to Mr. Trump, who said: “These stories have been swirling around Cruz for some time. I believe where there is smoke there is fire.”
Mr. Cruz also backed away from the pledge all of the candidates took last year to back the eventual nominee no matter who it is. Mr. Cruz ducked repeated direct challenges by CNN host Anderson Cooper to take a firm stand, saying instead that his goal now is to make sure he doesn’t face that choice.
“The answer to that is to beat him at the ballot box,” Mr. Cruz said.
Mr. Cooper, though, said Mr. Trump had made controversial statements about women and minorities last year, even as Mr. Cruz was praising him: “Sounds like you were engaged in a love fest,” Mr. Cooper said.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
At the rate our candidates are going, and their supporters this is sadly starting to look like what is going on....
Saul Alinksy (The lost rule)
Rule 13 - Once all the rest of the rules have been applied, calmly watch the feeding frenzy of the enemy eating their own, to sate their hunger for the victorious void of impotence you have created within their ranks...for that very purpose.
Cruz’s handlers will never let him endorse Trump.
Just as his handlers will never allow him to be the nominee.
IF they do, which I would be shocked, but if they do it is simply because they know he’ll lose. Anyone who spends time in the ‘real’ world knows it. His pastor act coupled with his reputation of closing down the government, and all the other crap the left and the media throw at him, will sink his weak butt.
He’s shown himself to be a very weak man, mentally and emotionally. Weak = loser.
When did anyone go after Cruz’s daughters?
That a stretch.
The title should've been he declines to discuss it. He didn't decline to support Trump.
Trump supporters who are supposedly fellow anti-Establishment types are embracing wholesale Establishment character assassination tactics against Cruz...that is very clear.
It’s more than just a disappointment you people are willingly and gleefully throwing under the bus one of the best Conservative candidates we’ve ever had....
Fair to say that your guy stated soon after he announced....Trump: “I Was the Establishment Two Months Ago “.....and you’ll RISK this nation on a man who feeds you what you want to hear , (and he knows what you want to hear), with a confessed history of supporting Demorats and the liberal/progressive agenda up and until just before he announced he’d changed parties????
I don’t understand you.... none of you have made a case for why other then quoting the Trumps own words or those of the media pushing him as if they are your own...not one has given a purposeful reason.
Cruz never denied the Inquirer report. He said it was garbage. And he said that some part was untrue. But he never said he has been faithful to his wife. He never said that he did not have an affair with any of the women, only that he did not have an affair with all of the women. The point is that the Inquirer report is probably mostly true. And Hillary’s staff will know which part.
If Cruz says the report is garbage he is not saying its not mostly true. You need him to say there are no parts of the story that are true. Or that “I have always been faithful to my wife.” But he has said neither. Remember Ted is a good lawyer, he knows what he can say truthfully that sounds like he is denying everything.
It has got tedious to hear cruz now. It is blame trump all the time.
You’ve got it: that’s what the American people really want: perpetual Democrat overlords.
He said this on CNN and I was like what the hell. It was his PAC and campaign manager what went after Trumps wife first and then when Trump tried to state the fact the cruz voters booed.
it is that ignorance why this country is a mess.
Even Americans who don’t particularly like Mrs. Bill will still vote for her.
you mean like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxRJexfgOc
pretty usual for the ivy league lawyers to parse words and then never answer a question, but even I was embarrassed for him here. he looked like a deer in headlights.
Cruz is th biggest sack of crap I have ever seen as a politician. He is right up there with billary and obama. I have no respect for him now and will vote third party or write in Trump if Cruzhole is the nominee. Sad - I was a big Cruz fan before he exposed himself in this election.
Conservative Treehouse had all this starting with Rubio weeks before. But nooooo, everything is Trump’s fault. Cruz will never get a vote for dogcatcher from this Texas household.
>>Show me a model that proves me wrong. I’m daring you to explain how you can win without the Cruz supporters.
We can’t. And Cruz can’t win without Trump supporters.
Trump is toxic to you. Cruz has worked very hard to make himself toxic to us. PACs and newspapers sow the seeds of discord and we water it and harvest it.
The GOProgressives will select a different candidate at the convention anyway. Hillary wins no matter what. The march to a Glorious Socialist Future (tm) will continue, just as the UniParty decided decades ago when that populist from California “stole” the nomination and the White House.
I started as a Cruz/Trump, then went to a Trump/Cruz and now am pure Trump - Cruz lost his value as a conservative mouthpiece/backer and has become pathetic.
On the contrary I see it clearly. But what I have not been convinced of is that Trump is the answer to that movement. It takes more than highlighting his opponents and coming to the conclusion, "If they are against him then I must be for him."
The problem is that is the attitude that has been adopted here. To the point that becoming a Trump supporter has, in the minds of many, become a moral imperative. I think we can agree that is the tenor. According to the majority of Trump's supporters there is no way a person can in good conscience be a Cruz supporter or skeptical of Trump's policy positions and vision for the country. And that, is the definition of a personality cult.
And I have reason to doubt his vision for the country. Let us not forget that Trump's prescription for the country is mostly technocratic and not constitutional. All we need is the right people, the smart people, occupying the right positions. That is Trump's solution. I'm surprised people are taken in by that kind of hubris.
Something else that has been bothering me is that most people, and rightly so, have focused on 2016 but are failing to look beyond that. Suppose Trump does become President and builds the wall, right-sides trade and effectively deals with ISIS. Impressive results, if he can obtain them. But looking at the bigger picture those are one-off issues. Essentially technical in nature that any other candidate can achieve. It's a wash. Without those issues what is going to be guiding him? Now some might say that is enough for them. The plumbing is leaking so they are calling in a plumber and that's all they expect. Okay, that's fine. But it's disingenuous to suggest that Trump is a paragon of conservatism because one agrees with his policy prescriptions.
Justice Scalia put it best (paraphrasing) when he would say that most people are not equipped to properly criticize a Supreme Court opinion because all they see is the outcome and not the judicial interpretative philosophy behind the decision. This is what Trump supporters are asking Cruz supporters and others skeptical of Trump to do. To take on faith, his policy prescriptions without any underlying conservative philosophy guiding them. Nobody knows where Trump's starting point is. Can anyone honestly say that he starts with the maxim of conservative principle that government should be smaller?
But to override that objection it's necessary for Trump supporters to impress on everyone else a sense of urgency. It's 2016 or bust. To argue that whatever your concerns might be about Trump, the country cannot afford them. Unfortunately we've heard that mantra for far too long from the GOPe, "Get to the back of the bus, we'll get to your concerns later." The only difference now is that we are being told that to have reservations is to betray America.
LOL! We're not there yet, but soon!
Any question now that Cruz is merely acting as an errand boy for Romney?
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