Ted Cruz booed after addressing Republican delegates with no endorsement of Trump

Cruz’s 23-minute Wednesday night speech didn’t include an endorsement of Trump, only congratulations, a defiant step that created an ugly scene, as delegates in the pro-Trump hall shouted through the end of his speech and booed.

Later in the speech, he urged: “Please, don’t stay home in November”.

The Texas senator stressed that he did not utter a single negative word about Trump directly, even though he did encourage Republicans to vote their “conscience”, language that originated in the anti-Trump movement.

Newt’s prepared remarks said, “Senator Ted Cruz in particular made the key point that we need to elect the Trump-Pence Republican ticket”.

Republican candidates had pledged during the primary process to support the party’s eventual nominee. “Like you, I want to see the principles that our party believes in prevail in November”, he said before running through a list of bread-and-butter conservative causes that didn’t include tracking down and forcing all Muslims to register in a national database.

Mr Cruz’s wife Heidi had to be escorted from the convention floor for her own safety as she was heckled by Trump delegates.

“People behind her were getting very ugly, and physically approaching her and Raphael, and it was not a pretty situation”, Cuccinelli told ABC.

Burlison said he had talked with many Trump supporters whose second choice would have been Cruz.

Cruz’s speech ended with a cascade of boos from the audience and overshadowed what was supposed to be the night’s highlight: Indiana Gov.

He addressed the furor Thursday morning and said his earlier pledge to back the GOP nominee had been “abrogated” when Trump leveled personal attacks against his wife and father. While he backed some of Trump’s policy proposals, including building a wall along the US-Mexico border, he mentioned the GOP nominee by name only once.

“I ran as close as I could get, and I was yelling, ‘Endorse Trump, ‘” Wiegert said Thursday. Trump’s campaign lawyer is now calling Cruz’s speech, “political suicide”.

“There was discussions had as recently as walking on the stage and we delivered the speech and 95 percent of the way through the speech the active whip operation got active”, Roe said. In this election, there is only one candidate who will uphold the constitution.

Many of Cruz’s supporters from around the country came to thank him, shake his hand and pose for photographs.

Trump responded after the speech on Twitter. Still he says he will vote for Trump. But then, once the anti-Trump boos died down, Cruz added that “every one of us has an obligation to follow our conscience”.