Ted Cruz explains to Texas delegates his failure to endorse Trump

“I’m not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father”, he said. “And that pledge was not a blanket commit that if you go and slander and attack Heidi that I’m going to come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘ Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father'”.

Stone compared Cruz’s refusal to endorse Trump to Nelson Rockefeller’s 1964 refusal to endorse then GOP presidential nominee Barry Goldwater in a move that permanently damaged Rockefeller’s presidential ambitions.

“And to those listening, please, don’t stay home in November”, Cruz said.

“Peter King is from NY”.

But as Cruz ended his remarks, and as the crowd of more than 2,000 delegates at the Quicken Loans Arena waited for Cruz to say something – anything – kind about Trump, he demurred. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, addressed the crowd and supported Trump.

The 70-year-old NY businessman will use his speech to formally accept the Republican presidential nomination.

Others said that if Trump was really serious about uniting the party he would reach out to his vanquished foes on the campaign trail, including Cruz and Kasich.

“I’m talking about trade, I’m talking about law and order, I’m going to be talking about borders”.

“I think in the grand scheme of things, it won’t make any difference”. Our country has a lot of problems. “I think the convention will appear to be greatly united”, McConnell told CNN.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday dismissed Texas Sen.

In response to a question about potential Russian aggression towards the Baltic states, Trump told the newspaper in an interview that if Moscow attacked them, he would decide whether to come to their aid only after reviewing whether those nations “have fulfilled their obligations to us”.

“Yeah, I disagree totally with what he said about NATO”, McConnell said.

Cruz responded: “This is not a game, this is not politics”.

He needs a post-convention bounce in public opinion polls to remain competitive with Clinton, who will be in the spotlight next week in Philadelphia for the Democratic National Convention.

On a day that’s supposed to focus on party unity, the talk at the Republican National Convention remains focused on Texas Sen.

Pro-Trump delegates were furious with him.

Jeff Roe, who managed Cruz’s campaign and has been in frequent contact with Paul Manafort, the chairman of the Trump campaign, said the Trump campaign indicated it would like the speech, which congratulated Trump on his nomination but left it at that.

“Last night, Ted Cruz offered the most stirring defense of liberty and the strongest indictment of Hillary Clinton’s policies we’ve yet heard in this campaign”.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich was seen as smoothing over troubled waters when he pointed out that Cruz’s encouragement to vote for the one who would support the Constitution amounted to an indirect plug for Trump.