A night after being booed off the Republican National Convention stage, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz remains defiant about Donald Trump, saying he is not a “servile puppy dog” and vowing not to support anyone who wages personal attacks against his family.
Speaking to an incensed Texas delegation, Cruz recalled an answer he gave at a Republican debate this year, when he enthusiastically said he would support the party’s official nominee.
“The day that was abdicated was the day this became personal,” Cruz says. “I’m not going to get into criticizing or attacking Donald Trump, but I’ll give you this response: I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father.”
“And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and my father,” he adds.
Trump repeatedly mocked Cruz throughout the campaign as “Lyin’ Ted.” Trump also took jabs at the appearance of Cruz’s wife, Goldman Sachs executive Heidi Cruz, and the Texas senator responded that Trump is a “sniveling coward.” Trump also made suggestions that Cruz’s father had indirect links to John F. Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tex., addresses the delegates during the third day session of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Wednesday, July 20, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
— AP
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