‘If He Announces He Endorses, It Destroys His Political Brand’
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is expected to announce as soon as Friday afternoon he will endorse Donald Trump for president. Politico, the first to report the stunning news, cites multiple but unnamed sources “close to Ted Cruz.”
There’s been a high degree of animosity between the Tea Party Texas Republican senator and the Manhattan billionaire. Just before Cruz suspended his presidential campaign, Trump accused Cruz’s father of working with Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald.
Earlier, in a tweet never deleted, Trump threatened that he would somehow expose Cruz’s wife for some unknown deed or action:
For his part, Cruz delivered a major speech during the RNC convention in which he not only did not endorse Trump, but urged fellow Republicans to vote their conscience, implying they should not vote for Trump. Earlier, Cruz called Trump “utterly amoral,†a “serial philanderer,†and a “pathological liar,†as The Atlantic reported.
“Why would Cruz endorse Trump now after snubbing him so publicly in Cleveland, where he told Republicans to ‘vote your conscience?,'” The Atlantic asks. “There are a number of factors at play. For one, Trump has been gaining in the polls and, for the moment at least, no longer looks like the lost electoral cause he did a month ago, when Hillary Clinton appeared to be on the verge of a landslide victory. As The Donald might say, nothing sells like winning, and if Cruz thought Trump might be the next president, his window for hopping aboard is closing by the day. Cruz clearly wants to run for president in 2020 if Trump loses, and that prospect likely disappears unless Cruz plans on challenging an incumbent in his own party in four years.”
Politico points to another unnamed source who has worked with the Cruz campaign: “If he announces he endorses, it destroys his political brand.â€
Some responses via Twitter:
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