Ted Cruz pointedly and repeatedly refused to endorse Donald Trump on Thursday morning, saying that he was not “a servile puppy dog”.



Just hours after the Texas senator was loudly booed from the floor of the Republican convention when he did not embrace his party’s nominee, Cruz faced an impassioned audience as he took questions from his state’s delegation during a breakfast.

Republican convention live: Cruz speech sets up test for Trump on day four Read more

The runner-up in the Republican presidential primary expressed his wonderment that “rabid” Trump supporters would object to his statement that Americans should “vote their conscience”. The Texas senator insisted “in that speech last night I did not say a single negative word about Donald Trump and I’ll tell you this morning and going forward I don’t intend to say negative things about Donald Trump.”

Some Texas delegates disagreed. While Cruz received repeated standing ovations, he also was subject to constant heckles and one Texas delegate stood through the first few minutes of his speech by holding a hand-drawn sign saying “Clinton Cruz 2020”.



Cruz pushed back against audience members who brought the pledge that he and other Republican candidates had made to support the eventual GOP nominee, saying that that promise “was abrogated” when Trump attacked his family. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and my father,” he said.

“That pledge is not a blanket commitment [that] if you go slander and attack Heidi I am nonetheless going to come like a servile puppy dog and say thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.” The Texas senator added: “This is not politics … Right and wrong matters.”

During the primary, Trump had suggested that Cruz’s father Rafael was involved in the assassination of John F Kennedy and tweeted unflattering pictures of Cruz’s wife Heidi in the course of the campaign while also threatening to “spill the beans” on her.

While many in the room on Thursday supported Cruz’s stand, others were deeply disappointed. Bonnie Lugo of Houston thought that the Texas senator was “speaking in hurt, bitterness and disappointment.” She noted that although “things were said about his father and wife, he was in a campaign and that’s what campaign’s are about”.

Craig Harvey of Houston was even more angry. He felt Cruz gave “a wasted speech” in the convention hall Wednesday night and again Thursday morning. “The same ego trip, no clear answers,” Harvey said.

Cruz noted that he had specifically told Trump over the phone earlier this week that he would not endorse him and had submitted his speech for approval by the nominee’s campaign.

Cruz only criticized Trump directly once in the midst of his ongoing Q&A. “Let me point out by the way: can anyone imagine our nominee standing in front of voters and taking questions like this?”

Afterward, Cruz left quickly and the room erupted into chaos as those who agreed with Cruz’s stance argued fiercely with those who disagreed. Shouts and recriminations went back and forth as Texas Republicans called each other traitors and cowards.

As Cruz left the stage, top Trump adviser Paul Manafort took shots at the Texas senator in a press conference held in a hotel just across the street. “The party is definitely more unified – there are a number of Cruz delegates who were on the floor today … who disagree with what Mr Cruz said,” Manafort said.

“We think it became very clear to everybody that Donald Trump has been very magnanimous in his outreach program – he invited all the presidential candidates who ran” to speak, and “everyone did attend and, in his own way, endorse the ticket.”

“He was the only speech in the convention that was poorly received by the body in the hall,” Manafort said of Cruz. “That was Senator Cruz’s decision. As far as the contract [of party unity] was concerned, he was the one in violation, not anybody else.”