Ted Cruz on Friday said he would vote for Donald Trump for president and that he would encourage others to do the same, reversing months of opposition to his bitter primary rival.
"After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump," he wrote in a Facebook post.
Cruz said he endorsed both because of his primary pledge to support the party nominee, as well as his concerns about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
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Cruz had previously gone as far as to tell Republicans to “vote your conscience” at the Republican National Convention, rather than urging them to get behind the nominee. Since then, Cruz, who may face a primary challenge in his 2018 Senate reelection campaign, has come under mounting pressure to get behind Trump, though many Cruz loyalists see an endorsement as unacceptable.
At the outset of the Republican [presidential] primary, Cruz went out of his way to praise Trump, expecting that the real estate mogul’s support would crumble, and Cruz would be the beneficiary. But as the primary continued and Trump moved into an increasingly strong position in the race, Cruz sought to fashion himself as the conservative alternative to Trump, repeatedly describing his opponent as a liberal who had few differences with Hillary Clinton.
The race turned increasingly personal between the two, with Trump attacking Cruz’s wife and seeking to link Cruz’s father to conspiracy theories about assassinating former President John F. Kennedy. On the day that he dropped out of the race, Cruz took his criticism of Trump to a new level, accusing him of being a “pathological liar,” a “serial philanderer” and an “utterly amoral” “bully.”
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… Cruz’s unwillingness to support Trump has become an issue in his home state as he prepares for Senate re-election. The morning after he refused to support Trump at the RNC, the Texas delegation breakfast broke out into chaos as delegates split over whether or not Cruz should support the nominee.
Since then, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas), a possible Cruz primary challenger for Cruz’s Senate seat, has been using the senator’s unwillingness to support Trump as a means of attacking Cruz.
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The Texas senator has been gradually making moves to soothe his often poor relations with fellow senators since his primary loss, helping raise money for at-risk Republicans and donating $100,000 to the Senate GOP’s campaign arm. But many Republicans on Capitol Hill have prodded him to go further and hold his nose with an endorsement. While several Republicans said Cruz’s bloc of conservative voters could make the difference for Trump, others said any endorsement would be more about helping secure Cruz’s own political standing than Trump’s (Glueck and Everett 1-2).
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is aligning with President Donald Trump in highlighting the lack of evidence in recently issued indictments that Russia's government colluded with Trump's 2016 campaign to influence the election.
"On the face of these indictments, they say that the American side of it was unwitting — that there was not collusion. That's pretty significant," Cruz told reporters here Saturday night while emphasizing he is still waiting to see the results of congressional probes into Russia's role in the election. Those investigations, Cruz said, "need to be continued."
Unveiled Friday, the indictments allege that 13 Russian nationals sought to interfere in the election and boost Trump over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. The indictments came from special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating whether Trump's campaign had any connection to Russian meddling in the election — an issue that has overshadowed the president's first year in office.
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Trump's reaction to the indictment — which has largely focused on the collusion debate instead of the actual content of the charges — has revived questions about whether the president is taking a tough enough stance toward Russia. Asked whether the president needed to be more forceful, Cruz contrasted Trump's approach with the "eight years of weakness we had seen with Barack Obama," the Democratic former commander in chief.
“I have been very encouraged by the strength and resolve demonstrated by the president," Cruz said. "I think we need to continue to show strong resolve" (Svitek 1,2).
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz locked in a second term Tuesday by defeating Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, seeing off Democrats’ most aggressive attempt in decades to win a statewide office in Texas.
Cruz had 51 percent of the vote to 49 percent for O’Rourke when three networks called the race with less than a quarter of the precincts reporting.
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O’Rourke’s campaign forced Cruz, who feuded with fellow Republicans for long stretches of his first term, to run hard for a second six-year term. He attacked O’Rourke as a liberal out of step with Texas’ traditional conservatism on immigration, drugs and a host of other issues.
And in a sign of a changing Cruz, his campaign also touted bipartisan work bringing home federal aid after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas.
Cruz also leaned on help from the rest of the Republican Party, including President Donald Trump, whom Cruz famously called a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral” during the 2016 presidential primaries. In July, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick urged White House officials to airdrop the president into the Lone Star State to keep O’Rourke at bay, and Trump came to the state to rally voters for Cruz in October, ditching the “Lyin’ Ted” moniker he had deployed during the primary fight and instead labeling Cruz “Beautiful Ted” (Dixon 1).
O'Rourke catapulted into the national spotlight after a video of him answering a question about whether NFL players should be allowed to kneel in protest during the national anthem went viral.
In the clip, O'Rourke takes a question from an audience member (who, according to Politico, was planted by Cruz's campaign) on the issue.
"And so non-violently, peacefully, while the eyes of this country are watching these games, they take a knee to bring our attention and our focus to this problem to ensure that we fix it," O'Rourke said at the Houston event.
"That is why they are doing it," he said. "And I can think of nothing more American than to peacefully, standing up, or taking a knee, for your rights, anytime, anywhere, in any place."
Cruz immediately fired back with an attack ad featuring a double amputee who served in Vietnam, making the issue one of the biggest in the race.
“I gave two legs for this country. I’m not able to stand," says the veteran, Tim Lee. "But I sure expect you to stand for me when the national anthem is being played.”
O'Rourke's viral NFL video captured the attention of athletes, celebrities and other national figures.
O'Rourke landed a guest spot on the Ellen DeGeneres show after the video and also did The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Cruz has criticized O'Rourke for this recognition, frequently referencing the Democrat's Hollywood support (Meckelburg 2-3).
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Sunday joined President Trump in lashing out at the New York Times over the paper’s coverage of the president.
“The NYT is destroying itself w/ Trump hatred. And it’s ultimately bad for freedom of the press when ‘journalists’ openly revel in being partisan propagandists. When our Nation is so tribalized that each side has their own ‘news’ & ‘facts’ and we don’t even talk to each other,” Cruz tweeted.
He called the paper a “propaganda outlet by liberals, for liberals.”
Cruz, citing a story published on the conservative blog Red State, claims a New York Times editor said “(in effect) ‘for 2 yrs, we covered ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ facts be damned; now we’ll scream ‘racism, racism, racism’ for 18 mos, and the rest of the media follow us.’”
“That’s not journalism,” Cruz tweeted.
Cruz and the blog he cited are referencing a meeting New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet had with staff regarding the paper’s coverage and a recent controversial print headline that said “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM” in describing Trump’s response to a mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that killed 22 people earlier this month.
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During the meeting, Baquet did discuss how the paper should focus its coverage going forward, based on the reported transcript.
“Chapter 1 of the story of Donald Trump, not only for our newsroom but, frankly, for our readers, was: Did Donald Trump have untoward relationships with the Russians, and was there obstruction of justice? That was a really hard story, by the way, let’s not forget that...And I think we covered that story better than anybody else,” Baquet said, according to Slate’s transcript of the meeting.
“I think that we’ve got to change. I mean, the vision for coverage for the next two years is what I talked about earlier: How do we cover a guy who makes these kinds of remarks?...How do we write about race in a thoughtful way, something we haven’t done in a large way in a long time? That, to me, is the vision for coverage. You all are going to have to help us shape that vision. But I think that’s what we’re going to have to do for the rest of the next two years,” he added.
Trump tweeted earlier calling out the Times, seemingly referencing the same meeting, calling the coverage a "racism witch hunt" (Klar 1-2).
Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz launched a podcast this week, saying he'll use it to air his daily musings about the historic Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Cruz is a juror along with the other members of the U.S. Senate.
His first episode of the podcast, titled "Verdict," was recorded at 2:42 a.m. Wednesday, after the first day of the trial.
Throughout the first episode, Cruz referred to the trial as highly partisan and argued that the impeachment was a political attack. He also expressed hope that the president's counsel would get more into the "substantive argument" that Trump's actions did not constitute a high crime or misdemeanor. There are two episodes so far.
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In the first episode, Cruz said that the impeachment managers — members of the House acting as prosecution in the trial — had "some good moments" early in the trial but that as time wore on, their arguments grew "redundant." He said that impeachment managers' cases failed to demonstrate proof of "treason, bribery or other high crimes or misdemeanors."
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The House voted largely along party lines in December to impeach Trump over allegations he used his office to pressure the Ukrainian president to investigate a family member of his [Cruz’s] political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. ...
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Cruz has repeatedly defended Trump and dismissed the seriousness of the impeachment allegations. He has falsely claimed that there is evidence of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election and defended Trump's actions in the call with the Ukranian president. In response, he's received praise from the president — including a retweet of Cruz’s announcement of “Verdict” (Manas 1-2).
Under President Donald Trump's leadership, the United States has the highest COVID-19 death count in the world — and states with Republican governors, including Florida and Texas, had some of the worst coronavirus surges over the summer. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas tried to defend the GOP response to the COVID-19 pandemic during a Monday, September 28 appearance on ABC's "The View" — and it didn't go well for the GOP senator.
Grilling Cruz forcefully, liberal co-host Joy Behar noted that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "recently lifted all restrictions on businesses, allowing bars and restaurants to operate at full capacity without a mask mandate. He said they won't be closing anything going forward." Behar asked Cruz if Texas should do the same thing, and he responded by trying to blame Democrats for coronavirus deaths — especially New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cruz claimed that the death rates have been "much, much lower" in Florida than in states with Democratic governors, failing to mention how quickly Cuomo enacted a stay-at-home policy.
Behar, however, reminded Cruz that New York was "hit early" by the pandemic. And when Cruz wouldn't say anything about DeSantis' policies, Behar told the senator, "You are deflecting, sir. You are deflecting the question."
Whoopi Goldberg, another co-host, jumped in, reminding Cruz how disastrous Trump's response to the pandemic has been at the federal level.
"Had the man who is running the country right now given us this information in January when he had it — when we could have maybe done something a little differently — it might have worked differently," Goldberg told Cruz. "I just wanted to point that out. It's not about whose people died more. People died, and they didn't have to" (Henderson 1-2).
Works cited:
Dixon, Darius. “Ted Cruz Wins Reelection over Beto O’Rourke.” Politico, November 6, 2018. Net. https://www.politico.com/story/2018/11/06/ted-cruz-vs-beto-orourke-texas-senate-race-results-2018-963527
Glueck, Katie and Everett, Burgess. “Cruz: I'm Voting for Trump.” Politico, September 23, 2016. Net. https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/trump-rival-cruz-to-throw-support-to-gop-nominee-228584
Henderson, Alex. "’The View’ Hosts Corner Ted Cruz over Attempt To Blame Democrats for COVID-19 Deaths.” Salon, September 29, 2020. Net. https://www.salon.com/2020/09/29/the-view-hosts-corner-ted-cruz-over-attempt-to-blame-democrats-for-covid-19-deaths_partner/
Klar, Rebecca. “Cruz: New York Times 'Destroying Itself' with Trump 'Hatred'.” The Hill, August 18, 2019. Net. https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/457882-cruz-new-york-times-is-destroying-itself-with-trump-hatred
Manas, Sam. “Sen. Ted Cruz Launches Daily Podcast about Trump Impeachment Trial.” Texas Tribune, January 23, 2020. Net. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/01/23/sen-ted-cruz-launches-daily-podcast-about-trump-impeachment-trial/
Meckelburg, Madlin. “Beto 2020: Key Moments from the O'Rourke, Ted Cruz Senate Race in Texas.” El Paso Times, updated March 4, 2019. Net. https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/politics/elections/2018/11/05/beto-orourke-ted-cruz-texas-senate-election-key-moments/1823103002/
Svitek, Patrick. “Cruz, like Trump, Points to Lack of Collusion Evidence in Russia Indictments.” Texas Tribune, February 17, 2018. Net. https://www.texastribune.org/2018/02/17/cruz-trump-highlights-lack-collusion-evidence-russia-indictments/
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