Ted Cruz won’t make nice in Senate and isn’t ready to back TrumpTodd J. Gillman
http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2016/05/ted-cruz-wont-make-nice-in-senate-and-isnt-ready-to-back-trump.html/Combative as ever, Sen. Ted Cruz signaled Saturday that he’s in no hurry to help elect Donald Trump as president, warning of dark days ahead regardless of who wins the White House this fall.
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News at the state Republican convention, he offered little in the way of introspection. He voiced no regrets about his antagonistic style in the Senate, which hampered his ability to round up allies. And he wouldn’t revisit his decision to embrace Trump for months as GOP rivals pointed out flaws Cruz would later hammer on.
“The odds are significant that we are headed for four very challenging years for this country. And I believe that movement, that remnant of freedom loving patriots, may well be the force that pulls us back from the abyss,” Cruz said in a suite at the Omni Hotel overlooking downtown Dallas.
Remnant is a term that resonates with the evangelical Christians whom Cruz has carefully courted, referring to the survivors of biblical-scale catastrophe. Conservative evangelicals provided a foundation for the Cruz run for president, though ended up unable to build a coalition sufficient to halt Trump.
Sen. Ted Cruz sits for an interview at the Omni Hotel in Dallas on May 14, 2016. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)
Sen. Ted Cruz sits for an interview at the Omni Hotel in Dallas on May 14, 2016. (Vernon Bryant/The Dallas Morning News)
Cruz has remained proudly an outsider. He signaled no interest in adjusting his approach. There will be no reboot, no Ted Cruz 2.0.
“I understand that the media would like to see me surrender the conservative principles that I’m fighting for, join the Washington cartel, and stop fighting for the men and women of this country. I am not willing to do so,” he said. “My responsibility is to the 8,000 delegates who are gathered here today at this convention, is to the little old ladies across this state who have knocked on doors and made thousands and thousands of phone calls” and to struggling business owners and veterans.
“I recognize that the media loves to focus on style and personality. It is about substance. Substance matters,” he said. “People are hurting in this country, and my focus is on lifting the burden of Washington on small businesses, stopping the federal government from violating your freedoms so that you and I can live a better life.”
Cruz offered no regrets about his decision to lay off Trump for months as others, including Rick Perry, Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham went on the attack. The gloves finally came off in mid-December, and at the end, Cruz was calling Trump unstable, a narcissist, a “pathological liar” and a “serial philanderer.”
“You learn a great deal about a candidate watching them up close and how they campaign. What I thought and knew about each candidate changed dramatically over the course of the campaign,” he said. “What I said then and I say now is, I enthusiastically embrace Donald Trump supporters –millions and millions of Americans who are good people, who are frustrated out of their minds with Washington, who are tired of being lied to, and who are desperate for somebody who will stand with them.”
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