REUTERS — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump reacted on Wednesday (July 20) after U.S. Senator Ted Cruz cold reception at the Republican National Convention.
“Wow, Ted Cruz got booed off the stage, didn’t honor the pledge! I saw his speech two hours early but let him speak anyway. No big deal,” Trump Tweeted after Cruz got jeered during his speech at the convention as it became clear he would not endorse his former rival.
Cruz mentioned the business mogul turned Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump only once during his speech.
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz refused to endorse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at the party’s convention on Wednesday, sparking an eruption of angry jeers from Trump supporters and shattering the facade of party unity that has been carefully built up in Cleveland this week.
Anti-Trump Republican delegate Ken Cuccinelli told Reuters he escorted Cruz’s wife, Heidi, off the floor of the Republican National Convention out of concern for her safety.
Cruz, who came in a distant second behind Trump in the race for the nomination, stopped short of endorsing Trump after a bitter and personal campaign and mentioned him only once, drawing boos and repeated chants of “We want Trump.”
Trump, who will represent the party in the Nov. 8 election against presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, made his entrance to the convention hall near the end of Cruz’s speech, applauding Cruz’s remarks but, by his appearance, distracting the crowd from his former rival.
During the campaign for the party’s nomination, Trump insulted Cruz’s wife’s looks and suggested the Texan’s father was with John F. Kennedy’s assassin just before the president was shot in Dallas in 1963.
Cruz, who as a Tea Party conservative in the U.S. Senate spearheaded tactics that led to a government shutdown over the federal budget, called the New York real estate developer a “serial philanderer” and a “narcissist” during the campaign.
A Cruz adviser who asked to remain anonymous said Cruz had anticipated a backlash from the crowd if he did not endorse Trump.
Trump won the nomination on Tuesday with 1,725 delegates, followed by Cruz with 475 delegates.
In a speech a few moments after Cruz finished, former U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich veered from his prepared text to defend Cruz.