Cleveland
The Trump campaign said Thursday that Ted Cruz’s refusal to endorse Donald Trump furthered the unification of the Republican party.
“The party is definitely more unified,” Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort told reporters, and said that Cruz’s speech helped further party unity “in a backhanded way.”
“Even with what Senator Cruz did, we think Mr. Trump’s [effort] to unify the party was enhanced last night,” Manafort said. “We think that … we presented the exact messaging we were trying to do.”
The majority of speakers voiced support for Trump and were well received, while Cruz was an outlier, Manafort said.
“Only Senator Cruz chose to slip away with something on conscience, and frankly, he was the only speech in the convention that was poorly received,” he said.
At the end of his 23-minute speech, the Texas senator encouraged conscience voting and offered a defense of the Constitution. He was met with booing and cheers of “say it!” from the audience, while Cruz’s wife was escorted out of the arena due to security concerns.
Manafort said Wednesday morning that the Trump campaign was helping Cruz craft his speech, and promised that the end result would be “pleasing to the Trump campaign and to Republicans.”
