Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., called Sen. Ted Cruz a “fraud” and a “liar” Thursday morning for failing to endorse presidential candidate Donald Trump, even after he pledged to support the eventual GOP nominee.
“When Ted Cruz ran for president he made a pledge to support the nominee of the party. Last night, and to me if he doesn’t want to support Donald Trump he should have stayed down in Texas,” King said at a New York delegation breakfast event Thursday morning.
“But if you are going to accept prime-time television from Donald Trump and you don’t have the decency, the manners, the common decency, the goodness to endorse the man who has given you the opportunity to speak on national television in prime time, then that shows he’s a fraud, he’s a liar,” King said.
King also questioned Cruz’s loyalty to the party. “How anyone could even consider not voting for Donald Trump and call himself a Republican, call himself a Republican who really cares about the country?” he asked. “To me that’s beyond the pale.”
At the same event, a Republican state senator John Flanagan also called out Cruz. Flanagan said he wanted to make it “unequivocally clear” that he is “supporting Donald Trump for president and I am going to do so with grace, with diplomacy, with passion, with fervor, and doing it in New York-style.”
Sen. Ted Cruz gave a controversial speech Wednesday evening, where he failed to directly endorse the Republican presidential candidate, telling the crown to “vote their conscience.” Defending his remarks the morning after, he said that pledge doesn’t hold because Trump attacked his family.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said.
