In a heated breakfast with the Texas delegation Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz said he would not be voting for Hillary Clinton this fall but would not say if he will vote for his own party’s nominee Donald Trump.
“I am doing what millions of Americans are doing. I am watching and I am listening,” he said. “I can tell you I’m not voting for Hillary.”
Cruz's comments come after he was booed off stage at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night for not endorsing Trump during a speech many hoped would strive toward uniting the party after a bitter primary in which Trump insulted his wife’s appearance and accused his father of being involved in the Kennedy assassination.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he told voters who pressed him to honor the unity pledge the party took early in the primary to support the eventual nominee. “That pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you attack and slander Heidi, I'm going to come along like a servile puppy dog.”
Cruz defended his speech, saying it is the metric he will apply for how he votes in his own 2016 election and criticizing Trump allies for condemning him.
“What does it say when you stand up and say 'vote your conscience' and rabid supporters of our nominee begin screaming, what a horrible thing to say! If we can't make the case to the American people that voting for our party's nominee is consistent with voting your conscious is consistent with defending freedom and being faithful to the Constitution then we are not going to win and we don't deserve to win,” he told a frustrated and agitated crowd of supporters.
