Ted Cruz Vows To Make ‘Grave Mistake’ And Back Trump

Josh Israel Senior Investigative Reporter, Think Progress

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) thinks a Donald Trump presidency would be “a grave mistake.” But, he reaffirmed Sunday, he would support him as the GOP presidential nominee anyway.

On CNN’s State of the Union host Jake Tapper asked Cruz on Sunday about recent denunciations of Trump by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and other conservatives.

Cruz joined in on the attacks, blasting Trump for his historical support of Planned Parenthood and late-term abortion rights, his promise to “stay neutral between Israel and the Palestinians,” and his “longtime support of expanding Obamacare into Bernie Sanders-style socialized medicine, putting the government in charge of your health care, putting government bureaucrats into a position to ration your care, especially that of seniors.”

Noting that like Cruz has suggested Trump presidency would be “a grave mistake,” host Jake Tapper asked if he would still support his rival should he win the nomination.

“I will support the Republican nominee. Period. The end,” Cruz replied.

Watch the video:

Still, Cruz warned that Trump could be a total disaster. “If Donald becomes president, who the heck knows what he would do? Even Donald doesn’t know what he would do. I think the challenges facing the nation, they’re too grave to roll the dice.”

Moments later, Tapper asked Gov. John Kasich (R-OH) if he will also still back Trump as the nominee. Kasich responded that non-candidates don’t understand what it is like to be in the arena and assured Tapper, “At the end of the day, I’m going to support that person who came through the arena and became the nominee.”

All of the GOP candidates took a solemn oath to back their party’s nominee, no matter who it is.

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This has been reposted from Think Progress.

Josh Israel is a senior investigative reporter for ThinkProgress.org at the Center for American Progress Action Fund. Previously, he was a reporter and oversaw money-in-politics reporting at the Center for Public Integrity, was chief researcher for Nick Kotz’s acclaimed 2005 book Judgment Days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Laws that Changed America, and was president of the Virginia Partisans Gay & Lesbian Democratic Club. A New England-native, Josh received a B.A. in politics from Brandeis University and graduated from the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia, in 2004. He has appeared on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, Current TV, and many radio shows across the country.

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