UPDATE, 11:00am – Sources are now telling Heat Street and several other outlets that the Trump campaign was actively encouraging delegates on the floor to assail Sen. Ted Cruz during the latter half of his speech. Several delegates and observers confirmed to us that Trump’s representatives were instrumental in ruling up the crowd.
According to The Daily Wire, the floor interruptions were part of a plan hatched earlier in the day, when Trump campaign chair received and signed off on Ted Cruz’s convention speech.
A source also told the Wire that Trump’s team was aware last week that Cruz would not endorse.
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As the Republican National Convention kicked off its third night of speeches, the small sense of unity (or at least acceptance) behind nominee Donald Trump quickly evaporated.
As former candidate Ted Cruz took the floor, the assumption was the Texas Senator would use his time to push Republicans to accept the primary results that put him in second place.
But instead Cruz refused to endorse Donald Trump – and instead subversively encouraged Republicans to keep the faith in conservative principles even as their nominee did not.
And while other Republican mainstays like House Speaker Paul Ryan maintained that losing to Hillary Clinton was worse than winning with Trump, Cruz refused to make any such statements – and instead implied that the GOP had chosen sides.
“Citizens are furious — rightly furious — at a political establishment that cynically breaks its promises and ignores the will of the people… We have to do better.”
“If you love our country and love your children as much as I know that you do,” Cruz told the gathered crowd, “stand and speak and vote your conscience.”
And then, he set off the firestorm.
Trump, already angry that Cruz had refused to endorse him in the past week, stepped on the last ten minutes of Cruz’s speech, arriving at the Quicken Loans Arena – and dominating media coverage – as the Republican Senator wrapped up.
Just as Cruz closed his argument, Trump popped out of the concourse and onto the floor, stealing the spotlight, and ensuring Cruz’s standing ovation went almost completely unnoticed.
Trump supporters in the crowd made their displeasure known as well.
Delegates in Make America Great Again hats chanted Trump’s epithet, “Lyin Ted!” Even Cruz’s wife failed to escape the wrath of Trump’s floor supporters.
As cameras panned to Heidi Cruz watching her husband’s speech, some in the angry crowd shouted “Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” Heidi was escorted out by a visibly angry Ken Cuccinelli.
According to CNN, the anger didn’t even end there. As Cruz scoured the arena for post-speech adulation, he was, reportedly, repeatedly “approached and insulted,” and locked out of major donors’ suites.
As he made his way back to his hotel, according to sources on the scene, Cruz was met by a chorus of boos in the lobby.
But among Trump detractors, Cruz was a hero. Moreso even than Marco Rubio, who addressed the convention by video, trying to lay out a case that Trump’s vision for America differed from Clinton’s. By the time Vice Presidential nominee Mike Pence spoke, the crowd had shifted focus back to the Trump ticket.
Thursday night is expected to go more smoothly for Donald Trump. Ted Cruz was the final Republican opponent to speak, and Trump will formally accept the nomination in the closing speech of the convention. He’ll be introduced by daughter Ivanka.