Ted Cruz and Chris Christie, former presidential candidates who both lost to Donald Trump, are engaged in a war of words after Cruz declined to endorse Trump during his speech to the Republican convention.
“I think it was awful. And quite frankly, I think it was something selfish,” Christie said of Cruz’s non-endorsement.
Christie reiterated his criticism Thursday morning, saying he “wasn’t the least bit surprised” by Cruz’s remarks. “That’s who he is and it’s why he is the most disliked person in either party on Capitol Hill,” he said.
Cruz was booed by convention attendees at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland on Wednesday night when he urged Republican to “vote your conscience, vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to defend our freedom and to be faithful to the Constitution,” without mentioning Trump directly.
Cruz’s campaign manager, Jeff Roe, fired back at Christie in a radio interview on Thursday. “That guy turned over his political testicles long ago,” Roe said. “So I don’t take what he has to say with any meaning. You know, he embarrassed himself pretty quickly in this.”
Ted Cruz defended his non-endorsement during a meeting with Texas delegates on Thursday, citing Trump’s personal attacks during the Republican primary. “I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said. “I’m not going to…come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.'”
He was referring to how during the primary Trump retweeted an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz and suggested that Cruz’s father might have played a role in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
hristie, who has endorsed Trump and continues to advise the real estate tycoon, has been known to fetch Trump’s lunch orders from McDonald’s.