Cruz U-turns, says Trump gets his vote

Keeping word, Texan notes; Clinton camp digs at switch

Donald Trump and Ted Cruz tangle during a Feb. 25 Republican presidential debate in Houston. Nicknamed “Lyin’ Ted” by Trump during the primary race, Cruz announced Friday that he would vote for the former adversary Cruz once called a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral,” among other things.
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz tangle during a Feb. 25 Republican presidential debate in Houston. Nicknamed “Lyin’ Ted” by Trump during the primary race, Cruz announced Friday that he would vote for the former adversary Cruz once called a “pathological liar” and “utterly amoral,” among other things.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Ted Cruz announced Friday that he will vote for Donald Trump, an about-face coming months after the Texas conservative called Trump a "pathological liar" and "utterly amoral."

photo

AP

Hillary Clinton sent out a tweet on Friday that Ted Cruz had once posted calling on Donald Trump to release his tax returns. Meanwhile, her campaign team is urging moderators to correct any lies from Trump. “His level of lying is unprecedented in American politics,” Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri said Friday.

"After many months of careful consideration, of prayer and searching my own conscience, I have decided that on Election Day, I will vote for the Republican nominee, Donald Trump," Cruz wrote Friday.

Trump accepted Cruz's support, describing it as an "endorsement" in a statement. That's even after Trump claimed he didn't want Cruz's endorsement immediately after the convention chaos.

"I am greatly honored by the endorsement of Senator Cruz," Trump said Friday. "We have fought the battle and he was a tough and brilliant opponent. I look forward to working with him for many years to come in order to make America great again."

Cruz said he was simply following through on a promise to support his party's presidential nominee, even though the New York businessman had nicknamed him "Lyin' Ted," insulted his wife and linked his father to the John F. Kennedy assassination.

After intensifying pressure to back Trump, Cruz said he would cast a vote for Trump, while stopping short of an official endorsement in a statement posted Friday on Facebook.

The distinction helps Cruz save face among those supporters still unwilling to forgive Trump's heated attacks during their primary campaign. Cruz was booed by Trump supporters at the national convention for encouraging Republicans to "vote your conscience."

The development comes at a critical time in the 2016 presidential contest

The first debate between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton is Monday, and Election Day is fewer than seven weeks away. Early voting already has begun in some states. Trump and Clinton remain locked in a tight race as both struggle to unite their parties behind them. Trump, in particular, has been branded as a phony by hard-line conservatives, Cruz among them, who see him more as a political opportunist than a true Republican.

"This man is a pathological liar. He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth," Cruz said of Trump in May, hours before ending his campaign.

"Donald will betray his supporters on every issue," he added, while calling Trump "utterly amoral," "a narcissist," "a bully," and "a serial philanderer," among other things.

democrats' digs

Clinton addressed the shift on social media, posting a tweet from Cruz calling on Trump to release his tax returns. Cruz released nine years of his returns, while Trump has refused to release any.

Clinton's running mate, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, took a dig at Cruz for expressing support despite the personal insults Trump rained down on him during the primaries.

"If somebody said that about my dad, they would never have me as a supporter for anything," Kaine said as he campaigned in Texas.

Cruz finished a distant second to Trump in the primary and balked at previous promises to endorse the eventual nominee. On Friday, he cited two reasons for his shift.

"First, last year, I promised to support the Republican nominee. And I intend to keep my word," he wrote. "Second, even though I have had areas of significant disagreement with our nominee, by any measure Hillary Clinton is wholly unacceptable -- that's why I have always been #NeverHillary.

"Hillary Clinton is manifestly unfit to be president, and her policies would harm millions of Americans," he continued. "And Donald Trump is the only thing standing in her way."

Cruz also faced intensifying political pressure from all quarters.

Since the convention speech, polls have suggested that Cruz's popularity was slipping nationally and in Texas; he faces a re-election campaign in 2018.

His base supported his refusal to back Trump at first, but the mood shifted recently. The vast majority of calls to Cruz's office had turned increasingly negative in recent weeks with many voters urging him to support Trump to prevent a Clinton victory, according to Republicans familiar with the situation. The Republicans spoke on the condition of anonymity because these were internal discussions.

At the same time, the large staff that worked on Cruz's presidential bid pushed him not to endorse. Most refused to accept jobs with the Trump campaign when they were offered after Cruz's departure from the primary campaign this spring. And as recently as this week, some warned they would not work for Cruz again if he officially endorsed Trump.

'we will educate him'

The backing from Cruz comes as Trump is working to broaden his appeal to traditionally Democratic voter demographics. In recent weeks, Trump has suggested repeatedly that black Americans should vote for him because of the dire circumstances they now face, saying in August in Michigan, "What the hell do you have to lose?"

"Our African-American communities are absolutely in the worst shape they've ever been in before," Trump said during a rally Tuesday in North Carolina. "Ever, ever, ever."

In an interview that aired Friday, President Barack Obama took direct aim at Trump's assertions, saying even young children know better than that.

"You know, I think even most 8-year-olds'll tell you that whole slavery thing wasn't very good for black people," Obama told ABC News' Robin Roberts during the interview, which was taped Thursday in the new National Museum of African American History and Culture ahead of its opening. "Jim Crow wasn't very good for black people."

The president first questioned this idea last Saturday, telling the Congressional Black Caucus, "You may have heard Hillary's opponent in this election say that there's never been a worse time to be a black person. I mean, he missed that whole civics lesson about slavery and Jim Crow ... but we've got a museum for him to visit. So he can tune in. We will educate him."

But his latest remarks, which aired on ABC's Good Morning America as part of a joint interview with his wife, Michelle, were even sharper. Obama, who will speak at the museum's opening today, emphasized that Americans need to understand the impact of discrimination will take decades to undo.

"It's unrealistic to think that somehow that all just completely went away because the Civil Rights Act was passed or because Oprah's making a lot of money or because I was elected president," he said. "You know, that's not how society works. And if you have hundreds of years of racial discrimination, it's likely that the vestiges of that discrimination linger on. And we should acknowledge that and own that."

Michelle Obama said the museum's collection highlighted Americans' ability to rise above past wrongs.

"We've been through so much. And we've overcome so much," she said. "After you see what we've been through, there's nothing we can't handle as a community and as a nation."

Addressing the ongoing and sometimes violent protests in Charlotte, N.C., in the wake of this week's fatal police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, Obama said the fact that so many people of color see racial bias in the system should prompt Americans to ask themselves "tough questions. Are we teaching our kids to see people for their character and not for their color?"

"If you have repeated instances in which the perception is at least that this might not have been handled the same way were it not for the element of race, even if it's unconscious," he said. "Then I think it's important for all of us to say, 'We want to get this right. We want to do something about it.'"

debate strategies

Trump and Clinton head into the weekend on the homestretch to their first face-to-face showdown in Monday night's debate.

The biggest unknown for Clinton and her strategists is which version of Trump will show up for the 90-minute face-off at Hofstra University in New York.

It will be the first time he has appeared on a debate stage with only one other candidate, which means the spotlight will be harsher and more intense. Monday also represents a test of how well he can pitch his message to an electorate broader than GOP primary voters.

Clinton's team is arguing that Trump should not be graded on a curve.

The Republican nominee "should be held to the same standard on knowledge -- what kind of plans you have, your ability to explain your plans, skills, expertise you have," said Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director.

Trump has indicated that he will approach the debate as he has pretty much everything else in his campaign -- reactively and by trusting his own instincts and impulses.

"People ask me that question, 'Oh, you're going to go out there and do this and that.' I really don't know that," Trump told Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly. "You're going to have to feel it out when you're out there. She's got to treat me with respect. I'm going to treat her with respect. I'd like to start off by saying that, because that would be my intention."

Clinton's campaign is urging moderators to quickly correct any lies from Trump.

"This is the role of the moderator ... to call out those lies, and do it in real time," said Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton's communications director, on a Friday conference call with reporters. "To not do that is to give Donald Trump a very unfair advantage."

The campaign released a long list of Trump statements that were ruled false by fact checkers, such as his claim that he opposed the 2003 Iraq war before it started or that Clinton wants to abolish the Second Amendment.

"Any candidate who tells this many lies clearly can't win the debate on the merits," Palmieri said.

She added, "His level of lying is unprecedented in American politics."

The conference call also was an attempt by Clinton's campaign to set expectations for the debate. With so much focus on Trump's temperament, Palmieri said he shouldn't receive high marks just because he avoids becoming "unhinged."

Trump has said moderators shouldn't try to correct the candidates.

"I don't think you want that," he told Fox News on Thursday. "No, I think you have to have somebody that just lets 'em argue it out."

Information for this article was contributed by Steve Peoples and Will Weissert of The Associated Press; by Juliet Eilperin, Karen Tumulty and staff members of The Washington Post; and by Chris Megerian of the Los Angeles Times.

A Section on 09/24/2016

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