Cruz rules

Ted Cruz rules out voting for Hillary Clinton

By Katie Glueck

Ted Cruz will not vote for Hillary Clinton, he said at a Texas delegation briefing Thursday morning, but said that he was not ready to back Donald Trump.

Cruz walked the Texas delegation through his thinking in giving Wednesday's speech, saying that he had given the Trump campaign ample heads up that he was not planning to endorse the Republican Party nominee, and that they had spoken three days ago, when the Texas senator made clear that an endorsement would not be coming.

But he did not rule out an endorsement in the future.

“I am watching and listening to make that decision," Cruz said. "The election isn’t today. What I don’t intend to do is go out and throw rocks at Donald. I don’t intend to criticize him."

Nodding to the boos he received on Wednesday night as he left the convention stage, Cruz urged Trump supporters to "not just scream and yell and attack anyone who would dare question our candidates."

"Are you going to vote for Trump?" a delegate demanded. "I will answer the same way I'll answer many many times," Cruz said. "I am doing what millions of Americans are doing. I'm watching, I'm listening. As I told you last night the standard I intend to apply is, which candidate I trust to defend our freedom, be faithful to the Constitution.

"But I can tell you I'm not voting for Hillary," he added.

"What I wanted to do last night was lay out principles I believe we should stand for as Republicans," he explained. "In that speech last night I did not say a single negative word about Donald Trump," he continued to applause.

Cruz did, however, obliquely criticize the nominee's handling of the convention speeches and agenda.

"If we go to November and the dominant word voters hear is Trump," he said, "Or ... if it's Hillary or [her] email server, we're going to lose. You want to know how we win? We win if the dominant message voters hear is freedom."

Cruz also appeared to rule out a third-party bid against Trump and Clinton, though he stuck to the present tense.

"I"m not encouraging anybody to write my name in," he said. "I'm not a candidate in this race."

Asked about the pledge Cruz signed to back the Republican nominee, he said it was no longer operative.

"The day that became abrogated was the day that became personal," Cruz said. "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father. And that pledge was not a blanket commitment that if you [attack] Heidi I'm going to nonetheless go like a servile puppy dog" and stick to the pledge anyway.