Glenn Beck Confronts Cruz in Interview, Demands Explanation for Trump Endorsement
The love affair between radio host Glenn Beck and former Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz hit a rough spot Monday, with Beck grilling the Texas senator on his show about why he reversed course and endorsed Donald Trump.
Beck noted how Cruz had diligently avoided endorsing Trump at the Republican National Convention, saying instead that Republicans should vote this conscience. “Am I supposed to now vote for him, or should I vote for my conscience?” Beck asked.
Cruz responded that he could still vote his conscience, but the election was a “binary choice,” and the options were Trump and Hillary Clinton. “This is about principles and ideas. That’s the test I’m applying. What I do know is that Hillary Clinton fails that test profoundly,” he said.
“We’ve known that for 25 years,” Beck retorted. “And Hillary Clinton has nothing to change your mind… however, this weekend, you wouldn’t answer the question whether Donald Trump is fit to be President of the United States.”
Cruz dodged the question, and replied that while he tried to keep the election from being a ‘binary choice,’ it still was. “So a man who you cannot come on and say, ‘Yes, Glenn, he is fit to be President of the United States,’ I still am encouraged by you to abandon my principles and vote because it’s ‘a binary choice’?” Beck asked incredulously.
Cruz again went back to attacking Hillary Clinton, and stressed the importance of maintaining the presidency in order to control the Supreme Court and defend gun rights. “You and I agree on this 100%,” Beck said, “But this is all the information you had in Cleveland. You had this information the day you dropped out of the race, and said that Donald Trump is a sociopathic liar. So you had all this information.”
“Have you spent an enormous amount of time with Trump?” Beck asked. “Do you have new information that has made you say, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s now not a sociopathic liar… and now there’s suddenly a reason to believe him’?”
After Cruz began going on about the “binary choice,” Beck cut in again. “You knew all the things you are saying today,” he said. “The time to do that would’ve been the day you pulled out, or you gave the speech, so eloquently– why now?”
Ultimately, Cruz pointed to the Trump campaign’s decision to list his good friend Mike Lee as one of their picks for the Supreme Court. “They put him at the top of the list,” he noted. “And for the first time the campaign committed that the only nominees he would consider were on that list.”
Beck ripped into Cruz even more after the interview ended, even saying that he should have backed Cruz’s rival Marco Rubio instead. “For the very first time, I heard Ted Cruz calculate,” he said after the commercial break. “And when that happened, the whole thing fell apart for me.”
Listen above, via The Glenn Beck Program.
[Image via screengrab]
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