July 20, 2016

Cruz Compares Himself to General Patton as Supporters Chant “2020”

Donald Trump’s top primary rival still isn’t endorsing the Republican nominee.

AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Just as Sen. Ted Cruz was about to launch into a tirade against Donald Trump at a rally in Cleveland on Wednesday afternoon, a sign came down from the heavens. Donald Trump’s plane descended from the sky, flying over the Cuyahoga River in a victory march at just the moment his vanquished foe was holding one last rally to thank his fans for their support.

The crowd, at a gathering hosted by the Texas delegation at a riverbank bar, booed loudly at the Trump-emblazed 757. “That was pretty well orchestrated,” Cruz shouted.

The senator from Texas is scheduled to speak during prime time at the convention Wednesday night, but he didn’t seem ready to throw his support behind the Republican nominee quite yet. “I don’t know what the future’s going to hold,” Cruz said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But what I do know, what remains, is my faith in the men and women here. What I do know is that everyone of us has an obligation to follow our conscience, to speak the truth, and truth is unchangeable.”

Cruz launched an extended metaphor comparing his presidential campaign to the opening scene from the film Patton, when the World War II general speaks before a massive flag to thank his troops. “He speaks about how in this war, every one of us, as he said, the object is not for you to die for your country,” Cruz said. “It’s to make the other fella die for his country.” He added, “Patton said, at the end of the day, everyone who was part of this, when we’re old and gray and our grandkids ask, ‘Where were you in the great one, in the great battle,’ we’ll be able to say to our grandkids, ‘I wasn’t shoveling crap in Louisiana.'”

The crowd loved it. When Cruz talked about being unsure of his own future, the assembled launched into a chant of “2020!” But before the event started, I overheard a pair of Cruz delegates worrying that Cruz might get booed by Trump delegates when he takes the convention stage.

One of the delegates comforted the other, saying, “It’ll just sound like Cruuuuuz.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate