Ted Cruz will attend the funeral of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Saturday, after his campaign previously said he would not be able to leave the campaign trail.
Cruz had hit President Barack Obama multiple times for planning to miss Scalia’s funeral, but his campaign said earlier Thursday that Cruz would be unable to participate.
Spokeswoman Alice Stewart told CNN that Cruz wanted to attend the funeral, but it will be “impossible” given his upcoming campaign schedule and Saturday’s Republican primary in South Carolina.
Later on Thursday, Stewart said Cruz would be at the service.
Speaking to the Granville County Republican Women at a luncheon in Greenville, Cruz characterized Obama as a “lawless and faithless President who’s eager to travel to Cuba, but unwilling to attend the funeral of Justice Scalia.”
Later, at Mutt’s Barbecue in Easley, Cruz again hit Obama for not planning to go to the funeral, and for not attending Margaret Thatcher’s funeral in 2013.
Cruz, a Supreme Court clerk to Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the mid-1990s, said he knew Scalia “personally” for 20 years, and argued before him on the Supreme Court nine times.
“Justice Scalia was a lion of the law. He was someone I knew for 20 years. He was brilliant, principled. Like Ronald Reagan was to the presidency, so Justice Scalia was to the Supreme Court. And his passing leaves a huge void on that court,” he told Anderson Cooper at CNN’s Town Hall on Thursday.