Donald Trump Jr. said Thursday that his father does not need Ted Cruz’s endorsement going into the general election.
“I don’t care. We don’t need it. We got it de facto from the people that matter,” he told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “Those are the voters the people that my father has been speaking to directly. The hardworking people in this country that have been left in the dust.”
Trump said the campaign knew that Cruz wouldn’t endorse but wanted to give the runner-up to the nomination the chance to address voters.
“We were the better man. We knew it wasn’t coming. We could have said, ‘Don’t speak,'” he said. “We wanted to make sure we gave him the option to speak.”
Cruz’s words were aimed at a 2020 presidential race, Trump said.
“Ted is thinking about, ‘You know what? If Hillary Clinton gets this, I can run again in four years as opposed to waiting for eight’ when my father would finish up his second term. It’s pure showmanship,” he said. “It’s total disloyalty.”
Cruz on Thursday strongly defended his refusal to endorse Trump during his Republican National Convention speech, saying he’s not “in the habit” of backing politicians who attack his family.
“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said at a meeting with the Texas delegation in Cleveland.
Earlier in the campaign, Cruz criticized the Republican nominee for attacking his wife on social media and linking the Texas senator’s father to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
But Trump dismissed those motivations.
“I think Ted will conveniently make anything look optically to try to sell a point,” he said. “Again I think if there’s one thing I’ve seen, if there’s one thing I’ve learned — there’s not a lot of people that are truly genuine. It is all still politics. He is a pure politician.”
