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Trump, Kasich, Cruz Dump Republican Loyalty Pledge?

By Jayce Wagner
Published on: 06:43 PST, Mar 30, 2016

Last night during a CNN town hall featuring all three Republican presidential candidates, both Ted Cruz and John Kasich backed away from their earlier pledge to support whoever might be the eventual Republican nominee. The pledge has been a mainstay of the Republican presidential race, but after Donald Trump’s increasingly vitriolic and bitter feud with Ted Cruz, Cruz and Kasich have backpedaled on earlier promises that they’d support Trump if he won.

“I’m not in the habit of supporting someone who attacks my wife and attacks my family,” Ted Cruz said last night during the CNN town hall.

Moderator Anderson Cooper pressed Cruz, but Cruz wouldn’t budge and wouldn’t say that he would support a Trump presidency.

https://twitter.com/AlexJPoth/status/715246217266073602

Cruz wouldn’t answer the question directly but stated that he doesn’t support people who attack his family – which Trump has certainly done in recent weeks, as Inquisitr reported previously. John Kasich commented that none of the candidates should have answered the question in the first place.

“I’ve got to see what happens. If the nominee is somebody that I think is really hurting the country, and dividing the country, I can’t stand behind them,” John Kasich said during the CNN town hall last night.

Donald Trump, for his part, has considered abandoning the loyalty pledge for a while now, reports ABC News. But during last night’s CNN town hall featuring Ted Cruz, John Kasich, and Donald Trump, who were on stage at separate times, Kasich and Cruz stated that they might not support Donald Trump if he’s given the Republican nomination. Trump said during the CNN town hall that he likely wouldn’t support Kasich or Cruz either if they won the nomination, due in part to the unfair treatment he’s received at the hands of the Republican party, Trump claims.

“I think nominating Donald Trump would be an absolute trainwreck, I think it would hand the general election to Hillary Clinton,” Ted Cruz said last night during the CNN town hall.

The Republican loyalty pledge started last September when all the presidential candidates were asked by the Republican National Committee to sign a pledge to support the Republican presidential nominee, no matter who it was, as well as a promise not to drop out of the Republican race and run as a third-party candidate. Trump, Kasich, and Cruz all signed the pledge, although Trump only did so after some prodding by the RNC.

“[Cruz] doesn’t need to support me. I have tremendous support right now from the people. I don’t really want him to do something he’s not comfortable with,” Donald Trump told Anderson Cooper last night during the CNN town hall.

The Republican loyalty pledge now presumably broken, New York Magazine speculates that the Republican race could get even messier in the future. Now that the candidates are no longer bound to support the eventual nominee, they can take the gloves off and really start slinging negative campaign ads, claims New York Magazine.

Breaking the Republican loyalty pledge doesn’t just mean the candidates won’t have to support one another in a general election. If they’re willing to back off of the endorsement clause, they might be willing to back off of their promise not to run as third-party candidates, speculates New York Magazine.

“The point of a third party bid… is disloyalty – to use your political power to thwart the party’s treacherous turn. And at least in the case of Trump, getting on the ballot in a handful of states would probably sufficient to achieve that end,” reads New York Magazine’s speculation on what breaking the pledge could mean for the campaign going forward.

[Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images]

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