The conservative senator, eyes on 2018 and 2020, as well as 240, warned voters Trump was a liberal in disguise.As Donald Trump soft-pedals his once-hard-line immigration rhetoric, supporters of his vanquished primary foe Ted Cruz have one message for Republican voters: We told you so.
Cruz spent the final months of his unsuccessful presidential primary run arguing that Trump was a not-so-closeted liberal whose conservative language on immigration was not to be trusted. Now, Trump says he is open to “softening” the approach to some undocumented immigrants already in this country, a departure from his previous calls for a deportation force.
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And as Ted Cruz eyes his 2018 reelection bid, with some of his supporters holding out hopes for a 2020 presidential run, Cruz world feels vindicated.
"Everything Trump promises comes with an expiration date,” said Cruz’s former Senate communications director, Amanda Carpenter. “We knew it during the primary, and now it is apparent he has duped his most loyal supporters on the issue they care about most, immigration. Don't say we didn't warn them."
The Texas senator has been dealing with plenty of political fallout of his own after refusing to endorse Trump in his speech at the Republican National Convention, a move that generated anger among Trump supporters nationally and has stoked chatter of a primary challenge against Cruz in Texas.
But Trump’s rhetorical contortions on immigration this week are giving Cruz supporters in and around his orbit more hope that anger over the RNC speech, and over his broader opposition to Trump, will fade. They are optimistic that the deeply conservative Cruz will emerge from November looking prescient in his warnings that Trump couldn’t be trusted to defend core GOP values, and say that Trump’s shifting on immigration language this week only proves Cruz’s point.
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