Tedlo’s 2016 Ploys to Foil Trump Repeatedly Fell Flat

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Ted Cruz and Donald Trump have not always been as handsome as they are today. A shaking handshake during the 2016 campaign damaged Cruz’s initial attempt to overthrow Trump. Trump later worked most of the Republican National Convention, generating boos for Cruz. See more stories on the Insider business page.

Ted Cruz’s path to break into the 2016 GOP presidential career was full of missteps, including a poorly self-contained choreographer and a prime time ambush by then-rival Donald Trump in during a major Republican assembly.

Cruz relived the shocking experiences as part of Insider’s entire oral history about Trump’s takeover of the Republican party, breaking down the most iconic events in a series of interviews on Capitol Hill.

The Republican senator from Texas survived the brutal multi-candidate debate and managed to string out some early major wins. But in the spring of 2016 he was working to derail Trump’s seemingly unstoppable campaign.

Read more: The specific oral history of how Trump took over the GOP, as Cruz, Rubio, and 20 other insiders told us

His solution: an unprecedented attempt at naming fellow Republican contender Carly Fiorina as his vice running running mate even as first-timer Trump runs away from the nomination.

Cruz thought he and Fiorina could put out a strong, principled, united front.

Unless, of course, they make something crazy like bungle a simple handshake that will live on the internet as a cringe-deserve gif.

“We freaking practice it, and they still screwed it up,” then-Cruz campaign manager Jeff Roe said of the unfortunate moment Cruz and Fiorina were knotted in Indianapolis while trying to shake hands.

Now Cruz laughs at that, describing the gaffe as something that “makes for a funny video after the fact.”

Cruz’s ‘voting your conscience’ is speaking to the RNC

Things got even more raw as it narrated the time Trump, who earned the GOP nomination, selected Republican National Convention attendees against him on July 20, 2016 at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.

Cruz prepared a “vote your conscience” speech that he said was designed to unite conservatives even though he has not yet endorsed Trump.

“What I said in the speech was voting for candidates you trust to defend liberty and defend the Constitution,” Cruz told Insider. “And that’s what I expect Donald Trump to do. At the time I didn’t know if he would do it or not. There are reasons to have concerns. I have concerns.”

Rick Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign manager, told Insider Cruz that he was given the greenlight to say his piece. But then the man who would formally accept the GOP nomination the next night decided to steal the spotlight from his rival.

“We have Trump in a holding room, and he watches the proceedings on TV,” Gates said. “He asked me where the rest of the family was. We had a family box, which we called the VIP box, in the corner of the convention center, looking directly at the stage. Trump said: ‘We’ll check it out. Let’s go.’ “

Trump jumped into a corner of the arena to loud cheers of support, Cruz surprisingly. “I didn’t know it was coming,” the Texas senator said. “I have no idea. It never occurred to me that that would be the reaction of the campaign. Because of this, for any nominee, the common goal is to unite the party and win in November.”

Amanda Carpenter, a former Cruz aide who left her RNC campaign, told Insider she was uncomfortable watching the series of events. “I just remember how loud the boos were,” she said. “And how worried I am for Heidi, watching her is kind of a show.”

For his part, Cruz five years later still defended his statements.

“If you look at what I said in the speech, the words are pretty much the same as what Ted Kennedy said about Jimmy Carter and what Ronald Reagan said about Gerald Ford,” he said. “Neither of them, at their respective conventions, endorsed a nominee. And the reason I know it’s the same is that I both have those speeches in front of me as I write it and I intentionally use the same language. “

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