Elections

Trump: My Old ‘Rivals Shouldn’t Be Allowed To Run’ Ever Again

Donald Trump AFP/Getty Images/Oli Scarff

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Phillip Stucky Political Reporter
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Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump told Maine supporters Thursday that “rivals” who failed to endorse him for president shouldn’t be allowed to run in any future election.

It was a rough campaign, and I wasn’t nice, but they weren’t nice either,” Trump told supporters Thursday. Trump said those who ran against him but still haven’t endorsed him were “really sore losers” who “only signed the pledge so I would do so as well.”

This pledge was signed at the beginning of the primary race, after the first debate. The pledge stated candidates would not run as third-party candidates if they lost the nomination, saying little about a requirement to endorse the eventual nominee.

“They broke their word, and in my opinion, they shouldn’t be allowed to run for office again …because what they did was a disgrace,” he said.

Six former Republican presidential contenders have declined to endorse Trump in any way. Sens. Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Govs. Jeb Bush and George Pataki and businesswoman Carly Fiorina all either failed to endorse Trump, or stated that there was no way they would ever make the endorsement.

Two other former Republican candidates, Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Marco Rubio first announced they would support the nominee, but after Cruz and Kasich left the race, the two backed away from Trump.

Trump’s push to disqualify his former rivals was most effective against Kasich and Cruz. Trump said last week that Kasich and Cruz would not be invited to speak at the Republican convention in July. Kasich already announced that he will not speak, but Cruz still hopes that his delegates will buy him a stake on the floor of the convention.

After a widely-politicized and well-known push to free delegates from state primary results by former Cruz staffers, Cruz needs to speak in order to try and woo those delegates his way. Cruz’s only real chance lies in changing the rules of the convention to allow delegates to vote according to their wishes, not how their states voted.

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