Texas Senator Ted Cruz lavished praise on President Donald Trump before introducing him during a campaign rally in Houston, Texas Monday evening.
“God Bless Texas and God bless President Donald Trump,” Cruz said at the very opening of his remarks. Cruz continued in a robust defense of Trump’s first two years in office and repeated many of his familiar campaign refrains in support of a border wall and touting historically low minority unemployment.
Cruz spent much of his speech attacking his Democratic opponent Congressman Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke has garnered significant media attention and broke the all time fundraising record for a Senate race, despite consistently trailing behind Cruz in state wide polling.
Cruz completed his speech giving a full-throated endorsement of his one-time primary opponent saying “In 2020, Donald Trump will be overwhelmingly elected as President of the United States,” adding “I look forward to campaigning alongside him as he campaigns for re-election.”
The praise is a stunning turnaround from the 2016 presidential campaign in which Cruz once said of Trump “I’m going to tell you what I really think of Donald Trump. This man is a pathological liar. He is utterly amoral and a serial philanderer.”
Trump did himself not hold back dubbing Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and attacking him nearly every chance he got. The president, however, rescinded his nickname Monday afternoon — saying he now calls Cruz “Beautiful Ted, Texas Ted.”