gorobei
Diamond Member
- Jan 7, 2007
- 4,117
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The reason Manafort approved of the speech and Ted went over on his time is because the speech Ted read wasn't the one he showed Manafort.
Ol' Lyin' Ted lied to them...lol!
im afraid the political kabuki goes a bit deeper than that.
manafort is smart enough to know cruz wasnt going to endorse. most likely trump and manafort opted to let cruz hang himself by giving him a primetime slot on wed knowing he would reneg on the pledge thus making cruz the heel. they even gave him overrun minutes in the schedule.
the idea being that it would be good tv as everyone watching would be waiting to see if cruz endorses, "will he or wont he" like scripted reality shows which trump has some familiarity with. trump would be able to sneak out onto the floor and upstage cruz in the process.
rumors are there were delegate whips ready in the new york delegation ready to get them to boo cruz. there are reports that John Halprin was on the floor next to manafort as they were cuing the booing and asked him if he arranged the whips. manafort supposedly just smiled and said nothing.
the takeaway is that trump wanted to upstage cruz one last time even if it torpedoed pence's 2nd first introduction. the main upside is it poisons the well for cruz in the party and weakens his chances in 2020(assuming trump loses)
if this is true, it generally falls in line with the view that trump is a narcissist and sociopath. his only motivation being self aggrandizement and petty revenge. cruz like the scorpion of fable does what is his nature and trump gets to look like the star while the crowd boos cruz off.
its a bit of a dick move as it tramples over what should have been mike pence's national debut, but instead all the news media tomorrow will be about cruz being the heel. however pence knew what he was getting in bed with.
the biggest downside is that it makes trumps campaign staff look like chumps for not knowing/controlling what cruz would say/do and not playing it smart by putting him on monday where he couldnt do any real damage.
but clearly trump has never really cared about winning. the rumors are the whole campaign is part of his move into news/media with TrumpTv.
