Ted Cruz Just Endorsed Donald Trump

On Friday afternoon, Texas senator Ted Cruz did something a lot of your friends have been doing lately: He posted a long rant about the election on Facebook. To spare you from having to read all 722 words, the gist is that he's endorsing Donald Trump.

"A year ago, I pledged to endorse the Republican nominee, and I am honoring that commitment," the post says.

Cruz wreaked havoc during the Republican National Convention in July by telling voters "vote your conscience," instead of endorsing the nominee. The move was seen as a betrayal of his party in the moment, but potentially also a brilliant chess move that would lend him credibility in the future if Trump lost.

Ten years from now, every delegate in tonight's hall who is still alive will claim to have cheered Ted Cruz

— David Frum (@davidfrum)July 21, 2016

During an appearance on CBS's Face the Nation last Sunday, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus made his disappointment with Cruz clear, and essentially said Endorse, or you'll never be the GOP nominee, Ted. Priebus's exact words were, "If they're thinking they're going to run again someday, I think that we're going to evaluate the process—of the nomination process, and I don't think it's going to be that easy for them.

If you can remember back as far as the primary, Cruz was Trump's main rival for the Republican nomination. The relationship between the two opponents went from very agreeable toward the beginning (a.k.a. about a year ago), to very acrimonious around April, with Trump calling Cruz "Lyin' Ted" a few million times. Trump, of course, defeated Cruz once and for all by winning the Indiana primary.

After Cruz gave his speech at the convention, in what appeared to be a symbolic act of shunning by his own party, he was blocked from entering billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson's luxury box at Cleveland's Quicken Loans arena. But that didn't seem to rattle Cruz. "I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father," he said at a press conference the following day. In May, Trump had threatened to "spill the beans" on Cruz's wife, whatever that means.

In Friday's Facebook post, Cruz's focus was elsewhere, highlighting how bad—from a conservative point of view—a Hillary Clinton presidency would be. "If Clinton wins, we know—with 100 percent certainty—that she would deliver on her left-wing promises, with devastating results for our country," adding, "my conscience tells me I must do whatever I can to stop that."

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