--- title: Ted Cruz Refuses to Say He Won't Support Donald Trump description: Sen. Ted Cruz refused to say he will not support Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee canonical: https://time.com/4313677/ted-cruz-donald-trump-republican-nomination/ author: NBC News article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-01T19:50:55.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T17:10:36.570Z article:section: Politics og:title: Ted Cruz Refuses to Say He Won't Support Donald Trump og:description: "What I'm going to do is beat him" og:url: https://time.com/4313677/ted-cruz-donald-trump-republican-nomination/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858c6b9065ccd4ba/698891543c1639281a45d111/ed-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., Saturday, April 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Ted Cruz Refuses to Say He Won't Support Donald Trump twitter:description: "What I'm going to do is beat him" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858c6b9065ccd4ba/698891543c1639281a45d111/ed-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Ted Cruz Refuses to Say He Won't Support Donald Trump by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News May 1, 2016 7:50 PM UTC  Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., on April 30, 2016. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., on April 30, 2016.Jeff Chiu—AP by [NBC News](https://time.com/author/nbc-news/) ## NBC News May 1, 2016 7:50 PM UTC Despite his relentless attacks against the Republican front-runner, Sen. Ted Cruz refused to say he will not support Donald Trump if he becomes the Republican nominee. In an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Cruz was asked multiple times if his opposition to Trump meant he could not support him in a general election, yet each time, he declined to answer. “What I’m going to do is beat him,” Cruz asserted. According to the Texas senator, the stakes of this election couldn’t be higher. “If we lose this, we lose our country. We lose the Supreme Court for a generation, religious liberty is taken away, our kids are bankrupted,” he said… [Read the rest of the story from our partners at NBC](http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/ted-cruz-refuses-say-he-won-t-support-trump-n565526) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4313677/ted-cruz-donald-trump-republican-nomination/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4313677/ted-cruz-donald-trump-republican-nomination/"},"headline":"Ted Cruz Refuses to Say He Won't Support Donald Trump","datePublished":"2016-05-01T19:50:55.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T17:10:36.570Z","description":"\"What I'm going to do is beat him\"","url":"https://time.com/4313677/ted-cruz-donald-trump-republican-nomination/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election topic"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858c6b9065ccd4ba/698891543c1639281a45d111/ed-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"NBC News","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/nbc-news/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt858c6b9065ccd4ba/698891543c1639281a45d111/ed-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., Saturday, April 30, 2016. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)","caption":"Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz speaks at the California Republican Party 2016 Convention in Burlingame, Calif., Saturday, April 30, 2016. 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