War Of Words For GOP Candidates At Milwaukee Town Hall

MILWAUKEE (CBSNewYork/AP) -- As they worked for votes in Wisconsin, the three remaining Republican presidential candidates took the stage at a town hall in Milwaukee Tuesday night.

As CBS2's Jessica Schneider reported, the Wisconsin primary comes around on Tuesday, April 5. A total of 42 delegates are at play for the GOP, though it is not a winner-take-all contest.

The candidates each sat down with Anderson Cooper of CNN at the Riverside Theater, at 116 W. Wisconsin Ave. in Milwaukee. With chances increasing that none of the three candidates will get to the magic number of 1,237 delegates to secure the nomination, the candidates talked through a range of topics.

But inevitably, it came down to a war of words.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took the stage first. He recently won the endorsement of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

He vowed to fight to the finish to keep rival Donald Trump from being the Republican nominee.

"Donald is not going to be the GOP nominee," Cruz said. "We're going to beat him."

Meanwhile, Trump backed down from his previous pledge to support whoever emerges as the candidate at the convention.

"Do you continue to pledge to support whoever the nominee is?" Cooper said.

"No, I don't anymore," Trump said.

"You don't?" Cooper said.

"No, we'll see who it is," Trump said.

The Milwaukee town hall happened just hours after Trump's campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was slapped with a summons and charged with simple battery for allegedly grabbing Breitbart News reporter Michelle Fields' arm and causing three bruises, at a campaign event in Florida on March 8.

Cruz said Lewandowski should step down, and said he would "of course" ask Lewandowski to resign.

"Look, it shouldn't be complicated that members of campaign staff should not be physically assaulting the press," Cruz said.

But Trump refused to use his famous phrase, "You're fired," on his campaign manager.

"I stick up for people," Trump said. "I would've loved to have fired him. It would have been much easier than talking with you about it all night long. I'd rather talk about the issues."

As the primary season moves closer to the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, candidates have been battling for every last delegate.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he will stay in the race despite only winning his home state, and despite calls to get out.

"In virtually every national poll, I am the only one that beats Hillary Clinton consistently," he said. "In fact, in last poll that came out, I was up 11 points."

Kasich will be campaigning in Howard Beach, Queens, on Wednesday.

New York is very much at play in the race. The primary is three weeks away on April 19.