Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) wailed about losing the ability to fundraise on the Senate floor, saying that Harry Reid change to the filibuster rule will “poison the atmosphere of the Senate,” in an interview with Bloomberg TV’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” that aired this weekend.
Yes, as if Cruz’s government shutdown that caused his own party to hate him even more didn’t poison the atmosphere of the Senate.
Watch here:
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
Transcript via Bloomberg TV:
HUNT: Big fight in the Senate this week over the rules change. Republicans are furious at what Harry Reid did. The atmosphere was pretty bad, anyway. This isn’t really going to change anything, is it?
CRUZ: Well, it’s unfortunate. It’s yet another abuse of power by the Democrats. And, frankly, it’s continuing the same pattern we’ve seen with Obamacare. It is a pattern of smoke and mirrors.
HUNT: Will it complicate passing budgets or debt ceilings or anything?
CRUZ: Of course it will. I mean, it will poison the atmosphere of the Senate, but, you know, it’s also an illustration of the Democrats breaking their word. Just like President Obama said, if you like your plan, you can keep it. And he said it over and over again. We now know that at the time he said that, he knew it was false.
Freshman Cruz was busy poisoning the atmosphere in the Senate on day one. In March, having been in the Senate for ten weeks, the brand new Senator told a Dallas paper that he was busy teaching veteran Republicans a thing or two. As if predicting Cruz’s future, the reporter asked him how he would get things done after burning so many bridges.
Cruz took refuge in “I can’t control what they do” answers and then pivoted.
In September, before Cruz shutdown the government and thereby ripped the last remaining shred of dignity from his fellow Republicans, the Republican Party has turned on Ted Cruz:
New York Republican Congressman Peter King: “My sound bite is to say he’s a fraud…I start with that, and then I go on. It takes me two or three minutes to explain it.”
Arizona Senator, and failed 2008 Republican Presidential Candidate, John McCain: “I spoke to Senator Cruz about my dissatisfaction.” I’m going to go out a limb here and characterize the famously fiery McCain’s paraphrase as the understatement of the month. McCain once publicly described his fellow lawmaker as a “wacko bird.”
Anonymous GOP Aide: “Some people came here to govern and make things better for their constituents. Ted Cruz came here to throw bombs and fundraise off of attacks on fellow Republicans. He’s a joke, plain and simple.”
No, Democrats didn’t “grab” any power by removing Ted Cruz’s ability to fundraise for himself instead of doing the job our tax dollars pay for — and that is what he’s really complaining about. Obama isn’t “stacking the courts” by getting a vote on his nominees and it’s hardly Democrats’ fault that the five year Republican war on Obama and the nation finally backfired.
Ted Cruz shut down the government over ObamaCare, but he doesn’t even have a suggestion or an idea for an alternative to ObamaCare. He is very, very good at blaming others for his actions though — to wit, pretending that it’s Democrats who poisoned the atmosphere in the Senate, which was obstruction central but still polite…
… Until this year when an unstoppable id with a penchant for grifting blew in with his big mouth, closed mind and a gaping hole of endless, childish need.
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
