Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:08 pm
Ted Cruz went ballistic and called Mitch McConnell a liar during a meltdown on the Senate floor.
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Cruz claimed that McConnell promised him that there was no deal on the Ex-Im Bank:
We had a Senate Republican lunch where I stood up and I asked the majority leader very directly, what was the deal that was just cut on [trade legislation, and was there a deal for the Export-Import Bank? It was a direct question. I asked the majority leader in front of all the Republican senators. The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal. Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times.
Sen. Cruz said that McConnell looked him in the eye and lied to him, “What we just saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but he told the press over and over again was a simple lie.”
Cruz was irate because McConnell assured him that there was no deal to extend Ex-Im Bank, then used his power as Majority Leader to shut out all other amendments while proposing his own amendment that would extend the Ex-Im Bank as part of the transportation bill.
It is extremely rare to see a Senator call another Senator a liar on the Senate floor. You’ll notice that Cruz was very careful not to violate the rules of Senate decorum by directing his attack at the Majority Leader, but he called McConnell a liar.
The Republican Party is falling apart in every direction. The McConnell run Senate is quickly becoming a mirror image of John Boehner’s dysfunctional House. Donald Trump is riding high on a campaign of overt racism in the Republican presidential polls while Ted Cruz is taking a flamethrower to the Senate.
Cruz is also looking to establish himself as the heir to crown of outsider candidate after Donald Trump implodes, but dysfunctional chaos is running the Republican Party and this level of infighting does not bode well for the party’s chances of winning the White House in 2016.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
