All posts tagged "ted cruz"

‘Insecure’ JD Vance targeted by MAGA senator as 2028 contenders trade blows: report

A simmering rivalry between two Republican heavyweights eyeing the White House spilled into public view this week, with one making it personal.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) called Vice President JD Vance "insecure" in a phone interview with Politico on Saturday, responding to Vance's claim days earlier that the Texas senator was already running for president.

"In my experience, people engage in political bomb-throwing when they're feeling insecure," Cruz said. "So he's welcome to make whatever comments he likes. I'm going to keep focusing on the midterms and helping us win on Election Day in the next 30 days."

The jab followed an NBC News interview Thursday in which Vance accused Cruz of jumping the gun on a 2028 bid while the party fights to hold Congress.

"It is really obvious to me that, at this very moment, Ted Cruz is running for president," Vance said. "At this moment, I'm not. I'm trying to help elect Republicans. That's what I'm going to keep on doing."

Vance is widely seen as the early favorite for the GOP nomination, but Cruz has openly questioned whether the vice president has it locked up and has floated a run of his own. "I'll certainly be part of the discussion," Cruz told MS NOW in August.

Cruz insisted to Politico that his attention is on keeping Republican majorities in the House and Senate, pointing to campaign stops this cycle in Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, South Carolina and Texas. He said he plans to stump for candidates in Alaska, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina later this month.

"Over the last 10 years, there's no Republican in the country who has campaigned for more Senate candidates, more House candidates, more gubernatorial candidates than I have," he said. "And this year will be no exception."

A spokesperson for Vance did not immediately respond to Cruz's remarks, per Politico. Vance campaigned in Texas and Florida this week and is set to hold a rally in Alaska on Monday.

'You suck!': Ted Cruz humiliated by booing Texas football fans

College football fans in Texas showered Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) with ceaseless boos and taunts while he appeared for an interview on Saturday.

Cruz's ten-minute interview Saturday on ESPN's "College GameDay," ahead of a football match-up between the University of Texas-Austin Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes Saturday evening in Austin, was marred by the sounds of a chanting crowd.

"Ted, you suck!" they chanted. "Ted, you suck!"

Meanwhile, Cruz and ESPN's Rece Davis tried to talk about the lawmaker's participation in the Protect College Sports Act, a bipartisan bill that would create a single rulebook for college athlete compensation.

Boos mounted and about two minutes in, the chanting started.

The mockery didn't stop there. Online, critics piled on by jabbing at Cruz and ESPN for hosting him.

"Just what everyone asked for!" Sam Neumann, an editor for the popular X sports news account Awful Announcing, sarcastically posted.

"Ted Cruz getting booed way worse than Ohio State or Oklahoma down in Austin," sports writer Chris Marler, referring to Texas' decades-old rivalry with Oklahoma, wrote.

"So GameDay gave a politician 10 minutes to shill for PCSA right before there might be a vote," noted sports writer Stewart Mandel. "Was there any thought that maybe someone on the other side of it should get a chance to rebut or no?"

"Just incredible work from the Texas crowd here," influencer Matt Rein rejoiced.

"The College Gameday crowd is speaking loudly to Ted Cruz about the Protect College Sports Act. Booing him and this propaganda push," reacted college football writer George Wrighster III. "You know the politicians have hidden things in this bill and a shortcut for the powers to stay in power without making necessary changes."

'Wow!' Jake Tapper astonished by 'ugly and awful' remark shouted during Ted Cruz speech

CNN's Jake Tapper did not hide his revulsion Friday at a chilling moment from the Republican convention.

As Sen. Ted Cruz rattled off the names of Democratic politicians, someone in the crowd shouted that one of them "should be shot."

The shouts rang out Thursday night, the second evening of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, as the Texas senator warned attendees to take three Democrats at their word. They were New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. An audience member could be heard yelling, "He should be shot!"

Cruz did not react, and it was unclear whether he heard it.

On "The Lead with Jake Tapper," the anchor played the clip and recoiled.

"Wow," Tapper said. "That is really, really ugly and awful."

Corbin Trent, a former communications director for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), likened the moment to the late Sen. John McCain, who once corrected a supporter who called Barack Obama a Muslim, arguing Cruz should have interjected if he heard the call.

Republican strategist Ashley Davis said she knows Cruz well and doubted he would ever endorse such a line, but called it a symptom of a politics built on riling people up.

"This is the problem with politics in our country right now," she said.

Tapper added, "I don't know if he heard it, but if he did hear it and he didn't say anything, that was the wrong thing to do."

El-Sayed, one of the targets, was more forceful, telling CNN the shout was "a call for violence that ought to be condemned across the board." A spokesperson for his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, said Rogers "condemns those comments — and all political violence."

The video ricocheted across social media, drawing condemnation and pointed comparisons to the GOP's own denunciations of political violence.

The threats came the same day many Republicans marked the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's assassination, and as Cruz warned of communists and Islamists overtaking the Democratic Party.

GOP pundit baffles with 'ridiculous' defense of Ted Cruz: 'Excuse me, what?'

A conservative pundit's defense of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and his speech from the GOP midterm convention sparked uproar and confusion on CNN.

During a Thursday night roundtable, National Review writer Noah Rothman tried to defend Cruz after the pundits around him were alarmed by the senator's comments about Muslims. Cruz went after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and said "communists and Islamists" are invading the Democratic Party.

Former Fox News correspondent Geraldo Rivera argued that Republicans like Cruz are scared by Mamdani's "overwhelming success" and how he's "defying all of the pundits, all of the inside crowd."

Rothman denied the claim and went back to arguments by Republicans to urge against shutting down rhetoric that sounds the alarm on terrorists and Islamists. He slammed Democrats who are "muddying the waters" about who is a terrorist. The conversation also came in the context of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, which was frequently invoked during the GOP midterm convention as well.

"We all have to be clear about who the terrorists were," Rothman said. "And shame on those who are saying the terrorists and heroes are one and the same, which Mamdani said."

"Hold on a second," cut in CNN anchor Abby Phillip, the roundtable's moderator. "I think you're the one muddying the waters, Noah. Terrorists are terrorists. I'm asking why Ted Cruz and you seem to want to make an entire religion anti-American."

Rothman accused Phillip of "putting words into my mouth," and coming back to Cruz, said, "I can't say it enough. The people who support radical Islamist violence are the people he's talking about."

"He didn't say 'radical Islamist violence,'" Phillip pointed out. "He said 'Islamism.'"

Rothman argued that confirmed his defense of Cruz, and Phillip asked, "You're saying radical Islamic terrorism and Islamism is the same thing? Excuse me, what? That is a ridiculous argument, Noah. That is a ridiculous argument."

Firestorm after crowd hurls violent threats during Ted Cruz speech: 'Literally a crime'

Threats against Democrats shouted during a speech by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at the GOP midterm convention shocked onlookers as the video circulated online.

Cruz called Democrats "evil" during his Thursday speech at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, when the crowd started yelling, "He should be shot!" The threat was directed at the Democrats Cruz was mentioning.

The Bulwark reported that the threat rang out three times as Cruz mentioned New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, and Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed.

Online, people were shocked by the flagrant calls for violence and that Cruz didn't react to them.

"This is actual threats of political violence," noted Missouri congressional candidate Fred Wellman.

"This is like literally a crime and violation of free speech to incite violence," national opinion columnist Sophia Nelson similarly warned.

"Hey @SecretService—I’d like to report a death threat if not multiple death threats," wrote journalist Morgan J. Freeman.

"They're not just letting guys in off the street," pointed out journalist Nick Field. "Someone sitting that close to the stage has a lot of money and connections to get there."

"Holy s—," reacted political strategist Kelsie Taggart. "You're telling me Ted Cruz didn't hear this."

"You can tell Ted hears the last one and just doesn't have the cojones or integrity to do the right thing," political commentator and former GOP operative Tim Miller posted.

"Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico are decent, honest people with integrity who are trying to make the lives of their constituents better," commented baseball writer Danny Abriano. "Their reward? Vitriol and lies being spewed about them that just led to death threats."

"On the same day Republicans pretend to denounce political violence because of Charlie Kirk, we have a Republican calling for violence against a Democrat at their convention," blasted author and activist Hemant Mehta.

"But, ya know, left wing violence is the issue," film and TV critic John Rocha mocked, making the same point and adding three eye-rolling emojis to his comments.

Clarence Thomas just made the case to impeach himself on Ted Cruz's podcast: expert

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas built a case for his own impeachment by praising his Republican senator "friends" on a podcast, a legal expert warned.

In a Tuesday episode of the "Legal Breakdown" podcast, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner reacted to comments made by Thomas during an episode of "Verdict with Ted Cruz." Thomas thanked Republican Texas senator Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and other GOP allies for defending him and his wife, Ginni Thomas.

"You're one of the people who actually stands up, particularly at times when others seem to wither, and I appreciate it," Thomas told Cruz, per Kirschner. "And more personally, when we — my wife and I — were under attack for obvious reasons, you and Mike Lee and some of the other friends would stand up."

Ginni Thomas faced criticism for her effort to help overturn the 2020 election, Kirschner noted. Thomas' comments are exactly what a congressional impeachment inquiry should dig into because the gratitude erased any pretense that Thomas could rule without favor, Kirschner argued.

"All pretense of impartiality and of an absence of actual partisanship is out the window," Kirschner said. He added that it is now "plain old laughable" to expect Americans to see Thomas as "a legitimate broker of the facts, the law, and the Constitution" in the politically charged cases that reach the Supreme Court.

Kirschner tied the appearance on Cruz's podcast to gifts Thomas accepted from a GOP donor but didn't publicly disclose, including a quarter-million-dollar motorcoach, renovations to his mother's home, and private-school tuition for a great-nephew he was raising. Kirschner then laid out a prosecutor's road map for Congress to impeach Thomas.

"You open an impeachment inquiry. You call witnesses, you subpoena documents, including financial records, and then you follow the evidence wherever it leads," Kirschner said. "It sure looks like it would lead to articles of impeachment."

MAGA lobbyist busted for sneaking drugs and pistol magazine into the Senate: report

An employee for a right-wing think tank and MAGA lobbyist was caught trying to sneak drugs and pistol ammo into Senate offices, per NOTUS.

Heritage Foundation employee Matthew Christopher Wingate faces a drug-possession charge after security at the Russell Senate Office Building found a substance that tested presumptive positive as cocaine and fentanyl in his briefcase, according to an arrest affidavit.

According to reporting by NOTUS, Wingate previously worked as a military legislative assistant for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and a national security adviser for Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA). With the Heritage Foundation, he was the government-relations director for defense and foreign policy.

Wingate was arrested on July 14 by Capitol Police. According to the arrest affidavit, he came through the door of the Senate building and placed his drug-loaded briefcase on the X-ray belt for routine screening. However, it was a screening for a pistol magazine that led to Wingate getting busted.

Security officers noticed "what appeared to be a pistol magazine in a brown briefcase on the screen," which led to questioning and a secondary screening. One officer asked him, "Do you have a magazine in your bag?"

"There shouldn't be," Wingate responded. During the secondary screening, officers found the pistol magazine, which was loaded "with 10 rounds of 9mm ammunition," per the affidavit. The affidavit didn't mention a pistol being found. Wingate claimed to be a "D.C. permit holder" during questioning by officers.

After Wingate was detained, Capitol Police "discovered a plastic sandwich bag" that had "four capsules and three blue pressed tablets," per the affidavit.

"The blue pills appeared to be hand pressed and were imprinted with the letter 'A' on one side and the numbers '7' '6' on the other side," the affidavit read. "The tablet was presumptive positive for Cocaine and Fentanyl" after testing.

Wingate claimed to have forgotten the magazine, though he was found to be a licensed permit holder. Meanwhile, he claimed the "drugs were prescribed."

Ted Cruz showers praise on Dem candidate with 'real chance' of beating Trump pick: report

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) showered praise on the opponent of a Trump-endorsed Senate candidate, according to reports.

While calling in on Thursday to Sean Hannity's radio show, which was being guest-hosted by Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), Cruz described Democratic candidate James Talarico as "charming" and "affable."

Cruz said Talarico, a state representative, has "a real chance" of beating Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the race to replace Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), according to reporting by the Texas Tribune.

"He sounds like a preacher," Cruz said about Talarico. "I worry about the voters who may not be paying close attention to the issues, who just turn on the TV and say, 'Oh, he seems like a nice young man.'"

During the GOP primary runoff in May, Paxton was endorsed by Trump and beat the long-serving Cornyn. However, controversies surround Paxton, including a since-dismissed felony securities fraud indictment, a 2023 impeachment, a whistleblower corruption scandal, an affair, a divorce, and residency questions. Even Paxton's estranged wife, a state senator, hasn't endorsed him.

"I think this is a real race," Cruz said about the Talarico-Paxton race, according to reporting by The Hill. "I think it's going to be close. I think we're going to win. I think we're going to keep Texas red, but the polling right now shows this is a one- or two-point race."

According to The Hill, recent polling has suggested that the race will be a toss-up. Talarico has already raised a record-breaking $30 million in the second quarter of this year, which is more than triple what Paxton raised from April to June, The Hill reported.

MAGA rift erupts as White House insider bashes 'unlikable' GOP hopeful's 'bedwetting'

A White House insider unloaded after a GOP presidential hopeful went after one of its own, according to a new report.

The Daily Mail reported comments from an anonymous White House insider who responded to attacks by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) against Trump's Iran deal.

Cruz has criticized the Trump deal to end a war with Iran and open the Strait of Hormuz, telling reporters this month that "the president is receiving some very poor advice on this deal," The Mail noted. The criticism is seen as "an obvious attempt" to position himself for a future presidential run with a "non-interventionist" stance, according to The Mail, which also highlighted his failed bids against Trump.

"Cruz has no shortage of ambition," The Mail wrote, citing White House sources. "The Texas senator has long felt that Trump robbed him of the presidency in 2016 and that he could have easily beat the unpopular Democrat Hillary Clinton."

However, the White House insider responded to The Mail's request for comment on Cruz's criticism and the idea that he could be setting himself up for a 2028 presidential run.

"Ted is an instrument of the donor class," the White House insider told the Daily Mail. "A very unlikable instrument, who unbeknownst to him will never be president."

The White House insider also shot down rumors that Vice President J.D. Vance had "gone rogue," as The Mail put it. Another White House official summed up criticisms of the Iran war deal as part of "handwringing and bedwetting" from Republicans that has no effect on Vance's alignment with Trump.

"There is no pearl clutching in this White House," the White House official told The Daily Mail. "Everyone, including the vice president, is following the president's lead on the peace deal, and no amount of handwringing and bedwetting from Washington, D.C. Republican 'panic-ans' will change that."

Ted Cruz called out as feud with Don Jr. spills into public: 'Opposite of MAGA'

The feud between Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Donald Trump Jr. is spilling into the public eye with a scathing response on X.

Benjamin Domenech, the opinion editor for the conservative Daily Wire, quoted Cruz in a post on X that took aim at Trump's dubious Iran deal. The quote came from an interview between Cruz and Domenech published by The Daily Wire.

"Nearly one thousand Americans have been murdered by the Ayatollah and the mullahs," the Cruz quote read. "It is not remotely in America's interest for us to pay to rebuild that capacity that we just took out."

Don Jr. furiously responded to the quote and denounced it as a lie while blasting Cruz's MAGA credentials.

"The only problem with this quote is that @tedcruz is lying thru his teeth about the deal," Don Jr. wrote. "We're not giving them a cent and he knows that. Using fake news about the peace deal to undermine @realDonaldTrump is the opposite of MAGA."

Although Cruz retweeted Domenech's post quoting him, he didn't immediately fire back at Don Jr.