Ted Cruz melts down on live national television

Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) isn’t stupid, but he thinks his constituents and those on the right are. Cruz consistently says and does thing to get attention, and he’s not above deploying blatantly false assertions to get that attention. This weekend, Cruz spoke with Fox News entertainer Maria Bartiromo about the ongoing situation at the border and attempted to connect that to voting rights. Bartiromo is no longer a serious journalist, as she’s fallen prey to far-right propaganda and preposterous conspiracy theories. Cruz knows that just by speaking with Bartiromo he’s engaging in a hateful clown show of deception.

Cruz, a proponent of the Big Lie and promulgator of untruths about circumstances at the border, is also hostile to voting rights. He’s anti-democracy since that’s the only way his ailing party can hope to regain the majority. Bartiromo is a facile interview for Cruz, as they both promote harmful right-wing ideology with no regard for accuracy. During his interview, Cruz rambled to his QAnon-friendly interviewer such falsities about the For the People Act (HR 1) as “the intended purpose of the bill is to have millions of illegal aliens and millions of criminals, millions of felons automatically registered.”

To the point that Cruz opposes voting rights, he called HR 1 a “massive radical agenda.” It’s not radical to think that all eligible citizens should be allowed to exercise their right to vote without hindrance. Arguing against automatic voter registration, which he inexplicably called “dangerous,” Cruz nonsensically said that “if you get a welfare payment … they know that that will automatically register millions of illegal aliens.” Undocumented noncitizens don’t even receive welfare, although they do pay taxes into the systems that support such programs. Cruz just can’t stop with the lies, and television personalities like Bartiromo enable the continuing deceitful discourse.