Chris Cuomo and Ted Cruz Lob Fireballs at Each Other in 20-Minute Clash: ‘You’re Going to Go With That Weak-Ass Argument?!’

CNN’s Chris Cuomo brought on Republican Senator Ted Cruz, ostensibly to talk about the latter’s new book on the Supreme Court, but any pretext of discussing that was almost immediately swept away as the segment devolved into a fiery, 20 minute-long, shoutfest that covered everything from the presidential debate to racism to the economy to the Covid-19 pandemic.

And, much like the first topic the pair discussed, often times any possible intellectual value of the debate was lost in a swirl of insults and cross-talk.

Cuomo had barely introduced Cruz before the fireworks began.

“So can one voice speaking truth to power especially when it resonates like your own,” Cuomo said. “Will you say playing nice with the Proud Boys is wrong?”

Cruz, after forcefully condemning that group along with Nazis and Klansmen, tried to pivot back to his book. But Cuomo wasn’t having it.

“Now, I will exercise my right and say, was the president wrong to go soft on the proud boys in the debate last night?” he said, pressing Cruz.

Cruz noted that Trump had tried to walk his comments back on Wednesday, but then accused the press of being hypocritical. “The press is partisan in this regard. Ten years ago, 2010, Joe Biden gave a eulogy for Robert Byrd who was a Grand Cyclops of the KKK…” Cruz began.

“Really?!” Cuomo broke in.

“You’re going to go with this weak-ass argument here?” Cuomo fired back. “Byrd, who had a complete enlightenment about how hate was wrong, who changed his life, who spoke about it.”

“Have you ever eulogized a klansman?” Cruz pressed. “I haven’t. I’ll give you another example.”

“No, no, no. That’s your example,” Cuomo insisted.

“No, I’ll give you another one. I’ll give you a lot of examples.”

“I don’t want you to run away from the premise,” Cuomo pushed back, turning to Trump. “He did it in Charlottesville, he did it with David Duke, the old Ted Cruz who he called lyin’ Ted, when he wasn’t insulting your wife and father. What happened to that Ted? I don’t know if he changed or just you changed, for some reason.”

“You know, I’m glad you take tips on insults from other folks,” a smiling Cruz shot back.

“Really? Am I insulting you, sir?”

“Oh, yeah, you are. And you’re enjoying it,” Cruz replied.

Minutes later, the pair rolled into a verbal sparring match over the Covid pandemic, and Cuomo’s dander got up after Cruz invoked the CNN host’s brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, as an example of deadly mismanagement.

“There is something disgusting that Democrats are doing, that Joe Biden does, and you do, you try to blame the people who have lost their lives on your political enemies and that’s not right,” Cruz spat out.

“I’m saying, when you hear 200,000 people die, you don’t say it is what it is,” Cuomo parried.

“But you know what, it’s particularly not right, when your brother has presided over the state with the highest death rate in the country,” Cruz said.

“New York’s record will stand for itself.”

“I know your brother didn’t want those people to lose their lives, you shouldn’t play politics…” Cruz began.

“You don’t think he intentionally killed them?”

“Of course not.”

“That’s very Christian of you,” Cuomo snarked.

“We can have a policy discussion about the policy mistakes in New York and New Jersey of sending Covid positive patients into nursing homes,” Cruz said.

“That didn’t happen all over the country?” Cuomo fired back.

“Chris, was it a mistake?” Cruz pressed. “Was it a mistake when your brother implemented a policy that nursing homes had to except covid positive patients and endanger the lives…”

“My brother was the first one to say there was a learning curve and mistakes were made and they changed things as soon as they could,” Cuomo explained.

“Don’t be a hypocrite about it,” Cruz responded.

Minutes later, after a sidebar into reopening the economy collapsed into vitriol,  Cruz and Cuomo collided again, as the coronavirus response returned to the fore.

“I’m not yelling at you,” Cuomo yelled. “I’m raising my voice to match your own, because you want to play games and people are dying.”

“That’s okay, Chris. You’re perfectly fine to scream and yell.”

“But you don’t.”

“You’re doing it because you don’t want to discuss the substance,” Cruz claimed.

“I had you on to discuss these things.”

“You don’t want to talk about the Supreme Court and the book, One Vote Away. You want to repeat insults over and over and over again,” Cruz complained.

“You’re not, you bring up my brother for half the interview because you’re a fair guy,” Cuomo observed, the sarcasm dripping.

“You were just playing in a biased way attacking…” Cruz said, just as Cuomo talked over him, saying: “Because the president…”

And on it went for a few more minutes, until Cuomo abruptly thanked Cruz for accepting his invitation and then plugged the book that neither of them had really discussed.

Watch the video above, via CNN.