Ted Cruz Releases Bonkers Video Suggesting Biden Will Make Bernie His Secretary of State

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) released a video Friday, the nineteenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, to attack Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden with the false accusation that he plans to appoint Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) as Secretary of State.

The approximately one-minute video begins with Sanders talking about his hopes for Biden being elected president, along with a Democratic Congress, as an all-caps warning, “BERNIE SANDERS IS DRIVING THE DEMOCRATIC AGENDA,” flashes ominously on the screen.

“If these guys win, we’re going to wake up with Bernie Sanders as Secretary of State,” Cruz says, a clip from a prior appearance on Laura Ingraham‘s Fox News show. The video then plays several clips of Sanders praising communist dictators like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and praising “ideas we fought for, that just a few years ago were considered radical, are now mainstream,” as video from recent protests and riots is shown.

“BERNIE SANDERS’ AGENDA IS TO MAKE AMERICA A SOCIALIST COUNTRY,” the video

warns. “WE MUST DEFEND AMERICA AGAINST RADICAL SOCIALISTS.”

The email sent out with the video included a series of links to past quotes from Sanders praising communists and advocating for foreign policy positions that were unquestionably unacceptable for the vast majority of the conservative audience Cruz is targeting with this video.

“Bernie Sanders as an emboldened Secretary of State in a Biden administration would have very real consequences for American national security and the security of our allies,” the email concludes. “With adversaries around the world seeking to undermine the United States, placing Bernie Sanders at the helm of foreign policy would reverse course on the significant progress made under President Trump, abandoning our allies while empowering our enemies.”

Biden has neither made such a promise nor publicly stated any real support for adopting Sanders’ foreign policy views.

Cruz seems to be adopting a Trump campaign tactic, as they have repeatedly attempted to tie Biden to Sanders, perhaps reacting to polls showing that many voters view Biden as more moderate.

Last month, Trump Communications Director Erin Perrine called Biden’s presidential campaign platform the “Bernie-Biden Communist Manifesto” in a Fox News appearance, and a video tweeted by the Trump War Room said that Biden was “Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Ilhan Omar’s Trojan Horse for their radical Socialist agenda,” — drawing a flood of mockery on Twitter for its heavy-handed messaging and logical fallacies.

The effectiveness of

this strategy seems limited, not just from Biden’s own lack of public comments embracing Sanders’ views, but from Sanders’ own words. Several speakers at the Republican National Convention attacked Biden and the Democratic Party as “socialists” and accused them of being too influenced by Sanders. The Vermont Senator responded by sending out an email decrying the attacks and openly pining, “If only that were true,” about Biden being a socialist.

In July, Sanders campaign co-chair Nina Turner was even more blunt expressing the strong differences of opinion she and many Sanders supporters had with Biden, calling choosing between Trump and Biden like eating a “bowl of sh*t.”

Mediaite reached out to both the Biden campaign and Cruz’s Senate press office for comment, but did not receive a reply.