Five Times Ted Cruz Utterly Humiliated Himself

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) turned in a groveling performance on Fox News on Thursday night, where Tucker Carlson exerted his influence as the most-watched cable news host with great and – for Cruz – humiliating effect.

Where does this spectacle rank among pathetic moments for the chair of the Senate’s “Thank You Sir, May I Have Another” Caucus?

Let’s find out…

5. April 26, 2016 – Cruz refers to a basketball rim as a “basketball ring”

After losing the Indiana primary to Donald Trump, Cruz spoke to a crowd and quoted from the movie, Hoosiers. In the scene, Gene Hackman’s character gives an inspirational speech to his players.

Cruz’s rendition was decidedly not inspirational. Worse, after correctly making reference to a “basketball rim,” later in the speech the senator referred to it as a “basketball ring” for some inexplicable reason.

Later, however, Cruz would go on to showcase his “ringing” skills by winning the world’s worst game of one-on-one against Jimmy Kimmel in the Blobfish Basketball Classic.

4. February 17, 2021 – Cruz faces backlash for going to Cancun as his state is devastated by a deadly winter storm and blames his daughters

During a historic and deadly winter storm that knocked out the state’s power grid and left millions of his constituents without heat amid frigid temperatures, Cruz did what any devoted public servant would do: he took an impromptu vacation to sunny Cancun.

The controversy unfolded for all to see in real-time, as social media users posted photos of Cruz at the airport and on the plane. The backlash was so swift, Cruz was on a flight back to Texas a mere 10 hours after he landed in Mexico.

In response, he relinquished any hope of nabbing the Father of the Year Award when he explained his poor judgment by throwing his daughters under the bus.

“Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too,” he said in a statement. “With school canceled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them last night and am flying back this afternoon.”

Cruz made it sound as though he were merely accompanying his daughters to Mexico before flying back. But as an anonymous neighbor revealed in texts with Cruz’s wife, Heidi Cruz, the family was planning to take a getaway for the weekend. The senator finally admitted that the trip was “obviously a mistake.”

3. September 11, 2013 – Cruz says the Senate needs 100 people like Jesse Helms

Speaking at a Heritage Foundation event in 2013, the newly-minted senator appeared eager to please the very conservative crowd by praising one of the most bigoted members of the Senate in the last 50 years.

“It’s every bit as true now as it was then,” Cruz said. “We need 100 more like Jesse Helms in the U.S. Senate.”

Helms, who died in 2008, was a vociferous opponent of Civil Rights and a rabid homophobe. He also famously led a filibuster against making Martin Luther King, Jr. Day a national holiday.

2. January 6, 2022 – Cruz grovels before Tucker Carlson on national television

A very strong case can be made that this cringeworthy moment that will forever live in cable news infamy should be number one on this list. And if you want to say this was Ted Cruz at his most pathetic, you won’t get too much pushback from me. But for reasons I will explain in a moment, this utter embarrassment takes a back seat.

On Wednesday, Cruz referred to the Jan. 6, 2021 storming of the Capitol as a “violent terrorist attack.” He was correct. ‘Terrorism’ is widely understood as the illegal use of violence or threat of violence against civilians or government in order to achieve a political, religious, or social objective.

But Cruz’s description incurred the ire of Tucker Carlson later that night. The Fox News host, who has described Jan. 6 as “barely” a riot, blasted Cruz for calling it terrorism. He accused Cruz of repeating the talking points of Attorney General Merrick Garland.

Cruz said he reached out to Carlson and sought a chance to clarify his comments. The senator appeared on Fox News the following night. You can read the full recap of that sorry episode here. But the short of it is that Carlson essentially called Cruz a liar after the senator said the language he used was “sloppy,” despite the fact that Cruz had described Jan. 6 as a terrorist attack on at least at least 17 occasions.

“I don’t buy that,” Carlson interrupted when Cruz claimed when he tried to explain himself. “I’ve known you a long time since before you went to Senate. You were a Supreme Court contender. You take words as seriously as any man who has ever served in the Senate. and every word, you repeated that phrase, I do not believe you that used that accidentally. I just don’t.”

Cruz protested further and Carlson shut him down, saying, “What you just said doesn’t make sense.”

Making matters worse, Cruz tweeted the video of his humiliation after it aired and continued trying to explain himself.

1. September 23, 2016 – Cruz endorses Trump for president after Trump attacked his wife

If a guy disparages your wife, the range of possible responses at your disposal is a wide one. At one extreme is, “beat the crap out of him.” At the other is, “endorse him for president of the United States.”

Somewhere in between those options is the ideal response – whatever it may be.

Alas, Ted Cruz did not find it.

I firmly believe that no one wanted Trump to lose in 2016 more than Ted Cruz. Not for moral reasons, of course, but out of pure ambition. More on that in a moment.

During the bitter, bruising 2016 Republican presidential primary, Trump became irked by a Facebook ad from an anti-Trump super PAC with no affiliation to the Cruz campaign. The ad targeted Mormon voters and it showed Melania Trump posing nude.

In response, Trump tweeted, “Lyin’ Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin’ Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!”

Trump’s innuendo was bad enough, but he topped himself by retweeting a tweet that juxtaposed a photo of Melania with an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz with the caption: “No need to ‘spill the beans,’ the images are worth a thousand words.”

Cruz responded forcefully. “Donald, you’re a sniveling coward, and leave Heidi the hell alone,” he said in a rare moment of human-ing.

The senator eventually dropped out of the race, incidentally on the day Trump suggested his father was involved in JFK’s assassination. Cruz declined to endorse Trump. At the Republican National Convention that year, he was showered with boos when he told the crowd to vote their conscience.

But the polls began to tighten as summer turned to fall. Cruz suddenly saw President Trump as a possibility. At a minimum, it became clear that Trump had was the driving force of the GOP and could continue to be even if he were to lose.

Given that he was up for reelection in 2018 and given his long-term political ambitions, Cruz reversed course and endorsed Trump in September 2016. In short order, he had gone from banking on Trump losing, to phone-banking for him.

It didn’t have to be this way for Ted. But he chose ambition over dignity and continues to do so, debasing himself in the hopes that one day the American people will somehow reward this behavior and elect him president.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.