Cruz Says He Was Just Trolling the Establishment

Sen. Ted Cruz defended his role in the 2013 immigration battles, “telling reporters at a rally here that the Republican ‘establishment’ was misleading people about why he introduced an amendment to penalize workers in the United States illegally,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Cruz: “Let me use a Las Vegas analogy, from poker. It’s called ‘calling their bluff.’ Listen, the Democrats and the establishment Republicans who supported the Gang of Eight — they claimed they cared about the people who were here illegally. And so I introduced an amendment that made anyone here illegally permanently ineligible for citizenship. That amendment called their bluff, because it revealed that the members of the Gang of Eight were hypocrites.”