“Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO), typically a mild-mannered, congenial guy, on Thursday unleashed all of his furor over the partial government shutdown on Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX),” the Washington Post reports.
“In a fiery exchange that played out on the Senate floor shortly before votes on two competing bills to reopen the government, Bennet raised his voice and seemed to let loose six years of pent-up ire directed at Cruz for leading an earlier shutdown.”
Texas Tribune: “When President Donald Trump first announced he would travel to Texas to campaign for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, at least one Texas Republican operative prayed for the rally to take place at Kyle Field in College Station — and the sentiment had nothing to do with Aggie pride.”
“At issue was a fear that if the Trump rally took place in one of Texas’ big cities — particularly Dallas or Houston — the president’s presence could further incite the Democratic base in races where Republican incumbents are in the fights of their political lives.”
“The prayer wasn’t answered. Instead, Trump is headed to the heart of Houston on Monday. And some — but not all — Texas Republican operatives are anxious that he could hurt local incumbents, particularly U.S. Rep. John Culberson and state Rep. Sarah Davis.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) declined to say whether he views President Trump as a friend or a foe, describing him as simply “the president,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Cruz: “He’s the president. I work with the president in delivering on our promises. What I told the president the week after the election, I said, ‘Mr. President, I want to do everything humanly possible to roll up my sleeves and lead the fight in the Senate to deliver on our promises.”
Rolling Stone: “The ad — which was paid for by an anti-Cruz PAC and was not endorsed by his senate opponent, Beto O’Rourke — is beautiful in its simplicity, and strikes to the heart of Cruz’s campaign, which has revolved around the idea that he is more authentically Texan than his challenger.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “was forced to leave a Washington restaurant Monday after left-wing activists swarmed the senator, heckling him with chants and demanding to know his position on embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh,” CNN reports.
David Hogg, a Parkland school shooting survivor, has helped to raise nearly $10,000 through a GoFundMe campaign to put up a billboard featuring a 2016 tweet from Donald Trump attacking Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Axios reports.
Said the tweet: “Why would the people of Texas support Ted Cruz when he has accomplished absolutely nothing for them. He is another all talk, no action pol!”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “used a protester’s outburst Saturday to riff on how unhinged the left is, how the display of anger was evidence of the tough race he faces against Rep. Beto O’Rourke in the fall, and how it was really President Obama who colluded with Russia,” the Austin American Statesman reports.
Said Cruz: “It seems to me the very definition of cowardice is standing up and screaming like a child and being afraid to engage in any substance, not knowing any substance, which is why you’re afraid to engage in any substance, and just yelling, ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,’ which is what I guess the fever swamps of the left have told him.”
He added: “The irony of course is that eight years of Obama were eight years of absolute appeasement. We saw eight years of bootlicking for Vladimir Putin.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) “made known his distaste for a Republican congressional candidate who is a Holocaust denier — so much so that he encouraged people in that district to vote for the Democrat,” the Daily Beast reports.
Said Cruz: “This is horrific. An avowed Nazi running for Congress.”
He added: “To the good people of Illinois, you have two reasonable choices: write in another candidate, or vote for the Democrat. This bigoted fool should receive ZERO votes.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was asked if he agreed with President Trump’s assertion that a president can pardon himself.
The audio shows Cruz was silent for 18 seconds before saying it’s not a constitutional area he’s studied.
Dinesh D’Souza told the Daily Caller that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was the major impetus behind his pardon by President Trump.
“D’Souza noted that he and his wife had dinner with Cruz approximately a month ago. At the dinner, the senator made clear he would push for a pardon during his conversations with President Donald Trump. D’Souza said he then received a call in recent days from Cruz, who told him Trump was very receptive to the pardon and that action could be coming imminently.”
“Voters in Texas on Tuesday are setting up a showdown that Democrats hope will lead to their first victory in a statewide election there since 1994, with Rep. Beto O’Rourke vying to compete for the Senate seat of Republican Ted Cruz,” the Washington Post reports.
“It’s a daunting task for O’Rourke, 45, a three-term congressman. But there are signs he could at least keep November’s election close, including an impressive early-vote turnout among Democrats for Tuesday’s primaries, robust fundraising reports and polls showing declines in popularity for Cruz and President Trump. Neither O’Rourke nor Cruz is facing serious competition in Tuesday’s primaries.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) warned that Republicans could face a “Watergate-level blowout” in the midterm elections if they don’t make major legislative strides on taxes and health care, the Washington Post reports.
Said Cruz: “If tax reform crashes and burns, if on Obamacare, nothing happens, we could face a bloodbath.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told the Texas Tribune that he’s not ready to vote for the Graham-Cassidy health care bill which would repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Said Cruz: “Right now they don’t have my vote, and I don’t think they have Mike Lee’s either.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) denied that he was the one who liked a pornographic video from his Twitter account, CNN reports.
Said Cruz: “It was not me,” while calling the mishap “an honest mistake” by a staffer in his office.
A spokeswoman for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) announced that a “like” on a pornographic post on the Texas lawmaker’s Twitter account has been undone and reported to the social media site, Politico reports.
The Verge: “t’s unclear if Cruz liked the video himself, or if it was the late-night work of an aid that manages his social media presence. Nevertheless, Ted Cruz quickly became a trending topic and the butt of a raging internet joke machine. The last time Cruz reached this level of popularity on Twitter was when the internet wondered aloud if Cruz was the unidentified Zodiac Killer.”
David Nather: “Two major health insurance trade groups launched an unusually direct attack on Sen. Ted Cruz’s insurance deregulation proposal tonight, warning Senate Republicans that it would damage the protections for people with pre-existing conditions — the one thing they promised not to do in repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act.”
From the letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: “It is simply unworkable in any form and would undermine protections for those with pre-existing medical conditions, increase premiums and lead to widespread terminations of coverage for people currently enrolled in the individual market.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Iowa Public Radio that he probably won’t support an amendment by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to the Senate’s Obamacare repeal bill.
“Cruz proposes allowing insurance companies to sell two types of healthcare policies, one that is compliant with the Affordable Care Act and one that is not. Grassley says he’s concerned how Cruz’s amendment might affect people with pre-existing conditions.”
Said Grassley: “There’s a real feeling that that’s subterfuge to get around pre-existing conditions. If it is subterfuge and it has the effect of annihilating the pre-existing condition requirement that we have in the existing bill, than obviously I would object to that.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said “that he agrees with President Trump: If Republican senators are unable to pass a bill to repeal and replace key parts of the Affordable Care Act, the Senate should vote on a narrower bill to simply repeal the law and work on a replacement later,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Cruz: “If we cannot bring the conference together and agree on repeal legislation, then I think President Trump’s absolutely right that we should pass a clean repeal.”
Cruz said such a repeal should be delayed “either a year or two years” to give lawmakers time to work on a replacement.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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