Ted Cruz tends to defeat himself even in situations where he could gather sympathy. We saw this when Cruz poached Aaron Sorkin-written lines to defend his wife, Heidi, from Donald Trump’s threats to “spill the beans.” This could have provided a human moment from Cruz, who needs to gain serious momentum (and not simply a Jeb Bush endorsement) if he wishes to overcome Trump’s delegate lead, but Cruz is left looking like a parrot. Once again, humor inserts itself into politics.
Beyond that ugly personal spat, which Heidi chose to dismiss, Ted’s been doing media rounds after the Brussels terror attacks beyond making his thoughts on President Obama’s reaction known. The Texas Senator has always voiced opinions on how Obama isn’t doing enough to protect our borders, and Cruz has long hoped to “carpet bomb” swaths of Syria to stop the flow of ISIS. After Brussels, he also stated his desire to “patrol and secure” areas where Muslims live:
“We need to immediately halt the flow of refugees from countries with a significant al Qaida or ISIS presence. We need to empower law enforcement to patrol and secure Muslim neighborhoods before they become radicalized. We need to secure the southern border to prevent terrorist infiltration. And we need to execute a coherent campaign to utterly destroy ISIS.”
Cruz has already faced plenty of criticism for these words, and he tried to mitigate damage with a slight walk back on Today:
“What I’m talking about is focusing law enforcement and national security resources on areas on locations where there is a higher incidence of radical Islamic terrorism.”
This revision doesn’t really soften Cruz’s original statement because those words are out there for infinity. And comedians like Michael Ian Black are willing to mock Cruz’s stance (along with Trump’s) in parody tweets. Black let loose by pretending to be a Cruz fan:
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712619672605220864
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712620024297615360
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712624244698558464
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712636583426568192
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712643201098760193
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712651560015294464
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712647615909912576
https://twitter.com/michaelianblack/status/712653261594083328
Michael Ian Black is a master troll. Every single tweet highlights the absurdity of Cruz’s “patrol and secure” comments, and although not everyone on Twitter realized Black was kidding, the message came though.
Cruz keeps on digging that hole, by the way. His aforementioned efforts at Today mitigation disappeared when he visited Fox and Friends. Cruz couldn’t stop himself from chuckling in disbelief after Steve Doocy told the GOP candidate, “Islam is a peaceful religion.”