Not Even Ted Cruz Wanted To Be Ted Cruz During Last Night’s Texas Senate Debate
¡Ay, qué pena! Senator Ted Cruz debated Representative Colin Allred last night, and we still feel secondhand embarrassment.
If anything is for sure, it’s that nobody wanted to be Sen. Cruz last night.
The night was filled with Rep. Allred calling attention to his record of voting against reproductive freedoms, election denialism, and that fateful trip to Cancún while his fellow Texans died during a severe snowstorm.
Rep. Allred came out swinging
At the start of the debate, Rep. Allred painted a clear picture of what he believes sets him apart from Sen. Ted Cruz. He wasn’t focused on the differences between the Democratic and Republican parties. Instead, he focused on how the two have diverged in representing Texans.
“I’m the exact opposite of Senator Cruz, who’s the most extreme senator in the United States Senate, maybe the most extreme in the last 30 years,” Rep. Allred said in his opening statement. “But that’s not enough. He’s also only focused on himself. That’s how you can go to Cancún when millions of Texans need you, and hundreds are dying. The truth is, we don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator. We can get a new one.”
Rep. Allred basically just said everything that everyone was thinking, tbh. Like, how do you just abandon your constituents during a natural disaster and energy crisis for the warm beaches of Cancún?
Sen. Ted Cruz didn’t know how to act when Jan. 6 was brought up
Everyone remembers where they were during the January 6th insurrection. The day will forever be one of the darkest in the country’s history. In fact, Sen. Cruz at one point called the January 6th insurrectionists “terrorists” and then swiftly claimed that he misspoke.
While on the FOX News program “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” Sen. Cruz walked back those comments and instead labeled the insurrectionists “patriots.”
The sudden backtracking came after he faced backlash from the right for calling the insurrectionists terrorists. Sen. Cruz attempted to placate everyone by saying those who hurt the police are terrorists. However, those who hurt officers during the insurrection on January 6, 2021, were the insurrectionists that Republicans have spent years trying to frame as patriotic protesters.
Rep. Allred was firm in his denunciation of Sen. Cruz’s actions leading up to the insurrection and subsequent statements about it.
“I have to say, you can’t be for the mob on January 6th and the officers. You can’t,” Rep. Allred said during the debate. “It’s not funny because you’re a threat to democracy.”
Sen. Cruz was one of the most outspoken senators trying to call into question election results in Arizona. It was just part of Sen. Cruz’s larger election fraud disinformation that he peddled. He even announced on January 2, 2021, that he would not vote to certify the 2020 election results.
Social media users think Rep. Allred won the debate
With the backdrop of Cancún, reproductive rights, and January 6th, X users think that Sen. Cruz decidedly lost the debate.
One thing is clear: it was not a good night for Sen. Cruz in the eyes of the voting public. His inability to answer a question about an exception for abortion access in the case of rape and incest flabbergasted viewers. There was also a lot of chatter about Sen. Cruz resorting to yelling during the debate was giving I-know-I’m-losing vibes.
