Ted Cruz “stopped short of repudiating” close ally Steve King for his recent endorsement of a neo-Nazi sympathizer and a white supremacist interview this past summer, instead spouting off a half-assed tsk-tsk, Dallas News reports. "It's disappointing,” Cruz said. “He's saying and doing things that are dividing us, that are pulling us apart. We need to be finding ways to come together. This is a very polarized time and I do think tone and rhetoric matter. The way you address issues matter.”
No, getting to a movie 10 minutes late is disappointing. Getting to your favorite restaurant only to see it’ll be an hour wait is disappointing. Endorsing a neo-Nazi sympathizer who “explicitly recited white supremacist slogan The 14 Words (‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for WHITE children’)” on an extremist radio show should earn you a permanent shunning from society and expulsion from your caucus, but Cruz has shown he’ll tolerate just about anything from his old buddy.
In fact, Ted tolerated quite a bit from King already, because by the time Cruz had made King the national co-chair of his ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign, King had already compared immigrants to dogs and then claimed he meant it as a compliment (2012), claimed Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients have “calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert” (2013), and tweeted a racist cartoon featuring Barack Obama in a turban (2015).
This is who Steve King has always been, and Ted Cruz knew that before he made him his campaign co-chair, and he knew that today, when he failed to fully repudiate a known racist for advocating for white supremacy. Shit, butter has been more forceful than Ted Cruz, after Land O’Lakes announced it was ending financial support for King. While King could still return to the House next year, a new poll has him ahead of his Democratic opponent, J.D. Scholten, by just one point, leading Daily Kos Elections to move the race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican.
Let’s dethrone King and Ted Cruz once and for all by volunteering to get out the vote for Democrats. Click here, enter your zip code, choose the event that works best for you, and RSVP to attend.