Sen. Ted Cruz
did not intervene Monday on the procedural vote in the Senate to advance a stop-gap funding bill that includes funding for Planned Parenthood. After the vote, he tried to
set up an amendment on both Planned Parenthood and the Iran nuclear deal, but a cadre of senators had stuck around on the floor to block him, leaving Cruz to complete his real mission—grandstanding and bloviating for his presidential campaign by beating up on outgoing House Speaker John Boehner.
"Speaker Boehner has decided to cut a deal with Leader Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats, that this dirty CR that's going to be passed out of the Senate is going to go to the House and the speaker's going to take it up on the floor, pass it with all the Democrats just like Leader McConnell just did, and a handful of Republicans who will go with Republican leadership," Cruz said. "A very significant percentage will vote no, but here is the problem: Speaker Boehner's done that more than once." […]
"I believe if Speaker Boehner had done that, had passed a dirty CR funding Planned Parenthood and funding this Iranian nuclear deal, that he would have lost his speakership," Cruz said, accusing Boehner of "leading the Democratic Party." […]
"Notice he said he's going to stay a month. He's going to stay a month in order to join with the Democrats and fund Barack Obama’s priorities," said Cruz, before turning his attention back to Senate Republicans.
That attention, of course, was focused on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who Cruz says is in league with Boehner as working to "fund all of Barack Obama's priorities." That's Cruz being an "outsider," figuring that the way out of the middle of the clump of presidential candidates is emulating Donald Trump and Carly Fiorina, putting his personal ambition ahead of everything else. But he's doing a big favor for Democrats, in the long run. He's a one-man wrecking ball for his own party, having stoked the civil war that took down Boehner. If he lasts much longer in this presidential campaign, he might just blow up the whole GOP.