GOP Sen. Ted Cruz full on jumped the shark Tuesday morning on Capitol Hill, trying to sell reporters what sounded like a Kremlin-approved list of talking points to deflect from the scandal now engulfing the very highest levels of the Trump administration.
Cruz dismissed Washington's Russia "obsession" as the "Democratic talking point du jour." Now, some of you might view the idea of allowing a hostile foreign government to undermine the will of the American people as a problem, but Cruz isn't one of them. He told MSNBC's Kasie Hunt that President Obama is the real problem.
Cruz: I think that we have had eight years of Barack Obama showing nothing but appeasement towards Russia --
Hunt: President Trump is not appeasing Russia?
Cruz: Actually if you look on substance [but instead of talking Trump substance right here, Cruz immediately pivots back to Obama], part of the irony of this media obsession with Russia, is that the Obama administration began with Hillary Clinton bringing a big red reset button to Russia, saying they were going to reset the relationship with Russia...
What Clinton didn't do was say, hey, if you hand me the next election, we'll give you a pass on everything, including any invasions of other sovereign nations and/or interference in their democratically held elections—which is exactly what team Trump did when they changed the GOP platform last summer to deprive Ukraine of U.S. assistance in opposing Russia's invasion and annexing of Crimea. In fact, it was a Cruz delegate's proposal to "provide lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine that Trump officials iced during that platform debate.
But in Tuesday's interview, Cruz attacked the Obama administration for doing "nothing" to punish Russian aggression (except, of course, imposing sanctions in 2014 and repeatedly expanding them).
After Cruz impugned Obama for not doing enough, MSNBC’s Hunt tried to turn back to Trump one more time, since technically he is the pr*sident now. ...
Hunt: President Trump is trying to water down a sanctions bill you voted for.
Cruz ignored her entirely and kept talking Obama, then praised Trump's new posture toward Russia.
I'm glad the Trump administration is returning to a common sense defense of our allies against our adversaries and -- substance matters. Policy matters. I think standing up using all of the tools we have to constrain Putin's and Russia's aggression is a good thing to do. And I think one of the real problems with the Obama-Hillary Clinton foreign policy is that it facilitated Russian aggression and I'm glad we're not doing that anymore.
Exit Cruz, who never once addressed Trump's constant praise for Putin, Trump’s complete failure to hold Putin accountable for his intrusion into our 2016 election, or team Trump's explicit efforts to stall a new Russia sanctions bill the Senate approved 98-2 several weeks ago.
What planet is Cruz living on? For realz. We know he's from Texas but c'mon. At the top of the interview he tried to sell reporters on the idea that Trump's Poland speech last week was "the most important part of this trip abroad" and that's what we should be focusing on.
Yeah, because the president of the United States and his campaign team trying to sell out our democracy to a hostile foreign power is pretty much a peanut item.
Cruz even chided Democrats for wanting the president to fail during his trip abroad as "one of the saddest things to see.”
"Let me point out the American people want the president to succeed..."
... in handing over control of the nation to Vladimir Putin? Really?! Because that's what team Trump did—they invited Putin into our election by openly and brazenly soliciting his help and then handed over control of our election to him, and are now continuing to appease him.
Must be on nice Mars right now, because what’s happening down here on earth is that our country and the world order is quite literally falling apart under the “leadership” of Donald Trump’s self-interested mafia-style rule.