Ted Cruz Filibusters On Chuck Todd's Face

A Sunday show rundown so nice we had to post it twice!

Welcome back, Wonks! This special bonus Sunday Rundown is dedicated to Texas Senator and rejected Batman villain Ra's Al Douche, Rafael 'Ted' Cruz. Let's get started!

Although the Lazarus Pit does explain how he killed JFK & was the Zodiac Killer...  

Appearing on NBC's "Meet The Press," Cruz lied and filibustered his way through the interview, and Chuck Todd, you will be so surprised to know, let him!

Chuck Todd began by stating the fact that Trump hasn't moved at all, publicly, on coming to an agreement on the longest shutdown in our nation's history.

Thus began the Ted Cruz lying filibuster:

CRUZ: Chuck, that's actually not accurate. The president has said, over and over again, I've been in the room when he's said it, that he's more than willing to compromise. He's more than willing to meet in the middle.

He's said it, Chuck! He's said it, so much! Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have offered every bit of funding Trump's asked for for "border security" EXCEPT his precious Wall. That is compromise at its highest level. Passing REPUBLICAN Senate Bills without a single amendment, period or comma change to end this shutdown , is also compromise.

But what Cruz calls compromise is actually capitulation. And if that is what he's looking for, that train left when the Democratic House MAJORITY took over.

Todd then rightfully called out Cruz's own 2017 lamenting that they had all-Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the White House yet didn't get it done legislatively (which also happened three weeks ago, when this shutdown started!):

TODD: He didn't, he didn't plow the field over those two years to try to make this work. And he tried to jam it in at the last minute. Isn't this on the president, for his lack of being able to get Congressional Republicans to come together much earlier?

CRUZ: You know, I don't think that's true at all. I don't think it's the president's fault that Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are being political.

The balls of the guy who shut down the government during the Obama presidency while managing to misunderstand the lesson of Green Eggs and Ham to call other people political!

Then the conversation turned to the people actually being hurt by the shutdown: federal workers, Americans who are being either furloughed or working without pay:

TODD: Why not open up the government and just -- and move the Homeland Security debate to the side and debate that, while you pay government workers?

CRUZ: Well, the House passed a bill opening the government, funding all of the government, and securing the border. And the Democrats' position can't be, "We've got to force a shutdown." We're going to hold -- what the Democrats are saying is, "We're going to hold federal workers hostage."

Did Ted Cruz's first sentence meet Ted Cruz's second sentence? Democratic representatives are holding people "hostage" by passing a bill opening the government? And this is Trump's THIRD shutdown! After the DACA related shutdown and the 1 day Rand Paul caused mini shutdown. It's also not the first one involving Ted Cruz!!

Cruz attempted to make a final point about the shutdown again ... and well ... still lied more:

 TODD : And I think they would say the same thing about you and your fellow Republicans and the political base. I think that's why we're in this stalemate. I want to move to another topic here. Let me ask you this --

 CRUZ : But hold on a second --

TODD: I gotta, I gotta move --

CRUZ: Let me say something on that point, Chuck. There is a difference between one side, the Democrats, who are saying, "We will not move. We will not compromise. We will not negotiate," and the other side, the president, who is saying, "I'm happy to negotiate." And what he's proposing, the Democrats have already voted for. They're playing politics, because they hate Trump. And that's not a good enough reason for Chuck Schumer and the Democrats to shut down the government.

Of course, this is untrue. Trump was offered $25 billion for 'The Wall' almost one year ago for a deal to help DACA recipients (another example of past hostage taking) and avert the previous government shutdown. But those talks failed due to Trump's inability to keep his word after immigration hardliners called him out.

The rest of the interview was a smattering of other bullshit. From his response about the report of the FBI's counter-intelligence investigation of Trump:

CRUZ: Well, I don't know the details or the specifics there. I know what was reported publicly in the media.

To his "denouncing" of Iowa Rep. Steve King:

CRUZ: What Steve King said was stupid. It was stupid. It was hurtful. It was wrong. And he needs to stop. I think all of us ought to be united, regardless of party, in saying, white supremacism, white nationalism, is hatred. It is bigotry. It is evil. It is wrong. And I think we need that clarity. And I'm certainly going to urge everyone to provide that clarity.

TODD: Are you going to support him in the future?

CRUZ: You know, what I'm going to do is urge everyone to stand for principles that matter...

To reports that Trump has been keeping secrets about discussions with RussianhandlerPresident Vladimir Putin:

TODD: Do you think you guys in the Senate ought to, for instance, subpoena a translator, so that you have a real readout of what the president and Vladimir Putin are saying to each other?

CRUZ: You know, I think it's premature for that. I've seen the allegations. I want to find out a little bit more about what happened there. I want to learn more than just the allegations in the press.

Sure you will, Ted. Sure.

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