‘P***ed off’ Ted Cruz slams Mitch McConnell for missing a ‘landslide’ Senate Republican
Texas Senator Ted Cruz unloaded on Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell during a special episode of his podcast on Monday, making it clear that he holds the veteran lawmaker responsible for Republicans’ poor midterm performance.
‘Let me start off by saying I am so pissed off, I cannot even see straight,’ he said on The Verdict with Ted Cruz. ‘We had an extraordinary opportunity. We had a generational opportunity. This should have been a fundamental landslide election.’
The party’s post mortem of its election results has been taken over by finger-pointing as separate factions of the GOP blame each other for losing in the Senate and failing to sweep the House of Representatives in a decisive ‘red wave.’
A growing number of conservative Republican lawmakers are in open rebellion against party leaders while establishment figures accuse Donald Trump of endorsing bad candidates in key GOP primaries.
‘The rage that I’m feeling, there are almost no words to describe it, because this opportunity was screwed up. It was screwed up badly, and the people that are gonna pay the price are the American people,’ Cruz said.
He’s among several senators in McConnell’s caucus now asking for this week’s leadership vote to be postponed, with some calling to wait until the runoff election for Georgia’s open Senate seat on December 6.
But while demanding a delayed leadership race has been seen as a tacit form of disapproval against McConnell, Cruz expressed his disdain for the longtime Kentucky Republican in no uncertain terms on Monday.
Texas Senator Ted Cruz blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in a special episode of his podcast on Monday
‘It’s more important to him to have Republicans who will back him, than it is to have 51 Republicans,’ the senator said.
‘I understand why, there’s a certain selfishness that justifies that, it just doesn’t make any sense if you give a damn about the country.’
Like Trump and his Republican allies, Cruz honed in on McConnell’s apparent refusal to back Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters – who narrowly lost to incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly.
The McConnell-aligned Senate Majority PAC pulled cash out of Masters’ race in August.
‘Why did he pull out that money from Masters ,who desperately needed it?’ Cruz posed. ‘Because Masters said he would vote against Mitch McConnell [for Senate GOP Leader].’
‘And so Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there’s a Republican who can win, who’s not going to support Mitch, truth of the matter is he’d rather the Democrat win. So he pulled all the money out of Arizona.’
Donald Trump and his allies have been holding McConnell responsible for Republicans’ failure to win the Senate, while figures aligned with the GOP leader say the opposite
Cruz said at a different point, ‘Mitch, his philosophy as leader is to snuggle up to the Democrats and work with the Democrats.’
Among the other senators who back delaying the leadership vote and thus undercutting McConnell are South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, Utah Sen. Mike Lee, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
And Trump, who has not been shy about calling for McConnell’s removal from leadership, laid blame for Republicans’ Senate loss squarely at McConnell’s feet on Sunday.
‘It’s Mitch McConnell’s fault. Spending money to defeat great Republican candidates instead of backing Blake Masters and others was a big mistake,’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social app.
‘Giving 4 Trillion Dollars to the Radical Left for the Green New Deal, not Infrastructure, was an even bigger mistake,’ Trump said. ‘He blew the Midterms, and everyone despises him and his otherwise lovely wife, Coco Chow!’
Democrats retained control of the Senate with a 50th seat called for the party on Saturday
Trump and others have blamed McConnell for pouring millions into the Alaska Senate race to support GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski against a Trump-backed Republican rival at the expense of candidates whose races would have an effect on the party makeup of the Senate.
But McConnell has no serious challenger to his leadership right now, as explained by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton on CBS News this Sunday.
‘I don’t see why we would delay the election, since all five or six of our leadership elections are uncontested,’ Cotton told Face The Nation.
‘You know, the great wrestling champion Ric Flair used to say, to be the man, you got to beat the man. And so far, no one’s had the nerve to step forward and challenge Senator McConnell.’
He added that it was better to get the elections out of the way so the party could once again unify to focus on the Georgia runoff.