Texas Senator Ted Cruz,
he's not a very smart guy, because
while he goes around whining and
crying about how the left
is anti free speech.
He also simultaneously whines and
cries about the political
preferences of his own neighbors
and the political signs that they
choose to put on their own lawns.
Now, in a recent interview,
he was talking about the backlash
that he's received as a result of
abandoning his own constituents to
go vacation in the Ritz Carlton in
Cancun.
This is of course while Texans were
dealing with
rolling blackouts in the middle of
a brutal winter storm.
Then it turns out that this text
message group was leaked to
the public.
Heidi Crux was outed as someone who
was helping
to coordinate this vacation and
she was not happy about it.
He talks about that as well.
Let's listen to more of what he has
to say and then we'll discuss.
>> I was wondering if you had been
able to, we don't need a specific
name, investigated the individual
from that text message
group who leaked the conversation.
[LAUGH] >> Because that is
just of all the betrayals.
>> I would spend time on that but
I- >> I know some folks I put on
the case for something like that.
>> Yeah, I will say Heidi's
pretty pissed at that, she actually
was over to a neighbor's house
yesterday sort of walking through.
So she texted several of our
neighbors.
Now look, our neighbors,
we've got a number of Republicans
who are neighbors, but
we also have a number of Democrats.
And so,
with folks on our street who put up
Beto sides,
which I thought was a little rude.
It's a sign of how ridiculously
politicized and nasty and
just here's a suggestion.
Just don't be a [BLEEP].
Just treat each other as human
beings.
Have some degree,
some modicum of respect.
>> Have some modicum of respect,
the kind of respect that he showed
the fine people over in Texas who
were suffering and
he decided to just bail and enjoy
a nice beach vacation in Cancun.
That's the kind of
respect that he'd like to see.
Besides which,
who cares what kind of political
signs your neighbors have?
That's their right. And I don't
know Ryan, I was led to believe
by right wingers like Ted Cruz,
that free speech is everything.
That's what makes this
country so great.
It's kind of weird that
he's whining about political
speech right now.
>> Right, her speech was amplified,
[LAUGH] she was only speaking to
a few people but
all of a sudden she was able to
speak to the entire world.
[LAUGH] >> About- >> His wife.
>> Yes, about where they were
going.
But it's kind of annoying that for
the Democratic Party and the future
of the Democratic party that
a bunch of Ted Cruz's neighbors in
this richest of suburbs in Texas
are becoming Democrats.
But that actually is the party and
so, Heidi Cruz needs to respect
the sanctity of the text message
chain and the group text.
And not bring in people that she's
not sure are going to leak them.
Clearly I guess she thought that
there was nothing wrong with what
she was doing and you have, to get
to that place, maybe consider
the opposite type of a politician.
Let's say that Bernie Sanders had
won the White House.
They implement Medicare For All.
We're now in a place where we
actually have single payer, a bunch
of the senators therefore and other
movement leaders around the country
represent different states and
districts.
And now there's a healthcare
crisis.
This system that you have designed
is now falling apart at the seams.
And because Ted Cruz and
his radical deregulatory philosophy
designed this Texas energy policy.
It's now falling apart
at the seams.
It's an absolute complete
ideological failure.
You would think on the left, if
a socialist senator was in a state
where there's some healthcare
crisis that's related to single
payer blowing up in everybody's
face, the first thing they would do
is not flee the state and
head somewhere else.
This is your entire project, this
is your entire political project,
the thing you've been working on
your entire life.
It's falling apart, it's your job
to try to make this work.
Forget helping people,
forget making people's lives or
forget saving lives.
Your entire life's work is on
the line here and for them to
think that, well, no big deal,
it's nicer in Cancun right now and
$309 a night for the Ritz.
Hey, that's less than half
the price of a migrant detention
center.
So let's head there, shows that
they weren't even thinking that
their neighbors might consider
this to be foul and leak it.
>> Exactly, that's what really
speaks volumes to me.
The fact that this seemed to catch
Ted Cruz and his family off guard,
as if the decision to do this
wasn't a problem.
Like he didn't pause to think about
in the very least the optics for
his own self interest.
I'm not naive enough to think that
Ted Cruz actually sees himself as
a public servant or sees his career
as something that's meant to
help people, represent people.
Ted Cruz isn't the only
congressional lawmaker who acts
this way.
They don't see this as
a public service.
They see this as an opportunity to
further their career but
at the same time, does he even
really care about that?
I mean, it doesn't really seem like
it, it seems like this position
of power, being able to serve as
United States senator is just a way
to cash in.
You're a senator for now,
you're making all
these connections, we still have
this system of a revolving door.
You're a lawmaker,
then you're lobbyist and
then after you're a lobbyist for
a certain amount of time,
maybe you'll get nominated for
some position in some cabinet and
it's always about me, me,
me, me me.
I mean the fact that our lawmakers
don't have to divest from single
stocks, that is a problem.
Everything is incentivized in such
a way to attract people who do not
see this as a public service.
But see this as an opportunity to
personally enrich themselves, and
so- >> Heidi had worked for, maybe
still works for Goldman Sachs and
it's like- >> Yeah, she does.
>> Their family's doing extremely
well and I think for Cruz,
this is less about money than just
absolute power hungry.
There's that famous [LAUGH] video
of him as like a lanky 12 year old
saying that he's going to rule
the world one day.
He's wanted to rule the world since
he was 12 years old.
He has that will to power.
What's amazing is that he actually
admitted to a local radio station
or a local TV station, that when he
sat down on the plane as it was
about to take off, he felt like he
had done something wrong.
And he used the word wrong.
Which is unusual for him.
Because he's not a person
that speaks in terms of morality.
He's all about the logic, he's
going to out logic you on Twitter.
He's like,
I felt like it was wrong,
because it was wrong.
And he said, even though I can't,
there's not a whole lot I
can do as United States Senator or
saying in Texas, it just
felt wrong to be leaving the state.
It was and so
think about that, if it was wrong,
if he felt like it was wrong,
then of course his neighbors also
felt like it was wrong.
So they identified a wrong.
And they exposed it, they helped to
expose it to the press.
And so by his own logic and
Cruz loves logic and
Cruz loves by your logic.
He should respect the moral choice
that was made by his neighbors to
see a wrong happening and
expose it to the public.
>> I certainly respect it.
>> Got you.
>> Good on his neighbors,
I love it.
>> And the United Airlines employee
who let us know about his flight.
Good on them.
>> Yeah but I do love that.
The conservative focus on this
story isn't the wrong action that
he took.
It's all about we gotta find out
who did it, who leaked it.
Do you know who leaked it, really,
we gotta find the leaker.
I mean, it does remind me a lot of
what we heard- >> That was what was
fun [LAUGH], the New York Times had
two sources on that group text, so.
[LAUGH] >> It's amazing.
It's amazing.
>> At least two