Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and CNN’s Chris Cuomo are exchanging jabs.
The two butt heads for roughly 20 minutes during Cruz’s Wednesday night interview on CNN.
During the interview, Cuomo asked Cruz about President Donald Trump not condemning white supremacist groups during the first presidential debate when asked if he would. Cuomo said, “Now, I will exercise my right and say, was the president wrong to go soft on the proud boys in the debate last night?”
Cruz mentioned that he had wished Trump was “much clearer in his denunciation,” but he was “glad today that he walked that back.” Before the senator finished, Cuomo interjected saying, “No he didn’t.”
“Really?” Cuomo said when Cruz took aim at the press and said, “Ten years ago, 2010, Joe Biden gave a eulogy for Robert Byrd who was a Grand Cyclops of the KKK.”
Cuomo then hit back, “You’re going to go with this weak-a** argument here? Byrd, who had a complete enlightenment about how hate was wrong, who changed his life, who spoke about it.”
The two then began speaking over one another as things got heated. Cuomo went on to say, “I don’t want you to run away from the premise. [Trump] did it in Charlottesville, he did it with David Duke. The old Ted Cruz — who he called, ‘Lyin’ Ted,’ when he wasn’t insulting your wife and father — tweeted, ‘Hey, you’re better than this Mr. President.'”
“What happened to that Ted? I don’t know if he changed or just you changed, for some reason,” Cuomo added.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh4KqIHZrD0
During the interview the two also talked about the coronavirus pandemic.
Cruz said to Cuomo of his brother, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) that he does not believe the governor “intentionally” wanted people to lose their lives to the virus. However, the senator added, “Was it a mistake when your brother implemented a policy that nursing homes had to accept COVID positive patients and endanger the lives?”
Chris Cuomo responded, “My brother was the first one to say there was a learning curve and mistakes were made and they changed things as soon as they could.”
However, Cruz fired back, “Don’t be a hypocrite about it.”
Later the CNN host said to Cruz, “I’m not yelling at you. I’m raising my voice to match your own because you want to play games and people are dying.”
Cruz responded, “That’s okay, Chris. You’re perfectly fine to scream and yell.”
