Ted Cruz has long criticized career politicians in both parties for not listening to the American people; indeed, he started a Twitter hashtag #MakeDCListen on this very issue and has taken to the Senate floor on a number of occasions to urge DC to listen to the people who elected them.
His pleas, like ours, fall on deaf ears, but that doesn’t stop him from voicing what so many of us have come to believe:
Yesterday, Cruz once again took to the Senate floor to berate career politicians in both parties, particularly Republican leadership. The Washington Post reports:
Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz did something surprising in the Senate on Friday: He accused the head of his party, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of lying to his colleagues.“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are false,” Cruz (Tex.) said. “That has consequences for how this body operates.”Cruz’s remarks laid bare, in the most august of settings, simmering tensions between the conservative activist wing of the Republican Party and the mainstream GOP establishment. In his 20-minute speech, Cruz accused McConnell (Ky.) of running the Senate in much the same manner as his Democratic predecessor as majority leader, Harry M. Reid (Nev.).
Cruz has led the charge on a number of issues that matter to conservatives, from Israel to immigration to ObamaCare, but he keeps hitting the same brick wall: Mitch McConnell and GOP leadership. As the National Journal reports:
The decision by establishment leaders to hold off on a repeal-focused agenda, however, isn’t likely to sit well with the Senate’s and House’s most conservative members, who have built their legacies on obstructing Obama on the budget, on immigration, and especially on health care. McConnell’s reluctance to spend the next two years embroiled in Obamacare repeal votes could lay the groundwork for the kind of intraparty fighting in the Senate that, up until now, has only been the trademark of the House. Eventually, the schisms between the Far Right and the center of the party could spill into public view.
Despite the 2010 shellacking and the 2014 shellacking 2.0 which gave Republicans a majority in both houses of Congress, nothing has been done to address the issues that these Republicans were elected to address, that they ran their campaigns on.
Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated with this pattern of career politicians making empty promises to get elected, and so is Ted Cruz.
Watch his full remarks; they’re remarkable:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY