The full effects of the fallout from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz's contentious and, as he himself later put it, "frankly dumb" comments parroting the Democrat narrative that Jan. 6, 2021, was the day of a "violent terrorist attack" on U.S. democracy remain to be seen. But in the immediate aftermath of his remarks, some former staunch supporters of the Texan swear they are now "done" with him for good. Those wrestling with similar inclinations are digging deeper into arguments for and against Cruz.
Outsider Donald Trump attached the highly effective tag "Lyin' Ted" to his 2016 GOP primary opponent. Perhaps he was referring to, among other things, Cruz’s changing stance on the globalist Trans-Pacific Partnership. Amid the fight to enact TPP during the second Obama administration, Cruz initially served as a spirited voice for granting the president fast-track “Trade Promotion Authority” to get the deal done. In April of 2015, he co-authored, along with soon-to-be Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal urging fast-track authority for Obama. "The United States is making headway on two historic trade agreements, one with 11 countries on the Pacific Rim and another with America’s friends in Europe," Cruz and Ryan opinied in their opening sentence. "These two agreements alone would mean greater access to a billion customers for American manufacturers, farmers and ranchers."
But then Cruz found himself in hot water with America First conservatives. And so, he flipped on TPP. After having voted for it in the Senate before the effort failed to pass the House, Cruz came out against fast-track only one month later, proclaiming in a Breitbart op-ed, “The American people do not trust President Obama. And they do not trust Republican leadership in Congress. And the reason is simple: for far too long, politicians in Washington have not told the truth.”
When Cruz later ran for president, he claimed to have steadfastly opposed the pact all along. Suddenly, Cruz was transformed into the champion of American job protectionism.
W, Deep State, and Beyond
Unbeknownst to many, Cruz has also flipped dramatically on immigration. Numerous veterans of the George W. Bush administration, where the Texas senator got his start, have attested that Cruz openly supported and advocated for amnesty for illegal aliens, back in those bygone days of the Bush political dynasty. Robert de Posada, a former Director of Hispanic Affairs at the Republican National Committee, has declared that Cruz personally lobbied on behalf of the notorious bipartisan amnesty legislation pushed by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Ted Kennedy (D-MA) in the mid-00s, years before his Senate career began.
Ted Cruz (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Cruz is also intent on positioning himself as a plucky outsider voice for regular Americans. Yet his 2016 presidential campaign team was heavily populated by the thickest upper crust of D.C. elite internationalists, his national security team included neoconservative firebrands such as Elliott Abrams, and his finance team included Neil Bush, tarnished brother of Bush 43.
Misrepresentation and the Damage Done
Finally, his America First posturing belies the fact that his wife Heidi is a former Goldman Sachs executive, and also a member of a task force for the globalist Council on Foreign Relations that authored a stunningly blunt 2005 report calling for the creation of a North American Union that would see the sovereignty of the United States dissolve into a European Union-like super-government morass involving Canada and Mexico. And yet, the same Ted Cruz stridently campaigned against this same Council on Foreign Relations while attempting to garner the GOP nomination for U.S. senator in Texas, calling it "a pit of vipers."
Ted Cruz is working hard to receive the benefit of the doubt over his Jan. 6 remarks. But given the many instances of him reversing positions and claiming he is something that he is not, one could be excused for wondering if his beliefs are based on what best serves his political ambitions at any given moment.
~ Read more from Joe Schaeffer.
