click to enlarge Screen Capture / Fox News
Ted Cruz grovels after right-wing pundit Tucker Carlson calls him a liar.
Along with
picking online fights with celebrities,
squirming seems to be one of Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz's most frequent pastimes.
After being
excoriated this week by right-wingers for calling the Jan. 6 insurrection a “violent terrorist attack,” Texas' junior senator appeared Thursday on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show to cram his own words back into his weirdly shaped pie hole.
"The way I phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy and it was frankly dumb," Cruz said during what could best be described as a groveling appearance on the extreme-right entertainer's program.
After Carlson shouted over Cruz, cutting him off and effectively calling him a liar, Cruz smiled meekly then explained that when he used the T-word, he was only referring to Jan. 6 rioters who attacked the police — and
not anyone else who stormed the Capitol and tried to overturn a fair and free election.
“For a decade, I have referred to people who violently assault police officers as terrorists," Cruz explained. "I’ve done so over and over and over again."
Carlson and other far-right figures hyperventilated Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection, after Cruz during a Senate hearing praised police who fought back a "violent terrorist attack on the Capitol."
Even though Cruz spent the weeks before the insurrection
making bullshit claims that election fraud cost Trump the election, Carlson nonetheless accused the senator of "repeating the talking points" of U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland during his comments at the hearing.
Following his kowtowing on Carlson's show,
Cruz tweeted a clip of his appearance and again chastised himself for his "dumb" description of the law-abiding folks who swarmed the Capitol. You know, just to make sure everyone understands how much he regrets having used the T-word.
Yesterday, I used a dumb choice of words and unfortunately a lot of people are misunderstanding what I meant," Cruz wrote.
"I was NOT calling the thousands of peaceful protestors on Jan 6 terrorists. I would never do so," he added in a subsequent tweet.
Thanks for clearing that up, champ. Now on to the next celebrity Twitter fight, or flight to Cancun, or whatever.
Stay on top of San Antonio news and views. Sign up for our Weekly Headlines Newsletter.