Ted Cruz takes credit during TV appearance for Texas highway project he voted against

Never one to let the truth get in the way of a chance to grandstand, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz appeared on TV last week to praise a federal highway project that he voted not to fund.

During an appearance on Lubbock TV station KAMC, the Texas Republican gushed over the expansion of Interstate 27 into a Ports-to-Plains corridor running through the  Lone Star State. He even bragged that he led the fight to make the project a reality.

To make sure his constituents knew just how instrumental he was in getting shit done, Cruz tweeted out a clip of his appearance, declaring it a "great bipartisan victory!" (His exclamation point, not ours.)

"The Ports to Plains highway will run from Laredo all the way up to North Dakota and into Canada," Cruz said in the tweet. "This project will bring jobs to Texas and millions of dollars to the state."

The Ports to Plains highway will run from Laredo all the way up to North Dakota and into Canada.

This project will bring jobs to Texas and millions of dollars to the state.

A great bipartisan victory! pic.twitter.com/GTgmn0Iliy

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) September 12, 2022

Here's the problem: while Cruz did work with Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, on the amendment that added the project to a $1.5 trillion omnibus spending package, the he voted against the bill once it actually went to a full Senate vote in March.

In a succinctly worded reality check, the White House reshared Cruz's clip on Twitter with a five-word response: "Senator Cruz voted against this."

Ouch.

That's almost as embarrassing as the time Cruz pushed to make the future Interstate 14 a key part of a 2021 infrastructure package, only to deliver a fiery speech two days later warning that the bill was a Democratic "trap" that would unleash cataclysmic inflation.

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