Sen. Ted Cruz inadvertently sent an ironic message when he was interviewed this afternoon in front of the austere architectural pillars of government. Listening carefully, an audience member can hear that Cruz is quite literally in an echo chamber.
Given the mic, Cruz takes a big swing at the Biden administration’s handling of the Chinese spy balloon shot down off the South Carolina coastline, calling its flight across the nation a “debacle” that “significantly weakened US national security.” The interviewer doesn’t ask many questions, but Cruz uses the opportunity to ride the spy balloon issue to grab attention, making multiple assertions about its “completed” espionage mission.
The Chinese spy balloon incident exposed President Biden’s weakness.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) February 17, 2023
If Americans in Montana hadn’t seen the balloon flying over their heads, I suspect Biden would have let it complete its mission and sail back to China. pic.twitter.com/HtfNww6VLf
A Harvard trained lawyer, Cruz gets more careful in his statements as the interview goes on, employing the word “presumably” before each subsequent assertion about the balloon’s capabilities. In his echoing voice, Cruz says that “presumably it had serious equipment to photograph, take videos, presumably use things like infrared to engage in intercepts of communications.”
Cruz says the Biden administration waited “until [the balloon] had gathered all its data and presumably sent that via uplink to a Chinese satellite.”
That’s a lot of “presumably” usage, but then Cruz doesn’t sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee. Cruz does, however, sit on the Foreign Relations Committee and the Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism.
[Of course, committee assignments don’t necessarily indicate expertise or even interest in a subject: Cruz also sits on a subcommittee focused on Global Women’s Issues, the Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights, and Global Women’s Issues.]
Cruz gets largely pilloried in the comments for his posturing on the balloon and loose conjecture lacking substantive evidence. Rick Smith, who runs a left-leaning podcast, writes: “The sad thing is Ted knows what he is saying is a bold faced lie.”
There are also multiple comments pointing out the alleged flights of similar (not downed) balloons during previous administrations. And there is the (bad-for-Cruz) notion that Cruz just isn’t causing the stir he means to. First there is a repeated complaint that he doesn’t talk enough about Texas, the state he’s been elected to represent — “If the balloon had been spotted in Texas Ted Cruz would still be in Cancun !!!!” and “Why doesn’t he ever talk about Texas and Texans?”
And then there is the assessment that Cruz is committing the cardinal sin of 21st century politics-as-entertainment — being both predictable and boring. Putting people to sleep is not the goal, but one comment has Cruz dong just that: “lyin’ ted cruz+spy balloon=zzzzzzzzzz”
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