EDITORIAL: Ted Cruz delivers for America amid global turmoil
“You’re a fan of the Washington Reporter? Name all their subscribers.”
We at the Reporter are incredibly thankful for our readership in the White House, on and off the Hill, and beyond — but we’d never lodge an evidently bad-faith accusation like that against someone, unless they really deserved it.
And Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), who consistently delivers for the American people, deserved better than the two-hour showing from his appearance on Tucker Carlson’s podcast. As the Reporter first reported, Republicans senators mocked Carlson as a “clown” behind closed doors earlier this week, following President Donald Trump’s break with the former Fox News host.
Carlson’s comportment during his Cruz interview has done him no favors.
Cruz, for his part, is a master podcaster, and is also one of the Senate GOP’s biggest assets. His work on reconciliation and a spectrum deal put him in a class of his own among Republican lawmakers.
One senior Hill aide told us that Senator Cruz has had as significant of an impact on reconciliation as any member, especially with his deliverance of a spectrum deal that raises hundreds of billions of dollars, positions us to beat China, and protects our national security.
Additionally, we at the Reporter both agree with Cruz on the merits of his arguments and with his strategy of confronting people who clearly don’t agree with him. He made the case for a robust America First foreign policy that punishes our enemies who shamelessly carry the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands.
We also appreciate Cruz’s reaction to the podcast after the fact. His timeline is filled with jokes about how absurd the premise of Carlson’s questions were.
Does anyone outside of the biggest Star Wars nerd conventions know the population of the Death Star at the time that it was destroyed? Of course not — but make no mistake about it, Luke Skywalker was right to “stay on target” and take out the Death Star before its planet-destroying capabilities were fully ready.
Has Iran annihilated an entire planet? Of course not. But, a nuclear Iran does threaten a planet: ours. And, we covered elsewhere, the malign role of the radical Muslim Ayatollah and his suicidal follows have been waging wars of various severity against America and our allies for years.
On balance, we assess that Cruz won his “battle” with Carlson. Now, we hope that America will win a war for the first time in many years and eradicate the last vestiges of Iran’s nuclear program.
As Americans, we estimate that Iran’s precise population matters far less than the answer to “how many nuclear weapons can Iran build?” remaining “zero” forever.