An interesting email arrived yesterday with the following (I don't know where it came from originally):
Ted Cruz to GOP leader: You lied.
Firebrand Republican senator and presidential candidate Ted Cruz did something surprising in the Senate on Friday: He accused the head of his party, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of lying to his colleagues.
“We know now that when the majority leader looks us in the eyes and makes an explicit commitment, that he is willing to say things that he knows are false,” Cruz (Tex.) said. “That has consequences for how this body operates.”
Cruz’s remarks laid bare, in the most august of settings, simmering tensions between the conservative activist wing of the Republican Party and the mainstream GOP establishment. In his 20-minute speech, Cruz accused McConnell (Ky.) of running the Senate in much the same manner as his Democratic predecessor as majority leader, Harry M. Reid (Nev.).
“There is a profound disappointment among the American people because we keep winning elections, and then we keep getting leaders who don’t do anything they promised,” Cruz said. “We’ve had a Republican majority in both houses of Congress now for about six months. . . . This Senate operates exactly the same, the same priorities.”
On the Senate floor, Cruz accused "career politicians" in Congress of "looting the taxpayer to benefit wealthy, powerful corporations."
Prompting the outburst was McConnell’s move to prepare amendment votes on a must-pass transportation bill. After senators voted to consider the bill, McConnell set up votes on two controversial issues — a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and a reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank of the United States.
The move incensed Cruz, who had announced his intention to offer other amendments and who, like many conservatives, strongly opposes the bank’s reauthorization despite the support it enjoys among a supermajority of senators. That puts him at odds with McConnell, who has attempted to keep major legislation moving steadily through the Senate and has struck deals and engaged in procedural maneuvers to avoid getting bogged down, with uneven success.
Though McConnell has personally spoken against the Export-Import Bank’s reauthorization, Democrats said in June that he had agreed to schedule a vote on the bank in order to get highly divisive trade legislation passed.
Cruz said Friday that McConnell, in a private Republican conference meeting, denied that any deal had been struck to pass the trade bill.
“I asked the majority leader very directly: What was the deal that was just cut?” Cruz recalled. “The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, ‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’ Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times.”
Cruz said Friday that McConnell, in a private Republican conference meeting, denied that any deal had been struck to pass the trade bill.
“I asked the majority leader very directly: What was the deal that was just cut?” Cruz recalled. “The majority leader was visibly angry with me that I would ask such a question, and the majority leader looked at me and said, ‘There is no deal, there is no deal, there is no deal.’ Like Saint Peter, he repeated it three times.”
McConnell spokesman Don Stewart declined to comment.
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