MSNBC’s Ari Melber called out Ted Cruz ― or, rather, let him call himself out ― as he compared audio of the Texas Republican’s scheming in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection to his own past comments on Donald Trump. (See the video below.)
Melber’s show has has been airing recordings over the past week that feature the senator’s conversations with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo. The recordings were shared with MSNBC by ex-Fox News producer Abby Grossberg, who is suing her former employer.
One recording from Nov. 7, 2020, featured Cruz’s call for “demonstrable facts that can be laid out with evidence” in the wake of Trump’s election fraud claims, while another recording from Jan. 2, 2021, featured Cruz discussing a plan for a “commission” to invalidate Trump’s election loss.
On Wednesday, Melber played those clips ― and then stacked them up against other comments from Cruz.
“It is no surprise that Donald is throwing yet another temper tantrum or, if you like, another Trumper tantrum. ... Donald finds it very hard to lose,” Cruz said in one clip from February 2016.
By contrast, Cruz said in the 2021 recording that a Joe Biden presidency would be bad, because it would mean “half the country [would] believe that they stole the election and it was illegitimate.”
Melber compared another 2016 clip, this one of Cruz calling Trump a “pathological liar,” to a recording where he told Bartiromo that results from the “commission” would play a role in the 2021 presidential inauguration.
After airing the clips Wednesday, Melber declared: “This is Senator Cruz.”
“These are his words,” he said. “I can’t say they’re his truths because they’re not all consistent. If you know anything about truth, evidence or logic, you can’t have two opposite things be true at the same time, but they are his Cruz-isms.”
“Warning Trump was a liar,” Melber added. “Warning, after Trump lost in 2020, that you need actual facts and evidence.”