The Bromance Made In Hell Hatched A Wild Scheme Last Night

Wouldn’t it be grand if one of these clowns wasn’t in the Senate next year and if the other one was in prison? We can always dream, right? Ted Cruz went to Mar-a-Lago for an audience with the charismatic cult leader and lo, he was granted one. He must have been thrilled to kiss the ring.

And what did they discuss? Alas, we can only guess. But body language is a good indicator of what’s going on between two people and in this case, Trump was pitching something big and Cruz was taking it in. Take a look. Trump widens his arms, which would indicate to me they’re talking about something big or expanding something existing into something bigger than it is at the moment. Right after that he taps Cruz on the chest. That says to me that Cruz has been anointed for the big thing under discussion. And what might that be? Attorney General? Secretary of State? The mind reels. Then Trump leans in and whispers conspiratorially — which, with the music blasting is interesting in and of itself.

Trump: You know I own you, and you'll do exactly what I say.

Ted Cruz: Don't worry about me, sir. Your wish is my command.

— 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐝𝐢 (@ChidiNwatu) February 11, 2024

Going back to the body language, Trump makes an upward gesture with his hand, like an airplane taking off. Then at the end he does two cutting gestures with his hands and that seems to wrap up the topic and then he walks away.

I think it’s safe to bet that Trump was talking to Cruz about leadership in the party, i.e., replacing Mitch McConnell. Ted would love that. Of course, Ted needs to get reelected first, and he’s got a hell of a challenger in Colin Allred. So I think that the gist of this conversation was Donald saying, “Now I’ll be going down to Texas soon and I’ll make it happen for you. And when I make it happen for you, you make it happen for me. And I still think your wife is a dog and your father’s a murderer.” And Ted said, “That could be,” or maybe even, “If you say so, Sir, yes.”

We can only speculate, but one thing is dead certain: Cruz was lapping it up, no matter what it was, because that’s how Cruz rolls. He’s not a leader, he’s a sycophant. Cruz publicly dynamited whatever shred of dignity and credibility he had left when he let Tucker Carlson publicly browbeat him on Fox News. Remember that debacle, in January, 2022? Yahoo News:

All it took was a dressing down by Fox News host Tucker Carlson for Sen. Ted Cruz to walk back his comments condemning the Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

The Texas Republican appeared on Fox Thursday night and it didn’t take long for Carlson to tear into the senator for calling last year’s Capitol riot a “terrorist attack.”

Carlson was having none of it and unloaded on Cruz for letting the words come out of his mouth a day earlier.

“Senator, thanks so much for coming on. There are a lot of dumb people in the Congress. You are not one of them,” Carlson said Thursday. “I think you’re smarter than I am. And you never use words carelessly. And yet you called this a terror attack when by no definition was it a terror attack. That’s a lie. You told that lie on purpose, and I’m wondering why you did.”

Cruz had an answer at the ready and said his previous comments were “sloppy” and “frankly dumb.”

“Well, Tucker, thank you for having me on,” he said. “When you aired your episode last night I sent you a text shortly thereafter and said listen, I would like to go on because the way I phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy and it was frankly dumb.”

Carlson continued to berate Cruz: “I do not believe that you used that accidentally.”

For those who missed his earlier comments, Cruz said Wednesday at a Senate Rules Committee hearing: “We are approaching a solemn anniversary this week … And it is an anniversary of a violent terrorist attack on the Capitol where we saw the men and women of law enforcement demonstrate incredible courage, incredible bravery, risk their lives to defend the men and women who serve in this Capitol.”

Shortly after he made the comment, Carlson lambasted him on Wednesday night’s episode of his show. He continued to criticize Cruz to his face.

“I’ve known you a long time since before you went to Senate. You were a Supreme Court contender. You take words as seriously as any man who has ever served in the Senate, and every word, you repeated that phrase, I do not believe you that used that accidentally. I just don’t,” the Fox News host said.

Cruz is a United States senator but he groveled publicly to the biggest TV conspiracy theorist of our time. He has no more leadership ability than a jellyfish has a spine. It simply is not there. He, like J.D. Vance and so many of them, is totally fine with selling his soul for power.

And so the most dysfunctional political party since the Whig party, from which it sprang, continues to stagger forward, leaderless and rudderless, enthralled to the trust fund baby TV personality. What a way to go.