Cruzing for a Bruising: Ted Cruz grovels to Tucker Carlson over Jan. 6 ‘terrorist attack’ remark

Ted Cruz grovels to Tucker Carlson over Jan. 6 ‘terrorist attack’ remark (Washington Postlink): If you tried to script an interview that epitomized the GOP’s post-Jan. 6 evolution, its subjugation to its more extreme elements and its rewriting of its own narrative of the Capitol riot, you would struggle to do better than Sen. Ted Cruz’s interview with Tucker Carlson on Thursday night.

To recap, Cruz (R-Tex.) set off a bit of a MAGA backlash on Wednesday by calling the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol a “violent terrorist attack.” Among those criticizing Cruz was Carlson, who laid into the senator on Wednesday night.

So Cruz appeared on Carlson’s show Thursday night to back down, take his medicine and hopefully move on. It did not go so well. But it did provide an extremely apt picture of the current state of the post-Jan. 6 GOP— on the evening of the anniversary of Jan. 6, no less.

Carlson began the interview by positing that Cruz had “lied” about the events being a terrorist attack. And Cruz instantly signaled contrition. “The way I phrased things yesterday — it was sloppy, and it was, frankly, dumb,” Cruz began.

Carlson cut him off, though. He said he didn’t believe Cruz and that Cruz— a highly trained lawyer — couldn’t possibly have been so sloppy with his choice of words. “I don’t buy that,” Carlson said. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don’t buy that.”

The thing is: Carlson shouldn’t have bought it. This, after all, was hardly the first time Cruz had labeled Jan. 6 a terrorist attack. He did so Jan. 7, 2021 — “a despicable act of terrorism” — and in a Jan. 8, 2021, tweet. He did so in a local news interview published Jan. 8, as well.

Even more than four months after the riot, while voting against the creation of a bipartisan Jan. 6 commission, Cruz was still using that word. “The January 6 terrorist attack on the Capitol was a dark moment in our nation’s history,” Cruz’s May 28 statement began. 

Mod: More at the link. Check out the video.

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