Ted Cruz Suddenly Decides Filibusters And Government Shutdowns Are Irresponsible

Ted Cruz Suddenly Decides Filibusters And Government Shutdowns Are Irresponsible

Amazingly, now that the tables have turned and Democrats are now the minority in the Senate, Ted Cruz doesn't like filibusters or the threats of government shutdowns. And don't blame him for the debacle back in January that led to the weekend long vote-o-rama in the Senate and backfired on his party most spectacularly. It's all the Republican leadership's fault.

So much for pretending to be the "party of personal responsibility." Cruz' motto ought to be "don't blame me, it's the other guy's fault."

Cruz was none to happy with CNN's Dana Bash when she pointed out is hypocrisy on this Sunday's State of the Union.

BASH: Senator, I want to bring it back home to the stalemate in Congress over Homeland Security funding. The government again, that part of the government runs out of money in just a few weeks. Republicans are looking at you and wondering what is your endgame here, because this is a strategy crafted by you, the idea of holding up funding for the Department of Homeland Security in order to try to stop the president and his executive order on immigration. So what is your endgame?

CRUZ: Well Dana, the premise of that question is not true and it's frankly ridiculous. This is a strategy that came from Republican leadership. This is the Cromnibus strategy. If you'll recall I fought tooth and nail against the Cromnibus in December because I said in December, this gives up our leverage and it puts us into effectively a box canyon. So I would say it's now up to leadership to lay out their strategy. I told them this was not a winning strategy and they went down this road anyway, fighting tooth and nail.

But let me make the broader point. What we saw last week was stunning irresponsibility from the Senate Democrats. Senate Democrats three times filibustered funding for the Department of Homeland Security. We have a bill on the floor to fund DHS.

BASH: Right.

CRUZ: And three times the Democrats stood together, filibustered and said we will not allow the Senate to take up this bill. At a time of growing national security threats across the world, that's irresponsible.

BASH: Senator, with respect, it's not a ridiculous premise because what you wanted to do was hold up the entire government funding back in December and this Cromnibus, we won't get too much into the weeds here, was a compromise to try to work around that, so that's I think the reality of what's going on here.