“They think their 7 viewers are idiots who can’t tell the difference between common sense voter ID laws & authoritarian COVID mandates,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Friday, mocking how CNN tried to refute his opposition to vaccine mandates – but, ended up making the case for the voter ID laws he supports.
CNN “continues to beclown itself,” Cruz tweeted, posting a video clip of CNN “New Day” hosts attacking him for both supporting voter ID requirements and opposing vaccine mandates for everyday activities:
“@cnn continues to beclown itself. They’re not journalists, just smug, hypocritical propagandists. Here, they (1) inadvertently argue for voter ID, and simultaneously (2) advocate for vaccine mandates—opposed by 80% of Americans.
“From the network that brought you Jeffrey Toobin and Chris Cuomo, Zucker & the clown car at CNN continue their anti-American hackery.”
….
“If CNN really gave a damn about COVID, they’d come down to McAllen & see the THOUSANDS of illegal immigrants with COVID being released by the Biden admin without a care in the world into Texas cities & towns. There’s an invasion going on at the southern border but CNN is silent.”
CNN begins by showing a video clip of Sen. Cruz voicing his opposition to vaccine mandates:
“We should have no COVID mandates. What does that mean? No mask mandates, no vaccine mandates, that means no vaccine passports. We shouldn't step into a regime where the government says ‘Show us your papers, if you want to do the basic activities of life.’”
In response, CNN provides a list of “basic activities of life” that require so-called “papers” – listing many of the same activities Republicans cite to support voter ID requirements:
“You need papers to drive, to fish, to hunt, to buy booze, to buy cigarettes.
“You need papers to purchase a home, to file taxes if you want to rent a car, an apartment, if you want to take home a library book, you need papers for car insurance, for car registration. To dance at a nightclub, to open a bank account, to get a job, to literally walk into the building of said job, to go to the doctor, to book a hotel room.
“You need papers to get your kids into school, to get married, to do bench presses at the gym, see an R-rated movie, to get a credit card. This is nothing new or extraordinary or unprecedented. Here’s a brief list of the current vaccines required to go to some schools: measles, bumps, chickenpox, polio.”
CNN, then, accuses Cruz of hypocrisy, playing a clip of the senator calling voter ID “a very reasonable common sense provision.”
“They think their 7 viewers are idiots who can’t tell the difference between common sense voter ID laws & authoritarian COVID mandates,” Cruz tweeted in reply.