This interview with fellow right-winger Tucker Carlson:
TRANSCRIPT.
Carlson: How many people live in Iran, by the way?
Cruz: I don’t know the population.
Carlson: At all?
Cruz: No. I don’t know the population.
Carlson: You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?
Cruz: Uh… how many people are there in Iran?
Carlson: 92 million.
Cruz (gestures with an air of finality): Okay. Yeah, uh, I –
Carlson: How could you not know that?
Cruz: I, uh, I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.
Carlson: Well, it’s kind of relevant, because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.
Cruz: Why is it relevant whether it’s… it’s 90 million or 80 million or a hundred million… why, why is that relevant?
Carlson: Because if you don’t know anything about the country–
Cruz: I didn’t say I didn’t know anything about the country.
Carlson: Okay, what’s the ethnic mix of Iran?
Cruz (pauses, thinks, gestures dramatically): They are Persians –
Carlson: What percent?
Cruz: and predominantly Shia. Okay, okay, this is cute. Okay.
Carlson: No, it’s not. You don’t know anything about Iran, so actually –
Cruz: Okay. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran who says –
Carlson: You’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of the government, and you don’t know anything about the country.
Cruz: No, you’re the one who doesn’t know anything about the country. You’re the one who claims they’re not trying to murder Donald Trump.
Carlson: No, I’m not saying that.
Cruz: You can’t figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and said it was bad.
Carlson: You don’t believe they’re trying to murder Trump, because you’re not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation, and if you really believed that…
Cruz: We are carrying out military strikes TODAY.
Carlson: You said Israel was.
Cruz: Right. With our help. I said we. Israel is leading them, but we’re supporting them.
Carlson: Well, this is… you’re breaking news here, because the US government last night denied, the national security spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied, on behalf of Trump, that we were acting on Israel’s behalf in any offensive capacity.
Cruz: No, we’re not bombing them. Israel’s bombing them.
Carlson: You just said we were.
Cruz: I…uh… we are supporting Israel as it…
Carlson: This is high stakes. You’re a senator: if you’re saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.
Cruz: Okay. I, uh (splutters)
Carlson: You’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of the government, and you don’t know anything about the country.
Cruz: No, you’re the one who doesn’t know anything about the country.
Oh my god…
at some point he also mentions he hates communism in cuba because his dad was tortured by the govermnet, i kid you not, of bautista.
Even Tucker was like “wtf, dude” at that point
People joke in a self-effacing way about “leftist infighting”, but this kind of stuff is a good reminder that rightists do plenty of infighting of their own. USian rightists are, after all, a bunch of “survival of the fittest”, competition obsessed people. If memory serves, it’s actually kind of abnormal that so many of them rallied around Trump, without tearing each other apart about it. But this may be a sign that even rightists are starting to tire of the Trump cult. Tucker sidesteps on criticizing Trump directly, but is perfectly happy to humiliate him through Cruz. What it makes me suspect is that some of these rightists see Trump as a “useful idiot”, but don’t want to show their disdain directly for fear of angering his supporters or messing with the coalition somehow, so now it’s leaking out on one of his sycophants.
I bet Tucker would love to do this to Trump.
I bet Tucker would love to do this to Trump.
Maybe. But it’s probably much more fun to do to Ted Cruz because he’s such a loathsome worm. Don’t think he has any supporters, fans, or friends.
Imagine being a CNN or MSNBC reporter and seeing Tucker fucking Carlson giving more pushback and having better follow ups than you when interviewing fascists.
I’d legitimately kms.
I’d off myself if I caught myself posting the Epic Comeback that Cruz did on twitter:
According to Star Wars reference books, the population of the Death Star was 1.7 million military personnel, 400,000 maintenance droids, and 250,000 civilians, associated contractors and catering staff.
Anyway, the Death Star was a giant military base, whereas the Islamic Republic of Iran has an overwhelmingly civilian population, and it has no interest in global (let alone galactic) domination. So this is an uncompelling equivalence.
Besides, Carlson was likely more concerned about the expenses. Having a general idea of something’s population size is important for understanding how difficult or expensive conquering it will be. It seems that Cruz missed the point here.
250,000 civilians
Contractor: “Excuse me, I don’t mean to interrupt, but what are you two talking about?”
Randal: “Ending of Return of the Jedi.”
Dante: “My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractor that was working on the death star were innocent victims when they was destroyed by the rebels.”
Contractor: “Well, I’m a contractor, roofer; home n’ ready improvements and speaking as a roofer I can tell you a roofer’s personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs.”
Randal: “Like when?”
Contractor: “Three months ago I was offered a job up in the hills. A beautiful house with tons of property. It was a simple reshingling job, but I was told that if it was finished within a day, my price would be doubled. Then I realized whose house it was.”
Dante: “Whose house was it?”
Contractor: “Dominick Bambino’s.”
Randal: ““Babyface” Bambino? The gangster?”
Contractor: “The same. The money was right, but the risk was too big. I knew who he was, and based on that, I passed the job on to a friend of mine.”
Dante: “Based on personal politics.”
Contractor: “Right. And that week, the Foresci family put a hit on Babyface’s house. My friend was shot and killed. He wasn’t even finished shingling.”
Randal: “No way!”
Contractor: “I’m alive because I knew there were risks involved taking on that particular client. My friend wasn’t so lucky…You know, any contractor willing to work on that Death Star knew the risks. If they were killed, it was their own fault. A roofer listens to this… (taps his heart) not his wallet.”
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
This is that fantasy everyone has after getting owned and having a comeback 5 hours later all alone at home. Like there is a reason you don’t post it 5 hours later and have it remain a fantasy; because it’s loser shit and the comeback probably isn’t good to begin with. We all have it happen to us, just Cruz lacks the self awareness.
This is literally that “the front fell off” bit.
In terms of Tucker Carlson, his geopolitical outlook is not so different than Obama’s, which rightly identified China as the main rival and tries to plan an exit plan for West Asia.
Yeah, I don’t like the guy. But it’s weird seeing a MAGA politician not able to keep his story straight in front of a (presumably somewhat sympathetic) MAGA news pundit.
He positioned himself as a principled conservative in opposition to corrupt neocons. His MAGA audience views establishment warhawks as the Swamp so he gets his chance to earn credibility for opposing the war without directly defying Trump.
Never thought tucker carlson would be the rational voice in the room
I’m not one to post here, but this feels inevitable. More than seeing Japan and Germany arming themselves to the teeth, what terrifies me the most is realizing that Tucker Carlson has been the most adult and rational voice lately.
Yes, that is concerning. And the way Cruz is talking sort of confirms my suspicion that Washington is in chaos right now – there’s no one person making the decisions, and Lindsey Graham (that Dixieland moron) has if anything more power to decide, unilaterally, foreign policy than has the president. Not that it would be good either way, but this seems a dangerous breakdown in basic government functioning, which could have disastrous consequences for the world.
The real scary part is either way it seems we are seeing the complete unraveling of a nuclear armed fascist state for the first time in history and all bets are off at this point.
It’s scarier when you’re right next to it and have a progressive government. I’m glad it’s unraveling but in the meantime a headline is gonna give me a panic attack one of these days.
I love the conspiracy theory that Iran recruits the most useless and unhinged people like that right wing gun nut kid with the demolition ranch tee and the Ukraine nafo nut for ultra high stakes ops instead of anyone more capable. But I guess if bunker removed Bibi said it then it must be true.
