New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has compared Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas to a “serpent covered in vaseline” who would do anything to get elected.
The prominent establishment conservative, who has made his anti-Trump views well known, made the unflattering comparison in an interview with fellow Times columnist Gail Collins.
Stephens told Collins that he “despises” Cruz, who he said treats the American people “like two-bit suckers in 10-gallon hats”. The columnist also said that Cruz, who went from Trump’s rival for the GOP presidential nomination to the president’s outspoken supporter, now “sucks up to the guy who insulted his wife.” This was in reference to a Trump tweet in which he made fun of Heidi Cruz for her appearance, posting a picture of her alongside his own model wife, Melania Trump.
Next, Stephens took aim at Cruz for his “phony piety” and “even phonier principles,” adding that any ethics Cruz has are “purely situational” and saying that he makes Trump “look like a human being by comparison”.
But the scathing insults didn’t end there. Cruz, Stephens said, is the type of man “who would sell his family into slavery if that’s what it took to get elected” — and then he would “use said slavery as a sob story to get himself re-elected.”
Facing criticism from liberals over his “climate change denialism” and occasional agreements with Trump, such as on the issue of abandoning the Iran nuclear deal, the NY Times columnist has countered by turning up his invective against the president, whom he has called “mentally ill” and “unhinged.”
In case if wasn’t obvious, the never-Trump Stephens also said he supported the Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who is running against Cruz in the November midterms.
Usually critical of Stephens, Democrats cheered his endorsement of O’Rourke:
On Monday, Cruz and his wife were mobbed at a Washington, DC restaurant in by a group of activists protesting Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Cruz sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee and supports Kavanaugh’s confirmation - something on which he agrees with Stephens.
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