Ted Cruz’s Emergency Rally Had Very Little Talk of Ted Cruz

Donald Trump wins again.

Eric Gay/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In making the case for a man he once disparaged as “worse than Hillary,” President Donald Trump on Monday painted a vote for Sen. Ted Cruz as a vote for his administration. He touted the Texas senator’s voting record as being crucial to some of his key successes, including the Republican tax bill and the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

“Nobody has helped me more, with your tax cuts, with your regulation, with all of the things that we’re doing,” Trump said referring to Cruz.

The president notably played down their once contentious relationship during the 2016 Republican presidential primary—which included Trump insulting Cruz’s wife and suggesting Cruz’s father was part of a conspiracy to assassinate JFKtelling supporters that he now considered the senator someone who has become a “really good friend.” (Don Jr. already explained that all he needed to make nice with Cruz was a few drinks in the Trump Hotel Lobby.)

Trump’s appearance in Houston, which came on the first day of early voting in the state, was meant to boost Cruz in his surprisingly tough re-election bid against his Democratic challenger, Rep. Beto O’Rourke. The rally on Monday featured some of the president’s most frequent talking points as of late, including the baseless claim that Democrats are funding so-called “caravans” of migrants to enter the country.

“Do you know how the caravan started, does everybody know what this means?” Trump said while making a hand motion that depicted cash being dispensed. “I think the Democrats had something to do with it, and now they’re saying ‘I think we’ve made a big mistake’ because people are seeing how bad it is, how pathetic it is, how bad our laws are.” 

Many of his claims about the composition and intention of the migrants traveling to the US have been repeatedly disproved.

Trump on Monday also continued to falsely claim that Republicans hoped to ensure health care coverage for those with preexisting conditions—a blatant falsehood that ignores the president’s various attempts to end rules protecting coverage for people with preexisting conditions. The remarks also come as dozens of Republicans are attempting to rewrite their own records of voting to kill the Affordable Care Act ahead of the midterm elections.

The president’s remarks, which lasted roughly 90 minutes, largely avoided direct talk of Cruz. He did, however, take a cue from the Texas senator by repeatedly mispronouncing O’Rourke’s name.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate