Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R) is still being haunted by his infamous Cancun Trip, and it appears he won’t be able to escape from it any time soon.
During a CNN segment on the senator’s opposition to mask mandate, anchors Brianna Keilar and John Berman again mocked Cruz over the trip on Friday, as they pointed out the hypocrisy of his recent comments saying he opposes COVID-19 vaccine mandates because he doesn’t want America to become a “show us your papers” society.
“We should have no COVID mandates,” Cruz said Thursday on CNBC. “What does that mean? That means no mask mandates, no vaccine mandates. 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.”
Keilar and Berman responded by noting that the issue of vaccine mandates is a serious one, “so naturally Ted Cruz politicized it and laid the hyperbole on thick.” They also Keilar pointed out dozens of “basic activities” for which Americans already need “papers” — such as driving a car. They also noted that many schools already require vaccines for measles, mumps, chickenpox and polio.
“We also should point out that Cruz is staunchly anti-papers, except for when he’s not,” Keilar said, before playing several clips of Cruz vehemently supporting voter ID laws, including one segment from Fox News in which host Sean Hannity backed the senator up by saying: “You need an ID to buy a six-pack for crying out loud.”
Finally, the CNN co-hosts reported that nearly 8,500 people are currently hospitalized with COVID in Cruz’s home state of Texas, the highest number since February and the second-highest number in the country.
Although Cruz has been vaccinated and encourages others to get the jab, on Thursday he added this false caveat: “If somebody doesn’t take the vaccine, they pose relatively little threat to me. They pose relatively little threat to someone who has chosen to take the vaccine.”
“So Cruz is cool if he is safe, good for him, but what about what about the economy, young kids, schools, the immunocompromised?” Berman said. “In the words of Maria Antoinette, let them eat COVID?
“One more thing on documents, to put it in terms Ted Cruz might understand,” Berman added. “You need papers to fly anywhere, domestically or internationally, even for instance, and I’m just spitballing here, Cancun.”
Watch the segment below via CNN.
