Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during a Monday podcast, saying the GOP should have won the majority of the upper chamber and blamed McConnell for not supporting Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.
Cruz released an episode of his podcast, titled Verdict with Ted Cruz, where he and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed the midterm elections and the GOP’s failure to recapture the Senate. Cruz mentioned his frustration, saying there was no excuse for McConnell to abandon Masters, calling it “indefensible.”
“Well, Ben, let me start off by saying I am so pissed off, I cannot even see straight,” Cruz said.
“We had an extraordinary opportunity. We had a generational opportunity. This should have been a fundamental landslide election. We should have won the House and the Senate. We should have a 30, 40, 50 vote majority in the House. We should have 53, 54, 55 Republicans in the Senate,” Cruz continued.
McConnell’s PAC reportedly yanked $8 million in campaign spending from Arizona after Masters won his primary election, according to Fox News.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks during a press conference following a Senate Republican luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on September 28, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Cruz was also asked if McConnell would donate to Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign in a run-off. Cruz replied he likely will, but said he believes the GOP could have won Arizona.
“Oh, look, I’m sure he will raise money and invest in the race … But if you look at this last cycle, Mitch McConnell pulled the money out of Arizona. We could have won — won Arizona. We nearly won Arizona and abandoning Blake Masters was indefensible,” Cruz said. (RELATED: ‘We Didn’t Pick Up A Single Seat?’: Watters Blasts Trump, McConnell Over Campaign Spending In Senate Races)
“Explain to me, Senator, why in a race where the polling showed that we had a legitimate chance of winning there. Why did he pull out that money from Masters who desperately needed it?” Ferguson asked Cruz. (RELATED: Blake Masters: Mitch McConnell ‘Doesn’t Deserve’ Leadership Post)
“Because Masters said he would vote against Mitch McConnell, and so Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there’s a Republican who can win, who’s not gonna support Mitch, the truth of the matter is he’d rather the Democrat win. So he pulled all the money out of Arizona,” Cruz responded.
Cruz also said that “the country is screwed for the next four years” due to the GOP’s failure to regain the majority, saying “because of this, we’re gonna see horrible Left-wing judges confirmed for the next two years, because of this. We’re gonna see judges taking away our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights. It is an enormous missed opportunity. And I gotta say, it is hard to describe my feelings as anything other than rage,” Cruz concluded.
Cruz’s criticisms follow former President Donald Trump’s criticisms of McConnell over the Blake Masters campaign. Trump’s critics have responded that the former president did not use the $100 million his PAC has collected to support GOP candidates in the midterms.
“McConnell allied groups spent $13.1M in Arizona,” a One Nation spokesperson told the Caller.
“During the summer, Steven Law, the head of a McConnell-aligned super PAC, told the financier Peter Thiel, who had spent millions supporting Mr. Masters, that Mr. Masters had scored the worst focus group results of any candidate he had ever seen,” The New York Times reported.
The Daily Caller contacted McConnell’s office about Cruz’s comments.