The Ted Cruz 2024 Election Denialism Plan

An interview with Ted Cruz has revealed that he plans to join other Trump supporting politicians like Stefanik, Vance, and Rubio in denying that Biden won a fair election, regardless of what happens.

(Video screen grab via CNN News)

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was asked the simple question on Wednesday if he would accept the results of a Biden win in the November 2024 election. Cruz was asked the following questions: “In 2024, will you certify the election results? Do you plan to object or will you accept the results regardless of who wins the election?”

Cruz responded by calling it a “ridiculous question,” and then proceeded to ramble on and on about an historically irrelevant scenario that must have taken one of his interns hours to dig up, that he was touting as a “smoking gun.”

Let’s watch the recent clip together here:

My first image after watching this clip of Cruz hopelessly attempting to side step a basic and important question, is that viral video of Cruz from college when he is on a stage and engaging in some horrific attempt at acting. The second image I had was of a college staffer with glasses and disheveled hair, having a full-on “bless her heart moment,” frantically running down a hall to tell Cruz’s Chief of Staff that she had found the perfect “Rutherford B. Hayes” argument to bypassing the whole question of Trump’s inevitable accusations of election fraud if Biden wins.

Ted Cruz does not really provide any more substance on his answer in this clip, as he employs the Trump tactic of accusing your accuser of what you are actually doing. The fact that he uses the word “ridiculous” to dismiss the question goes so far past the point of irony that it is painfully comical. Instead of assessing what Cruz is saying in his answer — which is nothing — we are forced to examine what he is not saying in order to come to a conclusion for him.

When you have to start your legal argument with “the best precedent I could find was the election of 1876” you have no precedent. The truth is that we do have a much stronger and more recent precedent, set by Donald Trump when he refused to concede the election, and then incited a riot to attempt to physically force Congress into submission. We know that Trump is capable of attacking his own government if he loses, so he will undoubtedly do this again. We also know that Trump never admits to losing. Liz Cheney said it best when she explained to the American public: “There were over 60 court cases where judges, including judges appointed by President Trump and other Republican presidents, looked at the evidence in many cases and said there is not widespread fraud."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) checks in for a flight at Cancun International Airport after a backlash over his Mexican family vacation as his home state of Texas endured a Winter storm on February 18, 2021. The Republican politician came under fire after leaving for the warm holiday destination as hundreds of thousands of people in the Lone Star State suffered a loss of power. (Photo by MEGA/via Getty Images)

Next, Cruz tries to put Kaitlin Collins, in the above interview, on the defensive by “hypothetically in actuality” saying that CNN was complicit in helping Biden to steal the election. At this point, he is still refusing to answer the basic question of whether or not he will support Trump with pursuing another stolen election premise. He also proceeds to use a high school debate deflection strategy by attempting to question the questioner. All of this bluster just makes Cruz appear even less credible.

As a lawyer, I can tell you his best answer to if he intends to contest the election should have just been, “It depends.” All of the other lawyers out there will get this little joke, because we were always taught to use this response to nearly any legal question and then flesh out our statement parameters. It would have been perfectly fine for Ted Cruz to go on to say, “If there is credible evidence of voter fraud or election tampering then I will in fact question the legitimacy of the election.” This is a reasonable statement for anyone to make, regardless of political affiliation. Cruz could then make his argument down the road over the word “credible” which is a much more subjective term. I didn’t even go to Harvard Law, so there.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaks to the press after arriving with one truck from the Peoples Convoy protest group at the US Capitol March 10, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/via Getty Images)

Kaitlin Collins did two expert things here at the end of the interview. She confidently announced that “Republicans have twisted themselves in knots” while we are, in real time, watching Ted Cruz make himself a political denial pretzel. Then she concluded by reminding the viewers that 2020 election fraud cases had been thrown out of many courts.

As Ted Cruz is refusing to give a definitive statement about what he will do in the event of a legitimate Trump loss in November, we only need to look to his actions leading up to and after the 2020 election, to discern the playbook that he will no doubt be using again. (Despite his attempts to appear artsy, Cruz is not a creative man who excels at extemporaneous statements.)

Here is an excerpt from an article I published in 2021 and again in 2022, where I assessed the more minor Republican players who had helped contribute to the nonsense of a stolen election premise that fueled Trump’s insurrection:

“Donald Trump did not create this bastardized version of the Tea Party that has become so dangerous — Ted Cruz did. When you make a name for yourself by making a mockery of the political process, and you read Green Eggs and Ham on the floor of the US Senate, during the debate over the very serious issue of healthcare reform, you are opening the gate for those who are more talented to do even worse. Ted Cruz realized the value of collecting the fringe “Don’t Tread on Me” element, who had been straying from the mainstream Republican Party — so, he appealed to them by dumbing down his approach and using spectacle to lure them in.

Completely misunderstanding the facts and the lessons of history, the new Tea Party was desperate to secede from anything — not because they understood the actual concept and its ramifications, but because they were angry and felt left out. This new movement, that has now taken control of our country, stemmed from the same sentiment that children display when they don’t get their way and threaten to take their toys and go home on the schoolyard. Cruz molded this toddler faction and then, in proper Ted Cruz form: he failed to master the art of controlling them; proceeded to set them loose on the world; and then lost their attention to a better con man.”

I go on to discuss the Republican Party’s need to create a prettier, more believable version of Cruz to assist in lending him credibility in all of his accusations, and that new figure that had real political potential was Josh Hawley:

“…Josh Hawley has all of these things, but his lack of patience for amassing celebrity and power is a tragic flaw that his big-money donors didn’t clock, or didn’t recognize as a deal-breaker. What Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley were then able to theoretically do, was battle it out for supremacy over the remnants of Donald Trump’s supporters and see who could best “reform” the right without the direct smear of racism on their record. More importantly, Hawley and Cruz were meant to lend the last shred of credibility and respect the Republican Party had, to the outlandish notion that the election had been stolen.

Sen. Josh Hawley (L), and Sen. Ted Cruz (R) speak together at the conclusion of former President Donald Trump's impeachment trial at the US Capitol on February 13, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Brandon Bell/via Getty Images)

After the Jan. 6, attack on the US Capitol, it was clear who stood atop the dust and debris with hardly a scratch. It was apparent that both Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz had pushed for the objections to the vote counts in several swing states, and it was obvious that they were not folding their terrible hands when the rioters called their bluff. Ted Cruz was happy to be overshadowed by Josh Hawley for a moment in the wake of the Trump insurrection — Hawley was providing Cruz with cover and his lack of expertise and thirst for attention was proving to be a great distraction for Cruz.”

Josh Hawley really is Ted Cruz 2.0, in that he has yet to go on record by answering this same question about supporting a legitimate Biden win in 2024. It is no coincidence that Hawley continues to outraise all of his competition — he is clever enough to know not to go first with a public answer to 2024 election fraud accusations. Hawley is patently using rubes like Stefanik and Rubio and Cruz to go first, that way he can see what kind of messaging is working best with the people who are likely to vote for him.

Sens. Ted Cruz (R) and Josh Hawley (L) are seen outside the Senate Chamber on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. (photo by Tom Williams/via Getty Images)

Ted Cruz — better known as Josh Hawley’s political test dummy — is telling the American voter everything they need to know about what position he will take after the election by saying absolutely nothing. When you need to know what a man will do, look at what he has done, not what he says. Ted Cruz has consistently buckled to any pressure from Trump out of fear of losing his own political prominence. Whatever outlandish and nonsensical accusations Donald Trump throws out following the 2024 election, Cruz will undeniably fall in line to help sell Trump’s next big lie — it’s what he has always done.

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Amee Vanderpool writes the SHERO Newsletter, is an attorney, published author, contributor to newspapers and magazines, and an analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.

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