Ted Cruz jokes about spanking daughter, thinks Hillary Clinton should 'get a spanking'

(Image credit: Nicholas Pilch/Getty Images)

published 9 January 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) likened defeating Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton to corporal punishment at an Iowa campaign stop Friday, The New York Times reports. An audience member had asked about who he would hold accountable for the Benghazi scandal, and Cruz responded by suggesting Clinton, then secretary of state, is covering up her role in the 2012 attack that killed four Americans.

"In my house, if my daughter Catherine, the 5-year-old, says something she knows to be false, she gets a spanking," Cruz said. "Well, in America, the voters have a way of administering a spanking."

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Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.