Watch this Democratic senator destroy Ted Cruz in an incredible shutdown rant
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Co.) has had it with the shutdown — and with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Bennet took the Senate floor ahead of a vote on two shutdown-ending bills Thursday, and spent more than 20 minutes ripping Cruz to shreds. As Bennet pointed out in the beginning of his time on the floor, he "seldom rise[s] on this floor" and tries to remain "bipartisan." But Cruz's "crocodile tears ... are too hard for me to take," Bennet declared after Cruz lamented that first responders were going unpaid in the shutdown just minutes earlier. That's because when Cruz "shut this government down in 2013," Colorado was "flooded" and "people were killed," Bennet said, starting to shout.
After thoroughly wringing out Cruz, Bennet widened his blame to the entire right-wing Freedom Caucus — the "minority of tyrants" who "completely distorted the Republican party" and stopped Republicans and Democrats alike from getting anything done, Bennet said. He ranted about the founding fathers and the Denver airport before Cruz got a chance to respond.
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Bennet's tirade comes as his Republican Colorado colleague Sen. Gory Gardner pledged to break with his party, along with GOP Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), to vote for Democrats' government funding bill without border wall money in addition to the Republican bill. Watch his whole rant — which was followed up with a chiding response from Cruz and some additional counterpoints from Bennet — at C-SPAN.
