Ted Cruz Interview with Houston Local News

Senator of Texas Ted Cruz Town Hall. Photo by Michael Vadon.

On Saturday, Houston’s local Fox News affiliation Fox 26 sat down with Ted Cruz for a one-on-one interview. Below is the full, 8 minute, uncut interview.

First question out of the gate, Cruz is asked to speak about the Dallas police shooting when an off-duty female officer shot and killed a man in his own apartment in what is alleged to have been a case of the officer being at the wrong apartment. The victim and the cop were both residents of the same apartment complex in the 1200 block of South Lamar in Dallas, Texas.

In a number of missteps Cruz has been finding himself on the defense too often in a race that should have been a slam-dunk. From his campaign manager Jeff Roe’s dislike of campaign yard signs, calling them “ineffective,” to dissing Texas’ Whataburger comparing his Democrat opponent Rep. Beto O’Rourke as a “Triple Meat Whataburger Liberal,” to sounding like an old grandpa-get-off-my-lawn type dissing on O’Rourke playing in a punk band, riding a skateboard in his youth and bringing up a mugshot for a DUI.

Of course, it doesn’t help when your own team is dissing you adding more fodder for the other side as happened when Texas’ other Senator John Cornyn, #2 Republican House Majority Whip, telling “GOP givers,” “We’re not bluffing, this is real, and it is a serious threat,” you may have a problem.

Cruz’s campaign then went low and was accused of making a campaign video by “heavily” splicing a video of an O’Rourke campaign speech saying he (O’Rourke) was “grateful for flag burners.”

Now the Cruz campaign has lit another fire among some Texas Republican voters who aren’t happy with the Senator’s campaign mailing out a campaign fundraiser mimicking a “Summons” from Travis County only to open it to find a request for a donation which some consider a scare campaign, which has only given more fodder to his opponent’s campaign and its supporters, especially now that a Texas State Rep is saying Cruz broke a Texas Law passed in 2015 doing it.

Twitter user Sean Owen
@ sean_r_owen

On Monday, Texas State Rep Gene Wu (D) for Texas’ District 137 tweeted out saying Ted Cruz is breaking Texas’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DPTA) with these types of fundraising tactics, adding, “I know because I passed this law in 2015.”

Texas State Representative
Gene Wu (D, TX-137)
Twitter

O’Rourke’s weakest link is with his position on the gun control topic, playing to his own base with it with the DNC talking points. At one point during his campaign he stated, “I just don’t think we should be selling AR-15s in this country. That weapon was designed for one purpose and one purpose only — to kill people as effectively and efficiently as possible on the battlefield…”

Only to continue with it as he did at a recent campaign stop at Texas State University and hammering on the NRA expending capital and giving fodder for the Cruz campaign and his supporters. For a Texas boy O’Rourke is not showing too much good sense in that direction, not if he is serious about winning. Either that or he’s just gun ignorant, which makes him not serious about winning a U.S. Senate seat for Texas.

At some point O’Rourke is going to have to talk policy. But then, at some point, Cruz is going to have to talk Trump.

Cruz and O’Rourke have finally agreed to three one-hour debates.

First Debate: Friday, September 21 in Dallas. Hosting: NBC 5, The Dallas Morning News will moderate, with podium style debate at the SMU Campus. Focus will be domestic policy. Time: 6-7 p.m.

Second Debate: Sunday, September 30 in Houston hosted by University of Houston. Focus will be on domestic policy. Time: 6-7 p.m. ABC 13 and Univision will moderate, with stools in town hall style.

Third Debate: Tuesday, October 16 in San Antonio. KENS 5 studios will host and the focus is to be domestic and foreign policy. Time: TBA. Format: Podiums and moderated.

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