On Friday's Wolf show, CNN host Wolf Blitzer and liberal CNN political analyst John Avlon made a big deal out of the fact that Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz has been willing to lavish praise on President Donald Trump despite their tense presidential primary contest -- as if two politicians of the same party making up after running heated campaigns against each other were somehow unprecedented.
In fact, instead of merely mentioning the irony during a larger discussion -- which might have been more appropriate -- Blitzer devoted an entire three-and-a-half-minute segment to it (as other CNN hosts would do throughout the day).
At 1:30 p.m. Eastern, Blitzer set up the discussion: "An about-face for the Texas Senator, Ted Cruz, now lavishing enormous praise upon President Trump." The CNN host then read a quote from Senator Cruz praising President Trump as part of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People" issue.
After playing clips of Cruz criticizing Trump during the campaign, Blitzer went to Avlon and posed: "What about this about-face? How do you sense it?"
Avlon hyped the Cruz quote as he began: "It's extraordinary. The man President Trump called 'Lyin' Ted' is now effusive in his praise to the President, you got to wonder if it's heartfelt or if it's not just a play to the base political consideration.given that he's facing an unexpectedly tough reelection race in Texas this fall."
Blitzer played clips of Trump attacking Cruz from the 2016 campaign, and then followed up: "After taking shots like that, did you ever think you'd ever see these kinds of compliments coming from Senator Cruz for President Trump in this new issue of Time magazine?"
Avlon replied that "I don't think I hold Ted Cruz to a high standard of constancy," and then noted some of the attacks Trump made on Cruz in 2016. He added: "So there's a lot of bad blood between them, which leads me to think this was a concession not to common sense or even his inner core, but simply pure, play-to-the-base politics. And in such, there's something sad about it, frankly."
The two then speculated about whether Cruz was trying to get Trump to campaign for him in a reelection bid that may be closer than expected.
