Speaking with host Chris Hayes on the Monday edition of MSNBC’s All In, Democratic Congressman and 2016 Senate candidate Alan Grayson (Fl.) made a crude joke in comparing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz to Miley Cyrus as he’s “twerking every right-winger in sight.”
After Grayson invoked Cruz in context of the 2013 government shutdown, Hayes observed that he found it intriguing that Cruz “did not boast about the shutdown” and argued it’s the lone thing he’s done since being elected the year before.
Much to the amusement and delight of Hayes, Grayson whined that Cruz has been “destructive” and then quipped: “That's just his nature. He's incredibly destructive. If you listen to his speeches, he's really the Miley Cyrus of the Republican Party. You listen to his speech and you feel like you see him twerking every right-winger in sight.”
Hayes took a moment to gather himself from laughing before lobbing Grayson a softball about current Florida Senator Marco Rubio and whether or not he “should resign from his seat before next year, as some have called for him to do, because of his record of attendance in the Senate.”
Predictably, Grayson played right off of Hayes’s lead and flaunted his claims of being an effective legislator:
Absolutely. Listen, the only way that I can get done what I get done, those 31 amendments in two years, those 15 bills in two years, is by working hard and it is possible to get good things done for people. When I moved $40 million from the defense weapons budget into the biomedical research budget, I feel good about that, but the only way to make that happen is to make it happen and he simply hasn't done that. He has been AWOL on this job. He has no-showed Rubio and he's been that way for five years straight. It's time to give someone else a chance to get things done for people.
Returning to Cruz, the disturbing comparison to the undeniably lewd pop star is only the latest attack leveled against him on the liberal media’s airwaves.
Back when Cruz began his candidacy for president on March 23, my colleague Geoffrey Dickens compiled some of the worst media attacks against Cruz in the years leading up to the announcement.
Since then, there have been plenty more, ranging from late night comics the day after his launch to the AP publishing a photo of a gun near Cruz’s head to Jorge Ramos wondering to him if he’s supporting discrimination against gay people by opposing the Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage on June 26. Needless to say, it’s sure to continue as the campaign goes forward.
The relevant portion of the transcript from MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes on November 9 can be found below.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes
November 9, 2015
8:25 p.m. EasternCHRIS HAYES: Your point about Ted Cruz there. You know, it's a great point that he did not boast about the shutdown, which if you were to say what's the thing that Ted Cruz has done since he got to the shut — since to the Senate, it was unambiguously an accomplishment insofar as a junior Senator managing to convince his colleagues in the House to pass something they knew would shut down the government is something of an accomplishment if you're in favor of that. It is striking he doesn't brag about it.
DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSMAN ALAN GRAYSON (Fl.): It's destructive. That's just his nature. He's incredibly destructive. If you listen to his speeches, he's really the Miley Cyrus of the Republican Party. You listen to his speech and you feel like you see him twerking every right-winger in sight.
HAYES: Do you think Rubio should resign from his seat before next year, as some have called for him to do, because of his record of attendance in the Senate?
GRAYSON: Absolutely. Listen, the only way that I can get done what I get done, those 31 amendments in two years, those 15 bills in two years, is by working hard and it is possible to get good things done for people. When I moved $40 million from the defense weapons budget into the biomedical research budget, I feel good about that, but the only way to make that happen is to make it happen and he simply hasn't done that. He has been AWOL on this job. He has no-showed Rubio and he's been that way for five years straight. It's time to give someone else a chance to get things done for people.
