MSNBC seems to really hate Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) as it has reached new lows to smear the Tea Party senator. Tired of using their usual attacks on the junior senator from Texas, the folks at the network have resorted to a new tactic, openly lying about his record on anti-Obama conspiracy theories.
Appearing as a fill-in host on Morning Joe on December 30, MSNBC host Thomas Roberts claimed Ted Cruz was a birther, “Ted Cruz was certainly big on the birther movement.” Most of the time, liberals merely joke that Cruz's birth in Canada to an American mother ties the birthers in knots. [See video after jump. MP3 audio here.]
After playing a clip from an interview Cruz had with ABC’s Jonathan Karl, Roberts then did a hit job on Cruz’s recent decision to renounce his Canadian citizenship, using the announcement as an opportunity to slander the Republican as a birther. No one on the panel bothered to correct Roberts’ disgusting commentary, and instead sat idly by as the liberal MSNBC host desperately tried to connect Cruz to birther Donald Trump.
Other than the fact that Roberts mentioned that Donald Trump discussed Cruz’s Canadian citizenship to the Texas senator, the MSNBCer provided no evidence to back up his insulting claim. One wonders if such hateful commentary from an MSNBC employee would be tolerated if the regular Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were present, or whether their typical Cruz-bashing would go this far.
See relevant Transcript below.
MSNBC
MORNING JOE
December 30, 2013
7:14 a.m. Eastern
THOMAS ROBERTS: 2013, you are marked by gridlock and government shutdown. And for now, there's no reason to expect much different in the New Year. We have Senator Ted Cruz striking a defiant tone over lessons learned from what has been called the least productive Congress in history.
TED CRUZ: This is a city where it's all politics all the time. And I'm trying to do my best not to pay attention to the politics, to focus on fixing the problem.
JONATHAN KARL: Really?
CRUZ: I know that's hard to believe because no one in this town done that.
KARL: You have had a couple months to think about this whole government shutdown strategy. Now that it's over in hindsight, are you prepared to say that it was a mistake? That it wasn’t the right tactic?
CRUZ: I think it was absolutely a mistake for President Obama and Harry Reid to force a shutdown.
KARL: Now you know even John Boehner has said this was a Republican shutdown.
CRUZ: Look, I can't help what other people say. And Jon, I understand in the media, every day the media reported the Republican shutdown.
KARL: But come on, we’re a couple months away from this. The only reason this happened is because you insisted, Republicans insisted that ObamaCare be defunded as a condition of funding the government.
CRUZ: Repeatedly, Republicans were compromising trying to find a middle ground. And repeatedly, Democrats said no compromise, shut it down.
ROBERTS: Jonathan Karl not having any of that. Oh, come one. So this sidebar for 2016 watchers. The Dallas Morning News reporting that Cruz has retained council to renounce his Canadian citizenship. Now, just a refresher on his birth. He was born in Alberta and by Canadian law, automatically becomes a citizen. So, the paper brought it to his attention last August. Cruz says that it even came up when he met with real estate mogul Donald Trump. That was a recent meeting talking about where he was born. Because he gets Canadian citizenship. And Ted Cruz was certainly big on the birther movement.
