Washington Post reporters Sebastian Payne and Robert Costa wrote up a conversation they had with Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas). (Regular readers know what’s coming next: Cruz is an old friend, Costa a former colleague.) There aren’t any surprises in it. Cruz and McConnell don’t see eye to eye; Cruz wants to “pursue every means possible to repeal Obamacare.” Payne and Costa quote old Republican hand Ron Bonjean, who suggests that Cruz’s remarks show that he is going to stop being a team player after the election.
They report that “Cruz made it clear he would push hard for a Republican-led Senate to be as conservative and confrontational as the Republican-led House,” which has supposedly “voted more than 50 times to get rid of the law.” (This is untrue, by the way.)
But there’s not a lot of daylight between what Cruz says in this interview and what other Republicans are saying. McConnell, too, says he wants to use a variety of legislative means to try to repeal Obamacare. Cruz wants hearings on aspects of the Obama administration’s record; what Republican doesn’t? He wants the Senate to move on approving the Keystone pipeline. It would be shocking if it didn’t.
No doubt there will be divisions among the Republican senators if they take the majority, but right now most of what Cruz is saying is right in line with the rest of his party.