 Why are people reluctant on the Republican side to criticize Donald Trump? It's a number of things. Number one, unlike many people in politics, if someone criticizes him, he turns around and punches them in the face. I mean it's not complicated and you have, I saw a lot of my colleagues, I saw meetings where he'd get up and and different Republican senators would criticize me, spend the whole meeting just like slamming him with a stick. That people respond to incentives, people notice that. That was GOP Senator Ted Cruz speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, Texas on Saturday, explaining why most Republicans are too afraid to criticize Donald Trump because they're cowards and they are beta males, not his words, mine obviously. So Ted Cruz is going to kind of explain his own strategy. Now we all know that Ted Cruz is the same way. He's doing exactly what these hypothetical Republicans he speaks about does, but he claims that he has a little bit of a different strategy, not necessarily based on cowardice, but instead based on principle. So this is how he deals with Donald Trump according to him. I disagree with a lot of the things Donald Trump says. And I made a decision that I wasn't going to be giving color commentary on MSNBC for every tweet or every statement that was obviously in defense. I think that's the right balance and I'll tell you for any Republican that was a complicated decision. How do you deal with Trump? I made the decision when he does things that are good and praiseworthy, I will praise him. And when he says things I disagree with, I'm just not going to engage in the day-to-day color commentary. I'm going to leave it. There will be plenty of people on every TV station hyperventilating and I actually think the American people grew kind of numb to it because if you look at the media for four years, everything he said and done did was World War Three. It was like the most unbelievable thing until the next and I think people got tired of that. I think you see that today where the media is still obsessed with it. I mean it's because he's a threat to democracy who's planning on running for president again, so he's kind of newsworthy, but I love this framing from Ted Cruz here. It's exactly what you'd expect from a snibbling little weasel like Ted Cruz. So he first claimed in the first video we watched that most Republicans are too afraid to criticize Donald Trump head-on because he'll punch them in the nose. But Ted Cruz, however, it's not that he's afraid. It's that this is coming from a place of principle, right? Ted Cruz knows that the media, they want to see GOP on GOP violence, so he's not going to satiate their hunger for anti-Trump attacks. Rather, he's just going to, you know, remain silent and he'll talk about Donald Trump when he wants to praise Donald Trump. It's not because he's a beta male cock. It's not because he's too afraid to criticize Donald Trump like the other Republicans he was referring to. It's because he's principled. Sure. Totally believe you, Ted Cruz. This is coming from the guy, let me remind you, who phone-banged for Donald Trump in 2016 after Trump called his wife ugly, after Trump humiliated Ted Cruz and dragged him publicly for months. Ted Cruz did this. So if you are trying to convince us, Ted Cruz, that your refusal to criticize Donald Trump publicly comes from a place of principle, nobody believes that, even Republicans don't believe that. Every single person in that room did not believe you. Look, I think that there are some individuals, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Louis Gohmert, Paul Gosar, they genuinely like Donald Trump. They've drank the Kool-Aid, so they believe what he says. They're picking up what he's putting down. They love everything that he says. Ted Cruz, however, I know, we all know he can't stand Donald Trump. So him withholding criticism, he does that not because of principle, obviously. He does that for purposes of political expediency. Deep down, Ted Cruz loathes Donald Trump. Ted Cruz has dreamed about being president now for decades and Trump is the one person that stood between Ted Cruz and the 2016 Republican Party nomination for president. So Ted Cruz, he has a vendetta against Donald Trump. The only reason why he's become a MAGA-chud Republican and fear mongers about the 2020 election being stolen is because he knows that Trump has realigned the Republican Party. You can't win in a GOP primary. You can't be a successful Republican unless you play all of Trump's greatest hits. So if that means you've got to swallow your pride and say things that are obviously untrue, well, that's what Ted Cruz has to do. He knows this. We all know this. But Ted Cruz, he's one of the fakest politicians, so it is astounding to me that he thinks that anyone believes what he's saying. This is one of the most smarmy, disingenuous politicians in the history of the United States. He's worse than Hillary Clinton and Dr. Oz, but yet he wants us to believe that he keeps his mouth shut not because he's a coward but because he's principled. I just don't buy it. So, um, yeah, Ted Cruz is a coward and I'm just glad that he's admitting this. Not that we needed him to admit this to know that, but it's just funny to see him say it. Yeah, basically we're all cowards. Not his words, mine, but I mean, that's what he's saying there effectively. So, um, hilarious. This is the Republican Party in a nutshell. They're all pathetic cowards who oftentimes don't say what they actually think about Trump who is demonstrably dumb and dangerous for U.S.