Government shutdown: Ted Cruz gets eviscerated by Democrat senator over his 'crocodile tears'

Republican senator Ted Cruz has been publically roasted by his fellow senator and accused of crying "crocodile tears" over the US government shutdown.

Michael Bennet, the Democrat senator for Colorado laid into Cruz in a passionate speech in the US Senate on Thursday and cited hypocrisy on Cruz's behalf.

The Texan senator and former presidential candidate had just finished giving a speech where he pointed out that first responders are going unpaid during the shutdown.

This came shortly after the Senate had rejected two bills to end the government shutdown, leaving no end in sight to the dispute.

Bennet took great umbrage with Cruz's speech and brought up the fact that six years ago he had supported a shutdown which directly affected the people of Colorado after the state was hit with bad weather.

In a raw and emotional 20 minute speech, Bennett lambasted Cruz for neglecting the needs of people in 2013 only to change his mind on a similar issue in 2019.

These crocodile tears that the senator from Texas is crying for first responders are too hard for me to take.

They’re too hard for me to take, because when the senator from Texas shut this government down in 2013, my state was flooded.

It was underwater People were killed. People’s houses were destroyed.

Their small businesses were ruined, forever.  And because of the senator from Texas, this government was shutdown, for politics. 

Then he surfed to a second-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, but were of no help to the first responders, to the teachers, to the students whose schools were closed with a federal government that was shut down because of the junior senator from Texas.

Bennet also took time to criticise Trump and his 'ludicrous' promise to deliver the border wall for his supporters.

How ludicrous this is that the government is shut down over a promise the president of the United States couldn’t keep.

Footage of the speech has gone viral and has already been viewed more than 7 million times on Twitter and people are revelling in this brutal evisceration of the widely unpopular Cruz.

Cruz was allowed to respond to Bennet's speech and seemed a little shaken by his words but vowed to never address one of his colleagues on the floor in such a tone.

I will say, in my time in the Senate, I don’t believe I have ever bellowed or yelled at one of my colleagues on the Senate floor, and I hope that in my time before me, I don’t ever do that.

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