Cruz: 'Do Democrats Understand They Need to Control the House to Impeach?'

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told the Conservative Political Action Conference outside D.C. today that “many times” since Jan. 20 he has “raised a glass and toasted Harry Reid.”

“Because Harry Reid employed the so-called nuclear option, broke the Senate rules to change the Senate rules, lowered the threshold for confirmation from 60 votes to 51 votes. And it is a direct result of Harry Reid that we now have the most conservative Cabinet in decades,” Cruz said. “…Let me on behalf of CPAC thank Harry Reid, thank you for Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And also, we should be thanking Harry Reid for EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt. For Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. And very, very soon, I look forward to thanking Harry Reid for Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch.”

“Should we thank Keith Ellison, too?” Cruz quipped to applause from the crowd.

Democratic National Committee leadership elections are Saturday, and Cruz dubbed the Minnesota congressman “likely to be the next chairman of the DNC.”

“And I’m sure the vast majority of Americans, given his background with Farrakhan, will be very excited about that. Shall we get behind him at CPAC? What do you say?” the senator continued. “Listen, I will commend the Democrats for one thing. If they name Keith Ellison as the head of the DNC, then I’ll commend them for truth in advertising.”

Cruz panned impeachment talk a month into President Trump’s term.

“Impeachment is a constitutional function. Yes, the left keeps talking about impeachment. I mean, they were talking about impeachment before the inauguration,” he said. “And, you know, I think impeaching Obama in January probably would have been a mistake.”

“So would retroactive impeachment be unconstitutional? I don’t know, but it would be fun… Do the Democrats understand they need to control the House of Representatives to impeach somebody?”

Cruz said the week after the election he was sharing a Capitol elevator “with a well-known liberal Democrat who was simply staring ahead in this complete stupor.”

“And that hasn’t changed. They all look like that. They are in denial. And they’re angry,” he said.

“Right now, Democratic senators are more scared of their base than they are of the voters. Democrat — a liberal Democrat told me a couple of weeks ago, said listen, we’re afraid of being primaried. The Democrats took as a lesson of this election that Hillary was too moderate. And so their lesson is they need more Bernie Sanders, more Elizabeth Warren. That’s where Senate Democrats are.”