Wednesday, April 20, 2016

"Sean Hannity blows up at Ted Cruz"

"Conservative radio host Sean Hannity and Sen. Ted Cruz had a testy back-and-forth on the host's Tuesday show, with Hannity telling the Texas senator at one point that he was "getting sick of" Cruz dodging "legitimate questions."
The interview got off to a tense start. Hannity suggested that Americans were wondering about what role delegates play in the process of choosing a nominee, with talk of a contested Republican convention heating up.
Cruz sharply disputed this notion.
"Sean, with all respect, that's not what people are concerned about," Cruz said. "I'm campaigning every day. People are concerned about bringing jobs back to America. People are concerned about raising wages. People are concerned about getting the federal government off the backs of small businesses, and people are concerned about beating Hillary" Clinton.
Cruz said that the media "loves to obsess" about the process of choosing a Republican nominee for president. He said that what amounted to "whining" from Donald Trump's campaign about the delegate process being unfair is "silly...""

22 comments:

ricpic said...

Cruz WOULD NOT answer the frickin' question. Considering Hannity was controlling himself (barely) it must be awesome when he really loses control.

edutcher said...

Hannity, when I used to watch Fox, was always a gentleman and always deferential to the guest. That he went off, and he's had Cruz on several times, I gather, is testament to gotting the same stonewall or lame lies.

What's weird is Cruz doesn't get the idea that trying to justify this to the American people just isn't flying. He seems Hell-bent on making everyone understand how clever he is.

Reminiscent of any number of old whodunits where the bad guy, once he's caught, has to brag to the cops how brilliantly his plan was and what an intelligent person he is. Lots of old Alfred Hitchcocks or 77 Sunset Strips ended that way.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Donald Trump's Favorite Talk Show Host | SUPERcuts! #312

Link

edutcher said...

OK, but, as ric noted, Cruz ducked the question and this was not the first time.

I've seen at least a couple of pieces where Cruz was caught in some lame lie by Hannity and he just wouldn't let go of it. The guy seems to think he's never wrong.

deborah said...

I missed the fireworks because I stopped watching at 10:00...to tired after a day of gardening to watch.

Hannity has been my least favorite of the evening lineup. When it's not silly season I watched Brett, Greta, and O'Reilly. Now I've been watching Kelly and Hannity. They've grown on me.

Trooper York said...

Hannity is a genial hack. If you piss him off you are really working at it.

This is just more proof of the adage that the more you know Ted Cruz the less you like him.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Cruz thinks he is the smartest guy in school and has to show off and prove it to everyone. While this only makes you unpopular and a social pariah in your particular school, it is NOT a winning strategy in a national election or primary.

Telling people who do have legitimate questions about a process that they were not paying much attention to in the past to STFU stupid, stop whining and listen to ME ME ME the smartest and most preachy-ist man in the world....not going to win you new converts and is actually going to piss off some of your marginal supporters.

Instead of trying to empathize with the people questioning the process, he becomes combative and slippery.

I don't think that Ted Cruz is capable of empathy. He strikes me as a person who does not have some of the essential components that make most of us human. A lack of empathy is the hallmark of certain types of sociopaths or of people with forms of autism. He knows he is missing something and even said so when he was in high school that he would FAKE it.

“Midway through junior high school, I decided that I’d had enough of being the unpopular nerd,” he wrote in his book. “I remember sitting up one night asking a friend why I wasn’t one of the popular kids. I ended up staying up most of that night thinking about it. ‘Okay, well, what is it that the popular kids do? I will consciously emulate that.’”

Cruz just gives me the creeps.

deborah said...

"Hannity is a genial hack."

Thank you. I was trying to put into words why I didn't care for him...hack...but I've let that go because he SEEMS in earnest. Anyway, I've grown to appreciate his earnestness.

deborah said...

A lovable lug.

edutcher said...

There is a school of thought extant that Manafort and Lewandowski saw the bad optics those leaderless elections would create and figured, if The Donald tried to get into them, he'd be accused of trying to buy those elections.

YMMV on that, but, if true, I wonder if they saw the same trait as DBQ and Rabel have and figured just make some noise and watch him tell everybody how smart he was for finding a legal way to throw an election.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

I don't think that Ted Cruz is capable of empathy. He strikes me as a person who does not have some of the essential components that make most of us human. A lack of empathy is the hallmark of certain types of sociopaths or of people with forms of autism.

Consider the vignette about how he wouldn't even study with anybody who'd gone to one of the "minor Ivies". If so, we're looking at a guy very impressed by himself.

Most sociopaths seem much better at getting people on their side - witness Willie and Barry. You may be on to something, but I wonder what is lacking that he can only partially carry it off. He has fanatical followers - more so than even Black Narcissus in '08, but I don't think they're that numerous. That he has to pay people to spread his propaganda shows he can't win hearts and minds.

On that note, this piece may prove illuminating.

Leland said...

I quit listening to Hannity in 2008, when people tried to warn him about the "Stop Hillary Express", because she was beatable and Obama, as the first African American at the top of the ticket would not be. Hannity brushed it off with, "he's just a first term Senator". I'll give him credit for eventually admitting he misjudged the situation. I will say its not that difficult to look up how delegates function in either the RNC or DNC. Rush has been explaining it for months now.

Trooper York said...

Cruz was bitten in the ass by an unforced error. He didn't have to gratuitously attack New York. There simply was no reason for it.

I understand that New York is not the state for him. I mean we have a lot of traffic here and he couldn't come here with the wife because she would run out into it to get away from him.

edutcher said...

Los Cruzadores have a new battle cry. How does Yes, We Will* grab you?

Leland said...

I will say its not that difficult to look up how delegates function in either the RNC or DNC. Rush has been explaining it for months now.

Does that mean he's shilling for Cruz? I only ask because the GOP website does give a decent primer on the subject, although it doesn't get into the arcane rules.

Trooper York said...

Cruz was bitten in the ass by an unforced error. He didn't have to gratuitously attack New York. There simply was no reason for it.

He's smarter than youse guys. Couldn't ya's see it?

*Even MacArthur said, "I Shall Return".

Rabel said...

I had the pleasure of being in the car and listening to that interview. Cruz talked faster and faster as the interview went on. Stringing together triple or quadruple sets of nouns or adjectives and apparently eliminating periods altogether as he began to lose even the slightest pause between sentences. I thought for a minute that I was listening to a fast forward version of his answers. He was about a half-beat slower than the guy who reads the fine print at the end of a car commercial. "Tax and title not included."

The result, in portions of his answers, was just a blur of meaningless words. I know he's a brilliant man and has impressive command of his version of the facts but I'd prefer that he would try to persuade me rather than just drown me with a stream of sound. It produced very negative reaction in me as I listened.

And that 1.3 million voters in five states figure he used several times to rebut the "voterless elections" charge is based on 1.25 million in Utah and Wisconsin alone (both of which he won fair and square). It's intentionally misleading and does not answer the question of exactly what happened in the other three and what is going on with his taking delegates in states which have already voted. He clearly wants to avoid discussion of those questions. "We know the process and outworked Trump" doesn't cut it with me. How exactly did he do it? Promises? Favors?

I like Cruz a little less every time I hear him talk. The man does not wear well. This will be his weakness if he makes it to the general.

Methadras said...

I'm not a Spammity fan, but the way Cruz dodged this shit made me walk away from him for good. He always had the air of integrity about him and I like that about Cruz, but seeing him act this way on his path to power has shown to me a side of him I'd never seen before. A sanctimonious douche who is making excuses for how he is going to get to the WH with little to regard for the process of one man/one vote and I thought his claims of being a staunch conservative constitutionalist pales to the idea of winning at all costs. Spammity pretty much kept his shit together cause I could here that he was going to lay into him.

edutcher said...

Rabel said...

I had the pleasure of being in the car and listening to that interview. Cruz talked faster and faster as the interview went on. Stringing together triple or quadruple sets of nouns or adjectives and apparently eliminating periods altogether as he began to lose even the slightest pause between sentences. I thought for a minute that I was listening to a fast forward version of his answers. He was about a half-beat slower than the guy who reads the fine print at the end of a car commercial. "Tax and title not included."

A while back there was a governor in Jersey who always introed himself in PSAs, "ThisisGovernorJimflorio". Jersey couldn't get rid of him fast enough.


And that 1.3 million voters in five states figure he used several times to rebut the "voterless elections" charge is based on 1.25 million in Utah and Wisconsin alone (both of which he won fair and square). It's intentionally misleading and does not answer the question of exactly what happened in the other three and what is going on with his taking delegates in states which have already voted. He clearly wants to avoid discussion of those questions. "We know the process and outworked Trump" doesn't cut it with me. How exactly did he do it? Promises? Favors?

Not so sure about WI. I have the feeling, given the number of vote flipping allegations and the coinkydink that many Boards of Election were staffed by Cruz partisans, that the state may have been a gift of Paul Ryan.

As for how it was done, none of the governors or senators running this year seemed to be in on it, but Cruz' campaign manager is a wheel inside MO politics, so he would have known the "rules" that came out last August and tipped Cruz. To get your people on all the right committees, to ID, recruit, select, and place all the slates of delegates had to take months.

How was it done?

From the great man himself, they paid for hotel rooms for delegates and taken them out to dinners.

The old fashioned way - bribery.

First DE poll The Donald up by 37. So it an't just NY values.

Leland said...

Does that mean [Rush is] shilling for Cruz?

If I were to say the sun rises in the east, would that make me some sort of shill?

edutcher said...

I'm just asking. Yes or no will do nicely.

PS Don Surber had a piece on this and it looks like somebody thinks it's doable. Trump campaign memo projects 1400 delegates.

We'll see.

I'm Full of Soup said...

I don't Cruz is electable. He has that holier than thous persona.

Plus I heard his father yacking this morning - jeez Rafael Sr. still has a thick Spanish accent? Is his father even a US citizen? Didn't he move to Canada and become a Canadian citizen for a while?

edutcher said...

He had multiple families.

You think Trump's got some interesting Chrristmases...

deborah said...

I looked this up last night, and thought holidays must be kinda fun.

Ivana
-Donald, Jr.
---5 kids
-Ivanka
---3 kids
-Eric

Marla
-Tiffany

Melani
-Barron

Trooper York said...

Heres the thing. All of Trumps kids love him and support him. Tiffany was standing behind him in his speech last night. His ex-wives have nothing but good things to say about him.

Not one of them have wandered out in traffic to get away from being married to him.

Do you really want America to wander out into traffic after being married to Ted Cruz?