Tag Archive for: blake masters

‘So Pissed Off, I Cannot Even See Straight’ — Ted Cruz Blames Mitch McConnell For GOP Midterm Losses

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz slammed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during a Monday podcast, saying the GOP should have won the majority of the upper chamber and blamed McConnell for not supporting Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.

Cruz released an episode of his podcast, titled Verdict with Ted Cruz, where he and co-host Ben Ferguson discussed the midterm elections and the GOP’s failure to recapture the Senate. Cruz mentioned his frustration, saying there was no excuse for McConnell to abandon Masters, calling it “indefensible.”

“Well, Ben, let me start off by saying I am so pissed off, I cannot even see straight,” Cruz said.

“We had an extraordinary opportunity. We had a generational opportunity. This should have been a fundamental landslide election. We should have won the House and the Senate. We should have a 30, 40, 50 vote majority in the House. We should have 53, 54, 55 Republicans in the Senate,” Cruz continued.

McConnell’s PAC reportedly yanked $8 million in campaign spending from Arizona after Masters won his primary election, according to Fox News.

Cruz was also asked if McConnell would donate to Georgia Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s campaign in a run-off. Cruz replied he likely will, but said he believes the GOP could have won Arizona.

“Oh, look, I’m sure he will raise money and invest in the race … But if you look at this last cycle, Mitch McConnell pulled the money out of Arizona. We could have won — won Arizona. We nearly won Arizona and abandoning Blake Masters was indefensible,” Cruz said.

“Explain to me, Senator, why in a race where the polling showed that we had a legitimate chance of winning there. Why did he pull out that money from Masters who desperately needed it?” Ferguson asked Cruz.

“Because Masters said he would vote against Mitch McConnell, and so Mitch would rather be leader than have a Republican majority. If there’s a Republican who can win, who’s not gonna support Mitch, the truth of the matter is he’d rather the Democrat win. So he pulled all the money out of Arizona,” Cruz responded.

Cruz also said that “the country is screwed for the next four years” due to the GOP’s failure to regain the majority, saying “because of this, we’re gonna see horrible Left-wing judges confirmed for the next two years, because of this. We’re gonna see judges taking away our free speech rights, our religious liberty rights, our Second Amendment rights. It is an enormous missed opportunity. And I gotta say, it is hard to describe my feelings as anything other than rage,” Cruz concluded.

Cruz’s criticisms follow former President Donald Trump’s criticisms of McConnell over the Blake Masters campaign. Trump’s critics have responded that the former president did not use the $100 million his PAC has collected to support GOP candidates in the midterms.

“McConnell allied groups spent $13.1M in Arizona,” a One Nation spokesperson told the Caller.

“During the summer, Steven Law, the head of a McConnell-aligned super PAC, told the financier Peter Thiel, who had spent millions supporting Mr. Masters, that Mr. Masters had scored the worst focus group results of any candidate he had ever seen,” The New York Times reported.

The Daily Caller contacted McConnell’s office about Cruz’s comments.

AUTHOR

HENRY RODGERS

Senior Congressional correspondent. 

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Blake Masters: ‘We’re Remaking the Republican Party’ Because the ‘Establishment’ is ‘Out Of Touch’

Republican Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters said the GOP is out of touch with ordinary Americans and described how he’s breaking from some “establishment” norms in an exclusive interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Masters said Republicans, including himself, were in agreement about many key issues such as low taxes and low regulations, but that he’s more skeptical of foreign intervention and more vocal about crime and immigration than some of his counterparts. He spoke with the DCNF at the National Conservatism conference in Miami Sunday.

“I think I’m speaking more boldly about the southern border and issues of crime than a lot of establishment Republicans,” he told the DCNF. “I’m running on this America First agenda, that’s what I believe in, and I think we’re remaking the Republican Party to really implement that America first agenda. I think that the Republican party that Paul Ryan wants, that’s not the Republican party the American people want.”

Masters is running against Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, who is leading him by 47 to 45 percentage points roughly two months ahead of election day, according to a Sept. 9 Emerson College poll. The race has been labeled a “toss-up,” according to the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

The “America First” agenda, according to Masters, prioritizes the needs of ordinary Americans, and that means focusing more on domestic issues and less on foreign intervention. He also said establishment Republicans tend to grow disconnected from normal Americans during their time in office, which he said was driving growing support for populist strains of conservatism.

“Establishment Republicans tend to be a little bit too disconnected from the people. I see this especially in the Senate,” he said. “You stack a few six-year terms and suddenly you’re too disconnected from American life and what working class and middle class people are feeling. They live in a bubble, and the America first groundswell happened because establishment Republicans are out of touch.”

One key area were he’s distancing himself from the Republican establishment is foreign policy; he said he is a non-interventionist by default and believe the U.S. government should avoid military intervention when it’s not strictly necessary.

“I’ve been much more skeptical, for instance, about sending $40 billion to Ukraine,” he told the DCNF. “I would’ve voted no, I don’t think we should be doing that, and I think the Republican establishment is still more hawkish on that.”

The comments come amid an apparent rift between Masters and the GOP: the Senatorial Republican Super PAC, which is affiliated with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, pulled millions of dollars in ad buys for Masters in Arizona in August.

Masters didn’t directly comment on whether the funds were being withheld due to the perceived conflict between him and the Republican establishment, but said he was confident that necessary funds would come in from Washington, Silicon Valley and Arizona in apparent references to McConnell and tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel.

“This race is too close, it’s too crucial and it’s too winnable. I don’t know when the dam breaks but I think we’re gonna have all the resources we need,” he said.

McConnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

LAUREL DUGGAN

Social issues and culture reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.