Senator Ted Cruz decided to take a swing at the Iran memorandum of understanding by spreading misinformation about it — and Donald Trump Jr. was right there to smack the bat out of his hands. Because apparently some Republicans still haven't learned that lying about President Trump's deals is a losing strategy.
You'd think after all these years, Cruz would know better than to pick a fight with the Trump family using fake news as ammunition. But here we are.
Cruz went on the attack against the historic Iran deal — the one signed at Versailles — by claiming it was "not remotely in America's interest for us to pay to rebuild" Iran. He even invoked the nearly one thousand Americans killed by the Iranian regime to make his emotional case. The problem? His central claim about the deal was garbage.
Cruz tried to frame the $300 billion reconstruction and economic development plan outlined in the memorandum of understanding as some kind of American taxpayer giveaway. He argued that nobody "should want a Marshall Plan for Iran to come in and rebuild Iran like the United States did for Europe after World War II" because it "makes no sense." Bold words from a guy who apparently didn't read the actual deal.
Don Jr. wasn't having it. Not even a little.
"The only problem with this quote is that @tedcruz is lying thru his teeth about the deal," Trump Jr. fired back. "We're not giving them a cent and he knows that. Using fake news about the peace deal to undermine @realDonaldTrump is the opposite of MAGA."
Ouch. When the president's own son has to publicly correct a sitting senator from his own party, you know somebody stepped in it. And Cruz didn't just step in it — he rolled around.
President Trump himself weighed in to set the record straight, posting that "Iran has agreed to never have a Nuclear Weapon!" and adding that "the story that the U.S. is paying Iran 300 million Dollars" is simply "Fake News." So we've got both Trump and Don Jr. saying the same thing: Cruz is making things up.
Here's the thing about Ted Cruz. He's always been good at sounding like he's on the team while positioning himself for the cameras. Remember the 2016 convention speech? The man has a pattern. He'll ride the MAGA wave when it's convenient and bail the second he thinks there's a cheaper lane to attention.
But the base isn't stupid. We can tell the difference between principled disagreement and clout-chasing with bad information. If Cruz had real concerns about the Iran memorandum of understanding, he could have raised them honestly. Instead, he went with the fake news version, got caught, and got publicly embarrassed by Don Jr. on social media for the whole world to see.
President Trump got wind of Cruz and other's negative posts about the Iran deal and posted this to Truth Social, "These fools, who think I haven't been tough enough on Iran, when the Stock Market Just Hit A RECORD HIGH, and Oil prices are 'tumbling' down, are either jealous, bad people, or stupid. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
The MAGA movement polices its own. That's what makes it different. We don't give people a pass just because they have an R next to their name. You come with bad info, you get corrected. You try to undermine the president's diplomacy with lies, you get called out.
Ted Cruz brought a knife to a gunfight with Don Jr. — and the knife was made of fake news. Better luck next time, Senator.
