A Texas GOP candidate for Congress is in hot water after blaming his teenage son for a statement against former Republican President Donald Trump posted to his Facebook page in 2016.
Republican Ed Cabrera, a businessman and rancher, is campaigning to unseat incumbent Democrat Henry Cuellar in Texas' 28th Congressional District on an explictly pro-Trump platform centered on finishing the "Trump border wall" at the southern border between the U.S. and Mexico.
But when the resurfaced Facebook post, which mocked both Trump and the border wall, seemed to paint Cabrera as a fraud who has only recently embraced Trumpism for convenience's sake, he simply chalked it up to a "practical joke" by his son.
Many Texans aren't buying it.
The since-deleted Facebook post from February 2016 included a photograph of the Mexican consulate in New York—where Cabrera's United States-born son was undergoing the process of becoming a dual citizen of Mexico—along with the message:
"Better to be a Mexican than to be a citizen of a country that elects Trump as President. Don't pay for the wall, arriba Mejico!"
Cabrera's campaign now claims that it was a prank Cabrera's son played on him.
They told The Texas Tribune:
"The social media post was a practical joke by Mr. Cabrera's son to mock Mr. Cabrera's strong support of President Trump. It was posted when Mr. Cabrera gave his son his phone to take a picture."
But as The Texas Tribune also discovered, Cabrera's campaign's story doesn't exactly add up.
The supposed "practical joke" had been live on Cabrera's Facebook page for five years and was only deleted upon the launch of his Congressional campaign last year.
Suffice to say, many people in Texas aren't convinced.
But after he threw his son under the bus, they're definitely seeing the parallels between Cabrera and Trump.
Others couldn't help but see a resemblance to a certain other politician.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz similarly blamed his scandal in which he fled for Mexico in the midst of a deadly Texas winter storm on his daughters.
Despite the thinly veiled attempt at covering up his hypocrisy, Cabrera's campaign isn't letting up on casting him as the Trump voter's best candidate in the 28th district, telling the Tribune there is "no candidate more like President Trump in this race."
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