Mexican politicians trolling American Republicans has become something of a tradition in recent years, and Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas is just the latest target of the Mexican government's mockery.
Amid the country's ongoing crisis of murders of politicians and journalists, Cruz accused the Mexican government of "undermining the rule of law" for not doing enough to stop the violence.
Given Cruz's role in amplifying former Republican President Donald Trump's "Big Lie" about 2020 election fraud, Mexican officials haven't exactly taken kindly to his criticism, and Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Esteban Moctezuma and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador quickly put Cruz in his place.
See Moctezuma's response below.
In his open letter to Cruz, Moctezuma directly referenced the chaos of our 2020 election.
“You spoke about a 'breakdown of the rule of law'. I invite you to look at what happened in our federal elections last June. All parties, with no exception, accepted the results and kept moving forward to strengthen our democracy and freedom of expression."
Cruz had criticized the Mexican government during a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting, lamenting the "breakdown of the rule of law" in the country amid the soaring violence.
Cruz is not alone in his concerns and criticisms. Democratic Virginia Senator Tim Kaine recently joined with Republican Senator Marco Rubio to criticize Obrador and urge Secretary of State Antony Blinken to get involved in the crisis.
Many Mexicans, too, have lambasted Obrador's leadership on the matter, particularly given his constant populist attacks on the media. Obrador's combative relationship with journalists is frequently compared to that of former President Trump, of whom Obrador is a fan.
Be that as it may, you'd be hard-pressed to find an American politician less qualified to criticize a country's "breakdown of the rule of law" than Cruz, one of many voices who supported an unconstitutional overturn of the 2020 election.
In his criticism of Cruz, President Obrador was even less sparing than Moctezuma, saying during a press conference in the Mexican state of Chihuahua he considers Cruz's criticism a point of pride.
“If he praised me, I might start thinking we weren’t doing things right. But if he says we are wrong, well that for me is something to be proud of.”
And on Twitter, people joined in on bashing Cruz's hypocrisy--especially since it arrived on the one-year anniversary of his Cancun scandal last year.
In addition to amplifying Trump's "Big Lie," Cruz has also joined the chorus of conspiracy theorists baselessly claiming that the January 6 insurrection was an FBI-incited false flag operation. He might want to stay out of the discourse on "the rule of law" in the future.
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