Politics
Ted Cruz Jokes About Tricking Democrats Into Not Voting By Offering Them Free Marijuana Brownies
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is apparently so worried about a Democratic blue wave in this week’s midterm elections that he is suggesting tricking liberal voters into not showing up at the polls with a ruse about free marijuana brownies.
While the GOP senator said Republicans should call their like-minded friends and relatives to encourage them to vote on Tuesday, they might want to take a different approach with certain liberal family members.
“Your crazy Uncle Louis, who has a tattoo of Chairman Mao on his left buttocks, call him and say, ‘Louis, be sure to vote next Wednesday,” Cruz joked. “And all day Tuesday, they have free marijuana brownies at the YMCA.”
Of course, Election Day is on Tuesday—so Cruz appears to be suggesting that Republican voters can trick their Democratic-leaning relatives into not voting by pretending they don’t need to show up to the polls until the next day and can instead indulge in free cannabis edibles on the day they in fact need to be casting their ballots.
The comments, made on Friday at an event in support of Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), come as polling continues to show Democrats poised to retake a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and potentially the Senate as well.
Cruz, for his part, has made a number of cannabis-related comments in the past.
In a 2018 debate, he said that he thinks marijuana legalization “ought to be up to the states.”
“I think Colorado can decide one way,” he said. “I think Texas can decide another.”
In 2024, however, he suggested that the marijuana rescheduling proposal that was initiated by the then-Biden administration could lead to more people dying in car crashes from impaired driving.
At the same time, Cruz has also been critical of recommended federal guidance on alcohol consumption.
During an interview with Newsmax late last year, the senator drank a beer on camera and said federal health officials “can kiss my ass” if they decided to move forward with a plan to reduce the recommended maximum consumption of alcohol to two drinks per week.
“What is it with liberals and wanting to control every damn aspect of your life?” said Cruz, who himself supports government bans on abortion and trans-affirming healthcare. “If they want us to drink two beers a week, frankly they can kiss my ass.”
Cruz laid into a Biden judicial nominee during a 2022 Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, asserting that the judge had been a “partisan advocate for causes,” including “legalizing potent strains of marijuana.”
Last year, Cruz was one of just two Republicans who joined about two dozen Democrats in a failed attempt to keep alive a spending bill amendment to prevent a ban on hemp products containing THC.
“I have long believed that the regulation of hemp and marijuana products should rest with each individual state,” the senator said following the vote. “Reasonable minds can disagree, and a blanket federal prohibition disempowers the voters in each of the fifty States.”
“A one-size-fits-all federal standard will undoubtedly create unintended consequences that harm consumers,” he said. “There is a vital need to protect children by, at a minimum, requiring that purchasers be 21 and prohibiting synthetics and dangerous foreign imports marketed to kids.”
