Sorry, Those Dunkable Viral Ted Cruz ‘Austin Powers’ Tweets Are Actually Fake News

Ted Cruz is by far the most dunkable lawmaker on Capitol Hill, and not without good reason: The Texas senator always steps in it, even when it’s the star of his favorite movie trashing him. But ragging on Cruz means admitting when he’s innocent. So it is that those viral tweets of him making bizarre claims about Austin Power were, as it were, fake news.

It began with an Austin Powers commercial set to air during the Super Bowl on Sunday — one of a number of high-profile ads dusting off iconic ‘90s movie characters. Shortly thereafter, writer Keaton Patti shared screenshots allegedly showing Cruz repeatedly tweeting bonkers Austin Powers claims.

In one, Cruz “wrote” that “Joe Biden thinks he’s Austin Powers, but he’s actually Dr. Evil,” referring to the hero and villain of the franchise, both played by Mike Myers. He “did it again” for Obama, then reversed the formula for Trump, who was purported to be the swinging secret agent, not the global terrorist modeled on Donald Pleasence’s version of Bond baddie Ernst Blofeld. The final one finds Cruz “discovering” that Myers plays both characters, back in 2015.

Alas, these tweets were too pure for the real world.

Both PolitTweets and CNN’s master fact checker Daniel Dale — hot off proving that a Trumpist lawmaker who thought he was quoting Voltaire but was actually quoting a neo-Nazi busted for child pornography — soon debunked the tweets’ veracity. How? By simply searching Cruz’s Twitter feed for “Austin Powers,” which produces no results. Furthermore, Dale noted that Patti has a history of posting “fake political images as alleged comedy.”

Cruz eventually caught wind of this kerfuffle and made a kind of victory post.

So kudos to Cruz for not actually tweeting weird things about Austin Powers. But fret not: He’s bound to post something mockable again any day now.

(Via The Daily Dot)