A Lot Of People Aren’t Buying Ted Cruz’s Story About Being Constantly Hugged By Airline Employees

It’s been a little over a year since Ted Cruz’s Cancún misadventures, when he abandoned his freezing constituents to escape to warmer climes. You would think he’d learn to steer clear of airline-related stories. But on Tuesday, the man who made questionable jokes about said mishegoss ahead of this year’s Texas storm slipped up.

As per The Washington Post, Cruz and fellow GOP senator — and Jan. 6 downplayer — Ron Johnson met with the “People’s Convoy,” aka the group of Trumpist truckers who’ve spent the last month threatening to annoy and inconvenience the residents of D.C. in an attempt to replicate the protests that recently did the same to certain Canadian cities.

The group has been protesting vaccine mandates, even after many in pandemic-stricken locations have been lifted. Despite this — and despite their repeated failures to cripple American cities and their inhabitants — they vowed to cruise around the metro area “indefinitely,” hoping to score more meetings with famous politicians, like the one that happened Tuesday.

Though there were few details from either the convoy leaders or the two Republican senators that met with them, it did produce one perhaps performative outburst from Cruz. No fan of the mandates that have resulted in a massive uptick in vaccinated Americans, he pivoted the discussion into a dig at the nation’s airlines, which required their employees to be vaxxed, resulting in safe air travel (minus a smattering of outbursts from unruly passengers).

“I fly back and forth to Houston. Almost without exception, every time I’m on an airplane, either the captain or a flight attendant will come up to me, will hug me and say, ‘Thank you for fighting for us,’” Cruz railed. “Because I’ll tell you, American Airlines — sadly, Houston’s a hub of them — has fired thousands of pilots and flight attendants.” He also slammed his hand on the table for dramatic effect.

As per a Fortune report from this past January, American Airlines did not fire “thousands,” as the Texas senator claimed. The estimate was closer to 200. The airline was the first in America to impose a vaccine mandate. A month later, more than half of their 67,000 employees had been fully vaccinated, with the rest either awaiting their first dose or on the verge of termination. You can probably do the math as to how many stood their ground, surrendering their job for a safe, effective, and free vaccine.

When a clip of Cruz’s outburst was made public, some dwelled on his embellishment. Others simply could not believe that one of the most dunkable people on social media was constantly being hugged by appreciative airline staff.

To some, it sounded suspiciously like one of Donald Trump’s equally far-fetched tales about strangers coming up to him, tears in their eyes, calling him “sir.”

There were also Cancún jokes.

And other jokes of different stripes.

Some pointed out that what Cruz was doing — lending voice to people with a dodgy agenda, targeting the lives of everyday citizens just trying to get by — was not funny.

(Via WaPo)