Senator Ted Cruz Accuses Sen. Mitch McConnell of Telling a 'Flat-out Lie'

'Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) criticizes Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for filing an amendment to the highway funding bill to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank and preventing senators from offering additional amendments by filling the amendment tree. He calls Senator McConnell's actions "procedural abuse" and compares his tactics to those of now-Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) when he was majority leader.' (Caitlyn Hillyard) 

Excerpt from Politico
Ted Cruz Accuses Mitch McConnell of Telling a 'Flat-out Lie'
During his speech, the Texas senator also strongly rebuked the GOP Senate majority’s record this Congress

Ted Cruz took to the Senate floor Friday and charged that Mitch McConnell told a “lie,” escalating his campaign against GOP leaders and challenging the traditions of the usually decorous chamber. 

In a scathing floor speech, the Texas firebrand accused the Senate majority leader of breaking his word to him and the rest of the GOP conference over McConnell’s plans for the controversial Export-Import Bank, the country’s chief export credit agency. In Cruz’s telling, McConnell privately promised him and other Republicans that “there was no deal” with a handful of senators who were seeking to revive the bank in exchange for their votes to advance a major trade bill in May.

McConnell, he said, became “visibly angry” when Cruz challenged him on the matter during a meeting in May. 

“Like St. Peter,” Cruz said, “he repeated it three times. He said, ‘The only thing I told the proponents of the Export-Import Bank is like any other senator in this body, they could offer any amendment they liked on an any amendable vehicle, but I gave them nothing.’”
That day in late May, Cruz said his staff informed him that McConnell was “lying” to him, but he said he believed the Senate GOP leader that “he wasn’t lying to us.”

But after McConnell took procedural steps Friday to move to a proposal to revive the Ex-Im bank, Cruz said on the Senate floor: “I cannot believe he would tell a flat-out lie.”

What we saw today was an absolute demonstration that not only what he told every Republican senator, but what he told the press over and over again was a simple lie,” said Cruz, a fierce opponent of the bank. “The majority and minority leader, arm-in-arm again, should not team up against the American taxpayers.”

The attack is unusual even for Cruz, who has made his battle with Senate Republicans a centerpiece of his campaign for the GOP presidential nomination. Senators tend to avoid directly calling out specific senators on the Senate floor — particularly from their own party and especially their own party leader. Senate rules say, “no senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another senator or to other senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a senator.” 

Asked to comment, McConnell smiled and walked away. Sen. John Cornyn, a fellow Texas Republican and McConnell’s chief deputy, said he was reviewing Cruz’s remarks and would not comment further.

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