In his twisted mind....

GOP senators challenge Ted Cruz book claims

Rand Paul takes issue with one anecdote, and another claim is called ‘pure fantasy.’ Cruz’s camp stands by the book.

By Manu Raju

In his new book, Ted Cruz writes that Rand Paul let him down on Obamacare.

During Cruz’s now-infamous 21-hour speech on the eve of the 2013 government shutdown, Paul came to the floor to speak for a few minutes about the health care law. But according to the book, Paul seemed intent on bolstering the GOP leadership’s “skeptical attacks,” which were “deliberately designed to undermine our efforts.”

“I marveled that Rand had decided not to be with us in this fight,” Cruz charges in “A Time for Truth.”

Paul, however, says that account isn’t exactly truthful.

“It’s curious because he sent me a really nice, handwritten congratulatory note thanking me for my help,” Paul told POLITICO last week. “I don’t understand.”

Cruz portrays himself in his book as the rare creature in Washington who’s willing to call out his own party in public and confront fellow Republicans when the cameras aren’t rolling, too. But in interviews last week, some of his GOP colleagues challenged assertions in Cruz’s tell-it-like-it-is memoir, which could undermine the Texas Republican’s claim of authenticity.

When he accepted a top job at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Cruz writes, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “promised” that the party committee would stay out of GOP primary fights, including to defend Republican incumbents against conservative challengers. But top Republicans question that assertion, noting that the NRSC’s mission has long been to protect incumbents — and that has never been in dispute.

The 44-year-old Cruz, who is running for president, also writes that “members of the GOP leadership” made it “clear” to Washington lobbyists and corporate political action committees that they would be “frozen out” if they gave campaign cash to the Texas freshman. Yet Republican leaders strongly deny that’s the case.

“Any suggestion that Leader McConnell intervened to ‘freeze out’ potential supporters of Sen. Cruz is pure fantasy,” said Brian McGuire, a top aide to McConnell. “The leader’s primary political objective in the last cycle, as any close observer will attest, was to build and preserve a Republican majority in the Senate.”

There’s no question Cruz has made his mark in the Senate as a persistent thorn in the side of his party leadership. He has frequently derided their tactics openly — whether over the Obamacare fight that prompted the government shutdown, the 2014 battle with his party over raising the debt ceiling or how to target the president’s immigration policies last winter. It’s one of the chief points he makes on the campaign trail: He’s leading a movement of “courageous conservatives” battling entrenched politicians of both parties.

Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier contends that the book’s accounts are accurate.

“It comes as no surprise to anyone that the Washington cartel would deny the surreptitious tactics it employs to enrich itself at the expense of the American people,” Frazier wrote in an email. “Sen. Cruz stands by everything he has written in his book.”

As primary season heads into full swing, Cruz’s divisive tactics are bound to get more scrutiny — something his GOP foes believe will ultimately hurt the Texas firebrand among more mainstream Republican primary voters.

“At the end of the day, his tactics are not bearing fruit for the party,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a presidential candidate, referring to the 2013 Obamacare fight in particular. “For him to be the standard-bearer, you’d have to show some judgment different than he’s shown in the past.”

Perhaps nothing defines Cruz’s brief tenure as a senator more than his fight against his party on Obamacare in 2013. He, along with Utah Sen. Mike Lee, demanded that Republicans insist that any bill to keep the government open also include provisions defunding the Affordable Care Act. It prompted the 16-day government shutdown and a bitter feud within the GOP.

But Cruz has long been unapologetic, blaming Senate Republican leaders for signaling to President Barack Obama they would “give him everything he wanted.”

“If you wait for Senate Republican leadership, you will never stop Obamacare,” Cruz writes in the book.

During his marathon floor speech, Cruz got an assist from a handful of Republicans, whom he praises, including the “steady” Kansan Pat Roberts, and Florida senator and 2016 rival Marco Rubio.

But he reserves a section to ding Paul, who is also seeking the GOP nomination. While Paul supported the strategy to defund Obamacare, signing his name to a Lee-Cruz letter in the run-up to the shutdown, he was noticeably quiet during the course of the fight.

During his marathon speech, Cruz recalled Paul asking: “‘Do you want to shut down the government or would you like to find something to make Obamacare less bad?’ And, ‘Will you accept a compromise?’ ‘Will you work with the president?’”

Such comments, Cruz says, perplexed him and Lee.

Cruz added: “Mike Lee is not an easily excitable guy, but he was so upset by this that I thought he was going to need a sedative.”

Lee spokesman Conn Carroll declined to comment.

A review of the transcript of the September 2013 exchange between Paul and Cruz, however, suggests it was more amiable than the Texas senator described. The two men praised each other repeatedly. Paul contended that Cruz was doing a “good job” promoting the campaign to defund Obamacare, which the Kentucky freshman also said he supported. When Paul asked whether Cruz was trying to shut down the government, it seemed to be a way of allowing the Texan to pin the blame on Obama and Senate Democrats instead.

“The question Sen. Rand Paul asked was an excellent question,” Cruz said during the September 2013 speech. “His question was whether I or anyone here wishes to shut down the government. The answer is absolutely not.”

On Monday, Cruz officials pointed to remarks Paul made to Fox News in November 2013 in which the Kentucky Republican said, “Even though it appeared I was participating [in the shutdown fight], it was a dumb idea.”
Frazier, the Cruz spokeswoman, said: “The senator has great respect for Rand, but his words speak for themselves.”

Frazier, the Cruz spokeswoman, said: “The senator has great respect for Rand, but his words speak for themselves.”

Cruz’s campaign did not dispute that the senator sent Paul a handwritten congratulatory note.

Cruz also accuses McConnell of maneuvering behind the scenes to hurt him politically. Cruz did see a dip in his donations from D.C.-area PACs immediately after the Obamacare filibuster — from $60,000 in his first eight months as a senator to $10,000 in the year after the speech. But his book offers no evidence of being frozen out by the Washington donor community at the behest of GOP leadership. Cruz is showcasing serious fundraising prowess, hauling in $14.2 million fundraising for his presidential campaign.

Cruz also writes that McConnell misled him when he offered him a job as vice chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for the 2014 election cycle.

“He promised that the committee would stay out of primaries from here on out,” Cruz writes. “But it soon became clear that the NRSC had every intention of supporting incumbents — in primaries — against conservative challengers across the country. And in open races, it actively urged donors to give money to candidates opposing tea party conservatives. That didn’t sit right with me. … It was yet another lesson: Assurances in Washington come with expiration dates.”

Josh Holmes, former chief of staff for McConnell, said there were no “misunderstandings” at the time Cruz accepted the position that “the first job of the NRSC is to protect incumbent Republicans in primary and general elections.”

The senior Texas senator, Republican John Cornyn, who serves as McConnell’s chief deputy, had a similar assessment.

“I would say as a former chairman of the NRSC for two cycles, it is always the responsibility of the chairman to help incumbents get reelected — that includes in contested primaries,” Cornyn said.

But did he ever try to clamp down on Cruz’s campaign cash?

“Certainly that wasn’t something I did,” Cornyn said. “I don’t know who he’s talking about.”

Other GOP senators took issue less with Cruz’s facts than what they called his willingness to break confidences to promote himself.

In the book’s first chapter, Cruz recounts fellow Republicans “angrily yelling” at him for “telling the truth” during a meeting about raising the debt ceiling. GOP elders, nervous about a default on the nation’s debts, were willing to let the debt ceiling increase pass — but they didn’t want their fingerprints on the bill for fear of angering the GOP base.

Cruz, however, said he could not countenance that request, insisting that it pass with a 60-vote threshold. That demand eventually forced GOP leaders and other Republicans to grudgingly vote to advance the measure.

Cruz highlighted the episode to make the case that many of his colleagues, particularly Senate GOP leaders, “pose” as staunch conservatives in public but then “in private do little or nothing to advance those principles.”

Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) said he was dismayed that a senator would reveal the caucus’ off-the-record discussions.

“No one is going to want to talk up something on a personal issue or a contentious issue if they think they are going to read about it the next day in the paper or it’s going to be released in the press,” Coats said. “It really undermines any sense of team or any sense of cooperation.”