Ted Cruz 'knew exactly what he was doing' by supporting Trump’s conspiracy theories: investigative reporter

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), among other conservatives, is being scrutinized for applauding the re-election of Viktor Orbán in Hungary as critics argue that it shows he was well aware of the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution when it came to former President Donald Trump's post-election legal war. However, he appears to have made a conscious choice to ignore it.

During a recent segment of The Daily Beast's "New Abnormal," co-host Molly Jong, criticized the conservatives rooting for fascism. “It’s a pretty good litmus test,” said Jong. “If you are celebrating that, you’re probably a bad guy, like the people who are still supporting Putin.”

Co-host Andy Levy also chimed in noting that he believes conservatives have done so even when “Russia doesn’t seem to be working even all that hard at” swaying people.

“And it’s because they don’t really have to," Levy said. "They can just play clips of Tucker Carlson Tonight and their job is done for the most part. They're basically Alex Jones-level right now with talking about crisis actors and all that stuff. And then they have like different stories: The bombing never happened. And then it’s 'No, well the bombing happened, but it’s a false flag. The Ukrainians did it.' Right. And there's like three or four more stories down the road and they don’t settle on any one thing. This is the same thing we see from the Q people… It’s every end-of-the-world, Armageddon cult when the world doesn’t end on that day. And then you would think they would just say, ‘Hey, we were wrong,’ but they don’t.”

Washington Post investigative reporter Michael Kranish also joined the segment to share details about his reporting on the conservative lawmakers known for backing former President Donald Trump's election lies. He noted that his reporting centered on Cruz, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-S.C.), and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) who all fought to keep Trump in office.

“The bottom line of my story,” said Kranish, “is that I’d document how Trump and Cruz worked directly together. I’d document phone calls that they had together. Cruz’s various efforts to try to basically keep Trump in power.”

“I think that Senator Cruz knew exactly what he was doing,” Kranish said. “I think that Senator Cruz is somebody who knows what the Constitution calls for, knows what his duties and obligations are, and was willing, frankly, to set that aside.”

Kranish also noted that it appears Cruz's echoing of Trump's conspiracies may have cost him the respect of constituents who viewed him as a "principled conservative legal scholar."

Speaking to Jong, Eric Boehlert, the founder of Press Run, also explained why “the coverage of the Biden economy is unlike anything I’ve ever seen."

"For the most part, this is atrocious coverage, completely manufactured by the press itself,” Boehlert argued.

"It’s literally a parody at this point, as they’ve convinced themselves that the entire economy is about inflation and that these huge job gains either aren't a big deal or they might be a problem for Biden because there aren’t enough workers," he continued. "It’s totally bizarre. And, again, we’ve never seen anything like it. The weirdest part is this isn’t the fault of Fox News or Republicans. This is a thing the Beltway media took on by itself and decided to run with this and they’re just gonna keep running with it.”