Don Lemon revealed that Ted Cruz called CNN commentator and Republican strategist Alice Stewart and asked her to go on Tucker Carlson’s show to defend him.
It’s been a tough couple of days for Ted Cruz since Carlson twisted the knife as Cruz begged for forgiveness on national television for the crime of calling the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection a “terrorist” attack.
And on Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Don Lemon Tonight, the plot thickened a little when Stewart — a former comms director for Cruz — described her own talks with both Cruz and Carlson, and Lemon dropped the nugget that Cruz had asked Stewart to go flack for him on Carlson’s show:
LEMON: Alice, let’s talk about Ted Cruz. I understand that you have some news for us. You spoke to Senator Cruz about that disaster of an interview. What did you learn about this debacle?ALICE STEWART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR SENATOR TED CRUZ: Well, first off, Don, I expressed to him that he should have just left well enough said. What he said initially in his comments before the hearing, thanking the Capitol police for their work, was the right thing to say. That attacking a police officer is wrong and it is an act of domestic terrorism. And violence is wrong, peaceful protest is right. That comment and those comments should have stayed.And going on with Tucker Carlson, I think, took a
lot of what he did say out of context. What he said and the way he explained to me was what he explained to Tucker Carlson was reiterating what he said is that violence against police officers is wrong.And when he went on to say that he stumbled and didn’t say things the right way and very un-Ted Cruz-like, he said it sloppy, was by not being able to exactly say that all of the people at the Capitol were not terrorists, just the people that were attacking police officers.And his mistake and what he was trying to clarify on Tucker’s show was he was not referring to everyone at the Capitol, just the people that were going after police officers, and that’s a –LEMON: Okay.STEWART: — big distinction and it was something that should have just been said and left said at the hearing, but going on to Tucker exacerbating a situation, I think, made some very correct and positive statements, I guess, you can say about January 6th –LEMON: Okay. I got you. I feel you.STEWART: — and took it too far.LEMON: Let me just say because I know you’re dying to jump in here, Bakari. But Cruz actually asked Alice to go on Tucker’s show to clear things up. Look at the words Tucker put up directly under the senator’s face. Cruz’ing for abruising. I mean — you know, I mean, he had to have known that this was going to happen. I mean, you wouldn’t advise him to go on, would you?STEWART: I would not have. And he anticipated this kind of feedback from Tucker.I reached out to Tucker today as well and see if he had any additional thoughts and he said that there is no additional context other than what we saw on the air.LEMON: Okay.STEWART: So, clearly, Tucker made his point to clarify his concern about what Ted Cruz said, and I think Ted certainly didn’t make the situation any better for himself.
Watch above via CNN.