Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, poked fun at himself, his Democratic Senate challenger Beto O’Rourke, and a host of potential 2020 presidential candidates during his second appearance at a Gridiron Club dinner.
“As a Republican, I believe everything happens for a reason. The 2016 presidential race was meant to teach me humility. Beto’s candidacy was meant to teach me humility when the first time didn’t take,” Cruz said Saturday evening, addressing members of the prestigious journalistic association and their guests as he referred to his failed bid for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016.
“If we can be candid here, I know that all of you in the media were betting big on Beto. And what gets me is that you still are. I’m starting to see a disturbing pattern, a kind of litmus test: I took on [President] Trump, he became president. I beat O’Rourke, and somehow that’s launched ‘Beto 2020,’” he said. “It’s like there’s some unspoken rule that anybody is presidential timbre, once they have proven that they are not Ted Cruz.”
[Related: Democrats want Beto O’Rourke to run again, and soon]
Cruz also joked about O’Rourke’s appeal to millennials, especially his penchant for skateboarding, and how Trump should appoint him to be the next U.S. ambassador to Ireland given his Irish name.
Other Democrats who possibly harbor presidential ambitions, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., were not spared from Cruz’s comedic routine.
“May I say in passing, I do not appreciate the ridicule directed at my friend Cory Booker for that proud declaration we all remember. He wasn’t just making it up. The DNA evidence — at a precise ratio of one over one-thousand-and-twenty-four — has now proven his noble Thracian ancestry,” Cruz said, mocking Warren’s releasing her DNA results in October to prove she has Native American heritage stemming back six to 10 generations.
Saturday night’s speech was Cruz’s second for the Gridiron Club. He was joined by Rep.-elect Abigail Spanberger, D-Va.
Trump spoke at a similar event for the organization in March.
