Jimmy Kimmel had plenty of jokes about Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Monday, and he wasn’t buying the photos Cruz’s team took of him “helping out” Texans in need after severe winter storms knocked out power for several days.
During Monday’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” Kimmel launched right into the Ted Cruz jokes during a bit about a Boeing flight that was forced to emergency land after an engine caught fire, raining plane parts down on a suburb in Denver, Colo.
“Usually when someone’s forced to return that quickly on a flight, it’s because they were busted going to Cancun while their constituents were freezing to death,” Kimmel joked, referring to Cruz’s infamous and not-so-covert getaway last week.
Kimmel’s pointed out in past shows that other senators, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who represents New York City, have put in more work to aid Texans than Cruz has for his own home state — AOC and Beto O’Rourke raised roughly a combined $5 million for Texas food banks.
After being caught fleeing the country on a United Airlines flight and leaving behind his dog Snowflake (yes, of course that’s his dog’s name), Cruz felt the need to rehab his image and spent time handing out supplies and barbeque in Texas. But Kimmel wasn’t buying it, as he showed photos of Cruz’s “charity” on screen.
Cruz “lent a helping hoof to those in need this weekend – and, of course, posted about it,” Kimmel said. One photo showed Cruz putting his hand on an unmasked woman’s arm — which Kimmel pointed out is pretty dangerous given that COVID-19 is still highly transmissible.
“Only Ted Cruz would think he can repair his image by touching a mask-less constituent two days after getting off an international flight,” Kimmel pointed out.
Kimmel continued with a sick burn that was both a reference to most tourists’ favorite watering hole and nod to “This Old House” — “Señor Fraud also invited cameras to shoot him ‘helping’ someone remove carpet from a house that suffered water damage… There he is… Blob Villa at work,” Kimmel said.
Check out the full monologue from tonight’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live” above.