Ted Cruz was roasted to oblivion on social media on Thursday, after a “bizarre and cringe” Newsmax interview in which he suddenly started chugging a beer. But the mockery continued on Friday morning, as the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” couldn’t stop laughing at his “bad acting.”
In this particular segment, the Texas senator railed against a hypothetical new federal alcohol guideline that would recommend people only have two drinks per week. Standing with a group of men in cowboy and trucker hats, Cruz pulled a beer from off-screen, told the Newsmax host that Biden can “kiss my ass” – and then drank in unison with the men behind him.
“It’s just, the acting is so bad,” host Willie Geist said through laughter on Friday morning. “That’s where the director calls cut, and steps in and says, ‘OK, that was a great first take. What we’re trying to do is simulate human behavior. So let’s try that again, the way people actually actually behave.’”
From there, the hosts all got a case of the giggles, piling on each other’s jokes about the senator.
“I totally disagree. That was Emmy-worthy stuff,” Sam Stein mocked. “It seemed really natural to me. This is what I do when I go out and drink with my buddies. I have them line up behind me, I grab the beer, and then when I drink, they subsequently drink in synchronization. And that’s usually how it’s done. I don’t know what kind of bars you go to in New York, Willie.”
Granted, the panel wasn’t surprised by Cruz’s actions. Geist pointed out that Cruz’s typical M.O. is to pick “the issue of the moment, the outrage on Twitter” and make a big to-do out of it.
In the end, panelist Jennifer Palmieri summed up the moment — and Ted Cruz himself, according to Jonathan Lemire — with just a few words.
“Fake outrage executed badly,” she mocked.
You can watch the roast from “Morning Joe” in the video above.