While speaking on the floor of the Senate Thursday, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, took Majority Leader Harry Reid to task for delaying a bill giving aid to Ukraine and demonizing the Koch brothers, private citizens who contribute to conservative groups and candidates.
Reid had suggested a provision placed in an aid package for Ukraine was done so to protect the Koch brothers.
Cruz said he was beginning to believe the brothers are like a Dr. Seuss character in Reid’s mind.
“It’s as if they are the Grinch who stole Christmas in his telling,” he said, according to a report at The Hill.
Cruz also noted that while Reid focused on the Koch brothers, he said nothing about a California billionaire who pledged $100 million to help Democrats if they would press for job-killing climate change legislation.
“That billionaire, in the Majority Leader’s view, is perfectly fine,” Cruz said.
He went on to say the Koch brothers deserve a chance to defend themselves from Reid’s ongoing attacks.
“Senate rules allow a member of this body if his or her integrity is impugned to raise an objection,” he said. “What Senate rule allows a private citizen to raise an objection when his integrity is impugned by the Majority Leader?”
“That is not the job of the United States Senate to vilify private citizens,” he said, observing that the provision Reid spoke of is not in the House bill.
Cruz went on to say that had Reid not objected, the aid package for Ukraine would have passed the Senate Thursday night, noting that it had nothing to do with the Koch brothers or the IRS.
“The reason the Majority Leader objected is that he wants to hold aid to the Ukraine hostage” in order to force through reforms to the International Monetary Fund, which Cruz called “misguided.”
Amanda Carpenter, senior communication adviser to Sen. Cruz, explained: “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked his own bill by trying to stuff IMF money into it. Just pass the aid and sanctions.”
Video of Cruz’s comments can be seen here.
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