WASHINGTON – If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
Sen. Ted Cruz embraced that philosophy when he posted creepy Zodiac codes on Halloween to signal he was in on the meme linking him to serial murders that ended when he was a toddler.
Now, almost a year since his aborted family getaway to Cancún during a deadly mass blackout in Texas, he’s employing the same tactic to ease the sting as late-night comics sharpen their barbs.
On Wednesday, he posted a Tweet complaining that “inflation is out of control.” Prices are up on gas, food and lumber “and tickets to Cancún are up 32%!”
The two-term Republican has been comedy catnip throughout his 9-year Senate career.
Saturday Night Live regularly lampoons him, and the show invoked his Mexican getaway as recently as Jan. 22 during a parody of Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle.”
“I’d like to remind all my fellow Texans watching at home that February is going to be a cold one, so you might want to book your vacay to Cancún now,” says Cruz, played by female cast member Aidy Bryant.
As Texans well recall, a brutal winter storm hit the state last February. The power grid failed. Millions were left in the dark and cold. With the crisis in full swing, passengers aboard a flight from Houston to Cancún noticed the junior senator.
He was outed by the time he landed.
“It was obviously a mistake and in hindsight I shouldn’t have done it. I was trying to be a dad,” he told reporters after returning to Houston less than 24 hours after departing for the sun-drenched beach resort with his wife and their two daughters.
By then, “Cancun Ted,” “Cancun Cruz” and “Flying Ted” – a play on Donald Trump’s “Lyin’ Ted” taunt – was a viral target on social media, and fodder for late night comics.
Jimmy Kimmel mocked Cruz as a “snake on a plane… headed, ironically, to the very place he tried to build a wall around.”
“What were you thinking?” Trevor Noah asked on his show. “When your constituents said they need clean water, they didn’t mean go find a wet T-shirt contest in Cancún.”
Nearly a year later, the episode is not forgotten.
The Jan. 22 SNL segment starts with Kate McKinnon’s Ingraham noting the beard was “still going strong.”
“Oh yeah, my beard is like Jan. 6. Shocking at first, but sadly it’s been normalized,” responds Cruz.
The segment shifts to Cruz explaining away his recent characterization of the riot at the U.S. Capitol as a “terrorist attack” – as he had in real life, when he went on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox to walk back the comment and quell an uproar among Trump supporters.
“Donald, if you’re watching, I love you, baby. You are the king, honestly. … Hit me, choke me, spit in my face. I just want to stay in the mix,” he says.
After that Carlson segment, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers had a field day – and Cancún came to mind for his writers.
“That clip was like watching one of those dumb cable news segments where a reporter willingly gets Tasered just to show everyone how bad it is,” Meyers said.
“And look, we all know Ted Cruz has a thing for self-humiliation. He slinked back from Cancún after escaping a blackout in his state. He endorsed Donald Trump after Trump insulted his wife and his father, and took that infamous photo where he made campaign calls for Trump, looking like Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glenn Ross. And he keeps showing up in public with that facial hair looking like a Chewbacca who shaved everything but the beard,” Meyers added.
As he did when former House Speaker John Boehner – a fellow Republican –called him “Lucifer in the flesh,” Cruz rolled with it.
His handling of the Zodiac meme seems to be the template.
In October 2017, for instance, Sen. Ben Sasse accidentally spilled Dr Pepper on Cruz during a hearing.
The two Republicans turned it into a playful Twitter spat that included Cruz posting a cipher of the sort the mysterious Zodiac sent to California newspapers during his killing spree.
In November, SNL devoted a lengthy opening segment to “Ted Cruz Street” after the senator complained that Big Bird was peddling “government propaganda” by promoting COVID-19 vaccination for kids.
The Muppets have promoted childhood immunization for decades.
“Cruz Street” is somewhat less wholesome than Sesame Street. There, kids are encouraged to play with machine guns, and Q — not the letter, but the shadowy leader of a conspiracy cult — is a sponsor.
“As you know I was mocked for attacking Big Bird on Twitter, simply because I’m a human senator and he is an 8-foot-tall fictional bird,” says Bryant’s Cruz.
“I wear your scorn with pride,” the real Cruz tweeted afterward.
