Cruz on porn tweet: 'It was not me'

Ted Cruz wouldn’t say Wednesday who was responsible for liking a pornographic tweet from the Texas senator’s account. But he did say who wasn’t: himself.

“It was not me,” Cruz told CNN in an interview broadcast Wednesday. “And it’s not gonna happen again.”


The @tedcruz Twitter account “liked” a post this week from @SexuallPosts, which now urges users to “Follow for the Same Porn @TedCruz Watches.” The inadvertent “screw-up,” as Cruz called it, prompted senior communications adviser Catherine Frazier to do damage control at 2:16 a.m. on Tuesday, when she said the “offensive tweet” had “been removed by staff and reported to Twitter.”

“Look, we had a staffer who accidentally hit the wrong button, and it was a screw-up,” Cruz said Wednesday. “I will say Twitter went crazy with it. It became trending. Soon as we found about it, we pulled it down.”

Cruz acknowledged that the tweet has generated amusement and prompted jokes. “I understand that,” he said. “I saw one person joking online that if only this had happened during the presidential, Cruz might be in the White House right now.”

The senator said his staff has identified the individual who was responsible for the “honest mistake.”

“We have talked with the staffer. It’s not gonna happen again,” Cruz said, adding that “I’m not gonna out the fella. We have dealt with it internally, but I’m not gonna throw someone under the bus.”

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Cruz also insisted the notion that he supports banning sex toys is false. He explained that his role as solicitor general in Texas required him to defend the laws on behalf of the state attorney general.

“One of those laws was a law restricting the sale of sex toys. It was a stupid law,” Cruz said. “I think it’s idiotic, but it’s an opportunity for knuckleheads to claim, ‘Oh, isn’t this ironic that Cruz wants to ban these things?’ No, I don’t. People ought to be able to do what they want in their own bedrooms.”

Asked directly if he’s OK with people purchasing sex toys, Cruz said “consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in their bedrooms.” He accused “the media and the left” of being obsessed with sex but said “let people do what they want.”

@SexuallPosts did just that, taking credit for the senator’s supposed shift. “We're transforming @TedCruz, he now is supporting sex toys!” it boasted. “Hit us up Ted if you want need some extra toys.”

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