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During the Powerhouse Roundtable on ABC’s This Week, Jonathan Karl said that Ted Cruz would need a food taster. “Ted Cruz is so hated among the Republicans. More so than the shutdown, the Tuesday lunch they have, he’s going to need a food taster.”

Watch the panel with Katrina vanden Heuvel, Jonathan Karl, Alicia Menendez and Peggy Noonan here:

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The Editor and publisher of The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel, tried to steer the conversation to the actual crises. She responded to the question about Ted Cruz and the Republican civil war regarding the debt ceiling vote by saying, “For the moment he’s marginalized. We need to refocus. The real conversation should be creating jobs and investing in this country, not manufactured crisis.”

Ted Cruz and the GOP are always good for a manufactured crisis. Our media helps them as well, and meanwhile the real issues get ignored. JOBS. UNEMPLOYMENT. MINIMUM WAGE.

As Peggy Noonan struggled to make Republicans sound less than crazy, Jonathan Karl went right for the sound bite, saying that Ted Cruz is so hated, he needs a food taster, “Ted Cruz is so hated among the Republicans. More so than the shutdown, the Tuesday lunch they have, he’s going to need a food taster. He had tough votes — He does have a high tolerance for personal pain.”

When Jonathan Karl, who passed Republican interpretations of Benghazi emails off as fact, comes down on a Republican, things are bad. Cruz might want to employ a food taster for real.

To be fair, Cruz has been busy making enemies since he first darkened the doorstep of the Senate in 2013. He uses his fellow Republicans in order to selfishly pursue his own money making schemes. Since he’s such a narcissist, he also gets all of the attention as he destroys not only his party, but takes a decent whack at our system of government to boot.

Katrina vanden Heuvel wasn’t having any of it. She called Republicans on their gamesmanship, “Look at the top republican leadership. They voted 19 times, collectively, to pass the debt limit when George W. Was president. And they passed an increased pro Forma, with the tax cuts, $350 billion for the richest. It’s a game that Americans look at and wonder what’s going on inside of a city which is supposed to represent what we care about? We need a different conversation.”

And since she is almost the only person on TV who ever says it, it bears repeating. The conversation we need to be having in the media is about rebuilding the middle and working class. She called out the distraction tactics, “The debt ceiling has held up conversations about rebuilding the middle class, rebuilding and the recovery.”

So the big news is that Ted Cruz might need a food taster after forcing his fellow Republicans to take an ugly (for them) vote in an election year. Cruz really ought to watch his back around Mitch McConnell, who is starting to look squeamish as more and more polls come out showing him dragging behind his Democratic opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes.

While Cruz is having his food tasted, maybe we can squeeze in a quick chat about the majority of this country and how they need jobs, some security in the form of a social safety net, a living wage, and how some infrastructure would be a win-win. No?