Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Friday said he had been demonized by his Democratic opponents as the “root of all evil in the world.”

During a Senate floor debate, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) accused Cruz of taking a piecemeal approach to funding the government after he proposed a series of unanimous consent request that would fund specific agencies during the government shutdown without funding President Barack Obama’s health care reform law.

ADVERTISEMENT

“To deprive our national parks of dollars by advocating shutting the government down and then accuse others, who don’t want to leave 98 percent of the government behind and of the people who work there behind and of the American people who depend on so many other programs — whether it’s student loans or feeding the hungry — is wrong,” Schumer said.

At that point, the Democratic senator from New York proposed modifying Cruz’ piecemeal unanimous consent request, which would have only funded national parks — like the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. — to include funding for the entire government, including the Affordable Care Act.

Schumer noted that the exact same funding proposal had already passed the Senate and reportedly had support of a majority of members of the House.

Cruz, of course, refused to modify his unanimous consent request and insisted that any suggestion that he had advocated shutting down the government was a “flat-out falsehood.”

He went on to say that he appreciated being admonished by his colleagues for breaking Senate rules about impugning other Senators because Democrats also needed to heed that warning.

ADVERTISEMENT

“You know, it has been several days since I have been to the floor of the Senate, and yet, I feel that I have been here in absentia,” Cruz explained. “Because so many Democrats have invoked my name as the root of all evil in the world.”

“And, indeed, the same Majority Leader that gave an ode to civility, just a few days ago was describing me and anyone who might agree that we should stop the harms of Obamacare, describing us as — quote — anarchists. So, I think the encouragement towards civility is an encouragement that should be heard across the board.”

Watch the video below from C-SPAN, broadcast Oct. 4, 2013.

ADVERTISEMENT