Senator and man who would be President Ted Cruz spent Monday night at a town hall in Iowa. While there, he generously shared his thoughts on birth control access, namely how easy it is to get some: “Last I checked, we don’t have a rubber shortage in America.” Oh Ted, you really shouldn’t have.


An attendee at the Bettendorf, Iowa town hall asked Cruz how he felt about “making contraception available to women who want to control their own bodies.”

Cruz came alive: “Hillary Clinton embraces abortion on demand in all circumstances up until the moment of birth,” he told the audience in response. “Partial-birth abortion with taxpayer funding, with no notification for parents in any circumstances — 91% of Americans say that’s nuts,” he said. (Clinton has consistently said she favors leaving abortion decisions up to women and their doctors.)


Cruz then accused Clinton and the rest of the Liberal Establishment of trying to “shift” the “war on women” narrative, away from abortion and towards contraceptives.

“Now listen,” he said. “I have been a conservative my entire life. I have never met anybody, any conservative who wants to ban contraceptives.” (Seven religious institutions are lobbying the Supreme Court to keep from having to cover birth control for their employees. Ted Cruz himself thinks Plan B is an “abortion-inducing drug,” which it’s not.)

In a slightly disjointed monologue, Cruz continued:

It’s a great example when the war on women came up, Republicans would curl up in a ball, they’d say, ‘Don’t hurt me.’ Jiminy Cricket! This is a made-up nonsense example. Last I checked,we don’t have a rubber shortage in America. When I was in college we had a machine in the bathroom, you put 50 cents in and voila! So yes, anyone who wants contraceptives can access them, but it’s an utterly made-up nonsense issue.

Cruz also accused Clinton of running as “the condom police” as a distraction from her record as Secretary of State, which he thinks is bad. “So what do you do? You go, ‘Ah, ha! Condom police. I’m gonna make up a completely made up threat and try to scare a bunch of folks into thinking someone’s going to steal their birth control,’” he said. “What nonsense.”

And now the American people must trudge through this day, the image of a college-aged Ted Cruz banging on a condom machine echoing in our brains, screaming “Jiminy cricket” in frustration as he waits for his rubber to fall.


Contact the author at anna.merlan@jezebel.com .

