WASHINGTON — To hear Sen. Ted Cruz tell it, he deserves no blame for the 2013 government shutdown that cost the U.S. economy $24 billion.

"I have consistently opposed shutdowns," he insisted Monday in a testy exchange with journalists, hours before Congress voted to end a far less damaging three-day shutdown.

The assertion doesn't match the historical record.

"You've left me speechless," Maine Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who seethed at Cruz throughout the 2013 episode, told reporters when asked about her Texas colleague's stance.

But while Cruz's stance caused dismay and allegations of revisionism, he has always maintained that Democrats bore responsibility for the 16-day shutdown — along with GOP congressional leaders who lacked the backbone to back him up in the crusade to defund Obamacare.

The episode remains a key moment in Cruz's five-year Senate career, elevating his status among tea partiers and propelling his 2016 presidential bid. He alluded to it often during the primaries, reminding voters that none of his White House rivals had fought as hard in Washington for their agenda.

Yet he has always denied responsibility for the shutdown, even in the run-up, at its height, and in the days afterward, as other Republicans openly fumed at him for pushing the tactic.

Cruz spent the summer of 2013 promoting the idea that the fight to defund Obamacare was worth the risk of shutdown, and stirring public pressure on GOP leaders.

"A lot of Republicans are scared about being beaten up by President Obama for wanting to shut down the government," he told a hotel ballroom of young conservatives that July.

It was one of many times he publicly promoted the threat of a shutdown in the crusade against Obamacare.

On Sept. 24 and 25, he staged a 21-hour filibuster-like talkathon to dramatize his push.

"We should not shut down the government. We should fund every bit of the government, every aspect of the government, 100 percent of the government except for Obamacare. That is what the House of Representatives did. The House of Representatives — 232 Members of the House, including 2 Democrats — voted to fund every bit of the Federal Government, 100 percent of it, except for Obamacare," he said at one point in his overnight marathon.

His insistence that he didn't want a shutdown struck his critics then and now as disingenuous.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., called it a "dumb idea" to risk a shutdown. House Speaker John Boehner rejected the tactic and later called Cruz a "jackass" for pursuing it.

Likewise, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, then the minority leader, and his deputy, Texas' own John Cornyn, warned that trying to use a must-pass budget to kill Obamacare was a losing cause.

"There's no end result other than shutting the government down, for which Republicans are going to be blamed," Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch said after a meeting with Cruz, shortly before the shutdown. "We're in the minority. We have to find a way of standing up for our principles without immolating ourselves in front of everybody, when we don't have the votes to do it."

All advocated repeal of Obamacare. But all argued that its tentacles weren't vulnerable in the budget fight that fall. Technical and legislative reasons aside, they noted, Democrats controlled the Senate at the time and President Barack Obama was never going to sign legislation that unraveled his signature achievement.

"If we have a shutdown, it will be because Harry Reid holds that absolutist position and essentially holds the American people hostage," Cruz told NBC's Meet the Press days after his filibuster, and just before the shutdown began.

Over the next couple of weeks, with much of the federal workforce furloughed, Cruz huddled with House conservatives to encourage them to dig in against a deal that included any capitulation on the Obamacare demands.

And he continued to push the idea that Democrats could end the crisis — by giving ground on Obamacare.

"I voted repeatedly to fund the government, and in 2013 it was Harry Reid and the Democrats who voted no, who voted to shut the government down just like this week Republicans voted to fund the government, and it was Chuck Schumer and the Democrats who voted to shut the government down," he said on Monday.

Roll call votes from 2013, for people who now claim they "consistently" opposed shutdowns. cc: @tedcruz



Sept. 27: Cloture on CR: 79-19. Cruz voted to filibuster.



Final passage: 54-44. Cruz voted no.



Oct. 16, cloture on bill reopening govt: 83-16. Cruz voted no. pic.twitter.com/qyvjdxGqz9 — Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) January 22, 2018

The shutdown put a $20 billion to $24 billion dent in the nation's economic output, mostly because government spending is one factor in the gross domestic product.

Cruz argued Monday that he voted repeatedly to keep the government running.

"In 2013, virtually every single Republican voted to fund the government, including me, multiple times," he said.

That's technically true, though it leaves an impression that he never cast a vote whose effect would have been to prolong the 2013 shutdown. In fact, he did cast several votes with that effect.

On Monday, Cruz called it "a media narrative" that he was responsible for the 2013 shutdown.

"We should not be shutting the government down," he said. "I have consistently opposed shutdowns. In 2013 I said we shouldn't shut the government down. Indeed I went to the Senate floor repeatedly asking unanimous consent to reopen the government."