Watch The Exact Moment Ted Cruz Lost All Credibility

Exposed on air. Humiliated in real time. And still doubling down.

Ted Cruz just embarrassed himself on national television. And not in a harmless gaffe sort of way—this was a full-on, deer-in-the-headlights implosion when asked the most basic questions about Iran, a country he’s been fearmongering about for over a decade.

Tucker Carlson—of all people—asked Cruz how many people live in Iran. He didn’t know. Asked about the country’s ethnic makeup. Cruz barely mustered “Persians and predominantly Shia.” Asked if the U.S. was currently engaged in military strikes. Cruz said yes. Carlson pointed out that the White House had explicitly denied that. Cruz then changed his answer.

This is a sitting U.S. senator who has called for regime change in Iran, repeatedly pushed for confrontation, and positioned himself as an expert on the threat. Yet when pressed, he couldn’t name who lives there, how many people there are, or what exactly we’re even doing.

Then it got worse.

Carlson asked whether it was acceptable for Israel—one of our closest allies—to spy on the United States, including the president. Cruz gave a shrug of an answer: “They probably do. All our friends spy on us.” When asked if that was okay, Cruz said, essentially, that’s just how the world works.

This is the normalization of foreign espionage from a man who claims to be laser-focused on national security. If Iran or China were caught spying on the president, Cruz would be calling for war. But if Israel does it, he calls it realism.

This isn’t serious leadership. It’s opportunism. And it’s dangerous.

Because these are the same people pushing for escalation—often with zero understanding of the countries they’re dealing with. The ignorance is not just embarrassing. It’s how we end up in costly, unnecessary wars.

Cruz later tried to defend himself on Twitter, posting: “I declined to play that silly game.” But he didn’t decline. He played. He just lost. Badly.

This moment matters. Not because Carlson asked a few good questions. Not because of the viral clip. But because it revealed what we’re really dealing with: a U.S. senator who wants to drop bombs on countries he couldn’t describe on a high school geography quiz.

We should be asking these questions more often. Basic, factual, first-principles stuff. Because if this is the Republican Party’s idea of a foreign policy expert, we’re in trouble.

If you believe lawmakers should be held to the same basic standards we’d expect from a college freshman, support the work that actually holds them accountable.

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