Cuban-American Senator Ted Cruz, the first Republican to announce his 2016 presidential campaign, was featured last month on MSNBC’s program With All Due Respect. Despite the title of the show, there was little respect given during the interview or should I say interrogation? Bloomberg News’ managing editor Mark Halperin submitted Cruz to a string of racist questions that have Hispanics and conservatives in an uproar.
After several questions about Cruz’s upbringing and Cuban preferences that had no place in a political discussion, the interview culminated with Halperin’s request for the lawmaker to welcome a fellow Hispanic senator to the presidential race in Spanish. Cruz politely refused the outrageous request to perform like a dog that knows a new trick.
The controversial interview incited an eruption of anger including a Washington Post article by nauseated Hispanic columnist Ruben Navarrette in which he slammed the interview as “bad journalism, bad form, and bad manners.”
The backlash prompted Halperin to a formal apology, in which he admitted that some of his questions were “inappropriate.” Halperin went on to explain that his intention was to give Cruz a chance to further connect with the Hispanic population, but this doesn’t make much sense considering Cruz had given a speech at the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce just the previous day.
Halperin further tried to cover his tracks by commenting that his request for Cruz to welcome Sanders in Spanish was nothing but “playful banter.”Cruz graciously accepted Halpern’s apology as “unneeded” and went on to talk about his hopes for a future in which the American Dream is once more an attainable goal.
Halperin’s unacceptable treatment of Cruz leads one to wonder if he would have behaved the same way towards a liberal Hispanic … is this awkward interview the beginning an attempt by the liberal media to disprove the authenticity of the individuals making up the most diverse Republican presidential field this country has ever seen?