Cruz blames ‘staffing issue’ for liked porn tweet

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is blaming a “staffing issue” for a pornographic tweet being liked by his official Twitter account Monday night.

Cruz told reporters Tuesday morning that the incident was a mistake, rather than a malicious hack, according to The Associated Press.

“There are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button,” Cruz said.

When pressed if it was Cruz personally who “liked” the tweet, Cruz said, “It was a staffing issue, and it was inadvertent. It was a mistake; it was not a deliberate action.”

“We’re dealing with it internally, but it was a mistake, it was not malicious conduct,” Cruz added.

{mosads}Cruz also joked that publicity surrounding the tweet could have helped his failed 2016 GOP presidential bid. 

“This is not how I envisioned waking up this morning,” he added. “Although I will say that if I had known that this would trend so quickly, perhaps we should have posted something like this back during the Indiana primary.”

The tweet, which included a clip from a pornographic video, was up for nearly an hour before being deleted by Cruz’s team around 1:20 a.m., according to reports.

The senator’s communications director, Catherine Frazier, said the “offensive” message was “removed by staff and reported to Twitter” in her own tweet Tuesday.

The offensive tweet posted on @tedcruz account earlier has been removed by staff and reported to Twitter

— Catherine Frazier (@catblackfrazier) September 12, 2017