Ted Cruz mocks Al Franken over ‘I Hate Ted Cruz Pint Glass’

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Thursday took to Twitter to needle former Sen. Al Franken’s (D-Minn.) release of a pint class featuring a drawing of Cruz to promote his podcast. 

In a tweet announcing the merchandise, Franken said, “Available now at The Al Franken Podcast Online Store — the And I Hate Ted Cruz Pint Glass!!! The caricature I drew sitting directly across from him in Judiciary.” 

One side of the glass displays the described drawing, with the other including a printed quote from Franken’s 2017 autobiography, “Giant of the Senate.” 

“I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz,” the glass says, which Franken included in a chapter devoted specifically to his former colleague, titled “Sophistry.”

Cruz criticized the book at the time, adding that Franken writing an entire chapter about him was “obnoxious and insulting.” 

On Thursday, Cruz responded to Franken’s jab, tweeting, “It’s nice to see that Al has time on his hands to draw.” 

It’s nice to see that Al has time on his hands to draw. https://t.co/YQePwqBiwh

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 8, 2020

Franken, a former “Saturday Night Live” comedian, served in the Senate from 2009 until his resignation in 2018 over allegations of sexual harassment against him.

Franken told The New Yorker in 2019 that he regretted his resignation decision, adding that he would have rather first appeared before the Senate Ethics Committee to provide his own accounts of the allegations. 

The online store for “The Al Franken Podcast” also says that a portion of proceeds for the pint class will be donated to Voto Latino, a nonprofit organization that aims to increase voter registration among Latino and Hispanic populations in the U.S. 

In early September, the voting advocacy group announced it had already registered a total of 280,000 new voters for the 2020 election cycle.