Senate

The Lincoln Project co-founder says post-Trump he’s going after Cruz

by Zack Budryk - 01/21/21 9:43 AM ET

The Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson said that now that former President Trump is out of office, he intends to turn the super PAC’s attention to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

Wilson told the Texas politics-focused podcast “Y’all-itics” the group would target Cruz over his support of a Republican challenge to the certification of President Biden’s victory earlier this month.

“We all know Ted Cruz is sort of a political force of nature. He is what he is. You either hate him or you hate him,” Wilson said. “And he is a guy who went so far over the edge, not just to appease Donald Trump and Trump’s base, but because he felt like [Sen.] Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) had gotten out ahead of him on it.”

Hawley, who, like Cruz, is seen as a possible 2024 GOP contender, was the first to announce he would challenge the results of the election. A number of Republicans signed on to the challenge, but some of them dropped their objections after a mob of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Cruz and Hawley continued their challenge.

Wilson called the effort “overtly seditious” and suggested the group would target other participants in the effort as well, saying “for as much as everyone sort of cordially hates Ted Cruz, this also about the fact there is a caucus of these guys right now.”

“These guys have realized that this was a very, very bad move legally, politically, morally, constitutionally and so that’s why they are in a position right now where they are not out beating their chest and saying ‘I am the alpha male in inheritor to the MAGA fortunes,’ ” he added.

Wilson went on to predict that the intraparty dispute over Trump’s continued role in the Republican party would lead to the emergence of a third party, adding “I think the traditional Republican, economic, social and fiscal conservatism is basically dead.”

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week that the former president has talked to associates about the possibility of forming a right-wing populist third party.