U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R) "hasn't done a whole lot" for his own state, according to a man who is trying to challenge his Senate seat.
Democratic Texas state Sen. Roland Gutierrez appeared on MSNBC's Yasmin Vossoughian Reports on Saturday, and he cast Ted Cruz as a do-nothing politician who likes to rant on his podcast instead of crafting thoughtful legislation. Gutierrez announced he would be challenging Cruz on Monday.
Gutierrez, known for his calls for police accountability in the wake of the Uvalde shooting in Texas, told Vossoughian that a successful Senator would "have a real conversation with the people" of Texas about the high costs of Medicare and energy, and about the state's power grid being "completely broken."
"These are things that Ted Cruz could do and solve and fix, but he refuses --- he refuses to do them," Gutierrez said. "We have to have stakeholders and public officials that are simply going to do their jobs. Don't just talk about it. Don't just pretend that you care. Do something. and Ted Cruz really has not done a whole lot."
Asked about which issues matter most to him, Gutierrez mentioned gun reform, Medicaid expansion, raising the minimum wage, and women's reproductive rights. He added:
"We are going to talk about women's reproductive rights, for sure, because in Texas if a woman gets pregnant and has an unwanted pregnancy or gets raped or is a victim of incest, she can't do anything about it. We are going have a real discussion on those types of issues and we're going to talk about the grit and everything that is broken. Here you cannot just yell about it every week on your podcast. You cannot just scare us all with this immigrant horde, this invasion that you claim, and yet do nothing about it."
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He also called out Cruz for his infamous Cancun trip.
"Even when it came to when we needed him most, he got on a plane, flew to Cancun. We didn't expect him to fix the lights, we expected him to be there with us."
