Ohio Gov. John Kasich on Friday knocked 2016 GOP rival Ted Cruz for saying last year on the Senate floor that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell lied to Mr. Cruz and other senators — a charge the Texas Republican has not backed down from in recent days.
A questioner at a town hall had asked Mr. Kasich how he would get both sides to work together, and Mr. Kasich offered criticism of both President Obama and Mr. Cruz.
“The president of the United States does not know how to work with Congress. He just doesn’t [know] how to do it,” Mr. Kasich said at the event in Watertown, New York, ahead of Tuesday’s GOP presidential primary in the state.
“We got a guy in our party running for president [who] called the majority leader a liar,” Mr. Kasich said, referring to Mr. Cruz. “I mean, how do you think you’re going to work with people if you’re calling ’em a liar?”
Mr. Kasich also recalled when GOP Rep. Joe Wilson famously shouted “You lie!” during a 2009 presidential address to Congress after Mr. Obama said his health care proposals would not cover illegal immigrants.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Mr. Kasich said. “The guy’s the president. I may disagree with him on a hundred out of a hundred, but I’m not going to call the president a liar. And then the president himself doesn’t know how to deal with the Congress.”
Mr. Cruz didn’t back off his own line this week, and has said an apology to Mr. McConnell is not forthcoming.
“Every word I said there was true and accurate,” Mr. Cruz said at an MSNBC town hall Thursday. “No one has disputed a word I said. The reaction in the Senate is how dare you say that out loud? They’re not upset that somebody lied to them. I mean, that’s the amazing thing.”
Speaking about holding a vote to revive the Export-Import bank last July, Mr. Cruz said he couldn’t believe Mr. McConnell would tell a “flat-out lie” — a line that drew swift condemnation from Mr. Cruz’s GOP Senate colleagues.
Mr. McConnell said soon afterward that he had said publicly for months that supporters of the bank, which provides loans to companies in an effort to boost sales of U.S. goods overseas, should be allowed a vote on it. Critics of the bank, like Mr. Cruz, deride it as corporate welfare.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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