Texas Senator Ted Cruz has a famously awkward relationship with the truth. In February 2021, during a historically bad winter storm that knocked out power and drinking water to millions of Texans, Cruz was spotted heading to Cancún to escape his “freezing” home. He justified this by saying he was simply accompanying his daughters to Mexico, but if you believed that, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
So perhaps take Cruz’s latest claim that he’s a gamer with a grain of salt. The story came via a TikTok video in which the recorder asked him what he thought of the latest Minecraft update. Cruz replied “I play a lot of video games, but not Minecraft, unfortunately.”
Cruz has previously said he was an arcade gamer in the 1980s, professing to be a fan of Galaga, Space Invaders, and Centipede. He also apparently owned a NES while in Princeton and spent some time playing Super Mario Bros.
Now he admits that he doesn’t own a console and his more recent video gaming habits may earn him some disdain from hardcore gamers. According to a previous interview with The Daily Beast, he’s addicted to Candy Crush and sometimes plays Plants vs Zombies.
But honestly, given the damage Cruz does with his political power, we should really encourage him to spend more time gaming. Anyone interested in starting a fund-raiser to get him a mid-range gaming PC and subscription to Final Fantasy XIV? While I’ve got some qualms about inflicting Ted Cruz on the unsuspecting world of Eorzea, at least thousands of hours of fantasy role-playing would limit his scope to a virtual world rather than our real one.
