Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) threw a bit of a petulant tantrum on Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, snapping at Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) for informing him that his time had expired. Ossoff, a freshman senator and one of the committee’s newest additions, chaired his first-ever hearing as the panel considered several executive and judicial nominations.
At the end of one of his five-minute Q&A segments with a nominee, Cruz continued to follow up with additional questions, prompting Ossoff to tell the Cancun enthusiast his time was up. “You know this is a committee where we’ve had a little bit of comity and I recognize that Sen. Ossoff is new, but generally we don’t have the chairman trying to jump in 30 seconds in,” the Texas senator sneered. Meanwhile, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) noted that the “floor is mine” while Ossoff smacked his gavel and declared: “There will be order!”
The crosstalk would continue for a bit before Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), whom Cruz had invoked during his questioning, also jumped in to object to Cruz’s “mansplaining” and supposed mischaracterization of previous comments she made about originalism. Those two would then go at it for a few moments, with Hirono noting that Cruz “always has to get the last word” and the Republican lawmaker insisting the “record is clear” about what Hirono said.
At the end of it all, Padilla eventually got a chance to ask his questions and Cruz took two dramatic sips from a water bottle before walking out of the chambers.
