During his latest Fox News appearance, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas apparently thought it would be a good idea to criticize New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani for owning a home in Uganda, where the mayor was born before his family ultimately moved to the United States when he was age 7.
The senator did not, however, fully think through his line of attack.
As part of a condemnation of authoritarian leaders who enrich themselves while in positions of power, Cruz told host Sean Hannity, “You know who does own a pied-a-terre? That would be Comrade Mamdani, who has a palatial estate in Uganda. But that’s always the case.
“[Cuba’s Fidel] Castro was a billionaire. [Russia’s Vladimir] Putin is a billionaire. The leaders of communist regimes are always rich. They steal and rob from those they govern,” he continued.
If the Texan wants to argue that tyrants invariably line their pockets while corrupting their countries’ political systems, he’ll get no argument from me. Indeed, history is filled with similar examples, and it’s one of the reasons why liberal democracies, complete with checks and balances and a commitment to the rule of law, go hand in hand with broad economic prosperity.
But if Cruz is concerned about corrupt authoritarians exploiting their respective political systems and amassing enormous wealth while in powerful offices, I can’t wait to introduce the GOP senator to his party’s president.
As a candidate, Donald Trump vowed to reject “the politics of personal profit” and to stand up to those who have gone to the nation’s capital and “lined their pockets.” But as a president, Trump has practically sent his pants out to the tailors to get bigger pockets.
In the first year of his second term, the Republican pulled in at least $2.2 billion, including more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency-related income, according to his latest annual financial disclosure.
No other president in American history has ever seen such financial gains while in office, and as a recent analysis from The New York Times explained, “Mr. Trump’s profits are a haul once unimaginable for any leader of a liberal democracy, particularly a sitting American president. No modern Western leader has ever publicly disclosed such big windfalls while in office. The Trump family’s earnings, experts said, have moved him into an echelon of enrichment more associated with strongmen in Russia and Turkey.”
Cruz probably didn’t intend to take a veiled rhetorical shot at the incumbent American president, but while his comments missed the mark, they didn’t do Trump any favors.
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