Fox News anchor Chris Wallace mocked Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday by likening his defense of President Donald Trump to Japanese soldiers who refused to accept defeat after World War II.
Cruz fired back, snapping that Wallace “beclowned himself with a shamefully biased debate performance” and “continues to demonstrate his rank partisanship.”
During a segment Sunday on his Fox News program, Wallace stated, “It would seem to me that Republicans on Capitol Hill have a role to play in this, a very few of them have said ‘look, you pursue your legal options but damp down the rhetoric,’ like Mitt Romney, like Pat Toomey. There are a lot who are just silent and there are some, I mentioned Ted Cruz, who are like the Japanese soldiers who come out 30 years after the end of the war and out of the jungle and say, ‘Is the fight still going on?’”
Fox News’ own Mark Levin, disgusted with his colleague’s unprovoked attack on Cruz, issued a blistering tweet, writing, “This is way out of line. Keep your politics to yourself, Mr. Journalist. You’re not just showing ankle, you’ve undressed yourself.”
This is way out of line. Keep your politics to yourself, Mr. Journalist. You’re not just showing ankle, you’ve undressed yourself.https://t.co/W4KOcRrgPe
— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) November 8, 2020
Cruz followed with a tweet of his own: “Chris Wallace, who beclowned himself with a shamefully biased debate performance—universally panned—continues to demonstrate his rank partisanship. Urging that we follow the law & that election recounts be actually completed is not somehow undermining democracy.”
Chris Wallace, who beclowned himself with a shamefully biased debate performance—universally panned—continues to demonstrate his rank partisanship.
Urging that we follow the law & that election recounts be actually completed is not somehow undermining democracy. https://t.co/vLVUpe23OT
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 8, 2020
Wallace has been refuting Trump’s claim that there was voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
“You heard John Roberts just said there is a debate in the White House. Some people are saying give up gracefully, talk about the unity of the nation, and concede the election. That doesn’t seem to be certainly based on what the president said around 6:30 eastern last night,” Wallace said.
Wallace said Trump has “every right to challenge the election count in a lot of these states.”
“So far, you’re not seeing the kind of mass fraud of a scale that would be enough to overturn an election that would lead to victory,” Wallace said.
Wallace said the difference between the 2000 Bush-Gore legal dispute over the Florida electoral process and the current situation is that it had a legitimate issue: the margin was 500 votes and there was a controversy over “butterfly ballots.”
WATCH:
Chris Wallace on @FoxNews, moments after @brianstelter reported that Fox execs don't want talent calling Biden President-Elect: "There is every reason to believe that Biden is going to continue to advance his lead in Pennsylvania. If he does that…then he is the next president." pic.twitter.com/2BCPyDxGmY
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) November 6, 2020
Wallace said, “there is every reason to believe that Biden is going to continue to advance his lead.”
“With Pennsylvania now, the president is trailing by 6,800 votes. On election night, he was leading by a total of more than half-a-million votes,” he said.
Wallace said that even if Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina were given to Trump, Biden would reach the “270 mark.”
“If he does that, and if the news organizations declare that he has won Pennsylvania, then he is the next president, even without any of the other states on that list,” Wallace said.