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“Daily Show” correspondent Jordan Klepper on Wednesday clowned Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) after his “little” comment launched a “semantic battle” in a contentious interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
Cruz — in a nearly two-hour interview where the two clashed on Israel’s war with Iran as President Donald Trump weighs getting involved with the conflict — declared that “we are carrying out military strikes today.”
Those remarks seemingly puzzled Carlson.
“You said Israel was?” Carlson asked.
“Right, with our help,” replied Cruz before adding, “I said ‘we,’ Israel is leading them but we’re supporting them.”
Carlson turned back to Cruz’s initial word choice, pointing to a White House spokesperson essentially denying that the U.S. was acting in a “defensive” capacity on behalf of Israel.
Cruz swiftly responded, “We’re not bombing them, Israel’s bombing them.”
“You just said ‘we’ were,” Carlson replied.
“We are supporting Israel —,” said Cruz, before Carlson interjected.
“This is high stakes,” Carlson noted.
Klepper couldn’t help but mock the back-and-forth.
″‘We! I! You!’ For the party that promised no confusion around pronouns, this is really confusing,” he said.
Moments earlier, Klepper turned to a separate fiery exchange from the interview where the senator asked the former Fox News host why the population of Iran — a figure he couldn’t name — was “relevant.”
“Well, because if you don’t know anything about the country —,” Carlson began.
“I didn’t say I don’t know anything about the —,” said Cruz before Carlson chimed in.
“OK, what’s the ethnic mix of Iran?” Carlson asked.
Klepper pressed pause on the clip from the clash: “Oh no! Not ethnic mixes. You don’t want to go toe-to-toe with Tucker Carlson on ethnic mixes. That’s his best subject.”
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Watch more of Klepper’s Wednesday monologue on “The Daily Show.”
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