Ted Cruz Dismisses Leaked Maria Bartiromo Audio on 2020 Election

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas has denounced MSNBC host Ari Melber for airing a recording in which Cruz "secretly" discussed a plan to block President Joe Biden's 2020 election win.

Melber aired clips from a January 2, 2021, phone call between Cruz and Fox News host Maria Bartiromo during his MSNBC show The Beat on Tuesday. The clips featured Cruz, who objected to Biden's win during the joint session of Congress that began on January 6, discussing plans to form a commission to investigate false claims that massive fraud was to blame for former President Donald Trump's election loss.

"I think that the country deserves to have a credible assessment of these claims and what the evidence shows," Cruz says in the recording. "And the mechanism to try to force that is denying certification on [January] 6th."

Cruz fired back at Melber shortly after the private conversation aired, arguing that he had made the "exact same" comments during a Fox News interview with Bartiromo on the following day and while objecting to Biden's win on January 6.

"This @msnbc [clown] is breathlessly reporting that I 'secretly' said in a phone call ... the EXACT same thing I said on national television the next morning!" Cruz tweeted. "And then said again on the Senate floor four days later."

A Cruz spokesperson declined to comment further when contacted by Newsweek.

An additional clip aired by Melber features Bartiromo asking Cruz who would be "deciding who gets inaugurated" as president. The senator suggested that the proposed commission would have the final say.

"It would be the results of the commission and what they find," Cruz said in response to Bartiromo. "And if they found credible evidence of fraud, that undermines confidence in the electoral results in any given state, they would report on that."

Although Melber said that the clips represented new evidence that Cruz was "trying to steal the race," the Texas Republican did make very similar comments during his on-air interview with Bartiromo.

"We ought to have a serious, fair process and tribunal to consider these claims," Cruz said on January 3, 2021. "We can do it in 10 days, before the inauguration."

"If there's evidence of fraud, and it's substantial and significant enough to affect the results in a particular state," he continued. "Then those election results would have to be set aside."

Cruz, alongside six other Republican senators and four senators-elect, also proposed forming the commission in a press release issued on January 2, 2021.

"Congress should immediately appoint an Electoral Commission, with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed states," the release states.

"Once completed, individual states would evaluate the Commission's findings and could convene a special legislative session to certify a change in their vote, if needed," it continues.

Additionally, Cruz made an almost identical plea while objecting to Biden's win during the joint session of Congress on January 6, arguing that a "credible" commission needed to "consider the evidence."

Newsweek has reached out via email to Melber for comment.

There is no evidence of any fraud that would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election, despite Trump and many of his allies continuing to baselessly claim that the election was "stolen" more than two years into Biden's presidency.

The election results had already been certified by every state and the Electoral College prior to being finalized by Congress after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Trump's efforts to challenge the outcome also repeatedly failed in court.