Critics have blasted U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz for spending more time podcasting than legislating. And on Monday, Big D’s mayor appeared on an episode of the Verdict with Ted Cruz — the same day he shared a photo to X posing alongside GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
As with Cruz, detractors have accused Johnson of frequently playing hooky; Monday also happened to be the day that the mayor failed to attend a meeting about finding a successor to replace the departing city manager. Funny timing, that.Always good to spend time with my longtime friend and a great friend to Dallas, @DanPatrick. We discussed how we can improve the safety of cities across Texas and our country by electing more @GOP mayors! @GOPMayorsAssn @TexasGOP pic.twitter.com/gUaUVo8PFx
— Mayor Eric L. Johnson (@Johnson4Dallas) February 27, 2024
The hour-ish-long Verdict episode had plenty of standout moments, but we’ve compiled some of the top highlights and lowlights. You’re wel— er, we’re sorry.
Top Highlights
1. Alert the press! Cruz, a man who's bravely railed against critical race theory, actually acknowledged that racism in the U.S. is real. Cruz explains that his father, a Cuban immigrant, had to work to be “three times as good” as his American counterparts to get hired.
“When you take individual responsibility — and that’s not to say that racism doesn’t exist,” Cruz said. “Racism absolutely exists.” Ahem, excuse me, senator? Nikki Haley would like a word.
2. Johnson astutely points out that Black people are better off today than they were right after the Civil War and during the civil rights era.
3. Some critics have labeled Johnson a turncoat for fleeing the Democratic Party. But he explained to Cruz that the liberal side of life was never quite the right fit.
“Once I left the party, they were honest; their statements were very interesting,” Johnson said. “You read statements from the state party, they all say some pretty interesting things, like, ‘He was always a terrible Democrat. Good riddance. We’re glad he’s gone.’ It’s like, I’m not sure they understood what they were admitting to.”
4. In another sad-that-it’s-surprising move, Cruz (sort of) championed a slogan oft-decried by the right: Black lives matter. He referenced it while pointing out that the “defund the police” movement had largely degenerated into a political dud.
“The effort to defund the police is advanced by movements and activists and billionaire donors who are embracing the slogan ‘Black lives matter,’” Cruz said. “Now, as a statement, ‘Black lives matter’ is unequivocally, absolutely true. But the undeniable fact is that when you defund the police, inevitably, more African Americans are murdered.”
Top Lowlights
1. Things got pretty ick from the jump. In his intro, Cruz brought up Johnson’s race for seemingly no reason.“Eric is the current Mayor of Dallas. Eric was — he went to Harvard College,” Cruz started out. “He went to University of Pennsylvania Law School. He got a master's from my alma mater, Princeton. ... He was an elected Democrat in the state Legislature — and Eric is African American.”
“I am,” Johnson replied, correctly.
Cruz then broke into an uncomfortable fit of laughter, attempting to backpedal by explaining that “it’s an audio show,” so he needed to be descriptive.
Sure, buddy.
2. Here we go again. Johnson stated twice more that he’d received 98.7% of the vote in his mayoral reelection bid last May. Previous reportage, however, casts doubt on this claim, with outlets such as D Magazine and The Dallas Morning News putting the actual tally at around 93%.
3. Johnson noted that he’d had problems with his former party because of who he is deep down. He explained that he was born into a religious family in West Dallas, and that church was majorly important.
“I'm not even sure we had a real awareness of what was going on around us politically,” he said, “but a very strong sense of just right, wrong: ‘This is how you treat people. This is this is how you behave. You follow the law, you obey the law. You work hard, an honest day's work, honest day's pay,’ that sort of — that was just always in the background.”
Forgive us if we’ve missed something, but don’t churchgoers tend to view (alleged) adultery as wrong?
4. It’s been roughly five months since Johnson came out to the world as a Republican, but he’s picked up conserva-speak in no time.
The Dallas mayor regurgitated right-wing rhetoric throughout the episode, leaning into terms like “rent-a-protester” when describing police-reform demonstrators and alleging a systematic “ballot harvesting operation” in cities like Dallas.
5. The “most fundamental civil rights issue in the entire country” today, according to Cruz? School choice.
6. When asked how the GOP can gain more Black voters moving forward, Johnson fumbled the ball. A rambling answer ensued.
The mayor started out his longwinded reply by thanking Cruz for the question, saying “this is stuff that I’ve been thinking about my whole life.”
By “my whole life,” perhaps he meant to say “since Sept. 22.”
