Texas Senator Ted Cruz shared an article on Twitter Monday night with the headline, “Jobless Americans have few options as benefits expire.” He captioned the tweet, “Um, get a job? There are millions of vacancies, and small businesses across the Nation are desperate for workers.”
The Republican lawmaker’s tweet was shared on Labor Day, a holiday created to honor and recognize the American labor movement and the works and contributions of laborers to the development and achievements of the United States.
Cruz’s message received thousands of responses from people slamming him for his insensitive remarks.
“Can you tell us where to get a job like yours?” one user wrote in a reply liked more than 10,000 times. She noted Cruz was able to be “on social media all day,” that he has “full healthcare and pension” and that he earns “$175,000 a year,” with “8 weeks paid vacation.”
“What do you do again?” another tweeted. “Other than ignore your constituents while they freeze to death to vacation in Cancun and incite insurrections that kill people, injure hundreds, nearly end democracy and make you a traitor that’s constitutionally ineligible to remain in office?”
Another Twitter user reposted an image of Cruz in the U.S. Capitol in July of this year coming to vote on legislation in workout clothes, telling reporters that the vote was scheduled “in the middle” of his basketball game.
Some responses were less witty and more straightforward, with one user writing, “Workers were thrown away like trash while companies took PPP money and didn’t keep employees. Now those companies want employees to deal with the public, who don’t mind if they die. Want people in the job market? Make sick leave and healthcare universal.”
Cruz was re-elected to a six-year term in the U.S. Senate in 2018 after narrowly defeating popular Democrat Beto O’Rourke.
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