The words of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) came back to haunt him on over the weekend when ABC News This Week host Martha Raddatz asked him if he still believed his own campaign rhetoric calling President-elect Donald Trump a "pathological liar."
On Sunday, Raddatz reminded the Texas senator that he had called Trump a "pathological liar" during the Republican primary.
"He doesn't know the difference between truth and lies," Cruz said in May. "He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth. The man is utterly amoral. Morality does not exist for him."
"Do you regret any of those words?" Raddatz wondered on Sunday.
"It was a hard fought campaign," Cruz said, avoiding the question. "It was hard fought on all sides. And -- and -- and it was vigorous till the end. But at the end of the day, the people have spoken. He won the election, he won the nomination, and he won the general election in a convincing manner. And my focus is on the country."
"We need an administration that fights for the working men and women of this country," the former presidential candidate added.
Raddatz interrupted: "I just go back to those words, 'He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth.' Do you still think Donald Trump is a liar?"
"I'm not going to re-litigate the past," Cruz insisted. "I'm going to focus on the future. I'm going to focus on what's in front of us and on fixing the problems we have."
The senator then quickly pivoted to attack Democrats who he accused of praising recently-deceased Cuban dictator Fidel Castro.
"I hope we don't see Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton and Democrats lining up to lionize a murderous tyrant and thug," he declared. "If you wouldn't go to Pol Pot's funeral or Stalin's funeral or Mao's funeral because they were murdering communist dictators then you shouldn't be doing what Barack Obama and Justin Trudeau are doing, which is celebrating Fidel Castro, a murderous communist dictator."
