Ted Cruz purposely misrepresented a CNBC article on problems Southwest Airlines to attack vaccine mandates.

Here is Leslie Josephs' article that Cruz is lying about: Southwest Airlines shares slide after mass flight cancellations, carrier weighs more cuts

For months Southwest Airlines has been suffering due to COVID, but here is the telling part of the article that Ted Cruz ignored.

The weekend’s issues came amid speculation that they were driven by staff’s excessive sick calls tied to a federal vaccine mandate for government contractors that Southwest told employees this month it would enforce this fall.

Southwest said that was “inaccurate” and “unfounded.”

The airline, like some of its rivals, has been struggling with staffing shortfalls for months. Southwest and other carriers urged staff to take buyouts or leave during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, only to have demand bounce back faster than expected.

Reporter Leslie Josephs responded immediately:

Cruz lied and said she said it was because of the vaccine mandate in her article:

He was immediately contradicted:

Liars gotta lie so Steve Cortes is on the case.

Oh! It's almost like wingers like Ted Cruz decided to use Southwest Airlines' scheduling decisions to lie about the reason in order to kill more people.

Josh Marshall is right:

The blowback was immediate:

The original author of the article has a request: