Ted Cruz Slams Both Journalists & Immigrants

In a wholly unsurprising development, illegal immigration became a central topic of discussion during Tuesday night's GOP presidential debate. Even less surprising was Donald Trump’s proposed solution: Build a wall! However, one slightly surprising comment on the matter came from Ted Cruz, who found in the discussion an opportunity to insult — wait for it — the media. Cruz’s argument, if you want to call it that, was that the press would be more sympathetic to anti-immigration arguments if more immigrants had journalism degrees. Because then they’d presumably be taking the jobs of hard-working American reporters. Zing!

“The politics of [immigration] would be very, very different if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming and driving down the wages in the press,” Cruz said. “Then, we would be seeing stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation.”

Cruz’s quip was popular with the Republican crowd, which always likes a good dig at the media. Of course, plenty of journalists don’t have journalism degrees — yours truly being one of them. And even if they did, a sideways jab at the press has little to do with the merits of the immigration debate itself. In any event, Twitter had a good time with Cruz’s comments.

Apparently, Cruz hasn't been paying much attention to the slow demise of the journalistic profession in recent decades. Many journalists took to Twitter to point out that they don't actually make much money at all, so driving down the wages would be nearly impossible.

Maybe find another way to shoehorn your press-hating into the debate, Mr. Cruz?