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Ted Cruz refuses reporter's request to put on a mask: 'You're welcome to step away if you like'
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Ted Cruz refuses reporter's request to put on a mask: 'You're welcome to step away if you like'

Made his point

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) hit out at a reporter after the journalist requested the senator put on a mask during a Wednesday news conference.

What are the details?

Cruz held a news conference Wednesday with other Republican senators in order to discuss the crisis at the U.S southern border.

In a video of the conference, a reporter can be heard asking, "Would you mind putting a mask on for us?"

Cruz responded, "Yeah, when I'm talking to the TV camera I'm not going to wear a mask, and all of us have been immunized," gesturing to his fellow lawmakers.

The reporter pressed further and insisted that Cruz putting on a mask would "make us feel better."

Cruz, however, fired back, "You're welcome to step away if you like," and added that the "whole point of a vaccine" was so that he no longer had to wear a mask.

It seems fair to point out that White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who does not wear a mask during her White House press briefings, and has defended that move by saying, "If health and medical experts told me I should wear a mask while I was briefing, I would do it. But I am following the guidelines they are giving us, as is the president."

Cruz on Thursday morning shared a clip of his interaction with the reporter and captioned it, "Lefty reporters have lost their minds. #commonsense."

Anything else?

Cruz in October also pushed back on wearing masks during a gaggle outside a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room.

A CNN reporter at the time asked if Cruz would put on his mask to deliver remarks, to which the Texas lawmaker curtly responded, "No, because I'm going to talk to the TV. Stand six feet apart, which is what the CDC guideline [is]."

Cruz insisted that a mask was unnecessary and said that he was clearly standing six feet from others at the time.

This story has been updated.

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