WATCH: Steve Schmidt Takes Apart ‘Historically Despicable’ Ted Cruz

For the first time in a long time, Ted Cruz appeared on a non-Fox news program this weekend. It didn’t go well for him. The Texas senator was clearly uncomfortable trying to explain his reasoning for backing Donald Trump’s election fraud claims.

But still, Cruz defended the claims that are based on no evidence and have no merit. When asked about the GOP lawmaker today on Nicolle Wallace’s show, Steve Schmidt referred to him as ‘historically despicable.

The former Republican strategist told Wallace, “Well this is a historically despicable person, Nicolle. He ranks right up there with Joe McCarthy. He’s a demagogue. He’s a liar. He is as irresponsible a United States senator as there has ever been in the history of the United States. He arrived in the Senate and has been a vandal towards our institutions and towards the idea of the truth and delivering it to the American people.”

"These political extremists are in charge of the Republican Party. We've known that. We are seeing a Republican Party continuing to metastasize. The autocratic moment is evolving. The threat is deepening" – @SteveSchmidtSES w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/NfDyaGjf0C

— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) November 22, 2021

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“When you look at somebody like Ted Cruz, you know he’s lying,” Schmidt continued. “Everybody knows he’s lying. Ted Cruz knows he’s lying. But extraordinary cynicism coupled with the type of propaganda that comes out of Fox News and the right wing can turn that nonsense into reality.”

The pundit closed, “He is a truly despicable figure at a moment of real crisis. History will judge him very, very harshly should American democracy prevail in the years of fight that lie ahead between this extremist movement that is gaining strength, not decreasing in strength.”