Richard Linklater, the Oscar-nominated director behind such hits as “Dazed and Confused” and “School of Rock,” just stepped into the heated battle for the Texas Senate seat with a 30-second haymaker aimed squarely at Ted Cruz.
‘If somebody called my wife a dog, and said my daddy was in on the Kennedy assassination, I wouldn’t be kissin’ their ass.’
That’s the tough-talking Texan whom Linklater gave a voice to in the ad, which roasts Cruz as a coward for taking abuse from Trump during the campaign back in 2016 with pointed tweets like this:
Lyin' Ted Cruz just used a picture of Melania from a G.Q. shoot in his ad. Be careful, Lyin' Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 23, 2016
Yet now, Cruz has fallen in line and remains a staunch supporter of Trump, instead of, as the ad suggests, standing up for himself like a true Texan.
“You stick a finger in their chest and give ’em a few choice words,” the man in the ad, played by actor Sonny Carl Davis, continued. “Or you drag their ass out by the woodshed and kick their ass, Ted.”
Cruz has been using his “Tough as Texas” slogan to appeal to the state’s “everything’s bigger,” gun-toting, cowboy culture, while slamming his opponent, Beto O’Rourke, as some soft liberal looking to turn Texas into California.
Read: Why Cruz will beat O’Rourke in the Texas Senate race
Linklater, a resident of Austin, turns the table on Cruz with this video, which was funded by the Fire Ted Cruz PAC and released on Monday night:
