When veteran host Sean Hannity tried to rein in Texas Sen. Ted Cruz during Wednesday night’s interview, Fox News took an unorthodox detour, they turned up the background music, louder and louder, to drown out the fiery Cruz rant. What followed was political theater at its most delightfully chaotic.
Hannity had brought Cruz on to dissect California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s latest social media antics, his signature Trump-aping troll playbook intended to rile up Republicans. “If he wants to act like President Trump, let’s see if he can pull it off,” Hannity teased, before cutting Cruz loose.
Cruz launched right into it, calling Newsom “very good at being slick,” accusing him of running from facts and playing fast and loose with reality. He didn’t stop there, he mentioned Newsom six times in a span of five minutes. Hannity also piled on, name-checking the heck out of the California governor.
Cruz also took aim at California directly, claiming residents are fleeing the Golden State in droves for Texas because of rising crime and poor leadership. Cruz insisted, arguing that California’s struggles were pushing families and businesses to relocate south of the border into Texas.
Once Cruz declared, “Gavin Newsom and the rest of the Democratic Party exist for one purpose right now, to hate Donald Trump,” the Fox studio took action, in what can only be described as a hilarious mic-squelch. Music began playing softly, then grew louder, until Cruz’s words were nearly swallowed by sound.
Determined not to be silenced, Cruz kept going, shouting over the blaring track, “The Democrats like Gavin Newsom, they are boiling, they are unhappy… The corporate media, they are boiling, they’re unhappy,” even as the audio blasted harder.
Ted Cruz treating his posts like Cancun:
Gets caught, then disappears. https://t.co/SOWCF5AA3o pic.twitter.com/aP5T7S1Y0L
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) August 14, 2025
Then came the Xi Jinping pivot. Cruz ranted about Newsom hosting the Chinese leader in California in 2023. By now, the music was full-on crescendo mode, yet Cruz soldiered on. He barked, “He cleaned up all the homeless people and drug addicts,” raising his voice above the din, and then it was game over, as music finished him off after a grueling 33 seconds of unapologetic crusade.
Hannity swooped in, speaking over the soundtrack to give Cruz a pat on the back, congratulating him for Texas lawmakers’ bold redistricting push.
When Xi Jinping came to visit San Francisco, Gavin Newsom cleaned the city and removed the homeless and the drug addicts.
But if Newsom could clean up the streets for the CCP, why doesn’t he do it for you and your kids?
More on Verdict: https://t.co/PWNnmQ24yx pic.twitter.com/mXU5mSJd0F
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 20, 2025
This spectacle follows Cruz’s math misfire, which became meme fodder last week. He claimed California Democrats had a “43-9 Dem advantage (83%)” that would shift to “51-0 (100%)” under Newsom’s proposal. Newsom promptly corrected him, “43 + 9 = 52, not 51. Please learn math.” Cruz deleted the post, only for Newsom to mock him further, “Ted Cruz treating his posts like Cancun: Gets caught, then disappears,” referencing Cruz’s infamous vacation during Texas’s 2021 winter storm crisis.
The whole segment felt equal parts political takedown, televised parody, and PR meltdown. Cruz tried to go scorched-earth, but Fox News answered with volume instead of rebuttal. In the end, it wasn’t facts that drowned Cruz out, it was the studio’s gavel, cranked to full blast.
