In a recent online interview on Bloomberg Politics, host Mark Halperin peppered Texas Senator and presidential hopeful Ted Cruz with a series of increasingly bizarre questions about his Cuban background, culminating in a request for Cruz to welcome Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders to the presidential race—in Spanish.
Questions Halperin put to Cruz included:
“Senator, people are really interested in you and your identity, so I just want to ask you, as a historical matter, when you filled out your application to Princeton, to Harvard Law school, did you list yourself as an Hispanic?”
“Do you have a favorite Cuban food, Cuban dish?”
“Do you like Cuban music, do you have a favorite Cuban singer?”
Finally, Halperin concluded the interview with this request: "I want to give you the opportunity to directly welcome your colleague Senator Sanders to the race, and I'd like you to do it, if you would, en español."
Cruz humored Halperin for most of the interview, stating that his favorite Cuban dish was “picadillo,” but as for his musical taste, “in that I’m much more of a Texan.” But he declined to welcome Sanders to the race in Spanish, stating “I’m going to stick to English, but I appreciate the invitation, Señor.”
Commenting on the interview, left-leaning columnist Ruben Navarrette wrote in the San Jose Mercury News that Halperin treated “a U.S. senator like a trained seal” and that “as a Hispanic, I felt like I was watching a college fraternity have fun with racial stereotypes, like when staging a ‘border party’ where people show up in serapes and fake mustaches.”
Halperin’s show is titled With All Due Respect. After his interview with Cruz, a name change might be in order.
