Sen. Ted Cruz jumped into the fray between Rep. Matt Gaetz and actor Ron Perlman Monday.
Cruz, a GOP senator from Texas, snapped at Perlman on Twitter just after midnight, Eastern Time, when Perlman took a swipe at Rep. Jim Jordan’s looks.
“Listen Hellboy. You talk good game when you’ve got Hollywood makeup & stuntmen. But I’ll bet $10k–to the nonpolitical charity of your choice–that you couldn’t last 5 min in the wrestling ring w/ @Jim_Jordan w/o getting pinned. You up for it? Or does your publicist say too risky?” he tweeted.
Pretty quickly, Cruz was reminded that Jordan’s record of wrestling is pretty fraught. He’s been accused of being aware the Ohio State wrestling team doctor was molesting players while he was coaching the team. The representative has denied knowing anything of the sort.
Historian Kevin M. Kruse responded sarcastically, “Yes, yes, let’s talk about Jim Jordan’s wrestling days, that’s a smart move here.”
Perlman wrote back, “I tell you what teddy boy, since mentioning jim jordan and wrestling is… problematic, why don’t we say f–k him and just make it you & me. I’ll give 50k to Black Lives Matter and you can keep all the tax payer money you were thinking of spending.”
“I get it, you’re rich. But, apparently, soft. You sure seem scared to wrestle Jordan (whom you keep insulting). Can’t take the heat? Need to get a manicure?” responded Cruz.
Perlman hit back, “Teddy, Teddy, what kind of a muthaf–ka offers to have another guy, probably asleep at the time, kick another guy’s ass?”
He continued to goad Cruz into fighting him one-on-one, but Cruz had not tweeted on the topic again by Monday afternoon.
The original fight began when Gaetz said on Twitter last week that he was planning to write a bill forcing athletes on USSF teams to stand during the anthem. Some U.S. Soccer players such as two-time World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe have made headlines in the past for kneeling during the traditional pre-match playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Perlman responded sharply this weekend, tagging Gaetz and Donald Trump in a tweet that read, “The US Soccer team called and you guessed it… said they couldn’t give any less of a f-k about what you two dipsh-s think.”
The exchanges only got more heated from there, with Gaetz attacking Perlman as a “racial justice warrior” who “had no problem in Hollywood portraying the White Supremacist leader of a motorcycle gang.” Perlman responded by saying it was “So rewarding playing a-h–s on tv. Tell me sir, how is it actually being one?”
Gaetz’s jab at Perlman’s “Sons of Anarchy” role didn’t land as hoped. Hundreds of Twitter users mocked the congressman for attempting to confuse real life with fiction, while others pointed out that his comment about “Sons of Anarchy” wasn’t entirely accurate given that strictly speaking SAMCRO isn’t a white supremacist M.C.