Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the endorsement of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker this week in the lead-up to the state’s Republican presidential primary, told a Wisconsin radio host yesterday that he was “inspired” by Walker’s notorious stand against unions in his state.
In 2011, Walker signed legislation stripping public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights, survived a recall election, and came back to severely weaken private-sector unions as well. The right-wing celebrity that this brought Walker was not enough, however, to win him the Republican presidential nomination, although he did say that battling union members had prepared him to fight ISIS.
In an interview with Wisconsin talk radio host Charlie Sykes yesterday, Cruz expressed his support for so-called “right-to-work” laws that are designed to weaken unions and said that Walker’s battle with union members had “inspired” him.
“Absolutely, I think right to work, it’s a fundamental right,” Cruz said, “and I think we need to have government that sides with the working men and women of this country rather than with special interests, rather than with union bosses.”
He added that “when Gov. Scott Walker and millions of men and women across Wisconsin stood up and took on the union bosses, it was powerful, it inspired people across the country, it inspired me.”
He told Sykes that “what y’all have done in the state of Wisconsin is exactly what we need to do in Washington, is we need a president who stands with the working men and women of this country against the special interests and lobbyists in Washington. “
