Friday, Oct 18, 2013 11:15 AM EDT

Harry Reid: Ted Cruz is “a laughingstock”

The Senate's majority leader goes off on the Tea Party's favorite senator

By Elias Isquith

Harry Reid is certainly not the first politician to take a shot at Ted Cruz, but his attack might be the most personal.

“Ted Cruz, well, he proved he has a great fundraising operation,” Reid dismissively told the Huffington Post. “But you don’t have to have Harry Reid criticizing him. Republicans criticized him.”

“He is a laughingstock to everybody but him,” Reid continued.

Reid was no less caustic when discussing Cruz’s presidential ambitions, saying, “What has he accomplished other than raising some money for president? And if this man can get the nomination to be the Republican nominee for president, I pity the Republican Party.”

The Senate majority leader then got even more personal in his attack, essentially accusing Cruz of overestimating his own intelligence:

Ted Cruz is smart. He has always been able to talk down to people. He is now in the Senate. People are as smart as he is. He can’t talk down to anyone anymore. But he has still not accepted that in his own head. He still thinks he’s smarter than everybody else. He might be able to work a calculus problem better than I can. But he can’t legislate better than I can.

 http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/harry_reid_ted_cruz_is_a_laughingstock/