Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) on Wednesday posted a parody video online depicting his Senate Democratic colleagues wearing photoshopped sombreros and cartoonishly large mustaches, taking a shot at Democrats who voted against a GOP proposal to fund the government.
“The 44 Senate Democrats who voted for [Sen. Chuck] Schumer’s Shutdown should know that the Sombrero posting will continue until they re-open our government,” Cruz wrote in a caption to the video, which features a montage of Democratic senators with crudely animated sombreros and mustaches pasted over their heads and faces.
The video runs through the images of Democrats while playing an altered version of the 1990s-era Latino dance hit, Macarena.
It tweaks the song’s refrain, Macarena, to MAGA-rena and includes lyrics sung in an artificial intelligence-created version of President Trump’s voice. Some of the lines include, “Kamala’s never going to be beat me in November, Donald’s going to make the country better than you can remember” and, referring to former President Biden, “vote for me, Joe just peed on himself for the third time this week.”
The post appears to be inspired by Trump’s recent social media post that depicted House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) sporting a similar AI-generated sombrero and mustache.
The president’s video featured Jeffries and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as they were speaking to reporters following a meeting at the White House ahead of the shutdown. It also included dubbed audio that made Schumer appear to lament the political figures of his party while Jeffries stood to the side in the photoshopped Mexican-style hat and facial hair.
Jeffries wasn’t amused by the stunt and called the video “racist” and “bigoted” while Schumer criticized Trump for “trolling away on the internet like a 10-year-old.”
Vice President Vance defended the president’s post, however, calling it “funny” and merely “joking and having a good time.”
