This interview with fellow right-winger Tucker Carlson:

TRANSCRIPT.

Carlson: How many people live in Iran, by the way?

Cruz: I don’t know the population.

Carlson: At all?

Cruz: No. I don’t know the population.

Carlson: You don’t know the population of the country you seek to topple?

Cruz: Uh… how many people are there in Iran?

Carlson: 92 million.

Cruz (gestures with an air of finality): Okay. Yeah, uh, I –

Carlson: How could you not know that?

Cruz: I, uh, I don’t sit around memorizing population tables.

Carlson: Well, it’s kind of relevant, because you’re calling for the overthrow of the government.

Cruz: Why is it relevant whether it’s… it’s 90 million or 80 million or a hundred million… why, why is that relevant?

Carlson: Because if you don’t know anything about the country–

Cruz: I didn’t say I didn’t know anything about the country.

Carlson: Okay, what’s the ethnic mix of Iran?

Cruz (pauses, thinks, gestures dramatically): They are Persians –

Carlson: What percent?

Cruz: and predominantly Shia. Okay, okay, this is cute. Okay.

Carlson: No, it’s not. You don’t know anything about Iran, so actually –

Cruz: Okay. I am not the Tucker Carlson expert on Iran who says –

Carlson: You’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of the government, and you don’t know anything about the country.

Cruz: No, you’re the one who doesn’t know anything about the country. You’re the one who claims they’re not trying to murder Donald Trump.

Carlson: No, I’m not saying that.

Cruz: You can’t figure out if it was a good idea to kill General Soleimani and said it was bad.

Carlson: You don’t believe they’re trying to murder Trump, because you’re not calling for military strikes against them in retaliation, and if you really believed that…

Cruz: We are carrying out military strikes TODAY.

Carlson: You said Israel was.

Cruz: Right. With our help. I said we. Israel is leading them, but we’re supporting them.

Carlson: Well, this is… you’re breaking news here, because the US government last night denied, the national security spokesman Alex Pfeiffer denied, on behalf of Trump, that we were acting on Israel’s behalf in any offensive capacity.

Cruz: No, we’re not bombing them. Israel’s bombing them.

Carlson: You just said we were.

Cruz: I…uh… we are supporting Israel as it…

Carlson: This is high stakes. You’re a senator: if you’re saying the United States government is at war with Iran right now, people are listening.

Cruz: Okay. I, uh (splutters)