Ted Cruz

Well, the New York Times headline says, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, hardline cleric who made Iran a regional power, is dead at 86.

Which is just ridiculous.

And I'll say, Mark Halperin had an amusing take on it.

He said that headline was a little bit like a headline, quote,

Jeffrey Dahmer, hungry Wisconsin man, passes away.

Yeah, it's not far off.

While technically accurate, it conveys, you know, approval of the conduct.

And in fact, I want to.

In fact, that New York Times headline is as ridiculous as the older Washington Post headline that read, Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, austere religious scholar at the helm of Islamic State, dies at 48.

I mean, it's just absurd, but it's actually, it's not the worst.

The Washington Post wrote an obituary for the Ayatollah that if Saturday Night Live had done this, they couldn't have made it more absurd.

I'm going to read you a paragraph from it.

With his bushy white beard and easy smile, Ayatollah Khomeini cut a more avuncular figure in public than his perpetually scowling but much more revered mentor.

And he was known to be fond of Persian poetry and classic Western novels, especially Victor Hugo's Les Miserables.

Some Iranians knew Ayatollah Khamenei before he became supreme leader, described him as a, quote, closet moderate.

Look, that is sick.

This is the same Ayatollah who regularly chants death to America and death to Israel.

This is the same Ayatollah that set the goal of creating nuclear weapons, I believe, for the purpose of using those nuclear weapons.

This is the same Ayatollah who is responsible for killing nearly 1,000 Americans, for waging war on America relentlessly, for funding...

Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, 90% of their funding comes from Iran.