Texas Senator Ted Cruz, as we remember, was the first Senator to object to certifying the results in 2020 for Arizona. He was also in the building on January sixth when rioters stormed inside and lawmakers were forced into hiding. Here's part of our exchange when we asked him that question last night. Will you accept the results regardless of who wins the election?

So, Kaitlyn, I got to say, I think that's actually a ridiculous question.

It's a yes or no question, though.

No, it's not. So you're asking, will You promise no matter what to agree an election is illegitimate regardless of what happens. That would be an absurd thing to claim. The media engages in this weird game, post Donald Trump, that you insist no voter fraud has ever existed. Why does every state have laws in place to challenge voter fraud if it occurs? Why do you have election challenges?

This isn't a game. There was no vice versa voter fraud.

You only ask Republicans that.

Because it was Republicans who tried to block the transition of power. You have to acknowledge that. We've never seen it on a scale of what happened in 2020, and we've never seen the President refuse. He wouldn't even let Joe Biden get classified briefings at the beginning. I recall that. So my question for you again, free and fair election, will you accept the results regardless of who wins.

Look, if the Democrats win, I will accept the result, but I'm not going to ignore fraud regardless of what happens. But was there fraud in 2020? Of course there was fraud in 2020.

No, there wasn't, and you still objected. As has been made clear, there was no material fraud that would have altered the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump's own Department of Homeland Security said that the 2020 vote was one of the most secure in history. Dozens of lawsuits contesting the election were dismissed and dropped because of a lack of evidence or a lack of standing by courts across the country. Trump's own attorney general, Bill Barr, someone who has said that despite everything that happened, he is still voting for Donald Trump this November, described it as playing a game of Whac-A-Mole to run down the avalanche a bunch of false claims of fraud that were coming into the Justice Department. Senator Ted Cruz, of course, is aware of all of that, and he's also deeply familiar with Trump's false claims about losing elections. In 2016, eight years ago, Trump actually accused Cruz of stealing the Iowa caucuses that he won.

Donald finds it very hard to lose. Donald Trump guaranteed a victory in Iowa, and then he lost, and he doesn't like that. What Donald does when he loses is he blames everybody else. It's never Donald's fault. It's always somebody else's fault.

It's pretty remarkable to see that, of course, Cruz not embracing Trump's claims of fraud then. My lead political sources tonight are both CNN political commentators, former Obama administration official Van Jones, and also the former Republican Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, who I should note was among those pressured by Trump and his allies to change the 2020 results. And Jeff, just given that, have you ever... What I'm struck by is that it is such a simple and straightforward question that so many Republicans have a difficulty answering these days.

It was so painful to sit here and listen to all those audio clips of just everybody tying themselves in pretzels. I mean, I flipped the script back on Ted Cruz and say, just spend that hot air that you just spent trying to twist around and actually lay out some proof. I mean, we're almost four years into this, and there's not one ounce or shred of proof that anything happened other than a fair and legal election in Georgia and everywhere else in the country. Was there an anomaly? Certainly. But there has never been an election that's been more scrutinized than the Georgia election. And look, this is painful to watch. It takes you back to your high school days where somebody wants to be in the cool kids club so bad, they will do and say anything that eventually they look back and say that was a huge mistake. It's not an if, it's when. Republic Republicans will recognize Donald Trump as the biggest stain on our party's history.

Van, do you think that'll happen, that it is not an if, but a when of Republicans regretting how they answer that question?

Well, in the fullness of time, I hope so, mainly because the thing that strikes me about Ted Cruz is those are not the answers of a patriot. A patriot defends the integrity of American institutions, American democracy. It's geopolitical adversaries that want people to not believe that America is a fair place to not believe in our institutions. Ted Cruz, until a few years ago, called himself a patriot. What Patriot won't even defend the most prized democratic experiment in history, American democracy? He won't even defend it. He won't even just say the simple truth, which is that we do a damn good job in this country. Those poll workers do a damn good job in this country. People in both parties do a damn good job of carrying these votes, and we are the envy of the world. He won't even defend American democracy if he wants to be called the Patriot.

But Jeff, Georgia is one of the states that altered its voting laws since the 2020 election. We've talked to Georgia governor Brian Kipp about that multiple times here on the show. We have seen where it led to changes in election laws in certain states. As Senator Cruz pointed out last night, if there is an issue with an election, because obviously we don't want there to be materialized real fraud in our elections. There's a place to adjudicate that, to deal with that, and it's a court. What happened when Donald Trump and his allies, and Rudy Giuliani took it to court was they failed. Everything was thrown out. They were all dropped.

There is a process in place to modernize elections as we go forward in time. It's been as long as I can remember, and certainly in the past election cycle, we did that. We looked at some of the anomalies that were in place. Both Democrat and Republican ideas came together. But that's what we constantly do in America. We are willing and able to update those laws. But look, this whole thing started because Donald Trump lost, and he didn't lose for any other reason than he was the worst candidate in the world. And Republicans, specifically Republicans in the suburbs, figured out he was a snake oil salesman, and He acted like he was a Republican for four years, but he didn't. He wasn't. He was fake. He added $8 trillion worth of debt when he said he wouldn't. He built a selfie station at the wall instead of actually building a wall. He acted like a clown around the world, and he had self-serving interest in every meeting that he had. Other than that, he was decent, I guess. But we saw through it. And anybody who thinks that the suburbs are going to come back and vote for him again, have it wrong.

If we give Donald Trump four more years in the White House, it's like giving a drug addict more drugs to fix the problem. We know what we have to do. We have to get rid of him and move on as a party.

Well, Van, the question is how people deal with this. And Van, I wonder what your response is to what you heard from Senator Cruz there, and we've heard this from other Republicans, is they point to comments made by people like Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Hillary Clinton. Of course, Hillary Clinton gave a concession speech. We all watched it after the 2016 election. They do use those moments, though, in these arguments to say, well, it's the same thing, even though, of course, John Kerry never condoned what was happening. Joe Biden, when he was vice President, certified the election and the results of it on Capitol Hill.

Well, you can cherry pick unfortunate comments from anybody, Hillary Clinton or anybody else. Nobody's perfect. But the question is, when it's all said and done, do you do the thing that we've always done? You give your concession speech, you shake hands. Look, we want our kids. I After the end of the basketball game, after the end of Little League. They line up, they shake hands, they appreciate each other. They come back the next Sunday, the next Saturday, trying to do it again. They're trying to do better. You got a Republican Party failing kindergarten now on just basic decency, basic Fair play. And yeah, sure, you can cherry-pick. But it's interesting to me, you don't cherry-pick anything else Democrats do to defend Republicans. So why is this one behavior a couple of people? And also, I remember in the year 2000, I'm Old enough to remember in 2000, Al Gore coming before the country when it was clear to us as Democrats that he had been robbed and ripped off and mistreated by the Supreme Court. We were angry. People would have gone to the streets in an instant. And Al Gore said, I accept the Supreme Court's decision.

Let's move forward. It was an act of courage. It was an act of patriotism. And we've seen nothing of the kind from this Republican Party, despite the fact that there's plenty of evidence that Al Gore could have pointed to and none that they can point to. So what does patriotism mean? If you only love the country when you win, you're not a patriot.

Jeff, that's what is confounding about this is I was looking at how different Republicans have answered this. Senator J. D. Vance, in an interview, I believe, with Dana Basch said, Yeah, if it's a free and fair election, Republicans will enthusiastically accept the result of it. But why is it so difficult for the others to just say yes to that question?

Well, because they're addicted to the hot burning spotlight that follows Donald Trump, and they spent their life trying to chase that spotlight for themselves. But they realized if they want to stay in it, they got to get close to Donald Trump. And so that's just more important to them than doing the right thing. This is crazy to watch these individuals individuals twist themselves into pretzels. And that's really what has led me. If we're going to see a GOP 2.0, if we're going to see a Republican Party get back on its feet, it's not going to include Donald Trump. And we've got to beat him right here in his tracks and move on. That's the reason why supporting Joe Biden as a lifelong Republican who plans to continue to be a Republican is supporting Joe Biden, not because I agree with his policies, but because he's going to give us a chance to move on past Donald Trump. No matter who wins in this election, if you're a hard core Republican like I am, who's not angry, just conservative, you lose either way. Either Joe Biden wins or Donald Trump wins. Either way, we don't get our voices heard through our policies.