Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is trying to cash in on the trendy conservative “cancel culture” by signing and selling hundreds of copies of a children’s book that he did not write.
Cruz, via fundraising emails and Facebook ads, this week asked supporters to pitch in $60 or more for a copy of Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” that he’d autographed himself. Copies are selling on Amazon for $4.79.
“Stand with Ted & Dr. Seuss against the cancel culture mob to claim your signed copy of Green Eggs and Ham!” the politician urged on his donation page:
“Right now, the far left is trying to ‘CANCEL’ Dr. Seuss,” Cruz declared in a paid Facebook ad. “As someone who has always been a big fan of Green Eggs and Ham, I won’t let that stand,” he wrote. “So please rush an urgent Contribution of $60 and I’ll sign a copy of Green, Eggs, and Ham just for you!”
In an email, Cruz boasted Thursday of signing “another 175 copies” because “the response to this has been HUGE.” He described the book signed by him as a “cancel culture collectible.”
Cruz’s fundraising follows Dr. Seuss Enterprises’ decision this month to pull six Dr. Seuss books that featured outdated and racist imagery.
“Green Eggs and Ham” ― which Cruz in 2013 actually read in the Senate to filibuster then-President Barack Obama’s health care law ― was not one of the books removed from circulation.
But that hasn’t stopped top Republicans and personalities on Fox News from using the book as a faux outrage prop in their culture wars, falsely linking the decision to President Joe Biden and Democrats.
Cruz himself puzzled many with one such post online.
Random House Children’s Books did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Critics on Twitter, however, reminded Cruz of his rhetoric that helped encourage U.S. Capitol rioters and his misguided Cancún vacation during a winter power and water crisis in Texas.
They also challenged him for signing and selling a book that was not his own: