Ted Cruz: Make El Chapo Pay for the Wall… It’s All His Fault Anyway

Lately, it is more and more difficult to tell the difference between reports from the hilarious satirical website the Onion and actual news.

The statements and actions of our GOP-dominated government have become increasingly preposterous and, in the case of the president, dangerously unhinged.

Now, the king of Texas conservatism has come up with a solution to pay for Trump’s wall—kindly letting Mexico off the hook, sort of.

Senator Ted Cruz thinks the $14 billion in assets the U.S. government is trying to get from drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman would go a long way in financing Trump’s “big, beautiful wall” that we need to “keep Americans safe and hinder the illegal flow of drugs, weapons and individuals across our southern border.”

“Today I introduced the El Chapo Act, which reserves billions in forfeited assets to pay for border security,” Cruz posted on Twitter Tuesday, referring to a bill he introduced on Monday called the Ensuring Lawful Collection of Hidden Assets to Provide Order Act.

Here is where the Onion comes in. Notice the acronym for the bill: “ELCHAPO.”

“By leveraging any criminally forfeited assets of El Chapo and his ilk, we can offset the wall’s cost and make meaningful progress toward achieving President Trump’s stated border security objectives,” Cruz said.

And Cruz loves his people, even though he is considered one of the worst senators the Lone Star State has ever had. Polls have shown that only 39 percent of Texans hold a favorable view of him.

“Ensuring the safety and security of Texans is one of my top priorities,” Cruz continued. “We must also be mindful of the impact on the federal budget.”

But whose assets are “El Chapo’s,” anyhow?

One could argue that using El Chapo’s billions is sort of the same as getting Mexico to pay for the wall, which Trump promised his gullible followers he would do.

Why? That’s because Mexico claims that El Chapo’s assets belong to them.

Mexican Congressman Jorge Ramos Hernández argues that, according to federal law, confiscated assets must be distributed between the countries that participated in the capture.

“And it is public knowledge, that in this case [Guzman] was captured thanks to actions entirely in the hands of the Mexican government and [was a result of] a total autonomous action,” Hernández said.

Since his extradition to the United States this past January, El Chapo is being held in New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center where he awaits trial.