After a weekend in South Carolina and New Hampshire, Sen. Ted Cruz took his act to 30 Rock Monday.  

The Texas Republican, who is contemplating a bid for the White House, appeared as a guest on NBC’s “Late Night With Seth Meyers .” The host happens to be from the first-in-the-nation primary state. Cruz was back in the building Tuesday morning for more serious programming.  

“Historically, we have found when senators from Texas come to New Hampshire, it’s because they want to run for president,” Meyers said. “It’s that or you want to buy like cheap liquor at our liquor stores.”  

“Well, you know tomorrow is Saint Patrick’s Day,” Cruz quipped in response.  

But it was a weekend incident in the Granite State that provided Meyers, a former “Saturday Night Live: head writer, with a predictable bit. And the late night talk show was a perfect venue for Cruz to respond with a bit of media criticism about the number of stories generated.  

In the well-publicized exchange , Cruz was in the midst of a stump speech panning the current administration when he said: “And the Obama-Clinton foreign policy of leading from behind — the whole world is on fire.”  

A 3-year-old girl chimed in to ask, “The world is on fire?”  

After Meyers played part of the clip, Cruz relayed that the rest of his message was that while yes, he thought the world was on fire, the child’s mother would help to put out the fire. Cruz said that before walking out into the studio to tape the talk show, he had talked to the girl’s mother and he said the child referred to him as the “fireman.”  

While the Meyers interview turned much more serious on topics including climate change and same-sex marriage — areas where Cruz was clearly not on home turf in Manhattan — he did draw at least a bit of applause for calling for repealing Obamacare.  

And as the wisdom of having small children at political events with a prospective presidential candidate?  

“There is only one member of the United States Senate who’s known for ‘Green Eggs and Ham,'” Cruz said.  

The 114th: CQ Roll Call’s Guide to the New Congress


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