Ted Cruz Declines to Out Staffer Who 'Liked' Twitter Porn Video — and Is Surprisingly Okay with Sex Toy Sales

Cruz was the subject of Twitter fodder on Tuesday after his official Twitter account, @tedcruz, liked a pornography video

Photo: CNN

Ted Cruz did not “like” any porn on his Twitter — but he is not about to shame anyone else for doing so.

The conservative politician declared “consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in their bedrooms,” as he set the record straight about his official Twitter account, @tedcruz, “liking” a pornographic video.

“We had a staffer who accidentally hit the wrong button. And it was a screw-up,” the Texas senator, 46, told CNN‘s Dana Bash in a new interview that aired Wednesday, while specifically stressing he was not responsible for “liking” the post.

“I will say Twitter went crazy with it. It became trending. As soon as we found out about it, we pulled it down. And it’s generated a lot of amusement. It has prompted a lot of jokes. I understand that,” Cruz said about the “honest mistake.”

The one-time GOP presidential declined to “out” the staffer responsible for the “like,” explaining that the incident has been handled “internally” and that the staffer will not face punishment.

“We have looked into it. Yes. We have identified it. We pulled it down. He was — it was an honest mistake,” Cruz said, adding, “It wasn’t malicious, it wasn’t deliberate. It was a screw-up … it obviously is not something anyone would do deliberately. It was a mistake from a staffer.”

In fact, Cruz’s staffer, who is a part of a “whole team of people that have access” to the account, feels “terrible.”

Cruz was the subject of Twitter fodder on Tuesday morning after the pornography video “like” went viral. (The video in question was shared initially by an account called @SexuallPosts.) Though it was removed, numerous users screengrabbed a photo of the likes of the @tedcruz page.

Coincidentally, Cruz has spent part of his political career fighting against the sex industry — which many on Twitter pointed out. In 2007, he penned a court brief to defend a Texas state law that banned the sale of sex toys, according to the Associated Press. Cruz argued that individuals had no legal right to use such toys – even in their own homes.

However, a decade later, the social conservative appears to have changed his opinion about sex toys with Cruz branding the sex toy law “stupid” when asked about the social media criticism.

“One of those laws was a law restricting the sale of sex toys. A stupid law,” Cruz said. “Listen, I am one of those libertarian members of the Senate. I think it’s idiotic … It was the job of the office to defend the legislature’s laws.”

Similar to his latest Twitter fiasco, Cruz blames a staffer for his 2007 court brief.

“I can tell you, the lawyers in my office, nobody wanted to do the case. I didn’t handle the case personally. I had a lawyer on the staff handle it,” he recalled.

Concluding, “People ought to be able to do what they want … I am saying that consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in their bedrooms. And, you know, the media and the left seem obsessed with sex. Let people do what they want.”