Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said he’ll bet $100 that Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) will lead Democrats into a government shutdown before the midterms because it “benefited” them the last time. (Watch the video below.)

Speaking Tuesday on CNBC, Cruz laid out his prediction for the Senate minority leader’s strategy.

“On Sept. 30, funding for the federal government will end,” Cruz said. “Chuck Schumer is not a creative guy, he’s not hard to predict. Last year, right before the election, what did Schumer do? He shut the whole government down, and the Democrats believe that shutdown helped them politically, and it benefited them in New Jersey and Virginia.”

“I will wager, right now, $100, that Schumer intends — on Oct. 1 — to do the same thing, to shut the whole federal government down for a month, so that on Election Day ― the day the government is shut down ― you have four-hour lines again in airports, and the Democrats can say, ‘See, the Republicans are in charge, they don’t know what they’re doing.’ This is a political stunt that is coming.”

Senator Ted Cruz predicts Minority Leader Chuck Schumer will force a government shutdown ahead of the midterms, warning Democrats may use it for political messaging.Watch OAN on Spectrum and YouTube TV today for more updates. pic.twitter.com/uL5I18pclR

In the fall of 2025, Democrats held out for concessions on extended health insurance subsidies to push a shutdown to a record length. But when six Democrats caved to help end the stalemate, they got essentially nothing.

However, the November elections held during the shutdown produced Democratic gubernatorial victories in New Jersey and Virginia ― plus successes elsewhere.

Some Democrats “said that the election wins vindicated their party’s strategy in withholding government funding,” HuffPost reported then.

Schumer called the results “a repudiation of the Trump agenda.”

HuffPost has reached out to Schumer for comment.

Former HuffPost journalist Ahmed Shihab-Eldin has been detained for

days in Kuwait. He must be freed immediately.

Learn more here.

Credit: Grace Rivera

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