The mystery over a farting noise during a live television interview with Rep. Eric Swalwell continued to make ripples on Tuesday with Senator Ted Cruz making fun of the California Democrat.
The Texas lawmaker tweeted out a picture from the 1988 comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in which Steve Martin’s character appears to relieve himself while at a dinner table.
The cllip was from the iconic Ruprecht dinner scene
‘Leaked footage of Swalwell on MSNBC last night…,’ Cruz wrote in a cheeky tweet.
Soon after, Swalwell came back with a barb of his own: ‘Touché, Senator! And thank you for keeping it clean, you know, without tweeting out more porn,’ he wrote.
US Congressman Eric Swalwell (pictured) denied he was responsible for what sounds like someone passing gas during his live interview Monday on MSNBC
Ted Cruz tweeted a scene from Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in which Steve Martin’s character appears to relieve himself at the table
‘Leaked footage of Swalwell on MSNBC last night…’ Texas Senator Ted Cruz wrote cheekily
Swalwell’s ‘porn’ reference regarding refers to a 2017 incident when the devout Texas senator’s Twitter account ‘liked’ a pornographic tweet.
At the time, Cruz released a statement saying ‘there are a number of people on the team that have access to the account and it appears that someone inadvertently hit the like button’.
Cruz added it was a ‘staffing issue, and it was inadvertent, it was a mistake, it was not a deliberate action.’
The mishap was particularly awkward due to Cruz’s support of conservative family values and his involvement in a court case in Texas about banning the use of sex toys.
Ted Cruz helped defend Texas ban against sale of sex toys in 2007
The married Texas senator had his own embarrassing episode a couple of years ago after he ended up ‘liking’ a pornographic tweet
Congressman Swalwell meanwhile continued to deny he farted during a live interview on MSNBC on Monday after a clip of the incident went viral.
The Democrat, who briefly ran for the 2020 presidential nomination, appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews when the strange sound cut into the audio.
Matthews had asked Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, about evidence submitted in the impeachment proceedings looking into President Donald Trump’s alleged quid pro quo phone call with Ukraine’s president this summer.
The California Democrat, who briefly ran for the 2020 Democratic nomination, appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews when the fart sound appeared to cut into the audio
‘The evidence .. is uncontradicted’, Swalwell began with a slight pause at the beginning of his sentence before continuing, ‘…that the president used tax payer dollars to ask the Ukrainians to help him cheat.. an election.’
The sound is heard during his second pause, and the congressman was seen to bounce upwards slightly.
Swalwell later told a Buzzfeed reporter that it wasn’t him.
‘It was not me!!!!!,’ he told reporter, Addy Baird, who posted the texted conversation on Twitter.
‘Ha. And I didn’t hear it when I was speaking,’ Swalwell added.
When pressed why he was ‘stifling a laugh,’ the congressman responds, ‘I def did not hear it’.
He conceded later that he did think to be amusing.
The ‘Hardball’ show even came to the Senator’s defense claiming the noise was the result of a coffee mug ‘scraping across the desk.’
Swalwell later told a reporter that it wasn’t him. ‘It was not me!!!!!,’ he said in a text conversation that was later tweeted out
The reporters commends the congressman in their text exchange for being a ‘good sport’
Hardball eventually tweeted an explanation for the sound (pictured), saying, ‘Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists – it was the #hardball mug scrapping across the desk. Get yours today and let’s get back to news’
Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra tweeted about the embarrassing MSNBC clip (pictured) which began trending as #fartgate
The Swalwell ‘farting’ incident was a literal stinker for the Congressman as commentators jumped on the scandal.
‘Eric Swalwell appears to drop a massive fart during live television. Turn the sound on, this is real’, tweeted Daily Wire reporter Ryan Saavedra.
Sean Davis, co-founder of conservative online magazine The Federalist, saw the congressman’s denial and evoked an old school-yard catch phrase to fit the moment.
‘He who denied it supplied it. Everyone knows this’, tweeted Davis, with a link back to Baird’s tweet with the congressman’s denial.
The embarrassing incident went viral, trending as #fartgate.
Sean Davis, co-founder of conservative online magazine The Federalist, saw the congressman’s denial and evoked an old school-yard catch phrase
Even President Trump’s son Donald Jr. had to get in a jab on Twitter (pictured), saying it was the ‘most intelligible thing to come out of Swalwell in years’
Even President Trump’s son had to get in a jab.
‘Most intelligible thing to come out of Swalwell in years,’ he tweeted.
Eventually, Hardball tweeted an explanation for the sound: ‘Sorry to disappoint the conspiracy theorists – it was the #hardball mug scrapping across the desk. Get yours today and let’s get back to news,’ just before 11 p.m., in a post that linked to the MSNBC store where the $16.95 mug was for sale.
Social media posters responded with skepticism. Lizzy Lou Who, a right-winger who uses the hashtag @_wintergirl93, posted a meme of the comedian Will Ferrell in character as Ron Burgundy from the ‘Anchor Man’ film series saying ‘I don’t believe you’.