Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters Tuesday it was a “staffing issue” that led to a pornographic video being “liked” by his Twitter account — which has since been removed.
“It was a staffing issue and it was inadvertent, it was a mistake, it was not a deliberate action,” Cruz said, according to The Washington Post. He added: “We’re dealing with it internally but it was a mistake, it was not malicious conduct.”
An aide to Cruz confirmed the comments to CNN, adding that there would be an internal effort to figure out who was responsible.
Cruz declined to comment when asked by CNN about the incident.
Twitter users noticed late Monday that Cruz’s account liked a tweet from an account titled “Sexuall Posts” that had a porn video attached. Early Tuesday morning, Cruz’s senior communications adviser Catherine Frazier tweeted that the tweet was removed and reported.
“The offensive tweet posted on @tedcruz account earlier has been removed by staff and reported to Twitter,” tweeted Catherine Frazier, Cruz’s senior communications adviser.
Cruz hadn’t addressed the issue on his Twitter account as of early Tuesday afternoon.
