'A ridiculous question': Ted Cruz declines to answer whether he'd accept 2024 election results

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz has joined a growing number of senior Republican leaders who have taken issue with being asked whether they would unconditionally accept the 2024 presidential election results, regardless of the winner.

“I actually think that’s a ridiculous question,” Cruz told CNN's Kaitlan Collins during an interview on “The Source" on Wednesday.

“So you’re asking, ‘Will you promise, no matter what, to agree an election is legitimate regardless of what happens?,’ and that would be an absurd thing to claim. Like, we have an entire election law system: that people challenge elections, elections get overturned, voter fraud gets proven. That happens all the time,” Cruz later added in their exchange.

Pressed again by Collins on whether he would accept the 2024 election results regardless of who wins, Cruz said, “If the Democrats win, I will accept the results but I'm not going to ignore fraud" and echoed false claims that there was election fraud in the 2020 election.

At one point in their contentious exchange, Collins said, "You're not clearly answering the question."

Cruz’s latest comments come as a series of Republicans supporting former President Donald Trump in November have sidestepped or refused to answer similar questions in interviews, including potential vice presidential contenders Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and Tim Scott of South Carolina, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Reps. Elise Stefanik of New York and Byron Donalds of Florida.

Earlier this month, NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Kristen Welker repeatedly pressed Scott on whether he would accept the ultimate outcome of the 2024 election.

At one point, he said, “I’m not going to answer your hypothetical question when in fact I believe the American people are speaking today on the results of the election.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Cruz refuses to say whether he would accept 2024 election results