Angry Republican senators have blasted Texas tea party freshman Ted Cruz for contributing to the US government shutdown without a strategy to end it.
At a closed-door lunch meeting in the Senate's Mansfield Room, Republicans pressed Cruz to explain how he would propose to end the bitter budget impasse with Democrats.
According to Politico, a defensive Cruz had no clear plan to bring an end to the shutdown or explain how he would defund Obamacare, as he has demanded all along.
As the government shutdown heads into day three, a number of Republican senators privately blamed Cruz for contributing to the mess their party finds itself in.
Over the August recess, Cruz made the rounds with conservative media and held rallies to call on his GOP colleagues to oppose any bill to keep the government running that would also continue funding Obamacare.
As he won support on the right and among several dozen House conservatives, Speaker John Boehner agreed to include the Obamacare defunding provision in a bill to keep the government running past Tuesday.
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Cruz's tactics culminated in a controversial 21-hour floor speech, where he derided many of his colleagues for lacking the courage to fight Obamacare.
Cruz, because of complicated Senate procedures, he was calling on his 45 other GOP colleagues to filibuster the same House bill he endorsed - in order to prevent Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from later stripping out that language, the report said.
Including Cruz, just 19 Republicans backed his filibuster attempt, and Reid later killed the Obamacare language with just Democratic votes.
At the Wednesday lunch, Cruz was asked what he would have done had GOP senators united to filibuster the House bill.