During an appearance on Wednesday’s broadcast of FNC’s “Hannity,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued the Biden administration’s lackluster handling of the unfolding “catastrophe” on the U.S.-Mexico border was not accidental but intentional.

The Texas Republican lawmaker slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ performance during a Senate hearing earlier in the day and noted the hypocrisies and double standards of the current administration and the prior Trump administration.

Partial transcript as follows:

CRUZ: You know, sadly, we didn’t get an answer to virtually anything, and one of the most dismaying things seeing Secretary Mayorkas’ pitiful performance at the hearing today is the disaster at the southern border is not an accident. It’s by design. They are intending this catastrophe to unfold.

And the only explanation as to why is that they believe as a matter of crass partisan politics that if you let millions and millions of illegal aliens in that many of them in future years will vote Democrat, and so, they’re willing to overlook everything else. So I asked Secretary Mayorkas how many kids have been put in the Biden cages. He didn’t know.

I asked him how many people coming here illegally have died, have been abandoned to die in the desert by the coyotes, he said I don’t know. I asked him how many women being trafficked in by human traffickers have been sexually assaulted, he said he didn’t know. I asked him how many of the children, of the over 100,000 children that are brought in by human traffickers, how many of them have been sexually assaulted. He said he didn’t know.

I asked him how many illegal aliens did you release into our communities who were COVID positive, he said he didn’t know, and you just played a minute ago how he refused to answer how many murderers they’ve released, how many rapists they’ve released, how many child molesters they’ve released. They don’t care.

I also asked him, Sean. Has Joe Biden gone down to see the Biden cages? Answer, no. Has Kamala Harris gone to see the Biden cages? Answer, no.

I asked has even one Senate Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee come to see the Biden cages. For four years, they went on and on and on about kids in cages. Does even one of them give a damn enough to see the more kids in the bigger cages today? The answer, no.

They don’t care. It is pure cynical politics, and I got to tell you, in Texas, we’re paying the price. When I’m down on the border, when I’m talking to farmers and ranchers and sheriffs and law enforcement, they are fed up. They are fed up with the crime, with the disease, with the poverty.

It is overwhelming the state of Texas, and this administration is creating this lawlessness, and they’re doing it deliberately.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor