Ted Cruz Makes Twitter History By Reading Tweets During Rand Paul's Senate Floor Filibuster

Republican senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul were a filibuster tag team Wednesday night. When Paul wasn’t speaking, Cruz would take his turn and read tweets from the Internet. By doing so, he made Twitter history, being the first to read Twitter reactions from the citizens on the Senate floor.

As Kentucky senator Paul approached the eight-hour mark while protesting the Obama administration’s drone program, Texas senator Cruz began to read supportive tweets of Paul’s filibuster.

The Washington Examiner provided some of the quotes that took place during Paul's Senate-floor filibuster:

“I feel quite confident that the senator from Kentucky is not aware of the Twitterverse that has been exploding,” Cruz declared. “So what I wanted to do for the senator from Kentucky is give some small sampling of the reaction on Twitter so that he might understand how the American people are responding to his courageous leadership.”

Cruz printed out several pieces of paper (since electronics are banned) and read tweets aloud for five minutes on the Senate floor. He even cited popular hashtags like #StandWithRand and #filiblizzard.

Cruz noted that Paul’s Twitter account was concurrently posting tweets as he spoke.

“I will commend the senator from Kentucky for being so flexible that he was able to tweet while standing on the floor of the Senate,” he quipped and then added, “I think the technical term for what the Twitterverse is doing right now is ‘blowing up.'”

The filibuster made sure to thank Cruz for “cheering him up,” and even stated he “was getting kind of tired.”

Many tweeters soon began to joke that Cruz said “blowing up” on the Senate floor.

“I appreciate you bringing news from the outside world.” Paul continued. “As you know, we’re not allowed to have electronics on the floor so I don’t really have much knowledge of the electronic outside world.”

He went on to add, “It’s probably a good thing for every American eventually not to see their phone or their computer for about eight hours.”

Paul had the longest filibuster in recent U.S. history, talking on the Senate floor for nearly 12 hours against what is being called danger of drone strikes to U.S. citizens on American soil. He made his final remarks just after 12:30 a.m.