Ted Cruz is the most challenging foe in the Senate hearing level. Many players find it nearly impossible to even face him, let alone overcome his intense, rapid-fire questions that strike directly at the core stats of characters of all classes.

“But Rocky!”, you interrupt (rudely), “You’re bad at tropes and doing it wrong!”.

Fair point. You know who else is bad at things and does them wrong?

EVERY PERSON EVER THAT IS INTERROGATED BY TED CRUZ

Now, I love watching live senate hearings on a Tuesday afternoon. Yes, friends, nothing says “Success” like being free on a Tuesday afternoon. After a while, you start to notice a few things about these hearings. Today, Ted Cruz questioned a Mr. Olson from the Department of Justice as to how many people have been charged with crimes in connection with the January 6th event.

Mr. Olson apparently didn’t know the answer. Ted Cruz wasn’t very happy with this. However, as Mr. Cruz moves on, so too, we shall move on.

Next, Ted Cruz starts to question Jill Sanborn, of the FBI, regarding the involvement of federal agents in the January 6th Capitol event. I’m not really sure why, since by now everyone knows that the “Feds” were directly responsible for that day’s security breach of the U.S. Capitol building. Maybe they just don’t have the internet yet in Washington, D.C.

Now, Ms. Sanborn (maybe she’s married, idk, I’m not going to look it up), doesn’t do much better in terms of answering questions. Ted Cruz doesn’t ask her questions requiring numerical answers (that’d be chauvinistic, since girls can’t do math). Instead, he poses the dreaded “Yes or No” line of questioning.

For those unfamiliar with how “Yes or No” questions work, a question will be asked. To which the person being questioned must respond with either a “Yes” or a “No”, as their response. These are the only two possible acceptable answers. Any other answer returns a Null value.

Sanborn fails miserably to answer the question. It isn’t that she answers incorrectly, it’s that she returns a null value. She tells Mr. Cruz that she cannot answer his question. For every question. Now, at first, you might think “oh right, the FBI…ongoing investigations…they obviously can’t talk about anything, ever”. That works great in situations like the OJ Simpson trial.

When the question is, “Was the FBI directly involved in the January 6th event?”, you don’t hesitate before saying that you’re unable to answer the question.

Even if you’re trying to hide the truth, that was still the wrong answer.

“But Rocky!”, you say, “What is the right answer?”

Excellent question! If your first thought is, “Well, the answer that’s true”, you would be wrong. In a “Yes or No” type of question, there are TWO possible answers. Only one of them is right. Now, in the above example, if Sanborn were to respond “Yes”, that creates many problems. That admits FBI involvement, but also admits perjury, as it means the previous similar questions were answered dishonestly. This means the correct answer is “No.'“

The only correct answer, when being questioned by the Senate, or the Congress for that matter, is “No.”

Hold on, hold on, I know what you’re thinking. “Isn’t that perjury as well?”. Yes, yes it is. However, consider the totality of the situation. You’re already suspected of wrongdoing, and you’re already assumed to be lying under oath. Now maybe that could have been prevented, but at this point, it’s too late. You’re committed, and backpedaling is akin to slitting your own throat. That means all you can do is double down and keep lying. So the answer, is “No.”

The answer “No’, in this case, also helps since the FBI has something to hide.

So then how do I beat Ted Cruz when he is questioning me?

You don’t.

Okay, okay, so here’s how we beat Ted Cruz.

First, we prepare. Nobody wakes up one day, puts on a pot of coffee, then all of a sudden is kidnapped by covert operatives and delivered in front of the Senate, to be questioned about their involvement in national security issues while still in their pajamas. That doesn’t happen.

By the time you end up in a Senate hearing, you’ve had ample time to prepare. Regardless of which team you’re playing for, you knew well in advance that this day was coming. You knew weeks, if not months, in advance. This might surprise some of you, but government isn’t exactly a model of efficiency. Even if it were, it takes time to plan and organize these things.

So we have to put our big boy panties on, and take responsibility for ourselves. We know that we’re going to be questioned by Ted Cruz, we know what it’s concerning, and we know that he’s going to ask very specific questions that or may not actually matter. (Even a political mastermind like Ted Cruz makes mistakes). The point is, we can reasonably anticipate what sort of questions will be asked.

Here’s an exercise we can do to prepare ourselves. We can make a mock wikipedia page, maybe just in a notebook or something. What kind of information do you think Ted Cruz would expect to find on our wikipedia page about whatever thing it is that we’re supposed to answer questions about? What kind of stats do we have? Not just Cruz, but people in general, love stats. Sometimes helpful, sometimes superfluous, stats are always welcome.

Secondly, we need to be prepared for the toughest part of our upcoming engagement - The dreaded “Yes or No” questions. This doesn’t just apply to Senate hearings or Ted Cruz - this can happen in Congress, in local court, or with your spouse. No matter where it happens, remember, there are only TWO POSSIBLE ANSWERS, PERIOD. And of those two possibilities, ONLY ONE IS CORRECT. Spoiler alert - it’s always, “No.”

The reason why, as we illustrated earlier, is that the answer, “Yes” means admitting to wrongdoing. You don’t get questioned by Ted Cruz because you were following the law and playing by the book. It’d make his job a lot easier if you just said “Yes”, but then your own job is probably in jeopardy at that point. There may be some circumstance where the answer, “Yes” is correct, but I doubt it. So just say, “No.”.

The only thing worse than saying, “Yes” is saying anything else. Because then not only is your input invalid, you have guaranteed that your chosen answer is incorrect. The only way to beat Ted Cruz, is to have the correct answer. The only correct answer is always ‘No.”. Yet, time and time again, people just cannot get this one right.

TLDR
Just say, “No”.