Sen. Ted Cruz explained Wednesday that a porn video contained in a tweet that was "liked" by a staffer — not him —was a "screw-up" and that "it was not malicious."
"We had a staffer who accidentally hit the wrong button, and it was a screw-up," the Texas Republican and former 2016 presidential candidate told Dana Bash on CNN. "Twitter went crazy with it.
"Soon as we found out about it, we pulled it down.
"We have looked into it," Cruz added. "Yes, we have identified it. We pulled it down.
"It was an honest mistake. It wasn't malicious."
Cruz's Twitter account was among more than 400 that liked a two-minute pornographic video from @SexuallPost.
The "like" led to the video, featuring two women and a man, appearing on Cruz's feed of endorsed posts.
On Tuesday the senator blamed the liked tweet on "a staffing issue" and said it "was inadvertent.
"It was a mistake. It was not a deliberate action."
Cruz told Bash on Wednesday "we have talked with the staffer," though he refused to identify the individual.
"I'm not going to throw someone under the bus," the senator said. "We've dealt with it internally."
But when asked whether Cruz was the perpetrator, he responded: "It was not me.
"It is not going to happen again."
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