Cruz mocks Biden, then apologizes The joke had been a winner in the past for the Texas Republican. 
 
 Sen. Ted Cruz rapidly apologized Wednesday after making a joke at the expense of Vice President Joe Biden, whose son died during the weekend. 
 
 Cruz, speaking in Michigan, trotted out an old line of his: “Joe Biden … You know what the nice thing is? You don’t even need a punch line. I promise you it works. At the next party you’re at, just walk up to someone and say, ‘Vice President Joe Biden,’ and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing,” according to reports on MLive.com. 
 
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 The insult had been a winner in the past for the Texas Republican — Biden jokes are a staple of his standard stump speeches — but this time the joke drew immediate criticism on social media from people who noted that the vice president is grieving for his son Beau, who died of brain cancer on Saturday at the age of 46. 
 
 Cruz subsequently issued an apology on Facebook: “It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize. The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the Vice President and his family.” 
 
 He also tweeted an apology, which linked to his Facebook page. 
 
 Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood tweeted that he questioned Cruz about the joke immediately after the speech and that “the Texas senator turned and walked away.” Livengood described the reaction to Cruz’s joke as “faint laughter.” 
 
 The GOP presidential contender was speaking in Howell, Michigan, to approximately 650 people at a gathering of Livingston County Republicans. The event, billed as a Lincoln Day Dinner, featured a VIP reception at $150 per person and $250 per couple. 
 
 Saul Anuzis, Cruz’s campaign chair in the state, had tweeted a message: “600+ strong listening to Ted Cruz in Michigan!” Later, Anuzis was quoted by Livengood as saying that the senator meant no disrespect with his stab at humor. “Timing could have been better,” Anuzis said. 
 
 Beau Biden is to lie in state Thursday in Dover in his home state of Delaware. His funeral will be Saturday in Wilmington; President Barack Obama will deliver a eulogy. ||||| Play Facebook 
 
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 Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz has apologized for making a joke about Joe Biden just days after the vice president's eldest son died from brain cancer. 
 
 "Vice President Joe Biden. You know the nice thing? You don't need a punchline," the Texas senator said at a GOP dinner in Howell, Michigan, on Wednesday night. 
 
 "I promise you it works. The next party you're at, just walk up to someone and say, 'Vice President Joe Biden' and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing," he said, repeating a joke he has used in previous speeches. 
 
 Ted Cruz comments on Joe Biden. http://t.co/m3y7NP1xbO -Zaid Benjamin (@zaidbenjamin) June 4, 2015 
 
 Cruz told reporters after the event that 46-year-old Beau Biden's death on Saturday was "heartbreaking and tragic" and said his prayers were with the vice president and his family. 
 
 But when Cruz was asked by Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood: "Why did you tell a joke about the vice president tonight?" the senator walked away without commenting. The joke and exchange with reporters was uploaded to YouTube by Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century. 
 
 How Ted Cruz responded when @ChadLivengood asked about his tastelessly timed @VP joke. https://t.co/rcUZLzT0Kc -Scott Charton (@ScottCharton) June 4, 2015 
 
 After a considerable backlash on social media, Cruz posted on his Facebook page late Wednesday saying "it was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize." 
 
 The post added: "The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the vice president and his family." ||||| Ted Cruz talks with supporter Heather Huntley, who holds daughter Audrey, 7 months, at the Livingston County Lincoln Day Dinner. (Photo: John M. Galloway / Special to The Detroit News) 
 
 Howell — GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz apologized Wednesday night for telling a joke at a Livingston County Republican dinner about Joe Biden less than a week after the vice president lost his eldest son to brain cancer. 
 
 "Vice President Joe Biden," the Texas senator said to faint laughter among 650 Republicans packed in a Howell banquet hall Wednesday. "You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line." 
 
 "I promise you it works," Cruz added. "The next party you're at, just walk up to someone and say, 'Vice President Joe Biden' and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing." 
 
 "Vice President Joe Biden," @TedCruz says to faint laughter. "You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line." #JoeBiden — Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) June 3, 2015 
 
 The presidential candidate's comments immediately set off a social media firestorm on Twitter. Cruz issued an apology less than an hour after his keynote speech ended. 
 
 "It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize," Cruz said in a statement. "The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the Vice President and his family." 
 
 Biden's eldest son, Beau, died Saturday of brain cancer. Beau Biden was a former two-term attorney general of Delaware and is to be buried Saturday in the Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. 
 
 Cruz used the joke to talk about Biden's past comments about firing off a double-barrel shotgun to ward off intruders — one of several stump-speech jabs at Democrats. 
 
 "That is very, very good advice — if it so happens that you're being attacked by a flock of geese," Cruz said. 
 
 When asked why he told a Joe Biden joke, Cruz turned and walked away. 
 
 Cruz was the keynote speaker for the Livingston County Republican Party's Lincoln Day dinner at Crystal Gardens banquet center in Howell. 
 
 "He clearly wasn't trying to be disrespectful," said Saul Anuzis, Cruz's Michigan campaign chairman and a former Michigan Republican Party chair. "Timing could have been better." 
 
 Lon Johnson, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, slammed Cruz late Wednesday night for the Biden remarks. 
 
 "When it counted, and it always does for someone attempting to become the leader of our nation, Sen. Cruz demonstrated a true lack of Christian compassion for a father mourning a son," Johnson said in a statement. 
 
 Cruz's visit to Howell was his first campaign event in Michigan since launching his campaign for president in March. 
 
 "He's willing to fight for what's right, even against the Grand Poobahs up in Washington," said state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton Township, who also is a leader in Cruz's Michigan campaign. 
 
 A conservative firebrand in the U.S. Senate, Cruz made clear he intends to appeal to constitutionally conscious Republicans, Evangelical Christians and Reagan Democrats in Michigan's March 8 presidential primary next year. 
 
 "Michigan is ground zero for the Reagan Democrats, the working men and women getting hammered by the Obama (agenda)," Cruz said. "…We are working to build a grassroots army across Michigan and every state in the union." 
 
 Cruz called for a federal flat tax, abolishing the Internal Revenue Service and repealing "every word of Obamacare." 
 
 He said there would be consequences of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton succeeding Democratic President Barack Obama in the White House. 
 
 "If we have four or eight more years going down this road, I think we risk losing the great country in history," Cruz said. 
 
 clivengood@detroitnews.com 
 
 (517) 371-3660 
 
 Twitter.com/ChadLivengood 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://detne.ws/1IiXpJQ ||||| Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a GOP presidential candidate, quickly apologized Wednesday night after cracking a joke he’s used before about Vice President Biden, whose son Beau died on Saturday. 
 
 Speaking in Howell, Mich., Cruz mentioned Biden’s name to a GOP group, then, according to a reporter from The Detroit News, said: “You know the nice thing? You don’t need a punch line.” 
 
 "Vice President Joe Biden," @TedCruz says to faint laughter. "You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line." #JoeBiden — Chad Livengood (@ChadLivengood) June 3, 2015 
 
 Cruz has delivered the line at Biden’s expense in the past, but the timing of Wednesday’s remark, coming just days after Beau Biden’s death after a battle with brain cancer, sparked immediate criticism on social media. 
 
 Cruz apologized in a Facebook post after the event, saying “It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize.” 
 
 A funeral Mass for Beau Biden is scheduled this Saturday in Wilmington, Del. ||||| Vice President Joe Biden gave a heartfelt speech on dealing with loss of a loved one to military families and friends at the annual TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar in 2012. Biden's son, Beau, died of brain cancer on Saturday after battling the disease for several years. (YouTube/Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) 
 
 Perhaps more than any other American politician, we have a sense of how Joe Biden processes grief. 
 
 The vice president, who is mourning the loss of his 46-year-old son, Beau, today, has lived through unimaginable tragedy. His first wife and 13-month-old-daughter, Naomi, died in a car crash just a few months after the 29-year-old was first elected to the U.S. Senate, in 1972. Beau, then 3, and Biden's other son, Hunter, then 2, were seriously injured. 
 
 In a candid 2012 speech to military families and friends who had lost a loved one in action, Biden spoke about the anger, crisis of faith and wounds that don't really ever heal. 
 
 "No parents should be pre-deceased by their sons or daughters," Biden said. "I, unfortunately, have that experience, too." 
 
 [Photos: The life of Beau Biden] 
 
 It's a moving speech worth watching in entirety. But here are some of the moments he shared about the agony of losing a loved one much too soon. 
 
 He first touched on the moment he got the phone call saying his wife and daughter had been in an accident. 
 
 "By the tone of the phone call, you just knew, didn't you? You knew when they walked up the path. You know when the call came, you knew. You just felt it in your bones. Something bad happened. And I knew. I don't know how I knew. But the call said my wife is dead, my daughter is dead, and I wasn't sure how my sons were going to make it." 
 
 The somber Biden drew claps and laughter from the crowd when he said how well-meaning people who had never lost a loved one just tend to say the wrong thing. 
 
 "I have to tell you. I used to resent people. They'd come up to me and say, 'Joe, I know how you feel.'" To claps and laughter, he continued: "I know, right? I knew they meant well. I knew they were genuine. But you knew they didn't have any damn idea." 
 
 Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, who was at the speech, said Biden appeared to transform from a vice president into a grief-stricken man. 
 
 "He hunched over, he looked down at his hands, he spoke at times haltingly and at times through clenched teeth," Fahrenthold wrote. 
 
 Biden shared how, after he found out that his wife and daughter had died, he understood how grief could push someone to suicide. 
 
 “For the first time in my life, I understood how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. I realized someone could go out — and I probably shouldn't say this with the press here, but you're more important — I realized how someone could consciously decide to commit suicide. Not because they were deranged, not because they were nuts. Because they’d been to the top of the mountain, and they just knew in their heart they’d never get there again, that it was never going to get — never going to be that way ever again." 
 
 The self-described practicing Catholic also spoke about the profound anger, especially toward God, that gripped him in the days after his daughter and wife died. 
 
 "I was angry. Many I was angry. … I was a practicing Catholic at the time, but I was mad at God, oh man. I remember being in the [Capitol] Rotunda walking through to get the plane to get home to identify — uh, anyway — and I remember looking up and saying, 'God.' I was talking to God myself: 'God, you can't be good. How can you be good?'" 
 
 Biden also talked about how years later he and his family struggled when Beau, who earned a Bronze Star when he deployed to Iraq in 2009, came home in one piece. A year after this speech, Beau would be diagnosed with brain cancer. 
 
 "Our son spent a year in Iraq. When he came home, it's going to sound strange to you, we felt almost a little guilty because he came home. Because there's so many funerals I've attended, so many bases I've visited. And you know, not all losses are equal. Not all losses are equal." 
 
 [Brain cancers like Beau Biden’s kill about 15,000 adults each year] 
 
 Biden warned military families that the initial feeling of loss never quite goes away. 
 
 "Just when you think you're going to make it, you're driving down the road and you pass a field and you see a flower, and it reminds you. Or you hear a tune on the radio. Or you just look up into the night and, you know, you think, 'Maybe I'm not going to make it, man.' Because you feel at that moment the way you felt the day you got the news." 
 
 But there is hope, Biden told the military family members in the audience. 
 
 "There will come a day, I promise you and your parents, as well, when the thought of your son or daughter or your husband or wife brings a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eye. It will happen. My prayer for you is that day will come sooner or later.. But the only thing I have more experience than you in is this: I’m telling you it will come.” 
 
 More coverage: 
 
 Video: Beau Biden’s moving tribute to his dad at the 2008 Democratic convention 
 
 Biden on his kids: "The real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me." 
 
 Vice President Biden’s very personal speech to Yale graduates ||||| Story highlights Vice President Joe Biden told an NBC affiliate that he regrets "every day" not running for president 
 
 Biden said his decision to sit out the 2016 race was in his family's best interests 
 
 Washington (CNN) Vice President Joe Biden says he regrets "every day" that he didn't enter the 2016 presidential race -- but his decision was in his family's best interests. 
 
 "I regret it every day, but it was the right decision for my family and for me. And I plan on staying deeply involved," Biden said in an interview with Connecticut NBC affiliate WVIT. 
 
 Biden said the Democratic race between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders is "what I expected," adding that there has been a "real robust debate between Hillary and Bernie, as there would have been if I had gotten in the race." 
 
 Photos: Who's running for president? Photos: Who's running for president? Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, John Kasich, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: Who's running for president? 
 
 
 
 "So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," Trump told the crowd at his announcement. Businessman Donald Trump announced June 16 at his Trump Tower in New York City that he is seeking the Republican presidential nomination. This ends more than two decades of flirting with the idea of running for the White House."So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again," Trump told the crowd at his announcement. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: Who's running for president? 
 
 
 
 "These are all of our stories," Cruz told the audience at Liberty University in Virginia. "These are who we are as Americans. And yet for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant." Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has made a name for himself in the Senate, solidifying his brand as a conservative firebrand willing to take on the GOP's establishment. He announced he was seeking the Republican presidential nomination in a speech on March 23."These are all of our stories," Cruz told the audience at Liberty University in Virginia. "These are who we are as Americans. And yet for so many Americans, the promise of America seems more and more distant." Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: Who's running for president? Ohio Gov. John Kasich joined the Republican field July 21 as he formally announced his White House bid. 
 
 
 
 "I am here to ask you for your prayers, for your support ... because I have decided to run for president of the United States," Kasich told his kickoff rally at the Ohio State University. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: Who's running for president? 
 
 
 
 "Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion -- so you can do more than just get by -- you can get ahead. And stay ahead," she said in her announcement video. "Because when families are strong, America is strong. So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey." Hillary Clinton launched her presidential bid on April 12 through a video message on social media. The former first lady, senator and secretary of state is considered the front-runner among possible Democratic candidates."Everyday Americans need a champion, and I want to be that champion -- so you can do more than just get by -- you can get ahead. And stay ahead," she said in her announcement video. "Because when families are strong, America is strong. So I'm hitting the road to earn your vote, because it's your time. And I hope you'll join me on this journey." Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: Who's running for president? 
 
 
 
 "This great nation and its government belong to all of the people and not to a handful of billionaires, their super PACs and their lobbyists," Sanders said at a rally in Vermont on May 26. Sen. Bernie Sanders , an independent from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, announced his run in an email to supporters on April 30. He has said the United States needs a "political revolution" of working-class Americans to take back control of the government from billionaires."This great nation and its government belong to all of the people and not to a handful of billionaires, their super PACs and their lobbyists," Sanders said at a rally in Vermont on May 26. Hide Caption 6 of 6 
 
 Biden's comments came during a spate of local television interviews in which he pushed President Barack Obama's executive actions on gun control. 
 
 Biden ended months of intense speculation about his political future in October with a sudden announcement that he wouldn't seek the presidency, abandoning a dream he's harbored for decades. 
 
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– Telling the same tired joke over and over again is arguably just as bad as telling a "too soon" joke in bad taste. Ted Cruz earned the distinction of doing both yesterday in Michigan after he regurgitated a wisecrack he's used before about Joe Biden, just days after the vice president's son, Beau, died of brain cancer. Speaking in Howell at a GOP dinner, Cruz said, "Vice President Joe Biden. You know the nice thing? You don't need a punch line," NBC News reports. "I promise you it works. The next party you're at, just walk up to someone and say, 'Vice President Joe Biden' and just close your mouth. They will crack up laughing." Except no one was really cracking up (Detroit News reporter Chad Livengood tweeted there was "faint laughter" in the audience), and Cruz was quickly taken to task on social media for mocking the VP while he's grieving, Politico notes. Livengood tweeted that when he asked Cruz after the event about the ill-timed joke, Cruz simply walked away (Livengood also retweeted a video of the brief encounter). Cruz issued an apology last night on both Twitter and Facebook, USA Today notes, which read, "It was a mistake to use an old joke about Joe Biden during his time of grief, and I sincerely apologize. The loss of his son is heartbreaking and tragic, and our prayers are very much with the Vice President and his family." Saul Anuzis, Cruz's campaign manager in Michigan, told Livengood, "Timing could have been better," per the Detroit News.