Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) appeared Wednesday on Fox News for a softball interview, and spent several minutes railing against Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) and the Democratic Party — before the channel’s jingoistic background music practically played him off.

Newsom naturally pounced on the moment and shared the clip on X, formerly Twitter, to viral results. The governor instructed his followers to turn the sound on “for Ted’s walk-off music treatment on Fox tonight,” before arguing that Cruz has “really lost it.”

Cruz was criticizing Newsom’s leadership in California before the music started, citing high taxes, crime and regulation as purported reasons for people “fleeing to Texas.” He then hit Newsom for opposing President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of Washington, D.C.

“And yet Gavin Newsom and the rest of the Democratic Party, they exist for one purpose right now — to hate Donald Trump,” Cruz said Wednesday. “You look at President Trump federalizing the police in D.C., just this week we’ve seen crime rates in D.C. plummet.”

“And the Democrats like Gavin Newsom, they are booing, they are unhappy,” he added, as the music started blaring. “The corporate media, they are booing, they’re unhappy. And you know what this is illustrating? That all the rest of these Democrat cities could reduce crime.”

Cruz continued criticizing Newsom for a full 20 seconds before Hannity cut to commercials.

Cruz’s final grievances centered on the homeless population in California, and brought up how Newsom in 2023 “cleaned up all the homeless people and drug addicts” in San Francisco to prepare for a political summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping — but hasn’t found a lasting solution to address the issue.

Social media users couldn’t ignore the music, however, which made it seem as though Hannity had had enough of him. Others seemed stunned that Cruz would rebuke anyone after infamously fleeing Texas for Mexico to escape a historic winter storm in 2021.

“Shouldn’t he be on vacation somewhere? Oh, my bad.. no disasters in Tx now so he is back from Paris,” wrote one user on X, with another person commenting: “People claim Ted is a great debater and really smart. I’ve never seen that in him though.”

Wednesday’s interview arrived amid ongoing efforts spearheaded by Newsom to redraw California’s congressional maps. Former President Barack Obama endorsed the rare redistricting on social media Wednesday and called it “a smart, measured approach.”