When it comes to how to best proceed with your day-to-day business in the middle of a pandemic, I’m pretty sure one of the last people anyone would look to for advice would be journalist Dan Rather. Nevertheless, the disgraced former CBS News anchor proceeded to weigh in with just that after Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) did a CNBC “Squawkbox” interview earlier this week where he railed against the idea of a government-mandated “papers please” approach to proving your vaccination status before entering a school or business.

During the segment, Cruz and co-anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin argued back and forth as to whether there should be vaccine and mask mandates in states like Cruz’s home state, where Gov. Abbott has banned cities from mandating such things. Sorkin first mischaracterized Abbott’s actions by falsely claiming he banned people from being allowed to wear masks in schools – period, and then told Cruz in so many words that people have an obligation in schools and in the workplace to “not injure” [with COVID] their colleagues and other people, thus masks and vaccines should be required.

Cruz’s argument, in a nutshell, was that if you are vaccinated then you don’t have much to worry about and that if you are an unvaccinated person who doesn’t wear a mask and you catch the virus from another unvaccinated person then it was your choice to take that risk.

“We shouldn’t step into the regime where the government says show us your papers if you want to do the basic activities of life,” he told Sorkin.

Watch the clip below:

“We should have no COVID mandates,” says @SenTedCruz. “We shouldn’t step into the regime where the government says show us your papers if you want to do the basic activities of life.” pic.twitter.com/FOBnJymWAj

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) August 5, 2021

Rather, who was born in Texas, took issue with what Cruz said in the clip and thought he’d try a “gotcha” on him using the Cancun trip he took back in February during the power outages in Texas to bash him over:

Don’t you have to show your papers to get on a flight to Cancun, and check into a luxury hotel? https://t.co/2ZxEzP5OUS

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) August 5, 2021

Cruz, who has since acknowledged his error in judgment in taking the trip – even making jokes about it later, responded accordingly to Rather’s attack, one-upping him in the “papers please” argument by referencing the “fake but accurate” Rathergate scandal that took Rather down during the 2004 presidential election between President Bush and Democratic nominee John Kerry:

I suppose I could use fraudulent papers like the ones you counterfeited to attack Bush.

You were so partisan & dishonest that CBS fired you for fraud, which is really saying something.

So now you’re an angry Leftist who reflexively defends Dems & authoritarian mandates. https://t.co/NqP7L78eNl

— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 5, 2021

That shut Rather down pretty quick. As of this writing, he hasn’t responded to Cruz’s tweet.

Flashback: Texas Journalism School Creates ‘Dan Rather Medal Awards’, Basically Confirms Journalism Is Dead