Ted Cruz maskless at Bob Dole funeral despite those around him wearing one

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz was spotted maskless during the funeral service for the late Senator Bob Dole, even as attendees around him was seen wearing face coverings.

Mr Cruz, 50, was spotted in close proximity to Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, 61, former Pennsylvania Republican Senator Rick Santorum, 63, and Alabama Republican Senator Richard Shelby, 87. Ms Klobuchar announced in September that she had breast cancer earlier this year.

Mr Cruz tweeted that Mr Dole, a World War II veteran who died on 5 December at the age of 98, “fought heroically to defend our Nation, and he served with honour for many decades. The Greatest Generation was truly extraordinary, and we owe our freedoms to their remarkable courage”.

One Twitter user wrote that Mr Cruz attending the service at Washington National Cathedral maskless was one reason “why literally everyone hates Ted Cruz”.

Another user quoted former Minnesota Senator Al Franken, who wrote about the Texas Senator in a book released in 2017: “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”

Singer-Songwriter Ricky Davila tweeted: “Even at Bob Dole’s funeral seditious pr**k Ted Cruz is maskless knowing many elderly would be present. He’s such an evil grotesque piece of s**t.”

Another account holder called Mr Cruz a “selfish a**hole”.

Norman Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute wrote that Mr Cruz was a “disgraceful boor”.

The Independent has reached out to the office of Mr Cruz for comment.

Mr Dole, the Republican Presidential nominee in 1996, told The New York Times in January 2016, just as the Republican primaries were getting underway, that he didn’t like Mr Cruz, who was then battling for the nomination with then-candidate Donald Trump and 15 other Republican presidential hopefuls.

Mr Dole initially supported former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, but he then endorsed Mr Trump.

The former Senate majority leader told The New York Times that the Republicans would see “cataclysmic” and “wholesale losses” if Mr Cruz grabbed the nomination.

“I question his allegiance to the party,” Mr Dole, who was 92 years old at the time, said of Mr Cruz. “I don’t know how often you’ve heard him say the word ‘Republican’ — not very often.”

Mr Dole noted that Mr Cruz instead uses the word “conservative”, calling Mr Cruz an “extremist”.

“I don’t know how he’s going to deal with Congress,” he said. “Nobody likes him.”

“If he’s the nominee, we’re going to have wholesale losses in Congress and state offices and governors and legislatures,” Mr Dole added, saying that Mr Cruz had falsely “convinced the Iowa voters that he’s kind of a mainstream conservative”.

Mr Cruz would go on to win the Iowa caucuses ahead of Mr Trump.

“There’ll be wholesale losses if he’s the nominee,” Mr Dole told The New York Times. “Our party is not that far right.”

Mr Cruz had criticised Mr Dole as part of a line of bad choices of Republican nominees. “Remember President Dole? Remember President McCain? Remember President Romney?” Mr Cruz said.

“In other words, we weren’t right-wing like he is, and I didn’t like that very much,” Mr Dole said at the time. “It kind of hurt, because we worked hard, we did the best we could. We are conservatives, we are traditional Republican conservatives.”