Cruz's CPAC Speech Attacks Mask-Wearing As Virtue Signaling 02/26/21 AT 4:56 PM Sen. Ted Cruz punctuated his speech at CPAC with attacks on mask-wearing and Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. This year’s Conservative Political Action Conference kicked up a stir for inviting Trump and snubbing his enemies. Cruz’s most notable remarks at the Orlando event on Friday came during a speech to conservative activists in which he attacked anti-COVID-19 measures as inconsistent and ineffective, CNBC reports. He gave the example of restaurants that require masks but allow patrons to remove them while eating. "Now they're saying, everybody can get immunized, we can have herd immunity everywhere, and we're going to wear masks for the next 300 years," Cruz said. "And by the way, not just one mask, two, three, four. You can't have too many masks. How much virtue do you want to signal? This is just dumb."