Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed Democrats for their apparent support of political violence during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday afternoon that examined the growing domestic terrorism threat in the United States.
“You know, there ought to be at least three propositions on which all of us can agree,” Cruz began. “Number one, violent crime is always unacceptable, and should be punished severely. Number two, hate is wrong. And number three, the machinery of the federal government should not be used as a tool to target and persecute your political opponents. All three of those propositions should be ideas that bring us together, regardless of where you fall on the political spectrum. Unfortunately, we see over and over again, efforts to politicize acts of violence.”
Cruz condemned white supremacy and the different extremist groups that support it, like the KKK and the Nazi Party, calling them “unequivocally hateful, bigoted, racist morons who should be denounced and despised.”
“I do think my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle try very hard to erase the history of the Klan, that it was formed by elected Democrats, that its leadership was almost entirely elected Democrats, that the authors of the Jim Crow laws were without exception elected Democrats,” Cruz said. “And I also think today’s congressional Democrats try to use the charge of ‘white supremacy,’ which is undoubtedly evil, bigoted, and wrong, and weaponized by their own party, they try to use that as a proxy for attacking a political party they disagree with.”
Cruz said that in doing so, Democrats engage in “diminishing anti-Jewish violence, anti-Asian violence, violence directed at white people, violence directed at police.”
“My view is simple: violence is always wrong. Whatever your ideology, left-wing, right-wing, no wings: If you’re seeking to hurt people, it is wrong,” Cruz said. “Is violence from white supremacist extremist organizations a problem? Absolutely. As is violence from other hate groups. The Brooklyn subway shooter was a known black supremacist who called for racial violence. The Waukesha attacker, who murdered six people driving an SUV into a Christmas parade, was a viciously left-wing black nationalist bigot.”
“2016, another black nationalist gunned down five police officers in Dallas. I was there with President Obama at the funeral for those police officers. He did so on explicitly racial grounds. In 2019, two anti-Semitic domestic terrorists gunned down four people in a kosher grocery store,” he continued. “San Francisco in the past year has seen a 567% increase in anti-Asian violence. Anti-Jewish hate crimes in New York City are up 148% in the first quarter of 2022 compared to the first quarter of 2021.”
“And then, of course, we have the violence of the Antifa riots and the Black Lives Matter riots that racked this country,” Cruz concluded. “As stores were looted, police cars were firebombed, people were assaulted, people were murdered, my colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle sought to excuse, sought to apologize for, even went so far as raised money to bail out of jail the violent rioters committing these acts of violence.”
WATCH:
Sen. Ted Cruz details left wing extremism & violence.
On Antifa, Cruz: ”My colleagues on the Democratic side of the aisle sought to excuse, sought to apologize for, even went so far as raised money to bail out of jail the violent rioters committing these acts of violence.” pic.twitter.com/LmvHnCNZFL
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 7, 2022