Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) just put Nancy Pelosi and her fellow Democrats on notice.
Speaking with Fox News on Tuesday, Cruz went after the House speaker and other Democrats in Congress, who he said are turning a blind eye to the violence that continues months after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the Washington Examiner reports.
Cities like Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon have been the backdrop for violent demonstrations against police and government officials — and Cruz says Democrats are only enabling it, according to the Examiner.
“What’s happening, unfortunately, is not free speech,” Cruz told Fox News personality Sean Hannity on Tuesday, according to Fox, “and those who are peaceably protesting are seeing their protests hijacked by violent anarchists, by Marxists who are engaged in acts of terror.”
“Denying reality”
According to Cruz, it isn’t a “complicated” issue. As the Examiner reported, he told Hannity: “Don’t assault your fellow citizens. Don’t firebomb a police car. Don’t loot and destroy small businesses. Don’t murder police officers.”
Sadly, Democrats on the Hill haven’t been willing to take the same approach to the violence.
“Seven Democrats spoke and…questioned the witnesses,” the Texas senator said after chairing a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Antifa earlier Tuesday, as Fox reported. “Not a single one dared to…criticize Antifa in any way, because they’re making a cynical decision that they want to encourage these radical leftists who are assaulting and threatening American citizens.
“It’s really unfortunate,” Cruz added.
“Captive to the extreme”
The senator also alleged Tuesday that most Democrats are “really held captive to the extreme angry voices, whether it’s Antifa, whether…it is [Democrat lawmakers like] AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.”
“And you see them denying reality,” Cruz said, according to Fox. “You’ll also see them using rhetoric, I mean, calling federal police officers ‘storm troopers’ like Nancy Pelosi did, or ‘Gestapo,’ as [Jim] Clyburn did… Cops are not Nazis, and it is grotesque. It is offensive.” The House speaker had tweeted in July as federal agents cracked down on Portland that “Trump [and] his stormtroopers must be stopped.”
In addition to the rebuke from Cruz, Pelosi’s words brought sharp and swift criticism from Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf, who called her comments “absurd” and “dangerous” in a July interview with Fox News.
“One, it’s disgusting, two, it’s an assault on every federal or civilian or state and local law enforcement officer who has taken an oath to protect their communities, to protect, in our case, federal facilities, to do their jobs,” Wolf said, according to Fox, “and I think it’s very, very dangerous.”
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