Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" with host Jake Tapper, Arkansas Gov Asa Hutchinson (R) watched a clip of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) groveling before Fox News personality Tucker Carlson over his comments about the Jan 6th Capitol insurrectionists before being put on the spot to explain what he would call the rioters.
Host Tapper asked, "We should note Senator Cruz has referred to the events of that day as terrorism more than a dozen times before he said it that time. Now the FBI defines domestic terrorism as individuals using force or violence to 'further ideological goals such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, environmental nature.' What did you make of that interview and isn't that exactly what the people at the capitol were doing, using violence and criminal behavior to further the political goal of as you note, undermining the election?"
"Well, let me put it back in a little bit more historical context," the Republican lawmaker parried. "I prosecuted when I was a United States attorney, a domestic terrorism case against white supremacists because they were trying to use violence for their own political purposes. That was an FBI domestic terrorism investigation. Now we prosecuted them for racketeering, not a terrorism charge, but a racketeering charge."
"You move that forward to January 6th, and I have no doubt that this is considered domestic terrorism investigation, but at the same time, they're not being charged with terrorism," he explained. "So it's a lot of wordsmithing going on there. The key is don't minimize what happened. Some people are going to call it an insurrection, some people are going to call it terrorism. I call it an interference with the lawful transfer of power using violence, and that's wrong."
"So let's accept what it is, let's don't run from it," he added. "Let's learn from it, and let's make sure that we don't fall down that path again for the long-term. We have to show to the world that we're not going to accept that as how we transfer power in elections in America."
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