On Thursday, while appearing on Tucker Carlson's show on Fox News, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) groveled for mercy over a remark in Wednesday's hearing of the Senate Rules Committee, where he called the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol a "violent terrorist attack." "The way I phrased things yesterday, it was sloppy and it was, frankly, dumb," said Cruz, as Carlson repeatedly attacked him for his choice of words.
But on Friday, CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale pointed out that there was nothing "sloppy" about Cruz calling January 6 terrorism. In fact, he has done it before — more than a dozen times.
"Cruz's use of 'terrorist attack' was not some sort of one-time accident," wrote Dale. "In fact, he had described the Capitol riot as a terrorist attack or broadly described rioters as terrorists over and over for months — at least 17 previous times in official written statements, in tweets, in remarks at Senate hearings and in interviews."
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Among these occasions were his tweeted statement immediately after the event, calling it a "despicable act of terrorism," his response to the Capitol Police investigating Officer Brian Sicknick's death that "Yesterday's terrorist attack was a horrific assault on our democracy. Every terrorist needs to be fully prosecuted," and his question at a June Senate hearing to the Capitol Police inspector general what steps could have been taken to "prevent the violent terrorist attack from successfully breaching the Capitol."
"CNN asked Cruz spokesman Steve Guest how Cruz's claim that his 'terrorist attack' phrasing on Wednesday was 'sloppy' is compatible with the senator's numerous past uses of the exact same phrasing," noted Dale. "Guest emailed a response that disparaged CNN and other media outlets but did not provide an explanation."
You can read more here.
