Ted Cruz Defends Parents Invoking Nazi Salutes at School Board Meetings

Throughout a fiery Senate Judiciary Committee listening to on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at one level defended dad and mom throwing up Nazi salutes in school board conferences.

Cruz, along with other Republicans, lambasted Legal professional Normal Merrick Garland for directing the Justice Department this month to analyze the rise in violent threats against educators. That rise has coincided with right-wing media fueling fury over masks mandates and so-called important race concept.

Referencing a letter written by the Nationwide Faculty Boards Affiliation, Cruz asserted that most of the examples of threats the NSBA cited had been “non-violent,” including that one occasion concerned faculty board assembly attendees doing fascist gestures.

“My God! A mum or dad did a Nazi salute at a college board as a result of they thought the insurance policies had been oppressive,” Cruz dramatically exclaimed. “Normal Garland, is doing a Nazi salute at an elected official, is that protected by the First Modification?”

“Sure, it’s,” Garland calmly replied, prompting Cruz to then declare the memo to the FBI says “go examine dad and mom as home terrorists.”

The AG famous that his memo doesn’t say that “in any respect,” inflicting Cruz to reply that the NSBA’s letter does. “I don’t care what the letter says,” the legal professional normal shot again.

The varsity board affiliation’s letter to the president calling for him to behave towards “threats and acts of violence” does embrace a reference to home terrorism—language the NSBA has since apologized for and walked back following intense conservative backlash.

On the similar time, as Garland himself repeatedly instructed the senator on Wednesday, his Oct. 4 memo to the Justice Division “says nothing about home terrorism” and that he was additionally reacting to “public studies of violence and threats of violence.”

Cruz would later take to Twitter to defend his protection of Nazi salutes in school board conferences.

“Lefty journos are both (1) dishonest or (2) not very vivid (or each),” the senator wrote in response to at least one journalist’s tweet. “The mum or dad was doing the Nazi salute as a result of he was calling the authoritarian faculty board Nazis—evil, unhealthy & abusive. And sure, calling somebody a Nazi may be very a lot protected by the First Modification.”