Sen. Ted Cruz accused Democrats in Congress of enabling violent outbursts that have broken out during anti-government demonstrations in Portland, Oregon, and Seattle in recent weeks.
“What’s happening, unfortunately, is not free speech,” Cruz said Tuesday night on Fox News. “… and those who are peaceably protesting are seeing their protests hijacked by violent anarchists, by Marxists who are engaged in acts of terror.”
Cruz on Tuesday afternoon led a Senate hearing examining, “How antifa and other anti-American anarchists engage in riots and violence across the country.”
He criticized Democrats following the hearing for not denouncing antifa.
“Seven Democrats spoke and … questioned the witnesses. 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,” Cruz said. “It’s really unfortunate.”
[Related: Partisan eruptions at antifa hearing leave witnesses doubtful Congress will act]
Since early this summer, various anti-police groups have led demonstrations in cities following the death of George Floyd. In Seattle, activists occupied a six-block area of the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood for weeks, a law enforcement-free area they called the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, before police broke up the encampment.
In Portland, rioters have targeted a federal courthouse in the city’s downtown area for weeks, which sparked the deployment of federal troops to the region in what the Department of Homeland Security has said is an attempt to protect the complex.
President Trump and his Justice Department have blamed some of the civil unrest that ripped through several cities following Floyd’s death on “outside agitators” or members of “far-left groups.”
“We have evidence that antifa and other similar extremist groups, as well as actors of a variety of different political persuasions, have been involved in instigating and participating in the violent activity,” Attorney General William Barr said in early June.
Some Democrats and Black Lives Matter activists have shot back that far-right groups have infiltrated “otherwise peaceful protests” in an attempt to start riots and thus cast the Black Lives Matter movement in a negative light.
“We’re dealing with a witches’ brew of different organizations and a variety of ideological persuasions,” Barr said. “Some are antifa-related. A lot of the extremists are involved in egging on violence and participating in violence.”
Protesters in Portland and Seattle have accused both local and federal police of overly aggressive tactics. Law enforcement officials have warned officers have been violently attacked and injured with bricks, lasers, and other objects.
Multiple officers in Portland have been left partially blind after laser attacks, and more than a dozen police were injured after being attacked during rioting in Seattle on July 25.
“At the end of the day, none of this is complicated,” Cruz said. “Don’t assault your fellow citizens. Don’t firebomb a police car. Don’t loot and destroy small businesses. Don’t murder police officers.”
Democrats spent Tuesday’s hearing characterizing Trump and the federal government as tyrannical and stepping on protester’s free speech rights.
“If this subcommittee wants to protect Americans’ rights to peacefully assemble, we should be focused on preventing federal officers from beating up protesters, tear gassing them, and shooting them in the face,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, before leaving the hearing early. “That’s the hearing we should be having today.”
Cruz, like Trump and his allies on Capitol Hill, warned rioting is being carried out by people who have no interest in legitimate police reform and instead want to create chaos and destroy civilized society.
What’s worse, Cruz argued, is the Democratic Party’s laser focus on the tactics of federal law enforcement instead of the acts of violence being committed against them.
“Most of the party is really held captive to the extreme angry voices, whether it’s antifa, whether … it is AOC or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren,” Cruz said. “And you see them denying reality … it is grotesque. It is offensive.”
