Incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke clashed early in their first debate over police violence against black people and whether it’s disrespectful for NFL players to kneel during the national anthem.
Cruz accused O’Rourke of describing law enforcement as the modern-day Jim Crow. O’Rourke has talked about reforming the criminal justice system on the campaign trail, arguing that the disproportionate number of black and brown people incarcerated at a higher rate than white people for similar offenses, and calling those practices a “modern-day Jim Crow.”
“That is offensive,” said Cruz at South Methodist University in Dallas. “I think it is offensive to call police officers ‘modern-day Jim Crow.'”
O’Rourke shot back that the country needs to “do something better” because too many unarmed black men are being killed. O’Rourke cited a criminal justice reform bill he co-sponsored with Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the senior senator and a Republican.
Cruz didn’t acknowledge that there is a problem with the number of black people being killed in the country, instead saying “everyone’s rights should be protected,” adding that he’s been to too many police funerals.
“This is your trick in the trade, to confuse and incite based on fear,” O’Rourke said.
On the issue of NFL players kneeling to highlight police brutality, O’Rourke repeated a now-viral answer that he gave a month ago, saying nothing is more American than protesting peacefully any time, any place.
Cruz attacked O’Rourke’s answer by saying that the civil rights laws were passed by Republicans, not Democrats at the time. Cruz went so far as to say the civil rights protesters of the ’60s would be “astonished.”
O’Rourke countered that Cruz tried to “mislead by taking peaceful protests during the national anthem and [equate] it to burning the flag.”
