During Wednesday’s broadcast of Fox News Channel’s “Fox News @ Night,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued Democrats politicians in some of America’s cities and states were allowing protests to get out of control because they saw it as “in their political best interest to allow the mob to carry out their violence.”
He explained that he was offering legislation that would allow for increased damages if citizens were denied police protection, and that resulted in injuries to person or property.
“You know, this is a really tough time for our country right now,” he said. “We’re seeing riots across the country. We’re seeing violence and police cars being firebombed, police officers being murdered, and violent mobs within our cities. But even worse, in the face of that, we’re also seeing Democratic politicians — Democratic mayors, Democratic governors — who have somehow made the decision it’s in their political best interest to allow the mob to carry out their violence. And they’re refusing to protect their own citizens. They’re allowing these lawless autonomous zones to exist within their boundaries. That has never happened in modern times.”
“And so, I introduced this week legislation that if an elected official wrongfully denies their citizens the right to police protection in the situation of a riot, that you can sue them and get triple damages for any injuries you suffer or for any damage to your home or your business,” Cruz continued. “And a lot of these Democratic politicians sat by as small businesses were looted and burned to the ground. Many of those small business owners were African-American or Hispanics. But the Democratic politicians didn’t care. It was in their — what they defined as their partisan interest to allow the mob to rage. That’s — that’s not right.”
Cruz said the federal government was justified to react when federal property was threatened. He offered examples in American history of federal intervention in instances of civil unrest.
“You know, this shouldn’t be complicated,” Cruz said. “These are pretty simple rules in life. Don’t physically hurt somebody else. Don’t assault somebody else. Don’t burn their business to the ground. Don’t murder somebody else. But yet, the violent mobs aren’t following that. And, in this instance — so what’s happened is these mobs are attacking federal buildings. They’re attacking federal courthouses. Now, it ought to be real simple. If you attack a federal courthouse, the answer ought to be — you’re going to be arrested. You’re going to be put in jail. You’re going to stay in jail a long time. It’s real simple, don’t attack a federal courthouse.
“Well, what the federal government is quite reasonably doing is sending federal law enforcement agencies to protect federal buildings, protect federal courthouses, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he continued. “Actually — you know what, I said never seen anything like it. Yes — yes, I have. What these Democrats are doing is the same thing we saw Democrats do in the 1950s and ’60s. It’s the same thing Democratic politicians like Bull Connor did. It’s the same thing that you saw Democratic racists who didn’t want to segregate schools — and remember Eisenhower sent in the Army and said, you’re going to follow, you’re going to follow Brown versus Board of Education, and you had elected Democrats, and they were all Democrats who were enforcing Jim Crow who said get your federal officers out of here.”
“Well, guess what?” Cruz added. “You don’t have the ability to throw the federal government out. You don’t have the ability to throw federal law enforcement officers out. And you certainly don’t have the ability to say, ‘We’re going to allow the federal courthouse or the federal building to burn.’ You know what? If the Chicago mayor wants to allow the mob to rampage in city hall and occupy her office, that’s — that’s her decision. Knock yourself out if you want to give in to the lawlessness. But she doesn’t have the right to give up the federal courthouse, and neither does the mayor of Portland or the governor of Oregon, or any of these Democrats who they’ve made a decision the police are the enemy and the mob are their allies, and it’s just — it’s wrong.”
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