Exclusive -- Ted Cruz: Boycotting Olympics in China Would 'Punish' Athletes

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview that he does not believe in boycotting the 2022 Winter Olympics in China because it would “punish” young athletes who have trained their entire lives to compete on the international stage. The senator instead suggested that Chinese communists be called out for being “murderers,” “torturers,” running “concentration camps,” and covering up the Chinese coronavirus, among other things.

“Jimmy Carter boycotted the Olympics in 1980. It was a dismal failure; it didn’t work,” Cruz told Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow last week at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona.

“And I don’t think it’s fair to punish a bunch of young athletes — young men and women — who have spent their entire lives training for just this brief moment to compete on the international stage,” the senator added. “I’m not willing to destroy their dreams.”

Cruz went on to say that this “doesn’t mean that we should be unwilling to confront China.”

“I think we should call out China,” he said. “They are murderers, they are torturers, they have concentration camps with over one million Uyghurs, they engage in espionage, they engage in fraud, they covered up COVID and have direct responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost, the trillions of dollars destroyed.”

The senator suggested that the Olympics also be used as an opportunity to “shine a light on China’s abuses, but also let our athletes go there and kick their commie asses.”

Marlow mentioned that while news outlets, such as Breitbart, will cover China’s abuses, “a lot of these corporations that control our media, they love working with China.”

“I think the corporate sponsors oughta cut their money,” Cruz responded. “We’ve seen in the past that the corporate media, they are corrupt. They are China shills. They’re in bed with China.”

For a more lighthearted question, Marlow asked Cruz, “What is Jimmy Kimmel’s problem with you? You played hoops, you beat him, I thought that was the truce.”

Watch Below:

“He’s just a little bit obsessed,” Cruz said. “Sometimes there are weeks where it seems like every night he goes on and his monologue is coming after me.”

“Most recently, he posted this really horrific photoshopped video of my head on a naked body of some other dude, riding an enormous hotdog,” the senator laughed. “I don’t even want to know where his mind is taking him. It’s a frightening image.”

Cruz explained that every time Kimmel attacks him, the senator responds by simply re-sharing video footage of him triumphing over the late night TV host during their one-on-one basketball game in 2018.

“I have a simple response whenever he takes a shot at me,” Cruz said. “I just send out, again, video of when he and I played basketball one-on-one.”

Watch the full interview below:

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