After refusing to be drawn in on attacking President Donald Trump for his statements on the Charlottesvile deadly protest violence, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the murder of Heather Heyer, 32, "an act of domestic terrorism."
"You know, there are plenty of folks providing day-to-day running commentary on the president's various comments, on the president's various tweets, and I feel confident that our good friends in the media will continue to provide that commentary," Sen. Cruz said Thursday on CNN's "Newsroom." "I'm going to leave that to others. But I am going to focus on addressing the issues of the day.
"And in the hours that followed, particularly the horrific scene that all of us have seen of that young man driving the car into the crowd and murdering a young woman, injuring a number of others, that was an act of domestic terrorism."
Sen. Cruz had just finished calling out hate groups "unequivocally" when he was asked about President Trump's response.
"When it comes to the Klan, when it comes to the Nazis and white supremacists, they are unambiguously evil," Cruz said.
". . . The first amendment protects free speech, even hateful speech, but it only protects our rights to speak peaceably. Not to carry out acts of violence, not to carry out murder. And when you do see hateful, racist, bigoted speech, personified by Nazis and klansmen, I believe all of us have a moral obligation to call it out unequivocally."
Republican senators have been asked in the media to disassociate with President Trump's official White House response to Charlottesville, and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., called for "radical changes" in the administration, while the only African-American Republican in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Trump's "moral authority is compromised."
"We want to see from our president is clarity and moral authority, and moral authority's compromised when Tuesday happens," Sen. Scott told HBO's "VICE News Tonight," which will air Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET. "There's no question about that. We should all call that on the carpet. I certainly have."
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