If there’s anything Ted Cruz (R-Cancun) hates after more children in Texas get shredded by automatic gunfire, it’s uppity non-American journalists calling him on his bullshit about Americans having the best gol’darned country in the whole wide world.
The exchange is crazy, even for Ted Cruz:
On Wednesday Cruz spoke to Mark Stone, US correspondent for Sky News, at a vigil in Uvalde.
“There are 19 sets of parents who are never gonna get to kiss their child goodnight,” Cruz said.
Stone asked: “Is this the moment to reform gun laws?”
Cruz said: “You know, it’s easy to go to politics.”
“But it’s important,” Stone said. “It’s at the heart of the issue.”
“I get that that’s where the media likes to go,” Cruz said.
Stone said many people at the vigil wanted gun reform. National polling consistently shows large majorities in support of such reform.
Cruz said reform proposals came from “Democrats and the media, inevitably, when some violent psychopath murders people”.
Stone pointed out that the 18-year-old gunman in Uvalde was a “violent psychopath who’s able to get a weapon so easily … two AR-15” assault rifles.
Cruz said: “If you want to stop violent crime, the proposals the Democrats have, none of them would have stopped this.”
Stone said: “Many people around the world just cannot fathom, ‘Why only in America? Why is this American exceptionalism so awful?’”
Cruz said: “You know, I’m sorry you think American exceptionalism is awful.”
Stone said he thought “this aspect of it” was awful.
“You’ve got your political agenda,” Cruz said, putting his hands on the reporter’s shoulders, saying “God love you” and walking away.
Stone and another reporter pursued, asking, “I just want to understand why you do not think that guns are the problem in America” and “Why is America the only country that makes this kind of mass shooting?”
Stone said: “You can’t answer that, can you, sir?”
Cruz turned. Leaning close to the reporter and jabbing his finger, he said: “Why is it that people come from all over the world to America? Because it’s the freest, most prosperous, safest country on earth.
Republicans are so gutless. Their only answer when they do get pertinent questions from journalists — If America is so great, why is it the only country where near-toddlers are gunned down in classrooms? — that they have nothing left as an answer other than shoveling pro-American propaganda any European or thinking American knows is simply not true.
