Tucker Carlson pressures Ted Cruz to embrace his claim that January 6 riot was instigated by the FBI
Published
Citation From the January 6, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight
TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): So who is Ray Epps by the way, since you are a senator? Like -- he and this other guy are clearly encouraging the crowd to commit crimes. Neither one has been arrested or charged. What is that, do you think?
SEN. TED CRUZ (GUEST): So, I think that is a very good question. I don't know who Ray Epps is. I've seen that video multiple times. It's disturbing. He's clearly urging the crowd to violate the law. When you see the crowd started chanting “fed fed fed" for him to appear on the FBI's most-wanted list and come off it it certainly suggests he was working for the FBI. That's not conclusive but that's the obvious implication. And the attorney general and the Department of Justice won't answer the question. Tucker, I can tell you I've joined with a number of other senators trying to get the Biden DOJ to answer the question, why so many January 6 prisoners are in solitary confinement? Why they're being treated so much worse than the antifa rioters and the people who committed firebombing and a year of riots across the country and this Biden DOJ won't go after them.
But let me also make a quick point, Tucker. Remember while thousands of people were standing up to defend this country on January 6, at that exact moment I was standing on the Senate floor objecting to the election results, demanding that we impanel election commission to consider evidence of voter fraud and I brought together 11 senators to join me in supporting getting to the bottom of that. So of course, it would be ridiculous for me to be saying that the people standing up and protesting to follow the law were somehow terrorists. I was talking about people who commit violence against cops. And you and I both agree, if you commit violence against cops you should go to jail.
CARLSON: Yeah, but you're not a terrorist. You know, you're not. You're a guy who assaults a cop. OK, so there's a legal difference as you well know, better than I do, since you were actually in the running for the Supreme Court, and there is a moral difference between a guy --
CRUZ: But Tucker, the reason I've used that word is for a decade I've used that word for people that violently assault cops. I used that word all in 2020 for the antifa and BLM terrorists that assaulted cops and firebombed police cars. But I agree it was a mistake to use the word yesterday, because the Democrats and the corporate media have so politicized it. They're trying to paint everyone as a terrorist and it is a lie. And by the way I've spoken out vocally against, your exchange you just had, they want to paint us as Nazis. Yes --
CARLSON: I know, it's scary.
CRUZ: That is what they are trying to do. I'm just -- look I'm the one leading the fight in the Senate against this garbage and it's what I have been doing and it's what I'll continue doing.