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Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was fact-checked on Fox News Wednesday after he falsely asserted ― again ― that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had called parents “domestic terrorists.”
Speaking on Fox News about Republican Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia gubernatorial race, Cruz claimed one reason for the Republican victory was parents wanting to have “influence and control over what their kids are taught.”
“The arrogance of the Democrats saying ‘parents have no control over that,’ and even worse, the attorney general ― Joe Biden’s attorney general ― calling those parents domestic terrorists. I think that directly led to the result last night.”
Anchor John Roberts pointed out that Cruz’s statement about Garland was false.
“Although in fairness, he said that they weren’t domestic terrorists. It was the National School Boards Association that said that,” Roberts said.
You can watch that exchange below at around the 1:30 mark.
Cruz later tweeted a clip from the interview that contained his false claim but not Roberts’ correction.
The senator’s office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Cruz and other Republican senators have been up in arms over an Oct. 4 memo from Garland directing the FBI and attorneys general to work with local law enforcement to devise strategies to address increased harassment, intimidation and violent threats against public school employees and school board members across the country.
The memo makes no mention of the term “domestic terrorist,” nor does it cast parents as such.
It was sent several days after the National School Boards Association wrote a letter to the president asking for federal support to address growing harassment and threats of violence against local school board members. That letter did use the term domestic terrorism, and the NSBA later apologized for using that language.
The plea for help came as school board meetings have become growing hot spots for politicized and often heated disputes over mask-wearing, COVID-19 mitigation strategies and how children are taught about racism in America.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting last month about the attorney general’s memo, Cruz accused Garland of directing the FBI to “go investigate parents as domestic terrorists.” An exasperated Garland repeatedly told him, and other Republican senators who made similar assertions, that this was not true.
H/T Raw Story
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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