If you didn't hear Ted Cruz's speech to American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) tonight and relied on MSNBC's Joy Reid for a summary, you'd believe the Texas senator was utterly devoid of any "humanity," and exhibited dictatorial tendencies in his prescription for handling the radical leftists behind the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott-Divest-Sanction) Movement.
Reid made her remarks shortly after the Republican presidential hopeful wrapped up his address to the pro-Israel lobby group in Washington, D.C. The MSNBC analyst was incensed that Cruz rebuked fellow GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump – who addressed AIPAC earlier in the evening – for referring to "Palestine," an entity which does not, yet, at least, exist as an independent, sovereign state.
Moments later, Reid seethed that Cruz took aim at the First Amendment in his speech:
What you heard from Cruz – and, and by the way, from Ted Cruz, a shot at the First Amendment. Who is essentially saying he would use the mighty power of the federal government to defund colleges, that had young people on it, and a lot of young people, probably the folks that would have been listening to Bernie Sanders, had he been here today, who are doing this BDS movement, where they are trying to push Israel toward a peace agreement.
He said he would defund those colleges, essentially end free speech, and then arrest and prosecute people. This is a man who wants to be the president of a republic rather than a dictatorship?! Just stunning.
Here's the relevant transcript:
MSNBC
The Place for Politics
March 21, 2016; 7:39 p.m. EasternJOY REID: I made a note when Donald Trump, maybe the old Donald Trump who was not so far right, sort of emerged when he referred to Palestine. Which, remember was very controversial when President George W. Bush first used the term.
It used to be not considered PC to even say the word Palestine and to acknowledge that this people are a people. Well, Ted Cruz came out and immediately hammered him on it, and dismissed the existence of Palestine. And said it hasn't existed since 1948. A reallycruel shot. very cruel shot. There was no equanimity in the Cruz speech. There was no humanity, there was no recognizing that there were human beings on the other side of that conflict. It was an extraordinary speech, something I've not really heard an American politician, including Republicans say!
Remember how George W. Bush used to talk about the Muslim and Arab world. How his father spoke about it with a kind of equanimity that George Herbert Walker Bush practiced politics even as their party was trying to win over more Jewish voters. I found it stunning, I have to be honest.
[…]
7:41 p.m. Eastern
REID: What you heard from Cruz – and, and by the way, from Ted Cruz, a shot at the First Amendment. Who is essentially saying he would use the mighty power of the federal government to defund colleges, that had young people on it, and a lot of young people, probably the folks that would have been listening to Bernie Sanders, had he been here today, who are doing this BDS movement, where they are trying to push Israel toward a peace agreement.
He said he would defund those colleges, essentially end free speech, and then arrest and prosecute people. This is a man who wants to be the president of a republic rather than a dictatorship?! Just stunning.
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