Texas Senator Ted Cruz has changed his mind on condemning the 6 January capitol riots, and said his Republican peers were wrong to call it a “violent insurrection”.
Previously, Senator Cruz has called the riot a "terrorist attack" but has apparently since changed his thinking.
"I think it is a mistake for Republicans to repeat the political propaganda of Democrats and the corporate media," Mr Cruz told CNN on Wednesday, after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the event a "violent insurrection” on Tuesday.
“We were all here. We saw what happened. It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next,” Mr McConnell told reporters, breaking with the Republican National Committee (RNC).
Mr Cruz has also apologised for calling the Capitol riot a “violent terrorist attack” and chalked it up to “sloppy phrasing”.
“It’s caused a lot of people to misunderstand what I said,” he said to Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show. “What I was referring to was the limited number of people who engaged in violent attacks against police officers … I wasn’t saying that the thousands of peaceful protesters supporting Donald Trump are somehow terrorists. I wasn’t saying the millions of patriots across the country are terrorists, and that’s what a lot of people have misunderstood,” he said.
Members of the Republican Party have criticised fellow Republican Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois for participating in the 6 January committee, which has subpoenaed dozens of people in Mr Trump’s circle for their alleged roles in the Capitol riot.
A draft censure resolution was drawn up to no longer support the representatives in the Republican Party who serve on the 6 January committee.
“Representatives Cheney and Kinzinger purport to be members of the Republican Party,” reads the document, but “are participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse, and they are both utilising their past professed political affiliation to mask Democrat abuse of preceptorial power for partisan purposes”.
Mr McConnell also said on Tuesday that the RNC shouldn’t be “picking and choosing Republicans who ought to be supported”.
