News
‘Monster’ Ted Cruz Blasted Over False Terror Attack Claim: ‘Truth Means Nothing to MAGA’
On the day before Thanksgiving an American and his wife reportedly drove their $300,000 Bentley across the Rainbow Bridge that starts in the U.S from Niagara Falls, New York, and ends on the other side in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
They didn’t make it to the other side.
Their “speeding car crashed in flames,” Reuters reported Wednesday. The couple died. The New York Times reported the mayor of Niagara Falls, NY, “said the couple had originally been headed to a concert in Canada, and investigators believe it was a Kiss show that was called off after a band member’s illness.”
The Times adds that the FBI on Wednesday, hours after the crash, concluded it was not related to terrorism. The Reuters headline now also says, “terrorism ruled out.”
“Investigators were looking at the possibility that the driver had a medical incident, or there was a malfunction with the vehicle,” the New York Post reports.
READ MORE: Fox News Host’s ‘$90 Turkey’ Claim Mocked as Prices Plunge in ‘Thanksgiving Miracle’
None of that information, which has now been widely reported, exists in a current social media post U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) wrote on X (formerly Twitter), Wednesday afternoon, after the crash but before facts were known and widely reported. Cruz’s post has been viewed 4.8 million times.
“This confirms our worst fear: the explosion at Rainbow Bridge was a terrorist attack,” Senator Cruz, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, falsely claimed Wednesday afternoon. “Both attackers are dead, and one law enforcement officer is injured. I am praying that officer makes a full recovery and is able to spend Thanksgiving surrounded by family and loved ones. Thank you to our law enforcement officers who are remaining vigilant and working to protect Americans traveling for Thanksgiving.”
It was not a terrorist attack, a fact made clear quickly, despite reports by Fox News portraying it as a terror attack.
Cruz posted his false claims atop a Fox News report posted by far-right political commentator Benny Johnson, once called a “Pizzagate propagandist,” who also works for Charlie Kirk’s far-right group Turning Point USA.
This confirms our worst fear: the explosion at Rainbow Bridge was a terrorist attack.
Both attackers are dead, and one law enforcement officer is injured.
I am praying that officer makes a full recovery and is able to spend Thanksgiving surrounded by family and loved ones.… https://t.co/tMerZ6ydRu
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) November 22, 2023
Both Cruz’s post and Johnson’s posts are still up. Johnson’s video has been viewed 2.3 million times. A “readers’ note” was appended to Johnson’s video, pointing to New York Governor Kathy Hochul’s post saying, “No evidence of terrorism indicated at this time.”
READ MORE: Republicans Push to Gut Food Aid Program That Helps Feed Half of All Infants in US
A “Readers’ note” was also appended to Cruz’s post, saying: “The explosion at the bridge Cruz references was determined to not be a terrorist attack, and instead an accident involving reckless driving.”
Senator Cruz, first elected to the Senate in 2012, is an attorney with a law degree from Harvard, and a former Texas Solicitor General. His official congressional biography adds Cruz was a “law clerk to Chief Justice of the United States William Rehnquist,” and, “associate deputy attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice.”
Cruz is very active on social media. Since his false tweet he’s made numerous posts on X, including promoting his podcast (“Stay entertained during your Thanksgiving travels by subscribing to Verdict today,”) five times, and late Friday morning promoting his book: “Perfect Black Friday Christmas Gift—The Bestseller Book Unwoke: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism In America.”
The Texas Senator’s false claim, which he has neither removed nor corrected in any manner, has led to tremendous outrage.
U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) reposted Cruz’s claim with a screenshot of an FBI statement that reads in part: “FBI Buffalo has concluded our investigation at the scene of the Rainbow Bridge incident. A search of the scene revealed no explosive materials, and no terrorism nexus was identified.”
“This erroneous tweet is still up. Because the truth means nothing to MAGA fascists like Ted Cruz,” wrote former Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, who now writes a newsletter on politics and the media.
“Ted Cruz tells us it’s too soon to talk about the causes of gun violence in the aftermath of every mass shooting tragedy, but he didn’t hesitate to rashly and wrongly tweet that America was under attack by terrorists earlier today,” wrote gun violence prevention activist and Moms Demand Action founder Shannon Watts.
“What a monster is Ted Cruz,” wrote The Atlantic Norman Ornstein in response to Watt’s tweet.
READ MORE: ‘Denying Career Advancement to White Straight Men’: Stephen Miller’s Law Group Targets Macy’s
“This is embarrassing for you, Ted. Why not just delete this now that it’s completely bogus and wrong? Why prove to everyone you have zero sense of responsibility to the truth?” asked Christian conservative and attorney Heath Mayo.
“This is reckless lie by a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, who followed Fox News as it careened off the speculation cliff,” noted Brandon Wolf, the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.
A former prosecutor for the New York Attorney General’s Office, Tristan Snell, served up this warning:
“By the way, anyone who continues to say the Rainbow Bridge crash was a ‘terrorist attack’ is potentially now liable for defamation by the families of the deceased. Ted Cruz, among others, should be looking for a lawyer.”
See the social media posts above or at this link.
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
