this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2026
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In what appeared to be a moment of misspeaking, anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (TX) said in a recent congressional speech, “How about we all come together and say ‘Let’s stop attacking pedophiles’?”

During a congressional hearing on the current president’s actions addressing crime in cities — which seems mostly to be insulting large city mayors, ignoring higher-crime areas in red states, and then sending in armed federal officers against the mayors’ wishes — Sen. Cruz referred to Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-NJ) plea for Democrats and Republicans to “come together and have bipartisan agreement.”

“I think that’s a great idea. We should have bipartisan agreement,” Cruz said. “How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop murder’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop rape’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop attacking pedophiles’?”

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[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 160 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Same article as September for those curious if Raphael did it again, it's just an old article.

[–] LMurch@thelemmy.club 23 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I have a feeling he was trying to say, "let's stop calling people pedos". That's the best sane-washing I can do.

Have we seen Cruz's name in the 'Trump Files - featuring Jeffrey Epstein'? Maybe he really is standing up for the Epstein class. He's been known to lick Trump's boots, every now and then.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

The only people in the US being broadly unjustly called pedos are minorities. They are being called that by his party and the people who support his party.

Don’t do work for this parasite.

[–] GuyFawkesV@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Cruz is a piece of shit but I don’t recall seeing anything about him being the files, so guessing he’s just a bootlicker like you said.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

It's possible. It's also possible that he just couldn't afford to be in the Trump/Epstein files. Maybe his more affordable version of torturing children and animals is abandoning his dog during a freeze to fly to Cancun and then loudly blaming his children?

[–] Freefall@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

More likely he was going for "let's stop attacking conservatives" and got honest.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I mean...

“I think that’s a great idea. We should have bipartisan agreement,” Cruz said. “How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop murder’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop rape’? How about we all come together and say, ‘Let’s stop attacking pedophiles’?”

Seems pretty clear he had:

Stop pedophiles

In his head, realized he shouldn't say that since he's a spineless Republican and tried to pivot to:

Stop attacking people

And his mouth just said both at the same time meaning he said neither.

The jumble that spilled out doesn't matter, piece of shit that he is, he's a great public speaker. He's not trump or Biden who can't string a sentence together. If he fucks up speaking it's because he realized he was about to say something he couldn't and panicked. So the value is in looking at what would logically have made sense in a debate for him to have said.

It's like GW Bush realizing he didn't want a soundbite saying "shame on me":

There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again.

But we're overdue for J Cole's plan:

Fool me three times, fuck the peace sign

[–] ilinamorato@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Yeah, Cruz is a terrible person and should be in prison, but this was clearly just a slip of the tongue. We should be mad at him about real things.

[–] Klear@quokk.au 1 points 1 day ago

Thanks. I thought I read this before.