This statement by Ted Cruz is giving a lot of people an opportunity to express their opinion on how unlikeable he is – how despicable he is on the inside. This is what Cruz said with regard to the violence that happened yesterday at two Trump rallies:

“A campaign bears responsibility for creating an environment when the candidate urges supporters to engage in physical violence.”

Wow, that seems antithetical to our cherished principles of free speech! Cruz claims to be a Constitutional conservative, how can he say that someone’s speech can be responsible for someone else’s actions? How dare he comment on what we can and cannot say! That’s PC bullshit! He’s just like Nancy Pelosi! He’s a liar, a phony, a charlaton! This just proves he is a jackbooted thug in disguise!

Everyone seemed to miss the part where he also said:

“Earlier today over thirty people were arrested at one rally, and then tonight as violence broke out the rally was cancelled altogether. Now the responsibility for that lies with protestors who took violence into their own hands . . . .”

While I would have urged Cruz to spend more time on the responsibility of the protestors in Chicago, he was not talking just about Chicago. He was also talking about the sucker punch on a protestor at a rally in North Carolina – for which a Trump supporter has been arrested, and the take down of the Breitbart reporter by an as of yet to be definitively determined Trump staffer, among other things.

Here is the video clip of Cruz’s interview (my transcription follows below):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmxBp4IFe_I

Here is Cruz’s full response (my transcription):

“I also want to mention something about the events in Chicago. This is a sad day. Political discourse should occur in this country, without a threat of violence. Without anger and rage and hatred directed at each other. We need to learn to have disagreements without being disagreeable. We need to have disagreements while respecting human beings on the other side. Earlier today over thirty people were arrested at one rally, and then tonight as violence broke out the rally was cancelled altogether. Now the responsibility for that lies with protestors who took violence into their own hands but in any campaign responsibility starts at the top. Any candidate is responsible for the culture of the campaign. When you have a campaign that disrespects the voters, when you have a campaign that affirmatively encourages violence, when you have a campaign that is facing allegations of physical violence against members of the press, you create an environment that only encourages this sort of nasty discourse.”