Donald Trump’s endorsements from white supremacists have attracted a lot of media attention, as have his failures to disavow them. This new clip from Samantha Bee, however, shows that Ted Cruz has attracted high profile endorsements from people who are every bit as bad as David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan.
They include:
- Kevin Swanson, a Colorado pastor who has repeatedly called for the execution of homosexuals and did so again at a November speech in Iowa shortly before taking the stage with Ted Cruz.
- Flip Benham, a North Carolina pastor convicted of stalking an abortion doctor who has been a leader in the anti-Muslim movement for over a decade.
- Mike Bickle, a Kansa City pastor who has said that the Holocaust was divine intervention from God punishing the Jews for not accepting Jesus Christ as their savior.
- Ted Nugent, a far right public figure and NRA board-member who regularly makes racist and anti-Semitic remarks. He recently published an anti-Semitic anti-gun-control poster highlighting prominent Jewish gun control advocates and arguing that the Jews are behind the gun control movement.
The list goes on and on, and not only has Ted Cruz refused to reject their support, his campaign has publicly touted and celebrated their endorsements. They are included on a list of more than 200 radical, right-wing preachers who have endorsed Ted Cruz that was published on his campaign site in November.
Cruz has yet to face any of the media scrutiny that Donald Trump has faced over his endorsement from David Duke and the KKK. Members of the Cruz campaign have quietly tried to distance themselves from some of the more extreme remarks, saying they reject Bickle’s notion that Hitler was sent by God to kill Jews (but still clung to his endorsement) and admitting it was a mistake for Cruz to attend the rally where Swanson called for the execution of homosexuals.
But Cruz himself has rarely commented on such issues and has rarely been questioned by the media on these endorsements. Cruz should be asked to publicly condemn these supporters and their remarks the same way Trump was with David Duke. These endorsements should attract the same amount of media attention and serve as an important reminder that Cruz’s campaign is every bit as extreme, bigoted and dangerous as Donald Trump’s.
Feature Image via Flickr by Michael Vadon
