Ted Cruz Deletes Tweet After Getting Duped By Fake Atlantic Story Warning of Muslim White Supremacists
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) deleted a tweet on Friday after getting duped by a fake story in The Atlantic warning of Muslim white supremacists.
Cruz tweeted the picture, which was a screenshot of a fake Atlantic piece headlined “The Evolution of White Supremacy” with the subhead reading “In Dearborn Michigan, Muslim parents who oppose teaching pornography to children become the new face of the far right.” Cruz tweeted the picture with the caption “The Left is beyond parody.”
“The image posted by Cruz is fake, not a real Atlantic article. (So: parody the senator is citing as evidence the left is beyond parody.),” tweeted CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale.
The image posted by Cruz is fake, not a real Atlantic article. (So: parody the senator is citing as evidence the left is beyond parody.) pic.twitter.com/JdCO1USjz5
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 14, 2022
This was not the first time Cruz tweeted disinformation, as The Washington Post‘s Aaron Blake noted:
Cruz’s growing paper trail of Twitter misinformation
Afghanistan helicopter: https://t.co/rVDKcwFUho
Mixing up Washington state w/ W. Australia: https://t.co/Or117mCFw7
Nat Guard on Martha’s Vineyard https://t.co/z92YMXPkrV
Ottawa protester “trampled” https://t.co/bcabcjhBv0 https://t.co/nlJtNIOkwM
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) October 14, 2022
While Cruz’s tweet was disinformation, the outcry from the Muslim community in Dearborn to LGBTQ content being taught in the city’s public schools is very real. On Monday evening, demonstrators shut down a school board meeting, causing it to be rescheduled to Thursday.
UPDATE 1:04 pm ET: Just before noon, Cruz tweeted that he “didn’t know it fake.”
Didn’t know it was fake. You guys are so insane, it could easily have been real.
But it wasn’t. And so I deleted the tweet as soon as I found out. https://t.co/5vD8OYJgDr
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) October 14, 2022
