Ted Cruz Is Being Roundly Called Out For Sharing A Fake Story About The Taliban Hanging An Afghan Man From A U.S. Helicopter

Ted Cruz has been on a social media tear over the withdrawal in Afghanistan, and he already got pelted with “Cancun” comebacks after tweeting (without doing any research), “America doesn’t leave Americans behind.” This led people to pounce upon him because no one will ever forget that he flew off to a sunny Mexico resort while Texas residents froze without power during a catastrophic ice storm. Well, Cruz is in more trouble for not doing his research. He retweeted (and later deleted) a video with a false caption (the original tweet can be seen at Mediaite, with Cruz writing, “This horrifying image encapsulates Joe Biden’s Afghanistan catastrophe: The Taliban hanging a man from an American Blackhawk helicopter… Tragic. Unimaginable.”

As tragic as that situation sounded, yes, it turned out to be “unimaginable” because the video was not the situation that Cruz (and fellow GOP lawmaker Dan Crenshaw) believed it to be. As Mediaite points out, the man does not at all appear as though he’s being hung, and other footage of the scene showed the man in good spirits after landing safely with both feet on the ground. Journalist Bilal Sarwary soon tweeted the truth of the situation, which is that a Taliban fighter was attempting a maneuver with a flag.

“Afghan pilot flying this is someone I have known over the years,” Sarwary tweeted. “He was trained in the US and UAE, he confirmed to me that he flew the Blackhawk helicopter. Taliban fighter seen here was trying to install Taliban flag from air but it didn’t work in the end.”

After Cruz was alerted to what had really happened, he deleted his falsely captioned tweet (and retweet) and attempted to make some amends (while spreading more falsehoods). “It turns out the post I shared w/ a video of Taliban ‘hanging a man’ from a helicopter may be inaccurate. So I deleted the tweet,” Cruz wrote. “What remains accurate is: – The Taliban are brutal terrorists. – We left them millions in US military equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters.”

At that point, people (even those who claim to support Cruz) lectured him about the dangers of misinformation, particularly because he decided to spread even more misinformation, this time about military equipment that was left behind but disabled. Maybe one day, he’ll listen.

And here comes the “delete your account” request, which is practically obligatory.

(Via Mediaite)

×