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Ted Cruz booed by a Texas audience as he proposes putting more police officers in schools

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Ted Cruz was booed by a Texas audience when he said his plan to end school shootings is putting more police officers in schools

  • Ted Cruz was met with a booing audience when he said his plan to stop school shootings is putting more police in schools.
  • Cruz commented on gun control efforts and the Uvalde school shooting at the Texas Tribune Festival.
  • A responsive audience jeered at Cruz at some points, demanding age restrictions on assault weapons.

Sen. Ted Cruz was met with boos from a Texas audience when he said that his plan to combat school shootings is placing more police officers in schools.

Cruz spoke about guns and other contentious topics at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday, where he was met with a responsive audience.

“Whenever you have a mass murder … you have Democrats in Washington, the step they immediately go to is we need to take away firearms from law-abiding citizens,” Cruz said, prompting sparse applause. “OK, you can clap for that except for the minor problem that it doesn’t work. If the objective is to stop these crimes, gun control is singularly ineffective.”

Cruz argued that gun control measures punish “law-abiding citizens” instead of criminals, though the audience seemed to disagree with him at some points.

“If you want to stop crime,” Cruz said, “you target the bad guys. You target the criminals, the felons, the fugitives. You prosecute them, you put them in jail, you get them off the streets, and you also enhance security at vulnerable targets.”

Cruz has made similar comments before in defense of the National Rifle Association, which he said “stands up for the rights of every American,” Business Insider previously reported. Cruz has received the most donations from gun rights groups among other Texas lawmakers, according to Axios.

“Two weeks ago, I stood on the Senate floor and tried to pass legislation I’ve introduced that would double the number of police officers in school,” Cruz said to a crowd of boos. “If we want to keep our kids safe, and I desperately want to keep our kids safe, the most effective step we can do is to have police officers there to protect them who can intercept a mass murderer before he gets into the school and stop them.”

Cruz was met with more yells from the audience, this time specifically about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in May that left 19 elementary schoolers and two teachers dead. A total of 376 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, though the gunman remained at large for over an hour. An interim report on the police response found that responding officers “failed to prioritize saving the lives of innocent victims over their own safety,” Insider previously reported.Cruz said that the Uvalde shooter was successful in his efforts because he was able to get into the school through an unlocked door, but members of the audience continued to yell back at him.

“Look, if you have a solution to stop the deranged evil murderers, I’d love to hear it. My solution is to throw them in jail,” Cruz said. “Stop them before they commit these crimes. There are some we won’t know about beforehand, and the single best step to stop them is to have armed officers on campus that can stop them before they kill our kids.”

“But look, instead you guys can instead sing kumbaya with them and hope they’ll just stop, but what you’re proposing doesn’t work,” Cruz added.

“Eighteen-year-old boys don’t need an AR-15,” someone from the audience yelled, prompting applause.

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Bizarre Epstein files reference to Trump, Putin, and oral sex with ‘Bubba’ draws scrutiny in Congress

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The latest tranche of emails from the estate of late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein includes one that contains what appear to be references to President Donald Trump allegedly performing oral sex, raising questions the committee cannot answer until the Department of Justice turns over records it has withheld, says U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

Garcia insists the Trump White House is helping block them.

In a Friday afternoon interview with The Advocate, the out California lawmaker responded to a 2018 exchange, which was included in the emails released, between Jeffrey Epstein and his brother, Mark Epstein. In that message, Mark wrote that because Jeffrey Epstein had said he was with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, he should “ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba.”

“Bubba” is a nickname former President Bill Clinton has been known by; however, the email does not clarify who Mark Epstein meant, and the context remains unclear.

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USDA head says ‘everyone’ on SNAP will now have to reapply

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Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Thursday said the Trump administration is planning to have all Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) beneficiaries reapply for the program due to alleged fraud.

The secretary said after receiving data on SNAP recipients from 29 red states that “186,000 deceased men and women and children in this country are receiving a check.”

“Can you imagine when we get our hands on the blue state data what we’re going to find?” she asked during a Thursday appearance on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight.”

“It’s going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable, and they can’t survive without it,” she added.

Every state has a periodic recertification process that requires SNAP or food stamp recipients to update their whereabouts and earnings, according to the Department of Agriculture (USDA). Most municipalities require updated data every six to 12 months.

“Secretary Rollins wants to ensure the fraud, waste, and incessant abuse of SNAP ends,” a USDA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill. “Rates of fraud were only previously assumed, and President Trump is doing something about it. Using standard recertification processes for households is a part of that work. As well as ongoing analysis of State data, further regulatory work, and improved collaboration with States. “

Earlier this month, food stamps were threatened amid the government shutdown as the Trump administration argued against using contingency funds to fuel the welfare program.

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Trump orders Bondi to investigate Epstein’s ties to Clinton and other political foes

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NEW YORK (AP) — Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.

Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.

Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.

Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.

Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”

“This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” the Republican president wrote, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian interference in Trump’s 2016 election victory over Bill Clinton’s wife, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Asked later Friday whether he should be ordering up such investigations, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One: “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it.”

In a July memo regarding the Epstein investigation, the FBI said, “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

The president’s demand for an investigation — and Bondi’s quick acquiescence — is the latest example of the erosion of the Justice Department’s traditional independence from the White House since Trump took office.

It is also an extraordinary attempt at deflection. For decades, Trump himself has been scrutinized for his closeness to Epstein — though like the people he now wants investigated, he has not been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims.

None of Trump’s proposed targets were accused of sex crimes

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