Texas Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw blasted fellow GOP members of Congress for stirring up anger over the 2020 election, accusing them of convincing people that January 6 was going to be a “last stand” for election integrity and saying millions of Trump supporters “were lied to about what January 6th was.”
“Let’s be very honest. Senator Cruz and Senator Hawley were not hyping up January 6. They were not calling for people to fight in the streets. They were not saying this was our last stand. That being said, many members of Congress did do that. Many commentators did to that. Many in the media have been doing that for the last few weeks, constantly, saying this is our time to fight. And let me tell you something very clearly: they have been lying to people,” Crenshaw told Fox News’ Martha McCallum Thursday night.
“They’ve been lying to millions. They’ve been lying that January 6 was going to be this big solution to election integrity and it never was going to be,” he continued. “I mean, two hours of debate – forced two hours of debate? That was just some time for some opportunistic politicians to get five minutes of time on the floor. It was never going to solve anything and it was always unconstitutional.”
“They lied to people and said ‘Go fight. Go fight because everything’s on the line.’ That’s what they said. And when people fought, they came to fight, and then they fought Capitol police. And now people are dead. And those same members of Congress who called people to fight, well they were nowhere to be found. Because it was all fun and games to them…they’d been talking about the courage to fight for weeks.”
Crenshaw added that while election integrity is crucial and he understands why millions of Americans have no faith in the electoral system, these “hard battles” must be fought and won at the state level.
“Election integrity is important. It’s been important to me since the say I came to Congress,” he said. “But we have to change these laws at the state level. Because these laws are loose, they don’t give people any confidence, people get ballots that don’t belong to them, there’s no voter I.D., no signature verification. We hear you. But we have to come together and work at the state level and change these things.”