Rep. Dan Crenshaw said Sunday he agrees with Sen. Ted Cruz’s recent criticism of Tucker Carlson for giving airtime to far-right figure and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes, saying he’s “glad everyone else is also waking up now to how bad of a person he is.”
“Moral clarity is a lot more important in this case,” the Texas Republican said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “It’s not cancel culture when you say, look, I want to disassociate myself from you because your beliefs are crazy and psychopathic.”
Cruz, R-Texas, commenting on Carlson’s decision to feature Fuentes, said he has seen more antisemitism in the past six months than in his entire life, calling it a “poison” and an “existential crisis” for the Republican Party and the country.
By interviewing Fuentes, who has a history of antisemitic and extremist remarks, Carlson elevated someone who had “really fallen off the radar,” Crenshaw said.
He added that Fuentes’ followers had tried to infiltrate his events in the past to push antisemitic questions and disrupt gatherings.
“They used to send his followers to my events and try to ask me a bunch of questions about the Jews and Israel support and all that, and try to disrupt events,” Crenshaw said.
The Texas congressman also pushed back against claims that rejecting Carlson amounted to “cancel culture,” saying he wrote a book on the subject and distinguishes between punishing mainstream beliefs and rejecting extreme ideologies.
“Cancel culture means you’re canceling someone for what is basically a mainstream belief or maybe a small, honest mistake,” Crenshaw said. “It’s not cancel culture when you disassociate from someone whose beliefs are crazy.”
Crenshaw also discussed the ongoing federal government shutdown, blaming Senate Democrats for the standoff. He said the House had already passed a short-term continuing resolution, or CR, to keep the government open, but that Senate Democrats “have to reopen the government. It’s that simple.”
“The House passed a clean CR,” he said. “When you pass a very short-term duration CR — a seven-week one — it is a clear indication that we intend on continuing those conversations.”
He accused Democrats of “holding a gun to the regular American people’s heads” by refusing to vote for the GOP proposal, noting that Houston-area families could soon see disruptions in their food assistance benefits.
“The only way you’re going to get SNAP benefits back on track is if Democrats vote for our clean CR,” Crenshaw said, adding that food banks in his district were preparing for a surge in demand.
Crenshaw, who serves on the House Intelligence Committee, also said Sunday he supports current U.S. deterrence measures against Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro but stopped short of endorsing broader military action.
“Deterrence almost always works, especially when you’re dealing with dictators like Maduro,” he said. “They only listen to one thing, which is power.”
Crenshaw described Venezuela as “effectively a narcoterrorist state,” propped up by Russia and Cuba and linked to drug trafficking and terrorism. He said the president’s current efforts to target drug boats in the region were “within rational legal means” and justified under Article II powers.
“It is an imminent harm to the United States,” he said. “That’s clearly within the president’s authority.”
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