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Biden slams Cruz, other Republican lawmakers for 'big lie' that fuelled Capitol mob
Joe Biden on Friday lashed out at Republican Senator Ted Cruz and other GOP lawmakers who led efforts to challenge the Presidential election results ahead of Wednesday's pro-Trump supporters breaking into Capitol, with the US President-elect drawing a parallel between the actions of the elected officials with a Nazi propaganda minister.
Washington: Joe Biden lashed out at Republican Senator Ted Cruz and other GOP lawmakers who led efforts to challenge the Presidential election results ahead of Wednesday's pro-Trump supporters breaking into Capitol, with the US President-elect drawing a parallel between the actions of the elected officials with a Nazi propaganda minister.
"If he's the only one saying it, that's one thing," Biden said of President Donald Trump, who for weeks made disputed claims that the election was "stolen" from him as quoted by The Washington Post.
"But the acolytes that follow him, like Cruz and others, they are as responsible as he is," Biden continued.
However, the President-elect did not join some other Democrats who have called for Texan Senator Cruz and Senator Josh Hawley from Montana to be removed from office for encouraging the claims that fueled Wednesday's events, with the former vice president instead saying, "I think they should be just flat beaten the next time they run."
Biden added, "I think the American public has a real good, clear look who they are ... they're part of the big lie."
According to The Hill, "The big lie" refers to an idea espoused by Joseph Goebbels, one of Adolf Hitler's closest advisers, who argued that if you continuously repeat a major lie to people, they will eventually start to believe it.
Biden has previously compared Trump to the Nazi official where he explained that the outgoing President was "sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge."
Both Cruz and Hawley responded to Biden's remarks Friday, with Hawley writing in a statement that the president-elect should "act like a dignified adult and retract these sick comments."
"This is undignified, immature, and intemperate behavior from the President-elect... It is utterly shameful," Hawley wrote. Cruz also took to Twitter calling the former Vice President's remarks as "really sad".
"At a time of deep national division, President-elect Biden's choice to call his political opponents' literal Nazis does nothing to bring us together or promote healing," Cruz wrote.
"This kind of vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart," he added.Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has also called for both Cruz and Hawley to step down.
Chaotic and violent scenes erupted at the Capitol on Wednesday as supporters of Trump stormed the building to protest the Electoral College vote, forcing a lockdown and various confrontations with police. At least five people died in the melee.
Wednesday's violence came hours after Trump encouraged his supporters to fight against the election results as Congress was certifying Biden's victory in the November vote. (ANI)