Crenshaw Responds to Ocasio-Cortez Criticism of His 9/11 Championing: A ‘New Low’

“This week was a new low in partisanship & dishonesty.”

In an interview with NBC News this week, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-T.X., lambasted critics who questioned his reverence for 9/11, saying they had reached a “new low.”

The former Navy SEAL also defended his criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who characterized Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on American soil as “some people did something.”

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., lashed out at Crenshaw on Twitter Thursday, suggesting he has no right to speak about Sept. 11.

You refuse to cosponsor the 9/11 Victim’s Compensation Fund, yet have the audacity to drum resentment towards Ilhan w/completely out-of-context quotes.

In 2018, right-wing extremists were behind almost ALL US domestic terrorist killings. Why don’t you go do something about that? https://t.co/rkb92IxkKX

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) April 11, 2019

“One of the most disappointing things of this entire controversy that I’ve seen is these members from New York, how Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Max Rose, [are] trying to deflect the attention from Omar by attacking me — claiming I’m not for 9/11 first responders,” he said during the interview with NBC News.

“This is a really dishonest attack,” Crenshaw added. “I’m going to tell you how I’m for 9/11 victims and 9/11 first-responders. I’m the guy who went overseas to make sure this never happened again, to take the fight to the enemy who committed these attacks. I would go back and do it every day if I could, so to say that kind of attack — that is the height of partisanship. I’m really disappointed in them for saying that, especially coming from New York.”

“This week was a new low in partisanship & dishonesty,” he said in a tweet accompanying video of the NBC News interview. “I watched in disbelief as some covered for Omar by coming after me with lies & absurd claims that I don’t support 9/11 victims. What a disgusting, dishonest tactic. Why turn this into a political football?”

Omar – who has courted controversy by repeatedly criticizing the United States and Israel and seeming to minimize Islamist terrorism – has come under renewed fire this week after a video went viral of her last month calling the deadliest terrorist attack in history: “some people did something.”

In the 20-minute address to a Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet in California on March 23, Omar urged fellow Muslims to refuse to be “terrorized” following attacks by extremist members of their religion.

“Many people expect our community to feel like it needs to hide every time something happens,” she said. “But repeatedly we have shown them that we are not to be bullied, not to be threatened, we are not to be terrorized, we are strong and resilient, and we will always show up to be ourselves because we know we have a right to a dignified existence and a dignified life.”

Ocasio-Cortez complained to reporters on Thursday that the right’s criticism of comments about the Sept. 11 attacks by Omar constitutes “an incitement of violence against progressive women of color.”

“The levels which Republicans and conservative groups, whether they are official party apparatuses, sending out emails calling me and others domestic terrorists or whether it’s Ruppert Murdoch and the New York Post printing on the front page to circulate all around New York City an image that is incredibly upsetting and triggering for New Yorkers that were actually there and were actually in the radius that woke up one morning or were in there schools and didn’t know if they were going to see their parents at the end of the day,” she said.

Before being elected to Congress last year, Crenshaw served for 10 years as a Navy SEAL. During a 2012 deployment to Afghanistan, he lost his right eye in an IED explosion. He received two Bronze Star Medals, the Purple Heart and the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with valor.

Crenshaw was among a number of conservatives who this week spoke out against Omar’s comments about 9/11, calling them “unbelievable.”

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