Outgoing Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) called out fellow Republican Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Wednesday night after the Texas senator made a major factual error in attacking Democrats over Covid-19 restrictions.
Cruz falsely accused Washington state Democrats of banning dancing, tweeting:
Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys. Washington State: NO DANCING ALLOWED!!! Any rational & free citizen: Piss off.
Cruz later deleted the tweet, but the screen shot went viral and Kinzinger decided to retweet it. Kinzinger wrote of Cruz’s tweet:
Since @tedcruz deleted this, I’ll post as a reminder to all of us to DO YOUR RESEARCH before posting misinformation. WA means “Western Australia” not Washington state.
Cruz had based his tweet on a Twitter thread which included an image of a Facebook comment. In the image a verified user labeled “WA Government” wrote, “Dancing is strictly not permitted” in response to a user’s question.
While Cruz decided to spread the information he found on social media without verifying its credibility, he also mistook “WA Government” as Washington state, when it was