Texas Senator Ted Cruz, on Wednesday, was fact-checked on Fox News when he made a comment saying that US Attorney General Merrick Garland had called parents “domestic terrorists.”

For those unversed, Garland had issued a memo in order to bring to light that teachers, administrators and other school officials faced violence and harassment. In the October 4 memo, the Attorney General directed the FBI and attorneys generals to work with local law enforcement to devise strategies to address the issue. 

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Speaking on Fox News after Republican Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia gubernatorial race, Cruz asserted that one reason for the Republican victory was parents wanting to have “influence and control over what their kids are taught.”

“The arrogance of the Democrats saying ‘parents have no control over that,’ and even worse, the attorney general ― Joe Biden’s attorney general ― calling those parents domestic terrorists. I think that directly led to the result last night.”

However, the memo made  no mention of the term “domestic terrorist”. 

Anchor John Roberts pointed out that Ted Cruz’s statement was false.

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“Although in fairness, he said that they weren’t domestic terrorists. It was the National School Boards Association that said that,” Roberts said.

The National School Boards Association had written a letter to President Joe Biden asking for federal support to address the growing harassment and threats of violence against local school board members. The letter used the term domestic terrorism. The NSBA later apologized. 

The letter was NSBA’s reaction to repeatedly reported heated disputes between parents and authorities over mask-wearing, COVID-19 mitigation strategies and how children are taught about racism in America.