Presidential candidate Ted Cruz rebuked New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton in a piece
Cruz wrote for the New York Daily News.
The battle of words between Cruz and Bratton began when Cruz said New York Mayor Bill de Blasio shut down a task force that policed Muslim neighborhoods because it was "spying on Muslims," which Cruz refutes.
Bratton responded in an
article for the Daily News that the task force's job was finished.
Bratton said the police still patrol Muslim neighborhoods, the same as they patrol all other neighborhoods. The commissioner said the city "will not use an occupying force to intimidate a populace or religion to appease the provocative chatter of politicians seeking to exploit fear."
Cruz, in his follow-up article in the New York Daily News, claimed the mayor and Bratton's "liberal agenda" has made the city less safe. He said that demographic trends change over time, that a fertile ground for terror activity could change from year to year. Instead, he said the reason to close the force must have been "the excuse of an administration grasping for anything to justify what is obviously a surrender to political correctness."
Cruz's larger point, he said, is that this lack of safety must not continue to spread in the U.S.
"The bottom line is that to defeat radical Islam, we need to focus our counterterrorism resources where the terrorists are likely to be," said Cruz. "That's not profiling or spying. That's common sense."
Cruz noted his support for Muslim-Americans and said America needs their help in the war on terror.
"We must put aside political correctness," Cruz said, "If we don't want to become Europe."
Bratton's article said, "We police our city not by campaign slogans or inflammatory rhetoric, but by an old piece of parchment called the U.S. Constitution and another called the Bill of Rights."
Secretary of Defense John Kerry said to
CBS' Face the Nation that the GOP candidates' anti-Muslim talk was "an embarrassment to our country."
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