'Silly': Ted Cruz slams Marjorie Taylor Greene's claim that three GOP senators are 'pro-pedophile' for backing judge

Texas Senator Ted Cruz criticised fellow Republican and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene for saying that three GOP senators are “pro-paedophile” after they announced their support for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

The conspiracy-wielding congresswoman falsely accused Republican senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney of being “pro-paedophile” in a tweet on Monday after they announced that they intended to vote for President Joe Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Ketanji Brown Jackson.

When Mr Cruz was asked on Friday if he supported Ms Greene’s sentiments, he laughed and said “no, I think that’s silly”.

Ms Greene doubled down on her claim in a television interview with right-wing network Real America’s Voice, saying: “I tweeted that, I don’t care how many people are melting down.”

Throughout Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearings, she was hit with attacks from GOP lawmakers who continued to push a false narrative that the judge was lenient when it came to the “treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children”, as Sen Josh Hawley tweeted ahead of the hearings.

Ms Green’s latest controversial strike on her colleagues arrived just days after she came under fire for attacking David Hogg, a survivor of the deadly school shooting massacre in Parkland and gun control activist, who she claimed needed to be “more masculine” and “try hanging out with actual deer hunters”.

Though reactions to Ms Greene’s Twitter rants are often met with derision, her message against the GOP senators seemed to inflame online observers from across both sides of the aisle.

Alyssa Farrah Griffin, a former director of strategic communications and assistant in the Trump administration and now a conservative commentator on CNN, acknowledged that though she’s from the same political party as Ms Greene, she viewed her attack on her Republican colleagues as “reductive”, “stupid” and “offensive”.

“I’m a conservative. I disagree with Judge Brown’s jurisprudence & some sentencing decisions. But goodness – this statement is stupid, reductive, offensive, unpatriotic, and beneath the office Greene holds,” Ms Griffin wrote.

Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed by the US Senate on Thursday as the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court. She was confirmed by a vote of 53 to 47 after being nominated by Mr Biden in late February.

All 50 Democrats voted to confirm her as well as the three Republicans attacked by Ms Greene.

Ms Jackson will be sworn in as the next justice when Justice Breyer retires at the end of the Supreme Court term.