Inhofe Commends Cruz For Playing Al Jazeera Video At Hagel Hearing

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Senate Armed Services Committee Ranking Member James Inhofe (R-OK) on Tuesday commended Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for playing a footage of an 2009 appearance that defense secretary nominee Chuck Hagel made on Al Jazeera during last month’s testy confirmation hearing.

Inhofe thanked Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) for “bending the rules a little bit” in allowing Cruz to play the footage during the hearing.

“I’ve mentioned this several times, it was Sen. Cruz who showed us, Mr. Chairman, I want to tell you how much I personally appreciate your kind of bending the rules a little bit to allow him to put the Al Jazeera video up, where he agreed with Al Jazeera’s comments about Israel committed war crimes, Israel committed sickening slaughter and America is the world’s bully,” Inhofe said.

In the footage shown by Cruz, one viewer asked Hagel if it is fair for the United States to call for nuclear disarmament when much of the international community perceives America to be the “world’s bully.” Hagel called the viewer’s observation “a good one” and answered in the affirmative to her question — a point that Cruz hammered him over during last month’s hearing. Another viewer asserted that Israel had committed war crimes, which Hagel did not explicitly refute at the time.

Watch Cruz’s grilling of Hagel:

 

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