Screenshot/CNN
- Sen. Ted Cruz shared a contextless clip of CNN correspondent Clarissa Ward reporting from Kabul.
- The senator used an 8-second clip of a 7-minute segment to accuse Ward and CNN of praising the Taliban.
- The "real story" is of the many Afghans "petrified for their lives" under Taliban rule, Ward reported.
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Sen. Ted Cruz on Monday shared an out-of-context clip of Clarissa Ward, CNN's chief international correspondent, reporting from the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, on the US's withdrawal and the Taliban's takeover.
The Texas Republican shared an eight-second clip in which Ward, wearing a hijab, observed that Taliban fighters near her on the street were chanting "Death to America." But, she added, "they seem friendly at the same time – it's utterly bizarre."
The senator used the short clip to accuse Ward and CNN of praising the Taliban.
"Is there an enemy of America for whom @CNN WON'T cheerlead?" Cruz tweeted, adding, "(In mandatory burkas, no less.)"
Seconds later in the full seven-minute-long segment that was excluded from Cruz's tweet, Ward reported that Taliban members on the street told her "to stand to the side because I'm a woman."
"The welcoming spirit only extends so far, and my presence soon creates tension," she said.
Ward described a complex situation on the ground in Kabul, interviewing a Taliban commander on the street who told her that Americans "need to leave" Afghanistan. She never praised or cheered the Taliban, but instead reported that while some Afghans welcomed the Taliban fighters and posed for photos with them on the street, the "real story" is the many thousands of Afghan civilians "petrified for their lives" behind closed doors.
"That profound sense of anxiety - you may not see it on the streets, but it's the people who aren't on the streets today that in some ways are the real story," Ward said in the longer clip. "The people that are hiding in their homes, who are petrified to go out, who are worried about being targeted, who fear for their lives, who are too scared to tell their stories, but their stories must be told because in this moment their fear and their desperation is so real as we saw with those extraordinary images coming from the airport that I don't think any of us will be able to forget anytime soon."
Ward said she'd seen "far fewer women" on the streets of Kabul since the Taliban's takeover and that the women she'd seen "tend to be dressed more conservatively than they were when they were walking down the streets of Kabul yesterday."
"I've seen more burqas today than I had seen in a while," Ward said.
She added that she was dressed "in a very different way" than she normally would in Kabul because of the Taliban's strict restrictions on women's appearance and behavior in public.
-New Day (@NewDay) August 16, 2021
Ward later tweeted that she normally wore a headscarf on the streets of Kabul, but after the Taliban took control of the city on Sunday, she dressed even more conservatively, fully covering her hair.
CNN defended Ward's reporting in a tweet on Monday and attacked Cruz for fleeing Texas during the state's power grid collapse last winter.
"Rather than running off to Cancun in tough times, @clarissaward is risking her life to tell the world what's happening. That's called bravery," CNN Communications wrote. "Instead of RTing a conspiracy theorist's misleading soundbite, perhaps your time would be better spent helping Americans in harm's way."
A spokesperson for Cruz didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Cruz retweeted Benny Johnson, a right-wing activist, who shared abbreviated clips of Ward reporting from Kabul in an effort to paint her as praising the Taliban. The clip made the rounds online in right-wing circles on Monday. The Daily Wire, a right-wing outlet, and the Republicans' House Judiciary Committee Twitter accounts also shared the clip. Other Republican lawmakers, including Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Georgia Rep. Jody Hice, also shared the clip criticizing CNN.