Inside Nigeria’s Christian Crisis: Senator Cruz Speaks Out

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Speaker 4 The violent persecution of Christians in Nigeria has finally broken through the headlines, and a growing number of voices are demanding action. U.S.

Speaker 4 Ambassador Mike Waltz recently warned that the killing of Christians in Nigeria amounts to genocide, wearing the mask of chaos.

Speaker 4 Churches are being burned, families chased out of their homes simply for wearing a cross, simply for saying Christ is king and that they worship Jesus.

Speaker 4 And enough is enough.

Speaker 6 Rapper Nikki Minaj has also become outspoken about the matter, calling the attacks an urgent injustice and called on the international community to act in a speech before the UN.

Speaker 1 And I want to be clear, protecting Christians in Nigeria is not about taking sides or dividing people.

Speaker 1 It is about uniting humanity.

Speaker 4 And before that, several lawmakers, including Senator Ted Cruz, have been sounding the alarm and calling for more formal action against Nigeria's government over particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

Speaker 6 In this episode, we speak to Senator Cruz about how lawmakers and the Trump administration are seeking to end the persecution happening in Nigeria and beyond.

Speaker 6 I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire executive editor John Bickley, and this is a weekend edition of Morningwire.

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Speaker 6 Well, Senator Cruz, thank you so much for coming on.

Speaker 4 It's great to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 6 Now, amid all this going on in Nigeria, President Trump has designated the country a country of particular concern or a CPC. What does that actually unlock when it comes to resources?

Speaker 4 Well, it's a very important step the President took. This is a step I have been urging for a long time.

Speaker 4 I introduced legislation that would have directed the State Department to designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern because

Speaker 4 there's no country on planet Earth where Christians are more persecuted than Nigeria. Since 2009, More than 50,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria.

Speaker 4 In that same time period, more than 20,000 Christian churches and schools have been destroyed, burned to the ground.

Speaker 4 And there is a systematic persecution of Christians by Boko Haram and by other radical Islamic terrorists.

Speaker 4 I've spent the better part of a decade fighting to stand up to radical Islamic terrorists who are targeting Christians.

Speaker 4 And the president, I actually saw the president this week and I pulled him aside to say thank you for designating Nigeria.

Speaker 4 The consequence of that now, that unlocks targeted sanctions on state officials, targeted sanctions on the country itself and on state and local officials.

Speaker 4 And indeed, the next step needs to be implementing those specific sanctions. You know, you look at Nigeria, there are 12 states within Nigeria that enforce Sharia law and that enforce blasphemy laws.

Speaker 4 And so the government, both at the federal level, at the federal level, there's also a federal blasphemy law.

Speaker 4 The government officials are looking the other way.

Speaker 4 They are acquiescing and in some places,

Speaker 4 some instances, even being complicit in the persecution of Christians, in the murder of Christians.

Speaker 4 And so by designating them as a country of particular concern, it unlitlocks targeted sanctions to pressure them to stop acquiescing in this violence, to stand up and protect the rights of Christians.

Speaker 4 And as part of that,

Speaker 4 to repeal their blasphemy laws and Sharia laws, because those laws are often used to persecute Christians.

Speaker 4 And so this enables the Trump administration to use the full economic and diplomatic might of the United States to force the Nigerian government to protect the rights of Christians.

Speaker 6 Now, just wondering, is Nigeria nominally a Muslim country? How do they have all these Sharia laws on the books?

Speaker 4 Well, they've got both Muslims and Christians. At times, they're leaders who are Christians and purport to be defending the rights of Christians.

Speaker 4 But at the same time, there's a very significant Muslim population. And so the blasphemy law is a federal law that is in place.

Speaker 4 And as I said, 12 different states in Nigeria have blasphemy or Sharia laws on the books, and they are in force. They are a tool that is used to persecute Christians.
And

Speaker 4 that's not acceptable.

Speaker 4 And I commend President Trump for taking a strong stance against it and defending the rights of Christians in Nigeria.

Speaker 6 Now, something that's been disturbing is the legacy media has not just just not reported on this, but in some cases, downplayed it or attempted to say it's not happening.

Speaker 6 I just want to give, for example, an AP article. This came out a little less than a month ago.
It says, referring to you, a U.S. senator claims Christian mass murder is occurring in Nigeria.

Speaker 6 The data disagrees. The AP article goes on to indicate that

Speaker 6 There are border disputes. There are farmers versus herders.
There's all these different disputes going on. There are radical Muslims that are attacking less ardent Muslims who are not Muslim enough.

Speaker 6 And they also suggest that the vast majority of the attacks are happening in the northern part of the country, which is majority Muslim.

Speaker 6 So they go on to say that that would suggest that it is not Christians in particular that are being persecuted. What is the real data here? Or what would you dispute about their characterization?

Speaker 4 Well, you know, that AP story in particular, I think you could actually teach in a journalism class

Speaker 4 as an example of pure political hackery and dishonest reporting. So as you read, the headline says, a U.S.

Speaker 4 senator, that would be yours truly, claims there is Christian mass murder going on in Nigeria. Now,

Speaker 4 that claim, as they put it, is a fact.

Speaker 4 It is a fact that 50,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria since 2009. The AP agrees with that.

Speaker 4 In the course of that article, they confirm, yes, 50,000 Christians have been murdered, more than 50,000 Christians have been murdered. What was my statement?

Speaker 4 There is mass murder of Christians in Nigeria. They conclude it is a fact.
What do they dispute?

Speaker 4 They take issue with, number one, there's argument back and forth whether the mass murder of Christian qualifies as a genocide or not.

Speaker 4 And their whole argument is, well, radical Islamic terrorists like Boko Haram, yes, they're killing Christians, but they're also killing Muslims, so never mind, it's okay. That's AP's argument.

Speaker 4 You note my statement was not, I never said Boko Haram is not killing Muslims. Look, these radical Islamic terrorists, they kill a lot of people.

Speaker 4 That being said, they are systematically targeting Christians. They hate Christians.
Look, we all remember in 2014

Speaker 4 when nearly 300 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram

Speaker 4 because they were Christian. I mean, this is

Speaker 4 a focused persecution, and the AP, like a lot of the corporate media, doesn't want anyone to focus on,

Speaker 4 number one, the mass murder of Christians, but number two, the Nigerian government, both the federal and the state and provincial government, their complicity in that mass murder.

Speaker 4 So they're trying to do everything they can to cover it up.

Speaker 4 This is the same reason why, for example, when the war in Gaza was happening, every time a Palestinian was killed, the AP and the corporate media would trumpet it.

Speaker 4 But, you know, when President Trump negotiated a peace deal, shortly thereafter, Hamas was lining up Palestinians and executing them, shooting them in the back of the head, and nobody cared.

Speaker 4 The media didn't care. AP didn't care because, you know what? They were only interested in attacking Israel.
And if it was Hamas killing Palestinians, apparently that wasn't news.

Speaker 4 The objective for them in those stories was Israel is bad. Here, when it comes to Christians, look, radical Islamic terrorism, the ideology of the left, I'll give you an example of this.

Speaker 4 I chaired a hearing a number of years ago about during the Obama administration, there was a systematic purge of the records at the Department of Homeland Security to remove the words radical Islamic terrorism and to remove the word jihad.

Speaker 4 Now, purge is a charged word. I didn't use it.
You know where that word came from?

Speaker 4 That came from the Obama White House, a political operative in the Obama White House in writing sent an email to DHS directing them to, quote, purge their records.

Speaker 4 And they altered or deleted more than 800 records at the Department of Homeland Security to erase the words radical Islamic terrorism or erase the word jihad.

Speaker 4 Tragically, the voters in New York elected a communist jihadist as the new mayor of New York City.

Speaker 4 And so the AP is behaving, that reporter is behaving like most leftists, which is the violence, the atrocities of radical Islamic terrorists are of no concern to them.

Speaker 4 And even worse, if the victims are Christians, then the AP has no interest whatsoever in covering it because they don't like Christians, they don't like Jews, they don't like capitalists, they don't like Americans.

Speaker 4 And that's how we get something like Comrade Mondami in New York City.

Speaker 6 Now, you recently introduced a bill to the Senate. You've mentioned that before, that protects religious freedom in Nigeria.

Speaker 6 First of all, what does your bill do and how does a bill here in the United States protect religious freedom in another country?

Speaker 4 Well, my bill does several things. One of the things that it would do is direct the State Department to do what President Trump just did, which is designate Nigeria as a country of particular concern.

Speaker 4 But beyond that, the bill also goes specifically to direct the State Department to impose sanctions on the local, the provincial officials that are complicit in these atrocities.

Speaker 4 That has not yet been carried out. I'm hopeful the Trump administration will do so.

Speaker 4 But it's part of the way you leverage change is that you impose, the United States has enormous leverage, both diplomatic leverage and economic leverage.

Speaker 4 And there's a reason that when I began calling out Nigeria for this mass murder of Christians, you had Nigerian politicians across the spectrum in Nigeria trying to argue against it because they are very, very afraid of the United States using our leverage to force them to change.

Speaker 4 Well, I think that's exactly what President Trump is doing right now.

Speaker 4 And that legislation is designed to strengthen his hand and to build momentum for employing the maximum pressure to cause them to stop the policies that facilitate, that acquiesce in, the mass murder of Christians.

Speaker 6 Now, I want to ask you about the China angle here. They have come out in defense of the Nigerian government.

Speaker 6 And in Megan Basham's interview, she indicated that other countries are a little bit cowed of going against China's interests, which are basically to maintain the status quo in Nigeria.

Speaker 6 Part of that is because they're heavily invested in a variety of sectors there. But presumably, China doesn't want unrest in Nigeria, where they are so heavily invested.

Speaker 6 So why are they so invested in keeping keeping this mom and not fixing this problem?

Speaker 4 Well, listen, China is engaged in a war of global domination.

Speaker 4 And I'll tell you, Georgia, when I first came to the Senate 13 years ago, what I said then

Speaker 4 is that

Speaker 4 communist China is the single largest geopolitical threat facing the United States for the next 100 years. Their objective is unequivocal.
They're not shy about it. It is global domination.

Speaker 4 It is economic domination. It is military domination.
And Africa is one of the major battlegrounds where China is trying to exert its influence. It's also doing the same thing in Latin America.

Speaker 4 And China is investing billions of dollars and trying to leverage the governments of Africa to line up with Communist China.

Speaker 4 I am the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Subcommittee on Africa.

Speaker 4 I have chaired multiple hearings examining the battle in Africa for whether China or America is is the dominant force.

Speaker 4 China wants all of Africa to line up with China, and there are lots of reasons for that. Number one, the African population is very young and growing.

Speaker 4 And number two, there are massive resources in Africa, critical minerals, oil and gas.

Speaker 4 There are all sorts of very valuable natural resources. China wants to dominate them.
Now, what are their interests in Nigeria?

Speaker 4 Well, one of their interests in Nigeria is the Chinese communists are perfectly fine with persecuting Christians. The Chinese communist government persecutes Christians in China.

Speaker 4 They also recognize that the more influence radical Islamists have in Nigeria, the less likely Nigeria is to align with America because radical Islam hates America.

Speaker 4 And so from China's perspective, if they want Nigeria to side with the communists, one of the ways of doing so is trying to strengthen the forces forces that hate Americans, that hate Christians, that hate the West.

Speaker 4 And sadly, that's exactly what China's doing.

Speaker 6 Now, broadening out a little bit before I let you go, you said that Nigeria is where the majority of Christian persecution is going on, but there are also some other countries that are extremely dangerous for Christians, some of them in like Southeast Asia, for example.

Speaker 6 Where are the most dangerous places for Christians right now?

Speaker 4 Well, unfortunately, there are many countries where the rights of Christians are seriously imperiled. Nigeria is the largest number of mass murders.

Speaker 4 But if you look at a place like North Korea, where North Korea they will imprison and torture Christians, you look at China, China right now, they've just gone after Pastor Jin and the Zion Church.

Speaker 4 They've arrested them. They've systematically persecuted Christians in China for many, many years.

Speaker 4 You have other countries, many of the countries in the Middle East, the rights of Christians are not protected. They're systematically in Iran.
Being a Christian in Iran is incredibly dangerous.

Speaker 4 And the Ayatollah in Iran has persecuted many Christians. Where Nigeria stands out is the sheer scale of it.
The numbers, 50,000 Christians murdered, exceeds those other countries.

Speaker 4 But make no mistake, a country like North Korea is absolutely tyrannical when it comes to Christians. They simply haven't murdered anywhere near the same scale of Christians that Nigeria has.

Speaker 6 All right.

Speaker 4 Well, Senator, thank you so much for making time for us today thank you appreciate it that was senator ted cruz and this has been a weekend edition of morning wire

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