A crowd member at the Republican midterm convention was allowed to remain at the MAGA-fest despite shouting horrific death threats during a speech by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
Meanwhile, a protester who interrupted JD Vance’s speech by waving Mexican and Palestinian flags was swiftly thrown out, with a huge roar of applause.
The Republican convention in Dallas has offered plenty of political theater.
But on Thursday, the rhetoric spilled into something darker when Cruz began attacking a trio of Democratic candidates as examples of what he described as the radical left.
Cruz specifically criticized Sharia law, a common attack point from Republicans that argues that Muslims will enforce their ideas on other Americans.
Invoking the names of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Texas Senate candidate James Talarico, Cruz told the crowd: “When Mamdani says he wants to ‘seize the means of production,’ he means it. When Abdul El Sayed says he has an ‘obligation’ to comply with Sharia law, he means it. And when James Talarico says he wants to ‘dismantle capitalism,’ he means it.”
With every name the Senator mentioned, a man in the audience responded with the same shouted threat: “He should be shot!”
The remarks were audible from the convention floor, but the heckler was allowed to stay.
The Daily Beast reached out to the American Airlines Center’s security office; an officer said he “had no information about” anyone being removed.
That response stood in stark contrast to the treatment of a protester who interrupted Vice President JD Vance’s address.
The protester waved a Mexican flag and a Palestinian flag—before security officers removed him from the arena as the crowd erupted in boos and chants.
Vance seized on the interruption, calling the protester an “idiot” and suggesting he should return to Mexico.
“What the people at home missed is that we just had a protester interrupting us and waving the Mexican flag,” he said as the man was escorted out to the crowd cheering and chanting “USA! USA!”
“Well, my friend, if you love Mexico so much, get your a-- over there. I’ll buy you the plane ticket,” Vance added.
Video posted by Fox News shows the protester being thrown out.
The two incidents offered a striking snapshot of the atmosphere inside the first-ever Republican midterm convention–a two-day confab in Dallas designed to ramp up enthusiasm ahead of the Nov. 3 poll.
With Trump facing record-low polling numbers, fear and grievance have been central themes of the gathering, with speakers portraying democrats as radicals threatening American families, religion, capitalism, and national security, while immigration and cultural issues have dominated the stage.
Convention attendees have also leaned into the theme, such as Melissa Cole from Ohio.
Asked at the convention how she thought the Republicans would fare in the midterms, she told the Daily Beast: “It’s going to be fantastic. It has to be fantastic–we’re in a war between good and evil.”
