A collage of 12 tweets from United States Senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, has gone viral with a claim that he has a template to respond to all mass shootings in the country.
The claim, which has been viral before, resurfaced following the mass shooting in Nashville, Tennesse, that left six people dead on 27 March.
The claim: The graphic contained 12 tweets from Senator Cruz that had the same text barring the change in the name of the place.
The first tweet in the graphic read, “Heidi & I are fervently lifting up in prayer the children and families in the horrific shooting in Uvalde. We are in close contact with local officials, but the precise details are still unfolding. Thank you to heroic law enforcement & first responders for acting so swiftly.”
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Source: Facebook/Screenshot)
The truth: We found that barring one tweet, all other tweets in the graphic had been fabricated and were not original tweets from the Senator. The names of the places were changed in the other 11 tweets.
How did we find that out:
We conducted an advanced search on Twitter for Cruz's tweets on mass shootings and didn't find the tweets in the viral graphic.
After looking further, we found the first tweet in the viral graphic following the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
We tried to look for all the other places mentioned in the viral graphic - New York, Sacramento, Indianapolis, Rochester, El Paso, Virginia Beach, Pittsburgh, Parkland, Las Vegas, Orlando and Newtown - but were unable to find those tweet on Cruz's profile or any news report.
We also found Cruz's tweet about the Nashville school shooting from 28 March 2023 but it didn't follow the template in the viral graphic.
Conclusion: A fabricated graphic showing a templated response to mass shootings in the USA from American Senator Ted Cruz has gone viral following the Nashville shooting.
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