Rep. Dan Crenshaw Tuesday slammed officials at Arlington National Cemetery for canceling the annual Wreaths Across America program over coronavirus concerns, saying there are safe ways to hold the holiday memorial event.
"You've got a situation where you take a wreath and you lay it on a headstone to honor the fallen," the Texas Republican and veteran said on Fox News' "Fox & Friends." "You're outside. You're not near anybody. There are other people doing it, of course, but even in normal times it's a naturally social distanced activity."
Officials for the cemetery said the events scheduled for Dec. 19 at Arlington National Cemetery and Airmen's Home Cemetery were canceled after a "thorough analysis" was conducted about safety issues, reports Fox News.
"We did not make this decision lightly," Office of Army National Cemeteries and Arlington National Cemetery Executive Director Karen Durham-Aguilera said in a statement. "Despite the controls developed to disperse potential crowds in time and space, and required personal safety protocols, we determined that hosting any event of this scale risked compromising our ability to accomplish our core mission of laying veterans and their eligible family members to rest."
"Nobody wants to accept the reality of the pandemic," said Crenshaw, adding that many lessons have been learned about what works, what doesn't, and the tremendous cost of lockdowns.
Crenshaw also spoke out about the violence in Washington, D.C., after the Million MAGA March. Joe Biden has denounced all acts of violence, but Crenshaw said he thinks the potential president-elect was making excuses for antifa and Black Lives Matter, which he called the "militant wing of the Democrat Party."
"This has been a problem ongoing for months now," said Crenshaw. "They pretend it doesn't exist, and if they acknowledge it, they downplay what they do, right? 'They're peaceful protesters. They're against fascism, how could you be against people who are against fascism?' Well, of course, they're engaging in fascist acts. What if the roles were reversed?"
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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