Cruz hits back at NBA coach Popovich over ‘astonishing’ gun violence comments

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) ripped San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich for his comments about gun control, in which he criticized the senator for his policy proposals to curb school shootings.

Popovich poked fun at Cruz’s proposal of doubling the number of armed officers at schools in the U.S. to help prevent shootings, sarcastically saying over the weekend “that’ll create a great environment.”

“Ted Cruz will fix it because he’s gonna double the number of cops in the schools,” Popovich said to reporters. “Well that’ll create a great environment. Is that freedom?”

Popovich, who has spoken out about gun violence in the U.S. before, made the comments following a shooting at a Nashville school earlier this month that left three children and three adults dead.

Cruz brushed off the comments from the NBA legend, saying Popovich has “been a partisan for a long time.”

“He’s a liberal Democrat,” Cruz said on an episode of his podcast “The Verdict” on Wednesday. “You see this in the NBA, you see it in the NFL, these incredibly rich athletes who hypocritically disdain their fans… and who lecture them almost inevitably from a point of ignorance.”

Cruz pointed out that there are usually a lot of law enforcement at NBA games, and said Popovich is “surrounded by armed security most of the time.”

“I guarantee if someone stood up and said we’re gonna pull all the police officers from Gregg Popovich’s neighborhood, he’d be horrified,” Cruz said.

Popovich argued to reporters that Republicans were “gonna cloak all this stuff in the myth of the Second Amendment.”

“You know, it’s a myth, it’s a joke, it’s just a game they play,” Popovich said.

Cruz said the comments about the Second Amendment being a “myth” were “astonishing.”

“That’s a fairly astonishing proposition,” Cruz said.

The sparring between Cruz and Popovich comes as the debate over gun control in the U.S. has surged following the shooting in Nashville and an attack at a bank in Kentucky that left five dead this week.