Fact check: Prominent Republicans spread false claim about Taliban executing a man from a helicopter
CNN
Numerous Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, promoted a false claim on Monday and Tuesday that the Taliban had just executed a man by hanging him from a helicopter.
Cruz and Crenshaw, among other conservatives, shared a video that had been tweeted by a self-described "comedian" who goes by the Twitter handle @Holbornlolz. The video, which was somewhat blurry, showed a man dangling from a rope attached to a helicopter. The "comedian" inaccurately captioned the video: "Taliban hanging someone from a helicopter in Kandahar." Cruz added his own assertion above the comedian's tweet, tweeting: "This horrifying image encapsulates Joe Biden's Afghanistan catastrophe: The Taliban hanging a man from an American Blackhawk helicopter. Tragic. Unimaginable." Crenshaw also used the video to criticize Biden's withdrawal of all US troops from Afghanistan, tweeting: "In what f***ing world was it a good idea to just hand over a country to these people."
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