Reuters/Brian Snyder
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).
Cruz connected the deadly incident to the administration's inability to stop the attackers in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, according to the Dallas Morning News.
"Once again, as with Nidal Hasan and the Tsarnaev brothers, we have radical Islamic terrorists who this administration knew about and yet failed to connect the dots and prevent this act of terrorism," Cruz said.
Hasan was convicted in 2013 of murdering 13 people at Fort Hood. One Tsarnaev brother was killed in the Boston Marathon attack, the other, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was found guilty of terrorism last month.
The two gunmen involved in the Garland shooting, Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi, were killed last Sunday outside a controversial "Muhammad Art Exhibit" gathering. The event featured artists making portraits of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, an act that has drawn violent responses from jihadists in the past. The gunmen were both reportedly killed by a police officer there who was working as a guard at the event.
Cruz's criticism of Obama over the Garland shooting appears to be based on the FBI's investigation into Simpson "after he began posting on social media about the Islamic State, the extremist group also known as ISIS or ISIL," according to The New York Times.
Cruz said the Garland incident "underscores the need for vigilance. And it also underscore the concerns with this Administration's inability to combat radical Islamic terrorism."