Protesters chase Cruz, wife from restaurant
Opponent O’Rourke calls harassment of couple ‘not right’
After protesters harassed Sen. Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi, as they tried to dine on Monday night, even his political opponent Beto O’Rourke was calling foul.
A video shared widely on social media shows Cruz and his wife at dinner at an Italian restaurant in Washington, D.C., when a mob of protesters confronted them and chanted at them until eventually they got up and left.
“We believe survivors,” the crowd chanted, a reference to the two women who have alleged that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted them when he was in high school and college.
Organizers of this protest would later identify themselves as members of various left-wing organizations: a local anti-fascist group and a branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, among others. One of them told the Washington Post they had been tipped off to the couple’s reservation that evening and sat covertly at Fiola’s bar for more than an hour to await his arrival.
Ted Cruz didn’t want to talk about Kavanaugh with a dozen strangers in the middle of a restaurant.
The event has brought conservatives and Democrats to the defense of Cruz.
Conservative commentator and talk show host Mark Levin called the incident “truly reprehensible.” O’Rourke, Cruz’s opponent for re-election, said in a Facebook post that it is “not right” that protesters would target Cruz and his wife they way they did.
“Not right that Senator Cruz and his wife Heidi were surrounded and forced to leave a restaurant last night because of protesters,” O’Rourke wrote on Twitter. “The Cruz family should be treated with respect.”
Cruz, meanwhile, has not responded with an official statement but has advocated for Kavanaugh’s appointment to the court. However, Cruz also has called for Kavanaugh’s accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, to be heard by the Judiciary Committee, of which he is a member.
Cruz said earlier this month that Ford should have a “full opportunity to tell her story before the Judiciary Committee, and Judge Kavanaugh should have a full opportunity to defend himself.”
Ford says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. Kavanaugh calls the claim “completely false.”