Senator Ted Cruz confronted on plane by heckler who asked him to name one Uvalde victim, video shows

Alia Shoaib

Sat, September 17, 2022 

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, listens during the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson before the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday, March 21, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

• A heckler on a plane asked Texas Senator Ted Cruz to name one victim of the Uvalde school shooting.

• Cruz instead talked about his failed school safety bill.

• Since the Uvalde school shooting in Texas in May, Cruz has resisted calls to support gun control measures.

Senator Ted Cruz was confronted by a heckler who asked him to name one victim of the mass school shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.

A video posted on Twitter by the heckler shows the man confronting the Texas senator on a plane.

The man starts by sarcastically thanking the Republican for "everything you've done since Uvalde." "All those podcast episodes must have raised a lot of money," he said.

 

Cruz responds by talking about his proposed school safety bill, blocked on the Senate floor on Wednesday. Cruz had asked for unanimous consent, which means that any opposition stopped the bill from passing.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, had derided Cruz and his legislation as "theater" and not an "actual attempt to pass legislation."

In the video, the heckler then asks Cruz whether he knows any of the names of the Uvalde victims.

"I do. And ask why Chris Murphy objected and stopped the biggest school safety bill that's ever passed yesterday," Cruz responded.

The heckler ignores Cruz's comment and asks him to name any Uvalde victim agains.

"But you don't kno. You don't care about the facts. You're a partisan, that's okay," Cruz says before turning away.

The poster shared the video on Twitter along with a message of support for Democratic candidate Beto O'Rourke for governor of Texas.

Since the Uvalde school shooting took place in May, Cruz has resisted calls to support gun control measures.

The parents of Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, a 10-year-old killed in the Uvalde shooting, said they asked Cruz in a private meeting on Wednesday to support a federal ban on semi-automatic weapons.

"Instead, he said he supports increasing law enforcement presence on school campuses," Kimberly Mata-Rubio, the bereaved mother, wrote on Twitter.