The Best Ted Cruz Heckles and Jeers From Just This Past Year

You have to have a thick skin to be Sen. Ted Cruz, and we’re not joking about his looks, his face or the fact that he looks like a werewolf who never went through puberty.

Cruz has a famous face (again, no jokes here), but he also has the aura of a person who others would cross whole oceans to avoid. His legend as an unrelenting jerk precedes even his time as a senator or a public figure. His policies have been criticized as cruel, heartless and shallow, even for the average Republican. So when people see him in public, he seems to inspire bigger “Fuck you’s” than most people in Congress.

The latest incident at Yankee Stadium in New York City, in which a crowd of fans threw books and superlatives at Cruz, is just one in a long line of public moments when the Texas senator has been heckled, confronted and berated. The most amazing part is they all happened THIS YEAR. 

We are giving Ted Cruz the warm welcomes he deserves all over New York while he’s here. This was during filming of The View today. pic.twitter.com/vFOAW1oYHT

— The Great Gig in the Sky (@thegreatgig8) October 24, 2022

Ted Cruz Gets Heckled on ABC’s The View
Not long after the vast majority of Yankee Stadium greeted Cruz with the kind of welcome most people reserve for fungal infections, he got an equally cold hello while appearing on The View.

Cruz was on the ABC morning talk show’s panel on Monday to talk about inflation and the midterms when a small pocket of protesters popped out of the audience to call him out on his climate change policy — or, rather, the lack of same. The people watching at home didn’t get to see it, but someone in the audience recorded the protest from a phone. The footage even showed a number of people in the audience clapping for the protester screaming “Fuck you, Ted Cruz!” It didn’t seem to faze Cruz, probably because more people say “Fuck you!” than “Hello” to him on a daily basis.

.@tedcruz says one of the most effective ways to prevent mass shootings is to “enhance security at vulnerable targets” and add more police in schools.

But experts say more law enforcement on campuses doesn’t necessarily make schools safer. https://t.co/HYwikriccm #TribFest22 pic.twitter.com/Y4VWyh0M3q

— Texas Tribune (@TexasTribune) September 24, 2022

Ted Cruz Gets Booed at the Texas Tribune Festival
One of the pluses, or minuses depending on how you feel about Cruz, is his ability to spin ridiculous ideas and responses in a straight and measured tone. If you’re a member of the gun lobby, then you definitely see this as a plus.

In the wake of the horror of the Uvalde school shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers, Cruz sat down for a live Q&A at this year’s Texas Tribune Festival when the subject inevitably came up as a clear-cut case of how a good guy with a gun can’t always stop a bad guy with a gun, given that Uvalde Police spent the vast majority of the 77-minute killing spree holed up in two classrooms. That didn’t stop Cruz from pushing the narrative away from eliminating easy access to guns and toward increasing police presence at schools. The crowd would not have it, and they clearly jeered the Senator’s assessment.

Having to sit and listen to Cruz drone on for more than 45 minutes may have also played an important role in their reaction. 

#BREAKING: Several hours after #NRAconvention, Indivisible Houston board member @TheBenjaminHdz challenges Ted Cruz to support background checks & other measures during a dinner break at Uptown Sushi.#TedCruzHasBloodOnHisHands #TedCruzChildMassacre #TedCruzLovesDeadKids pic.twitter.com/NL5GAkKZ80

— Indivisible Houston (@indivisibleHOU) May 28, 2022

Ted Cruz Gets Berated in a Sushi Restaurant
First of all, watching Ted Cruz eat sushi just sounds wrong. This is a guy who once cooked bacon by wrapping it around the barrel of an AR-15-style rifle in a campaign ad, a moment that somehow looks even worse thanks to the advancement of time. So what’s this meat-eatin’ Texan doing at a raw fish restaurant? Is AMERICAN food not good enough for him, or did he at least ask the waiter to serve him his spring rolls after firing them out of an RPG launcher?

That’s beside the point, of course. During his visit to the Houston restaurant, a fellow patron loudly called him out for his bizarre pro-gun heel digging in the wake of Uvalde because Cruz was in town for the NRA convention. The best part isn’t in the actual berating, but the moments leading up to it. The man who accused Cruz of not taking proper action in the wake of the school shooting was Benjamin Hernandez, a board member of the democracy advocacy group Indivisible Houston. Hernandez approached Cruz, asking if he could take a friendly picture. But before the woman with the camera could yell “Say Cheese!” Hernandez starting calling Cruz on his shit so fast that the senator didn’t have time to turn that sour smile upside down.