Sen. Cruz on Fox News: GoFundMe Is ‘Deceiving Consumers and It Is Wrong.’

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) this week joined Fox News’ ‘Sunday Morning Futures’ with Maria Bartiromo to discuss the SCOTUS vacancy, GoFundMe’s decision to prevent donations from going to Freedom Convoy 2022—the truck drivers protesting against Canada’s vaccine mandate—and the potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. Highlights of his interview are below.

WATCH: Sen. Cruz on Sunday Morning Futures

On the SCOTUS vacancy and President Biden’s determination to set a racial quota to fill the position, Sen. Cruz said:

“Well, let me say at the outset, the fact that he's chose[n] to put out this racial quota—it is wrong. It is wrong to discriminate based on race. If you are I tried to do what Joe Biden has done—if your show put up an ad in the paper, that your morning show is looking for a producer and only black women are eligible to apply, or for that matter, you put up an ad that said only white men are eligible to apply, or you put up an ad that said only Native American women are eligible to apply—any of those ads would be illegal, they would violate the federal civil rights law and you or I would face liability. And yet, Joe Biden—those laws don't technically apply to the president in this appointment—but he is certainly violating the spirit of non-discrimination. If he wanted to search for qualified applicants and find who he thought was the most qualified nominee and she happened to be an African American woman, that's wonderful. But he's not doing that. He wants to discriminate based on race.

“And Maria, it's also worth noting, there's some irony to this because Joe Biden broke a threshold—because Joe Biden, not once, but twice, has actually filibustered a black woman to try to stop her from becoming a federal judge. That was Janice Rogers Brown. George W. Bush nominated her to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. And Joe Biden, along with Chuck Schumer, along with Dick Durbin, they filibustered her. They tried to block her from becoming a judge, not because she was a black woman, but because God forbid, she actually believed in the Constitution and would follow the terms of the Constitution. What Biden really wants here is a left wing ideologue. But he also wants to discriminate based on race because the modern Democratic Party supports quotas and they support racial discrimination.

On whether he will vote for President Biden’s SCOTUS nominee, Sen. Cruz said:

“Well, I have to see who the nominee is before I decide [how] to vote. But I will say this, if Biden nominates a judge in the same mold as the nominees he's put forward for this past year, you know, it's been stunning. I sit on the Judiciary Committee, I've seen every one of these nominees. Biden consistently has chosen hard left activists, political activists, brazenly. You know, one of the nominees recently described himself as a ‘wild-eyed’ left wing activist—those were his own terms. That nominee described the hatred he has for conservatives—that again [were] his own terms. The nominees Joe Biden has put forth for the bench are more radical than any judicial nominees in our nation's history. They're far more radical than Obama's were, they're more radical than Clinton’s were, they're more radical than Jimmy Carter's were. And the nominees that Biden is putting forward are nominees that he believes will undermine our rights—will undermine free speech, will undermine religious liberty, will undermine the Second Amendment. 

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“If the Democrats actually paid attention to the voters, they would recognize that they don't have a mandate for a radical, far left, socialist government, they don't have a mandate for adopting the policies of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC, that a 50-50 Senate would call for some reasonableness and moderation. Unfortunately, that's not what Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have done. They've gone hard, hard left, and they're behaving as if they have a 65-35 Senate. And listen, if they nominate a zealot, I hope we see Republicans stand together and defend the rule of law and vote against confirming that zealot. If, on the other hand, they nominate a principled constitutionalist, I would be happy to vote for that judge. But I'll confess based on the past year and the people Joe Biden's already put forward, I have very little optimism on that front.

On GoFundMe’s refusal to direct donations to truckers protesting against Canada’s vaccine mandate, Sen. Cruz said:

“Well, listen, it is theft on the part of GoFundMe. Let me say that Canadian truckers are heroes, they are patriots, and they are marching for your freedom and for my freedom. They are—those truck drivers that—God bless them. They're defending Canada, but they're defending America as well. That is courage on display—that the government doesn't have the right to force you to comply to their arbitrary mandates, and they're standing up for freedom. And of course, big government hates it and is trying to crush them. Of course, the corporate media hates it and is trying to silence them. And Big Tech—you look at what GoFundMe did. People gave $10 million to support the Freedom Convoy because they were so proud of the courage of these truck drivers. And the thieves in Silicon Valley decided, ‘We don't like your politics. So we're going to take your money, and then we're going to give it to people we like.’ Listen, if anyone else did that, that is called theft. And so today, I sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking that the FTC open an investigation into GoFundMe—into whether they've committed deceptive trade practices. Because when people gave money, they gave money under the promise it would go to the Freedom Convoy, not to whatever left-wing political ideology GoFundMe and other Silicon Valley companies support. They are deceiving consumers and it is wrong.

On the crisis in Ukraine, Sen. Cruz said: 

“Look, I think Putin—it is likely he will invade within a month. His objective is to reassemble the old Soviet Union, which would be incredibly dangerous for the United States. And Maria, all of this is happening because Joe Biden has shown Putin weakness and appeasement. He gave away the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which I had authored the bipartisan sanctions that stopped Nord Stream 2…and Joe Biden capitulated. He has capitulated to enemies across the globe—he gave Afghanistan to the Taliban, he's trying to give Ukraine to Russia, and he's on the way to giving Taiwan to the Chinese communists.”

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