Cruz claims GOP senators ‘afraid’ of being seen as ‘modern-day Klansmen’ over Ketanji

Ted Cruz attacked his fellow Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee, during a taping of his podcast on Monday night hosted by a Yale University student group, accusing them of not going harder on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing because they did not want to be seen as ‘modern-day Klansmen.’

Cruz caught criticism during Jackson’s marathon Senate grilling for his aggressive questioning over her prior sentencing decisions in child pornography cases.

Later on at the event he was confronted by a Yale student about the ‘flagrantly racist questions’ he asked Jackson during the speaking event’s Q&A portion. 

Cruz told DailyMail.com after the taping that he ‘didn’t agree with her sentiments’ but praised the girl for asking her question in a ‘respectful way.’

‘I’m glad she asked that, I don’t think it’s accurate. In fact, I think it is harmful to attribute racism to something that is not. But I was glad she asked it because we could have a conversation about the substantive merits of the nomination, and the merits of a charge that is scurrilously tossed about by a lot of folks in the political process,’ the Texas senator said.

While taping The Verdict with co-host Michael Knowles in New Haven on Monday night, Cruz claimed ‘you’ll be called a racist, you’ll be called a sexist, you’ll be demonized’ for criticizing a black female judicial nominee.

‘Among the Republican senators, most went into this nomination afraid of their own shadow,’ Cruz said without naming names.

Cruz, who attended Harvard Law School with Jackson, admitted he felt ‘conflicted’ about his peer’s nomination.

‘She is someone that on a personal level, she’s very smart, she’s charming, she has an easy smile. Everyone who knows her likes her. But at the end of the day, a Supreme Court nomination is not about whether they’re smart or if you like them,’ the senator said.

He added that she ‘demonstrated she would be the furthest left of any justices who sat on the court’ — surprisingly earning applause from the crowd.

Cruz thanked the students who cheered for Jackson’s record, explaining that it meant they were attending the event despite disagreeing with his views. 

A female student later asked him, ‘What are two nice comments you can give about recent nominee Justice Jackson … besides that “she has an easy smile”?’

The senator said Jackson had an ‘impressive and inspiring personal story’ but then accused the left of being ‘hypocritical’ with the concept of racism. 

‘They only define someone as black or Hispanic if they agree with them,’ Cruz said, claiming Democrats did not see Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as black, for example, because of his conservatism.

He told the student: ‘I could not disagree more deeply when you say that it’s racist to examine a judge based on their record.’

At another point in the question session, one bold student asked Cruz: ‘If it would end world hunger, would you fellate another man?’ 

He promptly stormed out. Cruz did not answer the question, though he commented after the student left: ‘I am curious to ask the young man, if it would solve world hunger, would you vote for Donald Trump?’

The Texas Republican’s appearance comes after Cruz joined fellow Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, five GOP governors, 26 state attorneys general and a slew of other prominent conservative figures signing onto an open letter to Yale Law School accusing it of ‘grossly downplaying’ a student protest that disrupted a panel discussion with Alliance Defending Freedom General Counsel Kristen Waggoner.  

A conference room at the Omni Hotel in New Haven was nearly full after staffers set out almost 500 seats for students and others coming to watch Cruz and his podcast co-host Michael Knowles tape an episode of The Verdict.

Conservative commentator Liz Wheeler opened the taping, cracking a joke about the chilly evening weather by referencing Cruz’s infamous trip to Cancun in the middle of freezing weather in his home state of Texas.

She accused Yale’s administration of being ‘funded by Chinese communists’ after Republicans blasted university officials’ lack of punishment for the students who disrupted Waggoner last week.

There was little fanfare on both the left and right hours before Cruz arrived in New Haven.

A Yale University student who was in the standby line for tickets was clad in a ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ sweatshirt and told DailyMail.com he would vote for the Texas senator in 2024, but only if Donald Trump was not in the race. 

A lone protester demonstrated outside the off-campus venue for Cruz’s podcast recording, just over three hours before the Texas Republican’s arrival.

Zach Standen, a self-described ‘socialist’ who had recently graduated with a neuroscience degree from nearby Fairfield University, said he was at the protest because he didn’t ‘like Ted Cruz.’

Standen held a sign that said ‘Warning: Ted Cruz Avert Your Eyes.’

‘My sign is more about his face. I want people to sort of avert their eyes. Um, yeah, I just think people should be warned, like, if he’s in the area,’ the protester said.

In the center of the Ivy League campus, a small group of students from the Yale Democrats held a fundraiser to support progressive Texas-based organizations. They told DailyMail.com that they had raised $1,400 hours before Cruz’s appearance.

‘Ted Cruz’s appearance on Yale’s campus fundamentally represents an affront to our values as an organization,’ Yale Democrats President Kyle Mayer, 22, said.

Mayer said Cruz opposed ‘democratic tenets’ such as the right to vote ‘at every juncture of his career in the Senate.’

‘I mean, I think, stand up being his architecting the response to the January 6 insurrection,’ he added.

‘We obviously support ideological diversity,’ Yale Democrats communications director Galia Newberger, 21, said.

Holding a fundraiser for organizations that run counter to Cruz’s conservative values, she explained, ‘feels like a wonderful way for students to express their outrage with his presence in a positive and forward looking way’ for the organization. 

The event was hosted by Yale’s William J. Buckley program, whose website states it is committed to promoting ‘intellectual diversity’ and to ‘expand political discourse on campus and expose students to often-unvoiced views.’

It’s done in partnership with the Young America’s Foundation’s Irving Brown Lecture Series. The Young America’s Foundation promotes conservatism on college campuses. 

In Republicans’ Thursday letter to Yale Law School’s leadership, Cruz and the other signatories blasted the Ivy League’s response to the roughly 120 students at the protest where Waggoner was shouted at and called a ‘b****’ last month.

The event was a bipartisan panel on free speech held by the Federalist Society.

‘Instead of engaging with the panelists, a shocking number of Yale Law students hurled constant insults and obscenities at them and tried to prevent them from speaking and being heard,’ the letter read.

Amid the fallout from the demonstration, Yale Law School Dean Heather Gerkin condemned students’ unruly behavior but said they did not violate the school’s free speech policy.

The letter claims that reaction ‘raises serious doubts about Yale Law School’s stated intention to cultivate a free speech culture.’

Some Yale students expressed their disdain for Cruz’s Monday, April 11 appearance in the university’s news outlet earlier this month.

‘I think he has to understand that people are not going to be that excited about him coming,’ Carly Benson of Texas told the Yale Daily News.

‘I feel like he’s probably excited for people to hate him because then he can be the victim … he gets to be like, ‘Oh, I went to Yale and look what the radical left did.’

Another student, Jamie Nicolas, equated Yale hosting Cruz to an endorsement of his conservative views.

‘I feel like, in this case,…