Sen. Ted Cruz’s “The View” interview was disrupted by protesters multiple times on Monday, including some demanding the Texas Republican talk about climate change.
The protesters appeared to be shouting “Cover climate now!” as Cruz tried to answer a question from Sara Haines, one of the ABC talk show’s co-hosts.
The shouting continued until Whoopi Goldberg responded to the protesters: “Excuse me, ladies. Excuse us, let us do our job… We hear what you have to say, but you’ve got to go. You’ve got to go, you’ve got to let us do our job.” Goldberg’s response garnered applause from the crowd.
Later in the interview, Cruz was interrupted once again. This time, the show cut its audio when someone yelled at Cruz and went to commercial.
“Three members of the audience interrupted ‘The View’ today during Sen. Ted Cruz’s appearance protesting about climate,” said a “View” spokesperson. “They were promptly escorted out by security.”
Aside from the protests that peppered the interview, the rest of Cruz’s appearance on “The View” included him repeatedly avoiding saying that President Joe Biden was legitimately elected.
“So listen, Biden is the president today,” Cruz said in response to co-host Alyssa Farah when she asked him for a second time whether Biden was legitimately elected. Farah also pressed Cruz on how he can reconcile his constitutional convictions with the January 6, 2021, attack and with attempts to disenfranchise millions of voters.
“There are a lot of folks in the media that try to — any time a Republican is in front of a TV camera — try to say, the election was fair and square and legitimate. You know who you don’t do that to? You don’t do it to Hillary Clinton, who stood up and said, ‘Trump stole the election,’” Cruz said.
Farah responded, “But they didn’t storm the Capitol. They didn’t try to kill my former boss.” Farah, who was a former White House communications director during the Trump administration, joined the show in August.
“You don’t do that to Stacey Abrams, who said that the election was stolen,” Cruz replied “They sat here and said it was illegitimate. And you guys were fine with it.”
“The View” hosts argued that those Democrats accepted the outcome of their elections, whereas Trump still baselessly claims the 2020 election was rigged and motivated supporters to storm the Capitol on January 6.
Abrams faced criticism from Republicans for not formally conceding her previous gubernatorial bid though she did eventually acknowledge that now-Gov. Brian Kemp had won the election. Abrams told CNN in December 2021, Kemp “won under the rules of the game at the time, but the game was rigged against the voters of Georgia.” Clinton conceded the 2016 presidential election to Trump.
— CNN’s Sarah Fortinsky contributed to this report.
