Not afraid to speak his mind, Sen. Ted Cruz said President Joe Bidens’s promise to nominate and confirm the first Black woman to the U.S Supreme court was not only “offensive,” but an outright insult to Black women.
On his podcast, “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” the Texas senator argued on Monday that Biden’s pledge to nominate a Black woman sent a message to other Americans that they are “ineligible” because of their gender and race, as reported by The Washington Post.
“The fact that he’s willing to make a promise at the outset, that it must be a Black woman, I got to say that’s offensive. You know, Black women are what, 6 percent of the U.S. population? He’s saying to 94 percent of Americans, ‘I don’t give a damn about you, you are ineligible,’” Cruz said.
He also suggested the president would not nominate the most qualified candidate.
“If he came and said, ‘I’m gonna put the best jurist on the court and he looked at a number of people and he ended up nominating a Black woman, he could credibly say, ‘Okay, I’m nominating the person who’s most qualified,’ ” the senator said. “He’s not even pretending to say that, he’s saying, ‘If you’re a White guy, tough luck. If you’re a White woman, tough luck. You don’t qualify.’”
Cruz immediately received backlash from critics and liberals who cataloged his comments as “unfettered systematic racism.”
In a tweet, White House spokesman Andrew Bates pointed out that when President Donald Trump “promised to pick a woman” for a Supreme Court opening in 2020, Cruz did not protest.
The Senator’s comments come ahead of Biden’s nomination of a Black woman to the high court, which the President claims is “long overdue.”
No Black woman has served on the Supreme Court before, and only five women have served on the high court.
Biden said he hopes to announce his pick by the end of this month.
