Fans at a weekend MLB game between the New York Yankees and Houston Astros flipped off Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) as he waved to onlookers. The game took place at Yankee Stadium, which is in New York City, and the Yankees ended up losing.
A widely circulated photo of the incident shows three of those gesturing at the Senator in close proximity to him — and seemingly in view. A fourth is a little further away. Three of the four are displaying their middle fingers as he waves, and the fourth is showing a thumbs down, while others in view seem amused. The photo originated with Jesse Angelo, an executive at Vice News. As Cruz walked through the stadium, he also faced jeers. “Fuck you, you racist piece of shit!” someone shouts in a clip from the game left in Angelo’s replies. What sounds like the same person also reminded the Senator of when Trump — who Cruz now rather avidly supports — maligned his wife’s appearance. Someone else called Cruz “a disgrace to this country.” Check out the image and clip below:
— bunnycatt 💉💉+💉💉+💉💃🏼 (@bethyr87) October 24, 2022
Policy-wise, Cruz has recently pushed what he has characterized as a school safety plan, which hinges on significantly adding to the numbers of law enforcement officers and mental health personnel working on school campuses. The proposal came in the aftermath of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, this year, and at a public event put on by The Texas Tribune where he got into an argument with members of the crowd over school security and gun policy, Cruz defended his ideas by claiming the Uvalde shooter was inside the school before law enforcement were there. Although timelines provided by authorities for what happened have shifted, available information pointed to that simply not being true. Once police arrived, nobody directly confronted the attacker for over an hour. Police were already there — and it didn’t work.
Cruz wouldn’t support a bipartisan gun policy package passed earlier this year including boosts to the screening process for teenagers seeking to purchase guns. (The Uvalde shooter was 18.) The attacker in Uvalde obtained a key weapon used in the attack through legal means, suggesting having changed the laws could have meant the incident didn’t happen at all. Cruz’s best ideas are more of the police who were already there and limiting doors.
