Sens. Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar got into a heated exchange about the judiciary during a Senate hearing Wednesday, after the Texas Republican accused Democrats of “hating democracy.”
“Democrats today hate democracy. Democrats today are angry at the voters for reelecting Donald Trump and electing a Republican Senate and Republican House. And they engaged in lawfare to stop democracy from operating,” Cruz spewed passionately at the hearing. “Understand this is the second phase of lawfare.”
“Now that their efforts to indict President Trump and stop the voters from reelecting him have failed, they’re going and seeking out individual radical judges to try to shut down policies. And they are forum shopping like crazy,” the senator continued, before he continued to rail against judges he claimed without evidence are doing Democrats’ bidding to rein in President Donald Trump.
“Nationwide injunctions are an abuse of power. It is the judiciary acting as policy deciders, and it is incumbent on this committee and this body to rein in the abuse of power from these unelected, radical judges who are trying to overturn the election because they disagree with what the voters decided,” he added.
“That was a lot,” Klobuchar reacted to Cruz’s tirade.
“We love the democracy,” the Minnesota Democrat said, defending her party from Cruz’s characterization. “If Donald Trump wants to make changes to the government, we should be doing it in a legal way, not how he’s doing it. And the only reason there’s all these injunctions, Senator Cruz, is because he’s violating the Constitution.”
The senators then engaged in back-and-forth, before Florida Sen. Ashley Moody stepped into moderate.
“Let’s let her have her time,” Moody requested of her fellow Republican.
“I will take more than my time since he’s taken more than his time to yell at me,” said Klobuchar, before she continued her response to Cruz’s comments.
