Anti-Kavanaugh activists force Ted Cruz from restaurant: 'We believe survivors!'

On Monday evening Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican of Texas, was chased out of a restaurant in Washington DC, after activists heckled him over his support of supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

“We believe survivors!” the group chanted, swarming Cruz and his wife, Heidi, at the Italian restaurant Fiola, not far from the White House. The protest was captured on a video posted to the Smash Racism DC Twitter account, which took credit for the action, and identified themselves as a coalition comprising “Smash Racism DC, Resist This, DC IWW, members of DC Democratic Socialists of America, Anarchists, women, sexual assault survivors, and members of the LGBTQ community”.

In a second video posted by the group, a woman who identifies herself to Cruz as a sexual assault survivor and a constituent of his asks him how he plans to vote on Kavanaugh. The embattled supreme court nominee is facing multiple accusations of sexual impropriety during his youth, and a third woman is expected to make an allegation against him this week, her attorney Michael Avenatti told the Guardian.

“I know that you’re very close friends with Mr Kavanaugh,” the woman in the video says. “But do you believe survivors?”

“God bless you,” Cruz replies.

“Your politics are an attack on all of us. You’re [sic] votes are a death wish. Your votes are hate crimes,” the protesters explained on Twitter soon after.

“While our interruption does not compare in scale to the interruptions his actions as a Senator have had on millions of American lives, we hope that it reminds Cruz and others like him that they are not safe from the people they have hurt,” they continued, in a series of tweets.

The protest follows similar actions carried out against the Trump administration, as when homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was forced out of a restaurant in Washington for her role in the separation of migrant children from their parents back in June. A few weeks later, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked to leave a restaurant in Virginia after the staff explained that they were uncomfortable serving her.

Earlier this summer, Cruz expressed his enthusiasm for Kavanaugh as a nominee.

“He has a strong record working to reign in the excesses of federal agencies and excess authority for federal agencies to disregard statutes passed by Congress. He has a good record on the second amendment and on religious liberty, so there’s much to like in Judge Kavanaugh’s record. And by any measure, he is one of the most distinguished and respected judges in the country.”

On Friday, during a debate with his insurgent opponent, Representative Beto O’Rourke, Cruz was also pressed on his support of Kavanaugh in light of accusations from Christine Blasey Ford, who has said he sexually assaulted her in high school.

“The allegations she’s raised are serious, and they deserve to be treated with respect,” Cruz said.

In the Washington restaurant Monday night, amid the cries of “We believe survivors!” one protester can be heard above the fray.

“Beto is way hotter than you, dude,” he says.

Earlier that morning, Cruz had been photographed on his way from Texas to Washington. He was staring at a picture of O’Rouke on his phone.