Climate protestors interrupted Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s interview on The View on Monday to demand that the news network do more coverage of the climate crisis.
As the Republican senator, who was on the show to promote his book, was speaking, protesters could be heard breaking into a chant of “cover climate now”.
Senator Cruz spoke over the chanting for a while but the protesters were eventually scolded by the show’s host, Whoopi Goldberg.
“Let us do our job,” Ms Goldberg said. “We hear what you have to say but you gotta go.”
A group called New York Communities for Change (NYCC) posted an audience view of the protests on Twitter and said that they had interrupted the show to protest ABC’s “lack of climate coverage” and Mr Cruz’s interview.
“ABC needs to cover climate change more instead of platforming a climate denier like Ted Cruz,” Alice Hu, a climate campaigner with NYCC, can be heard saying in the video.
Ms Hu told The Independent that they had targeted this morning’s taping in part because the senator was a guest.
Mr Cruz has a history of denying or downplaying aspects of the climate crisis. In 2019, he told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that while he agreed humans are putting carbon into the atmosphere, he thought the data was inconclusive on whether that carbon was warming the atmosphere or whether humans should reduce carbon emissions.
Climate scientists have overwhelmingly concluded that carbon emissions, largely from the burning of fossil fuels, are warming the planet, triggering more extreme weather like drought, storms and heatwaves.
The Independent has reached out to a representative for Senate Cruz for comment.
After the protests had initially quieted, Senator Cruz said that he couldn’t hear what the individuals were protesting.
Another host, Sunny Hostin, replied: “They’re accusing us of not covering climate change, and we do that...” before she was cut off by other people on the panel.
The interview continued, only to be interrupted again by a protester with the New York City chapter of Extinction Rebellion, who yelled an expletive at the senator and called him a “climate-denying piece of s***.” Some members of the audience can be heard applauding in response.
Ms Hu told The Independent that the two groups had organized some of the action together and that while she was not aware of what the second protester was going to say, she does agree with the sentiment.
After the commercial break, host Ana Navarro told Mr Cruz: “I’ve been very vocal and critical of you, but I’m sorry that this has happened in our house,” Deadline reported.
A spokesperson for The View told The Independent that three audience members interrupted the show’s taping and were escorted out by security.
“I’m really glad we don’t have a Van Gogh on the wall,” the Texas Republican said, in an apparent reference to a protest earlier this month where climate activists threw soup against a glass-covered Vincent Van Gogh painting at London’s National Gallery to bring attention to the climate crisis.
The View is taped in New York City. Senator Cruz was also at last night’s playoff baseball game between the Yankees and the Houston Astros, where he was heckled by members of the crowd.
Many climate protests have sprung up around the world in the past few weeks, including this action at The View and the recent soup-throwing. On Monday morning, protestors with the non-profit Just Stop Oil in the UK were arrested after throwing cake on a wax figure of King Charles III at Madame Tussaud’s.
In the past week, activists have also sprayed paint at the department store Harrod’s in London and thrown mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting at a gallery in Germany.
