President Donald Trump's choice of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court fulfills the promise he made while campaigning to nominate a principle constitutionalist, and his announcement was a "major moment in our country," Sen. Ted Cruz said Wednesday.
"It was the most important moment in the first two weeks of [his] presidency," the Texas Republican and 2016 GOP presidential candidate, told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"Judge Gorsuch has built a reputation, a proven record on the Court of Appeals for a decade of being a principle constitutionalist judge, of taking a humble approach to being a judge and simply following the law, following the Constitution, upholding the Bill of Rights, and critically not trying to impose his own policy preferences on anyone."
Further, said Cruz, voters showed they wanted a conservative justice to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last year.
"Voters care about substance," said Cruz. "This was a remarkable election in that Justice Scalia passed away in the middle of a presidential election, and this election was a very real sense a referendum on this seat."
One of the "real virtues" of the Republican majority in 2016 was saying it would not fill the justice seat during the presidential election year, but instead saying they would "hold it for the people to decide," said Cruz.
"Do you want a constitutionalist, which is what Donald Trump promised, or do you want a liberal activist, which is what Hillary [Clinton] promised?" said Cruz. "I think the American people made that decision on Election Day, and I think there's a mandate coming out of the election."
Cruz also addressed comments made by Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, who on Tuesday blasted Democrats for their opposition to Trump's nominees.
On Tuesday, Democrats boycotted a committee vote on Health and Human Services nominee Tom Price and Treasury Secretary nominee Steve Mnuchin by staying away from the vote.
Hatch, sitting with Republicans at the hearing, called their actions "pathetic" and said they need to "stop posturing and acting like idiots," reports The Washington Post.
"Let me say for Hatch, he's a pretty understated guy," said Cruz. "That is the equivalent of Bobby Knight throwing a chair into the center of the basketball court. That is a profanity-written explosion from Hatch.
"I think it's the frustration because what the Democrats are doing, they're angry, they're in denial, and they're just saying we're going to take our ball and go home."
Further, said Cruz, Democrats are angry at the American people because they don't believe the election results.
"It's part of actually, all this talk about Russian hacking," said Cruz. "The focus on that has hurt the most has been actually the Democratic Party because it lets them all make an excuse."
Cruz also criticized people who claim there is a moral obligation to open the nation's borders.
"There's a technical term for that," the senator said. "That's called nuts. We are facing a real threat . . . what President Trump did was a very common sense step of putting in place a four-month pause to say we're going to hold off on letting refugees in until we can be certain that we can vet them that they're not terrorists."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.