The man who confronted Senator Ted Cruz at a Houston, Texas, restaurant about on his views on gun rights is standing by what he said. “What I was trying to do was hold my elected official accountable,” activist Benjamin Hernandez told Inside Edition Digital.
Hernandez, who had just attended a protest outside of the National Rifle Association’s (NRA) annual meeting over the weekend, said he was having dinner with his wife at a nearby restaurant when he noticed Cruz and his entourage enter the restaurant.
“I was like, ‘You f*****.’ It was this instinctive reaction. I was like, ‘I can’t believe you’re here in the context of everything,’” Hernandez explained. “I was like, ‘I have to do something,’ This is my representative.”
He explained that reaction was spurred on by his status as a board member of Indivisible Houston, an organization dedicated to holding politicians and their corporate funders accountable and encouraging civic action.
Anticipating that Cruz wouldn’t be open to questions, Hernandez instead approached him asking for a photo. The camera, however, was set to take a video, and as Cruz smiled for a photo, Hernandez turned to him and could be seen asking questions.
“The first thing I asked him, ‘Can you tell me why it’s so hard to support stronger gun laws in this country?’ That’s where the conversation started,” he explained. “‘What about background checks? Surely we can find common ground on background checks.’”
He said Cruz directed him to his speech at the NRA, and before he knew it, the senator’s private security began escorting him out.
“By the way, I did go back and [watched his NRA speech,]’” he said, “He complains about the elites who live in gated communities with their private securities, and it was his private security that dragged me out.”
Hernandez’s line of questioning became more and more impassioned, and as he was being pushed out of the restaurant, he could be heard in the video yelling, “19 children died and that’s on your hands.”
Hernandez explained that he is a new father to a 15-month-old daughter, and felt the responsibility to stand up on behalf of the parents of Robb Elementary School students following the Uvalde school shooting.
“There are families right now that are grieving, and maybe they don’t have the head space to ask their elected officials, ‘Why didn’t you do something? Why aren’t you trying?’ So to me, it’s the least I can do in this space to hold power accountable,” he explained.
Hernandez said he hoped others watching the video would be inspired to “challenge their elected officials” and “make that space to engage with them.”