Republican Sen. Ted Cruz melted down Thursday as climate protesters disrupted his speech.
Darin Miller, who handles Cruz's communications, shared a video of the clash on X, in which took place Thursday evening in Washington, D.C. as part of an event hosted by conservative group The Fund for American Studies.
In the video, Cruz — who once said "Um, El Paso is land-locked" after Beto O’Rourke said his son feared climate change could make their home city unlivable — stands behind a podium as protesters sit with locked arms near him.
An irate Cruz shouts into the microphone: "Hold on, hold on! Which country is the biggest climate polluter on Planet Earth? You have no idea! You're a protester and you're utterly ignorant about what you're protesting about! What's the answer?!"
As one protester tries to respond, Cruz talks over him.
"He's literally protesting about climate and he can't tell you who the biggest polluter on planet Earth is! And he won't!"
For the most part, the protesters' responses aren't audible in the clip, but someone shouts, "the United States of America!"
Cruz responds that one woman "has no clue — she says the United States of America. She's protesting, and she has literally no idea — by the way, the answer is Communist China."
Cruz continued berating the protesters, asking, "who leads the world in reduction of carbon emissions? Do you know the answer to that? I'll give you a hint — it was the wrong answer you gave before. It's the United States of America."
He kept going, shouting as the crowd applauded: "Do you know why?! Do you know why?!"
"The reason is, because of the thing you're protesting against, fossil fuels — no, no," he cuts off the protesters again, "You're so ignorant, you don't know, so if you're going to protest, confront some facts."
"These radicals are not not pro-environment they're just anti-American," wrote Miller.
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According to Climate Action Tracker, an independent research group, 50 billion metric tons of planet-heating gases were released in 2022.
China is the world's largest climate polluter, making up nearly a third of global emissions, according to a CNN report on the data. However, of the top global polluters, China, India, the United States and the European Union accounted collectively for 83 percent of emissions that year.
Moreover, the average American accounts for about double the amount of climate pollution as the average person in China.
