A woman who said she called Sen. Ted Cruz a coward online apologized to the lawmaker at a town hall event in Houston, Texas, on Saturday.
Just as the event was wrapping up Cruz, R-Texas, invited up a woman to speak, who identified herself as a teacher of U.S. history.
“I actually wanted to apologize real quick. Online I called you a coward,” she said, adding that used a hashtag online, “cruzthecoward”, to criticize the lawmaker.
“Thank you for being here,” she added as she walked up to shake Cruz’s hand.
The woman recommended that Cruz better advertise his town hall events, on social media for example, and added, “I would love to see you come out more.” But she said that she learned a lot about Cruz at the event and though they don’t agree on everything was pleasantly surprised.
“I wanted to thank you. You’re not a coward,” she said before the event was brought to a close.
The woman also shared her “favorite” story in U.S. history about how Thomas Jefferson and John Adams overcame political divisions. She then revealed that she is an “anchor baby” in the U.S., or in other words an American born to non-citizen in this country, and said uncertainty about her citizenship is something she and Cruz have in common.
“You and I have so much in common. People question your citizenship. I’m an anchor baby. Both my parents were immigrants. People would say that we’re not American,” she said, adding urging Americans to realize “we have more in common than we don’t have in common.”
Cruz was born in Canada to a mother who was a U.S. citizen. There was some questioning of whether Cruz was a “natural born citizen” during the 2016 campaign, when he was running to be the GOP presidential nominee. However, two election commissions in two states ruled in favor of Cruz.
