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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, defended Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ affirmative action stance on Wednesday as he faced questioning from the co-hosts of “The View” about his new book.
“Clarence Thomas, he stated that affirmative action diminishes achievements because it allowed people to believe he had not earned his place at Yale and I think we can all agree that affirmative action was put in place to provide opportunities to qualified Black students, like Thomas, because those institutions historically would not give them the opportunities to go,” co-host Sunny Hostin said during the interview about Cruz’s new book, “The Incomparable Clarence Thomas.”
“So what I don’t understand how you handle in the book is, why is the lesson from his experience that we should eliminate the remedy rather than eliminate the racism that made the remedy necessary? I don’t understand that,” Hostin asked Cruz.
Thomas sided with the 6-3 majority ruling in 2023 on affirmative action, saying the court’s decision “sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences designed to ensure a particular racial mix in their entering classes.”
Supreme Court Justice wrote a blistering dissent on Feb. 20, 2026 after the Supreme Court found President Trump’s tariffs are illegal. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
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Hostin said, “I mean, I genuinely don’t understand the framing in the book about that.”
Cruz said that affirmative action “encompasses a lot of things” before describing Thomas’ viewpoint.
“If you’re talking about removing barriers, if you’re talking about expanding access, then I’m for that, he’s for that, everyone is for that. If you’re talking about quotas and discriminating based on race, then Justice Thomas has been the clearest defender of the principle that the Constitution prohibits the government discriminating based on race,” he began, before Hostin questioned why the SCOTUS justice felt his Yale degree was “diminished because people felt that it was a result of affirmative action.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a BBQ fundraiser for Iowa Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson at the Horizon Events Center on Aug. 29, 2026, in Clive, Iowa. (Getty Images)
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Cruz responded, “So there was a reason for that. When he came out of Yale Law School, he had done very well in law school. He applied. Not a single law firm would hire him. Every law firm he interviewed said, ‘No’.”
“Welcome to being Black,” co-host Whoopi Goldberg interjected.
Goldberg pointed to Thomas being a Constitutional scholar before asking Cruz, “How does he not remember that we weren’t part of the Constitution? Right? We were not. So there’s a reason people didn’t start off, we weren’t all equal.”
Ted Cruz spoke to the co-hosts of “The View” on September 9, 2026. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival; Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images; Gary Gershoff/Getty Images)
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Cruz argued that Thomas talked about that at length, saying, “Look, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments. The 13th Amendment ended slavery. The 14th Amendment protected equal protection. And the 15th Amendment protected the right to vote, specifically for African Americans.”
“So why are we still talking about it if it protects all of this? That’s the thing I guess,” Goldberg said before ending the interview as the show ran out of time.
Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Earlier in the show, Goldberg admonished “The View” audience after they groaned upon announcing Cruz would be a guest later in the show.
“Look, this is a place where Barbara Walters made sure that anybody who wanted to come and have a good conversation could come,” she said, shutting down the booing. “So we want people to come, and we want to engage them. We don’t agree with them always. We don’t jell with them always, but we are respectful, and I know you will be too.”
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Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas spoke at the University of Texas at Austin on April 15, 2026, in Austin, Texas. (Eric Gay/AP Photo)
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She compared it to swallowing a burp and said, “Sometimes you know stuff, it’s like a burp. It comes up and so just swallow it back down.”
