Things got a little awkward for Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz during a Q&A session at Yale University after a student asked him whether he'd "fellate another man" if it meant ending world hunger.
The student—who identified themselves as "Evan"—asked the question when he approached the microphone during a live taping of the podcast Verdict with Ted Cruz.
The question was met with laughter from the audience.
Cruz declined to answer.
You can watch what happened in the video below.
Although Cruz chose not to answer the student's question, conservative commentator Michael Knowles did, saying that the question was typical of a "left wing undergraduate" engaging in consequentionalism.
Consequentialism is a class of normative, teleological ethical theories that holds that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct.
Knowles said:
"Like a typical left wing undergraduate, you are enaging in consequentionalist ethics. You are attempting to justify flagrantly immoral behavior to achieve a good end."
"And I tell you, my friend, the ends do not justify the means. Absolutely, absolutely not."
Cruz did ask, however, if Evan would vote for former President Donald Trump "if it meant solving world hunger," a remark that prompted further laughter from audience members.
The exchange quickly went viral, exposing Cruz to significant mockery
The incident later caught the attention of Fox News, which ran a segment in which several of the network's hosts complained about "woke" leftist students on college campuses and demanded that colleges "crackdown on that threatening behavior."
Cruz, for his part, called on Yale to punish student protesters who picketed an appearance he made at the university last month, during which he repeated patently false claims that the 2020 general election was stolen and defended his treatment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Cruz joined Republicans in signing an open letter urging Yale to punish students who objected to the inclusion of a conservative Christian lawyer and anti-LGBTQ+ rights activist on a panel.
