Ted Cruz unleashes on The View hosts and Taylor Lorenz's response to UnitedHealthcare CEO murder

Sen. Ted Cruz is furious at liberals who are celebrating the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

The Texas Senator said that the host of ABC's The View are 'denying reality.'

And he said that independent liberal journalist Taylor Lorenz made 'sick and twisted' comments regarding Thompson's death.

Public response to the murder was very split, with some claiming it goes to show the problem with health care in the U.S., while critics are outraged over the targeted attack. Reaction from some far-left factions is downright gleeful.

Luigi Mangione, 26, is charged with killing Thompson in a shooting in Manhattan last week.

He was captured after a five-day manhunt led authorities to Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mangione was identified by a worker at a McDonalds.

His short manifesto, found in his backpack at time of arrest on Monday, was a clear referendum on the U.S. healthcare system – and specifically UnitedHealthcare.

'The hosts of The View are just denying reality,' Cruz said. 'Every word that just came out of Joy's mouth is complete nonsense, it is babbling idiocy.'

The View co-host Joy Behar replied to his response with: 'Of course, Ted Cruz has to politicize it and say it's a left wing thing.'

On his podcast episode on Wednesday, he unleashed on Behar.

'Let's go to some of our favorite people,' Cruz said on his podcast The Verdict. 'The always charming and wonderful and reasonable hosts of The View – they were very unhappy.'

'They were very unhappy today because I called out the extremists left for their violence and their willingness to engage in assassinations and to try to assassinate, to assassinate this CEO, to try to assassinate Donald Trump,' he said.

He also went after co-host Whoppi Goldberg, saying: 'You want to talk about violence, I'm willing to say, put anyone in jail who commits active violence. Are you?'

'And I asked on that show, what about the Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots all over the country in 2020 that burned American cities across the country,' Cruz recalled. 

'And Whoopi Goldberg looked at me and said, 'I don't know what an Antifa riot is'. Like, they're literally living in an alternative reality where they just erase the embrace of violence on the left.'

But he was obviously more enraged over Lorenz's comments claiming she felt 'joy' over Thompson's murder.

'Taylor Lorenz's comments there are sick and twisted and she should be treated as a deranged lunatic, because she is,' Cruz said on his Wednesday podcast episode.

He went on: 'She is openly celebrating, she feels joy at someone – someone she's never met – being murdered. Why? Because she hates all health insurance companies. She hates, you know what? She's another anti-capitalist nut job.'

'Let me be clear, murder is wrong. Period. The end,' the Texas senator said. 'Regardless of your politics, regardless of whether I agree with you or disagree with you, nobody should be subject to violence.'

'It's wrong whether I agree with you or disagree with you,' Cruz said. 'Anyone who committed an act of violence, anyone who has assaulted a police officer, they should be prosecuted.'

Conservatives are perplexed by the public reaction to the murder of Thompson.

Many are taking to social media to praise the targeting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO because they feel it shows displeasure with the way the U.S. health care system works.

Lorenz was among those to show no remorse over Thompson's death.

She went on Piers Morgan Uncensored on Monday to defend her controversial social media posts celebrating the murder.

'Why would you be in such a celebratory mood about the execution of another human being?' Morgan asks. 'Aren't you supposed to be on the caring, sharing left where, you know, you believe in the sanctity of life?'

Lorenz responded that since she 'believes in the sanctity of life' it's the reason why 'I felt, along with so many other Americans, joy, unfortunately.'

Morgan's jaw drops at the unexpected response, before he hits back: 'Joy!? Serious? Joy at a man's execution?'

Lorenz then attempts to backtrack, telling Morgan, 'Maybe not joy, but certainly not empathy.'

Later, Lorenz took to X to say she never claimed to feel 'joy' over the assassination of Thompson.

'The CEO was a murderer and I do not feel sadness over his death,' she wrote. 'But the media would rather misrepresent my very clear words and foment outrage than engage with the fact that many of us ARE OVERJOYED that these millionaire pundits are forced to acknowledge Americans suffering.'