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The woman was addressing the senator, not his wife – the two men are known to be old friends. More pertinently, Ted Cruz is a Republican on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, and Kavanaugh is a Supreme Court nominee whose confirmation process had been interrupted by allegations that he sexually assaulted one woman and engaged in sexual misconduct with another as a teenager.

The chanting never stopped. “We believe the survivors!”

Organizers of this protest would later identify themselves as members of various left-wing organizations: a local anti-fascist group and a branch of the Democratic Socialists of America, among others. One of them told The Washington Post they had been tipped off to the Cruzes’ reservation that evening and sat covertly at Fiola’s bar for more than an hour to await his arrival.

Ted Cruz didn’t want to talk about Kavanaugh with a dozen strangers in the middle of a restaurant. Heidi Cruz eventually unfroze and slid into the booth.

“I’d love to know what your vote is going to be tonight,” the woman pressed. “I know that you’re very close friends with Mr. Kavanaugh. Do you believe in survivors, sir?”

The camera frame suddenly jostled. “Please don’t touch me,” the woman said.

The restaurant staff stared from the perimeter of the crowd, unwilling and perhaps unable to interfere with the escalating spectacle. “We’re not trained to deal with this,” Fiola’s co-owner, Maria Trabocchi, later told The Post. “How do you deal with things like this? It’s crazy times.”