Sen. Ted Cruz Rafael (Ted) Edward CruzTrump argues full Supreme Court needed to settle potential election disputes Press: Notorious RBG vs Notorious GOP The Hill's Morning Report - Sponsored by Facebook - Washington on edge amid SCOTUS vacancy MORE (R-Texas) said late Monday that most violent criminals also identify as Democrats.

“Here is the simple and undeniable fact – the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats,” he said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that evening.

ADVERTISEMENT

“There is a reason why for years the Democrats have been viewed as soft on crime,” Cruz continued. "They go in and appoint to the bench judges who release violent criminals.

“They go in and fight to give the right to vote to convicted felons,” the 2016 GOP presidential candidate added. "Why?

“The Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat. The media never reports on any of that. [It] doesn’t want to admit any of that.”

Cruz then argued that the mainstream media often tries linking violent crime with the GOP, even when such ties are nonexistent.

“Every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing you can almost see the media salivating, hoping, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so that they can use it to try and paint their political enemies,” he said.

“You can see that every time there’s a terrible crime they’re so excited – ‘come on, please be a Republican so we can try and paint the other side,’” Cruz said. "It is one of the more egregious examples of media bias and something we see over and over again."

Cruz and Hewitt were discussing last week’s mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Robert Lewis Dear, the alleged gunman, killed three people and wounded nine others after opening fire there the night of Nov. 27.

He then reportedly uttered the phrase “no more baby parts” upon entering police custody last weekend. Police have since repeatedly stressed that it is unclear whether the organization’s abortion policies inspired Dear’s alleged rampage.

Cruz charged Monday that Dear’s purported actions do not represent the values of the pro-life movement.

“I would note that this whole episode has really displayed the ugly underbelly of the media,” he said, noting some news outlets that had suggested potential links between Dear and anti-abortion supporters.