Ted Cruz on North Carolina bathroom law: 'This isn't about the Caitlyn Jenners of the world'

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ted cruz

CNN

Ted Cruz.

Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday attempted to refute prominent transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner's criticism of the senator's support for a controversial North Carolina bathroom law.

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In a video earlier this week, Jenner used the women's restroom in the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan.

Jenner was partially responding to Cruz's support for a North Carolina law that restricts the use of public bathrooms to individuals of the same biological sex, which essentially bars transgender individuals from using bathrooms that conform with their expressed gender identity.

"Thank you, Donald. I really appreciate it. By the way, Ted, nobody got molested," Jenner said, referring to Republican candidates Donald Trump and Cruz.

In a Sunday CNN interview, Cruz said Jenner wasn't his concern.

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"This is the height of political correctness," Cruz said. "Frankly, the concern is not the Caitlyn Jenners in the world. But if the law is such that any man if he feels like it can go in a women's restroom and you can't ask him to leave, that opens the door for predators."

Host Jake Tapper pushed back, saying that the law would not make it any easier for male predators to go into female restrooms.

"I don't think that's what the law is," Tapper said. "You and I don't identify as female. You and I aren't transgender. This law wouldn't be about you and me going to a women's room."

"The law doesn't specify transgender. It's whatever you feel like at the given moment," Cruz responded.

Cruz is one of the only major presidential candidates left in the field who has expressed outright support for North Carolina's law.

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Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders both oppose the law, while the Republican presidential frontrunner Trump argued that he did not support the law because he believed it could be damaging to businesses.