On Wednesday, junior US Senator from Texas Ted Cruz said President Barack Obama is responsible for fueling racial tension in the country. His statement indicated that the President should be blamed for riots in Baltimore and Ferguson after death of black suspects.

Cruz was asked how he would address the violence that erupted after the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who died of spinal injuries in police custody in Baltimore. In response, Cruz said that when Obama was elected as president of the United States, he could have been a unifying figure. But, the president has made decisions that inflamed racial tensions, Cruz added. According to Cruz, racial tensions in the county have divided the people rather than bringing them together.

At the National Press Club, Cruz, who is the first Hispanic or Cuban American to serve as a US Senator from Texas, took a number of questions for about one and half hour from Javier Palomarez, President and CEO of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (USHCC).

The USHCC CEO asked Cruz twice to offer solutions to racial tensions. In reply, Cruz, a GOP presidential candidate, made a passing reference to the requirement for criminal justice changes and inequities that can put minorities in jail at higher rates. Cruz also cited an incendiary and hateful comment by Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States, during presidential campaign in 2014, to a black group that if Republicans win in future, they will put them back in chains.

Cruz was also asked how Obama made race relations worse. He said, "He has not used his role as president to bring us together. He has exacerbated racial misunderstandings, racial tensions".