Democrat strategist James Carville once called Ted Cruz the “most talented and fearless candidate he has seen in 30 years.”
Arriving in Washington in 2012, the Texas senator has proved a quick study of the corrupt Washington games that are breeding cynicism across both parties. Demonstrating himself to be a man steeped in America’s founding principles and a patriot who expects Washington to listen, Cruz pulls the curtain back in this exclusive video interview to expose why government grows, while economic and personal liberties recede.
Cruz, who’s expected to be a 2016 favorite among grassroots conservatives, found President Obama’s recent National Prayer Breakfast remarks “stunning.” He continued, “It shouldn’t be that hard for a president to lift us up or speak goodness to evil.”
Yet, the Republican senator says, Obama “preached a false moral equivalence that every religion is equal.” The president “didn’t even have the courage to praise Egyptian President el-Sisi for recently calling out the radicals” who are perverting the Muslim faith, Cruz said.
Cruz calls comments by Democrat Pat Caddell — who was featured in a popular video interview in this Leader series last week — lambasting the Republican leadership for estrangement from their base “truthful.” He says it is an “act of heresy in Washington to tell this truth.”
“The biggest divide in politics is between career politicians in both parties in Washington and the American people,” the senator says.
Cruz is most proud of his efforts to stop the train wreck that is Obamacare. As he travels around the nation, he hears of lost health care coverage, lost jobs, and rising premiums. Yet, he says “career politicians in both parties are perfectly happy to let Obamacare remain a permanent feature of our economy.” Cruz elevated the Obamacare debate, and leadership still hasn’t thanked Cruz for waging the battle that galvanized a nation, convincing enough voters last November that Republicans might really fight to stop Obama’s transformation of the nation.
The Texan thinks the only way to change what Pat Caddell is talking about is for the American people to rise up. From all he can see from the inside, “Washington is not listening.”
Cruz tells the revealing insider story of the 2014 debt ceiling battle, where too many Republicans said one thing and then did another, when it came to restraining out of control spending. Cruz said he wasn’t surprised when President Obama audaciously demanded Congress raise the government credit card limit without any spending reforms. But the House approved it, with only 28 Republicans voting with 190 Democrats to pass a clean debt ceiling per the President’s request, to the acclaim of Wall Street and media elites.
Next the Senate had to pass H.R. 325. Just as the Senate is now experiencing with the current battle over DHS spending that contains a defunding of executive amnesty, to proceed to consider a bill takes 60 votes. But the 60 vote threshold can be altered if the Senate changed it by unanimous consent. Senate Republican leaders, not objecting to more spending, more debt, wanted to “kick the can down the road.” Cruz reports GOP leaders asked all their senators to affirmatively consent to lower the threshold from 60 to 50 votes. The result? If we lowered it, Cruz says, it would “allow us to vote no on the substance and tell our constituents that we opposed what we just consented to allow happen.”
Cruz objected to the game, and says “nothing has engendered more animosity and vitriol in Washington than that.” It’s interesting to note that this Wall Street Journal editorial wrongly predicted Cruz’s battle would result in the Democrats retaining the majority in the fall 2014 elections, but no public apologies have been issued to Cruz from the Journal editorial page.
The senator told Republican leaders, “I can’t lie to the people who elected me.” The truth is “shining the light on the game being played in D.C. is worse than insulting another” senator, he says.
Discussing President Obama’s State of the Union address, he said he felt like he was “Alice in Wonderland.” The “president described facts that have no bearing on reality.”
Despite the Washington environment, Cruz is optimistic because his travels reveal “people are waking up across the country.”
“2016 will be an election like 1980,” he says. “We win by drawing a line in the sand. There is a better path for this country. Back to the free market principles and constitutional liberties that have made America the best country in the world.”
Senator Cruz’s Facebook page is here and his Twitter is here.
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