Sen. Cruz: U.S. National Security Must Always Come First
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You just heard Denis McDonough right there say he was outraged by your suggestion that American forces will be serving as al Qaeda's air force.
SEN. TED CRUZ: Well, George, it's good to be with you, and I do agree there is a lot to be outraged about. Number one, all of us are outraged at Assad's conduct. Assad is a brutal murderer who's murdered over 100,000 of his own citizens, has gassed over 1,400 people, including over 400 children. And he rightly should be subject to condemnation worldwide.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But an attack?
CRUZ: I think a military attack is a mistake.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?
CRUZ: For two reasons. One because I think the administration is proceeding with the wrong objective, an two, because they have no viable plan for success. They are beginning from the wrong objective because this attack is not based on defending U.S. national security.
It is not based on defending Americans or our allies, rather it is explicitly framed by President Obama, by Secretary Kerry, as a defense of what they call international norms. And I don't think that's the job of our military to be defending amorphous international norms.
There are many other steps we can do to express strong disapproval to Assad's murderous conduct, But I don't think it's the job of the military.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Like what? What would you do?
CRUZ: Like what? I'd do several things.
Number one, there are reports that Iraq is allowing Iran to fly over and resupply Assad. I would right now cut off Iraq's $500 million in aid unless they cut you are a air rights.
Number two, we should force a vote in the U.N. security council condemning Assad's use of chemical weapons to murder his own citizens. Now we know...
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, it would get vetoed.
CRUZ: We know Russia and China would veto it. They said that, but we should make them veto it on the world stage. And if they do veto it, we should respond by, with respect to Russia, we should reinstate the anti-ballistic missile station in eastern Europe that was canceled at the beginning of the Obama administration to appease Russia, and with respect to China, we should go through with selling the new F-16s to Taiwan that again this administration put the kaibosh...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So that hurt's China and Russia, but what does it do to Assad in Syria?
CRUZ: What it does to Assad in Syria is we should unify international opinion condemning him. But the second piece -- and, you know, Mr. McDonough said he was outraged at the suggestion that this attack would help al-Qaeda. Well, I agree it's outrageous.
But just because Assad is a murderous tyrant doesn't mean his opponents are any better. In June, the intelligence showed that the nine major al Qaeda -- of the nine major rebels forces in Syria, at least seven appear to have significant ties to al-Qaeda.
And the problem with this strike is one of two things is possible, either the strike is really significant, it weakens Assad and the result is the rebels are able to succeed, and if what happened there is al-Qaeda taking over, or al Nusra taking over, and extremist terrorists getting access to those chemical weapons, that hurts U.S. national security.
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, your fellow Republican Senator John McCain disagree with that. He said you were uninformed. And Congressman Adam Kinzinger, an Iraq War vet, has also taken exception to your comments.
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM KINZINGER, (R) ILLINOIS: They say if we go in and we strike Assad that we are acting as, quote, "al-Qaeda's air force." And I believe that's a cheap line by people to garner headlines.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Cheap line to garner headlines.
CRUZ: Well, look. I don't know Mr. Kinzinger. I certainly respect his service, he's entitled to his opinions. What I can tell you is that actual line initially was said by Dennis Kucinich. And where I saw it after that was a current naval sailor who tweeted and said I didn't sign up to serve as al-Qaeda's air force.
And the reason why we're seeing -- and I'll tell you, this past two weeks I have been traveling all across Texas, and everywhere in the state of Texas it has been unanimous of Texans saying don't put us in the middle of a sectarian civil war, particularly when doing so would help al-Qaeda terrorists.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, do you think the president has the authority to go forward without congressional support or is it an impeachable offense?
CRUZ: I don't think he has the authority. And we know that from two things. Number one, the Supreme Court in the Steel-Sager (ph) case said that when Congress affirmatively rejects congressional authority, which it would do if it votes down this resolution, that the president's authority is at its lowest ebb. And secondly, the residual presidential authority to act militarily in the absence of a declaration of war is based on an imminent, direct threat to the United States.
And President Obama has already explicitly said there isn't.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So acting would it be an impeachable offense?
CRUZ: It would be contrary to the Constitution.
And listen, this is not the time for politics. This is a grave and serious moment. I would like to support our commander in chief. I would like to see our commander in chief focused on protecting U.S. national security.
One of the problems with all of this focus on Syria is its missing the ball from what we should be focused on, which is the grave threat from radical Islamic terrorism. I mean, just this is the one-year anniversary of the attack on Benghazi. In Benghazi, four it was the first ambassador since 1979.
When it happened, the president promised to hunt the wrongdoers down, and yet a few months later, the issue has disappeared. You don't hear the president mention Benghazi. Now it's a phony scandal.
We ought to be defending U.S. national security and going after radical Islamic terrorists.
Email
Share