One of the reasons for Donald Trump’s continuing high standing in the early polls is his perceived willingness to stand up to PC bullies and speak his mind. Now along comes Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, standing up to the man who put the “bully” back into the bully pulpit:
According to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is essentially financing terrorism. And he’s not backing down after the president called his comments “outrageous.”
“If this deal is consummated, it will make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said during a round table Tuesday. “Billions of dollars under control of this administration will flow into the hands of jihadists who will use that money to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, to murder Europeans.” Cruz has said the remarks before.
On Monday, Obama responded to criticism of the deal. He also addressed Cruz’s comments, and others from members of GOP lawmakers, calling them “outrageous attacks” that crossed the line. “We’ve had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for president, suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said during a press conference from Ethiopia. “Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it’s not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now.”
Crossed what line? Vigorous give-and-take between independent branches of government, each member of which is sworn to uphold the Constitution, has long been a hallmark of American republican democracy. If you can’t take the heat, as another Democrat president famously said, get out of the kitchen.
In fact, a debate on Obama’s latest vengeful attempt to shove bad policy down the throats of a people he so obviously holds in contempt is very much what we do need. So Cruz has called Obama to take it outside:
“Yesterday, I invited President Obama to participate in a debate, I would be happy to debate him … anywhere in the country in the next 60 days, to discuss the substance of this deal. If he believes that this deal can be defended, I would encourage him to defend it in front of the American people,” Cruz said. “If he’s unwilling to do so, then he can send as his proxy Secretary of State John Kerry because on the merits, this deal is catastrophic for the American people.”
What fun it would be to see that on Pay Per View. Don’t hold your breath, though.
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