Leave it to Ted Cruz to turn an apology into a stump speech. On Friday night, Ted Cruz responded to demands for an apology for his comments about “New York values.” Cruz “apologized,” but he did not take his words back. Instead, he told conservative New Yorkers he is sorry they have to live with liberal leadership.
Cruz got into trouble during the Fox Business debate on Thursday when he said, “Everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media.” Many New Yorkers of all political persuasions were outraged, and the Daily News ran a cover depicting the Statue of Liberty flipping the Texas senator the bird.
“Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio have all demanded an apology, and I am happy to apologize,” Cruz began. “I apologize to the millions of New Yorkers who have been let down by liberal politicians in that state.” He apologized for Governor Cuomo’s decision to ban fracking, which provided “many high-paying jobs just south in Pennsylvania.”
Cruz’s “apology” hit many more conservative issues. “I apologize to all the pro-life and pro-marriage and pro-Second Amendment New Yorkers who were told by Governor Cuomo that they have no place in New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.” He also apologized to small businesses “driven out of New York City by crushing taxes and regulations.”
Cruz hit on school choice as well, attacking Mayor de Blasio for throwing “African-American children… out of their charter schools that were providing a lifeline to the American Dream.” He also apologized to “all the cops and all the firefighters and 9/11 heroes” because Mayor de Blasio “over and over again stands with the looters and criminals” of groups such as “Black Lives Matter.”
Cruz finished with “good news for the good people of New York,” arguing that 2016 will be a change election. “People are waking up, and just like millions of New Yorkers they’re fed up with policies that don’t fight for the men and women of this country but instead further the elite liberal views that have taken this country down a path that is not working.”
https://youtu.be/JAxnNwpsDOk
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