Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)
The FAMiLY Leadership Summit
Stephens Auditorium
Ames, Iowa
August 9, 2014

[Democracy in Action TRANSCRIPT] video

Wow.  What a privilege to be with you.  You know I spent much of last month in Washington, DC so it is great to be back in America.  I spent this morning at the Iowa State Fair.  That is fantastic.  I go to try something I've never had before, a pork chop on a stick.  You know it's really hard to go wrong with meat on a stick.  And I'll tell you it brought to mind a new diet that is all the rage in Washington.  It's the Obama diet.  It works very, very well.  All you do is every day you let Putin eat your lunch.

It is such a blessing to be back with so many conservative leaders and activists, men and women of faith throughout the state of Iowa, men and women standing up for your state and for our great country.  I am here today with a message of hope and optimism.  You know if you listen to the media, if you listen to the Democrats—although I repeat myself—they will tell you conservatives cannot win; they will tell you that America has become a liberal-progressive utopia that embraces the failed big government solutions from Washington.  Let me tell you this.  They don't know the people of the United States of America.

So I want to talk to you about how we win.  And there's a very simple model for how we win.  We stand up and we tell the truth.  We shine the light of truth and we empower the American people.  So I'm going to talk to you today about seven victories, seven major victories for conservatives that the men and women in this room have won in the last two years.


Let's start with number one.  Last spring, the battle over guns.  We all remember right after the tragic shooting in Newtown, CT when President Obama came out, he didn't come out and say let's go after violent criminals, which he should have done.  Instead he tried to use it as an excuse to go after the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.  And everyone in Washington said it is hopeless; this can't be stopped.  All of the political momentum is with the president to exploit this tragedy to take away our liberties. 

Well I'll tell you, I was proud to stand with my friends Mike Lee and Rand Paul in saying we will filibuster any legislation that undermines the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.  Now what that did is it shined a light on the battle and it gave time for the grassroots to engage; it gave time for each of you to light up the phones, to confront your Senators on the Senate floor, in their town halls and say why aren't you standing and fighting for the Second Amendment.   Indeed the lead legislative alternative to President Obama's gun control efforts was the Grassley-Cruz legislation that I co-wrote with your Senator here, my friend Chuck Grassley. 

And I will confess, my philosophy is very simple.  In Texas we define gun control as hittin' what you're aiming at.  But the American people rose up and spoke with a clarion voice, and when President Obama's gun control proposals came to a vote on the Senate floor every single proposal that would have undermined the Second Amendment was voted down on the Senate floor.  That was y'all's victory; that was won by the conservative grassroots across this country.


Victory number two.  [long pause]  Victory number two occurred in the Supreme Court just a few weeks ago.  Victory number two was the Hobby Lobby victory.  Hobby Lobby as you know is a Christian company that had the courage to stand up against Obamacare and say we will fight for our religious liberty, that the federal government cannot use Obamacare to force us to pay for abortion inducing drugs. 

Now I was very pleased to author a U.S. Supreme Court brief on behalf of several senators in the Hobby Lobby case and to go our front on the day of the argument with grassroots conservative supporters from all over the country standing for religious liberty.  And the Supreme Court in a fantastic decision struck down that provision of Obamacare and said the federal government cannot trample our religious liberty rights in this country.  Now I'm sorry to say, the Democrats responded to that in the Senate with some of the most extreme legislation we've ever seen.  The Democrats introduced legislation to repeal major portions of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which protects the religious liberties of every American.  When Bill Clinton signed that law into law it was approved in the Senate 97 to 3.  Unfortunately every single Senate Democrat stood together voting to take away our religious liberty. 

If you want to understand what the Hobby Lobby fight was about, if you want to understand what the vote of the Senate  Democrats to take away our religious liberty was about, you need look no further than the Little Sisters of the Poor.  Now who are the Little Sisters of the Poor.  They are a Catholic convent of nuns who have taken vows of poverty and devote their lives to providing health care to the poor and the elderly.  Right now today the Obama administration is litigating against the Little Sisters of the Poor, and they are trying to impose millions of dollars of fines on the Little Sisters of the Poor in order to force them to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.  Now let me give you a very simple rule of thumb.  If you're litigating against nuns, you've probably done something wrong.  And it is stunning that every Senate Democrat voted to impose faith fines on the Christian owners of Hobby Lobby, on the Little Sisters of the Poor, on any American who wants to stand up and follow the dictates of our faith and conscience. 

There was a time when religious liberty brought us together in a bipartisan manner.  We need to get back to that time.  But Hobby Lobby was a second major victory.


A third major victory occurred several months ago when the nation of Iran named Hamid Abutalebi to be their ambassador to the United Nations.  Now Abutalebi you'll remember is a known terrorist who participated in holding Americans hostage in 1979 and 1980.  Iran's naming Abutalebi was meant to be and was in fact a slap in the face to the United States.  Now a lot of folks in Washington said this is terrible but there is nothing you can do about it. 

Well I'm happy to tell you I introduced legislation in the United States Senate to bar
Abutalebi from being allowed to enter this country.  That legislation received support on the Senate floor from Senators as varied as Lindsey Graham and Chuck Schumer.  In fact I came up to Chuck afterwards, I said, Chuck you better be careful, lightening's going to strike you.  And I'm happy to tell you that legislation passed the United States Senate 100 to zero.  It then passed the House of Representatives 435 to zero.  And then, wonder of wonders, President Obama signed it into law. 

Actually two weeks later at the White House Correspondents' Dinner President Obama joked about it.  He said you know a couple of week s ago Ted Cruz introduced legislation that I signed into law.  He said here's a picture of the signing ceremony.  It had a picture of him, a picture of me and the devil and hell freezing over.  But that was another major victory, where we changed our law to prohibit known terrorists from living in Manhattan with diplomatic immunity.


Let me give you a fourth example, a wonderful, wonderful example, the example of Miriam Ibrahim.  So many men and women in this room know the plight of Miriam Ibrahim.  So many of us have been lifting her up in our prayers.  Miriam is a young mom, a young wife, who has two little children—Martin who's 20 months old and little baby Maya who's a newborn.  She was born in a Sudanese prison; she was born with her mother with her legs in leg irons.  Now what was Miriam's crime under Sudanese law?  Her crime was being a Christian.  And for that crime she was sentenced to receive 100 lashes and then to hang by the neck until dead.  And the Sudanese government went to Miriam and said if only you will renounce Christ we will spare you this horrible sentence.  And Miriam said, I cannot and I will not renounce Jesus. 

How many of us have ever had our faith tested like that.  But I can tell you millions of believers here in Iowa, all across the country, all across the world lifted Miriam up in our prayers.  Many of us spoke out loudly against the atrocity of torturing and murdering Miriam Ibrahim simply for being a Christian.  I'm sorry to say one of the people who didn't stand up was President Obama.  President Obama somehow couldn't bring himself to stand up and say to the government of Sudan, free Miriam Ibrahim now.  But praise God, the international pressure became too much.  The government of Sudan freed Miriam and she is now back home in the state of New Hampshire with her babies.  That's example number three, victory number three.


Victory number four—five.  I could say oops, but that would make news.  Victory number five.  All of us our hearts are breaking at what's happening in Israel.  As rockets rain down on the nation of Israel, as we discovered a network of terror tunnels coming in, dug by Hamas terrorists and comping up in kindergartens for terrorists to kidnap and murder young children. 

Well in the midst of this we all remember just a few weeks ago when the FAA issued an unprecedented ban on airlines flying into the nation of Israel.  Entire history of the FAA, they have never banned flights into Israel.  And our office put out a lengthy statement raising some important questions.  We asked did President Obama just launch an economic boycott on the nation of Israel.  We pointed out that the FAA doesn't ban flights into Pakistan, into Yemen, into Afghanistan.  Indeed the FAA doesn't even ban flights into much of Ukraine, despite the fact that a commercial airliner was just shot down at 30,000 feet with a Russian Buk missile. 

So we asked the question why is Israel targeted for differential treatment, for economic punishment, and why was this announced at the exact same time that John Kerry arrives in the Middle East with $57 million to give to Gaza that will end up in the hands of Hamas and at the same time that the Obama administration is pressuring the government of Israel to stop working to dismantle the terror tunnels and the rockets that are raining death on the citizens of Israel?  Let me tell you that within an hour of raising that question the spokesman for the State Department was being asked, "Is this an economic boycott designed to pressure the nation of Israel?" 

And the outcry, the outcry from the grassroots, the outcry from Americans and the fact that we weren't standing with the nation of Israel was deafening, and within 36 hours the FAA lifted the ban and resumed flights into the nation of Israel.  Those are five victories, five victories that are completed.


The final two victories are victories that are not yet complete but as we say in Texas, they're fixin' to be completed.  Victory number six is on immigration.  In my home state of Texas we are seeing a humanitarian crisis play out on the border.  Just a few weeks ago I was down on the border meeting with the Border Patrol.  We have seen the number of unaccompanied children skyrocket.  The president is right that it's a humanitarian crisis, but it is a crisis of his own making.  It is the direct consequence of President Obama's lawlessness. 

Here are the basic numbers.  Three years ago in 2011 there were roughly 6,000 unaccompanied children apprehended trying to cross into this country.  Then in 2012 the president unilaterally granted amnesty to some 800,000 people who entered illegally as kids.  Now the direct and foreseeable consequence, the predicted consequence—if you grant amnesty to people who entered as kids
it creates an enormous incentive for millions more or thousands more or tens of thousands more kids to come into this country.  And we've seen the number skyrocket.  Three years ago it was 6,000; this year it's expected to be 90,000 children crossing illegally into this country.  Next year it's predicted to be 145,000. 

And listen, these are little boys and little girls that are being trafficked in, not by well-meaning social workers with beards and Birkenstocks, but by hardened, violent transnational drug cartels and coyotes who are physically assaulting, who are sexually assaulting these little boys and girls.  It is not humane to continue this system of lawlessness that results predictably in tens of thousands of children being victimized. 

So I introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate to end President Obama's amnesty prospectively, to end the promise of amnesty, to solve the problem.  And also to provide federal reimbursements to the states that have called up Border Patrol to secure the border and do the job that the federal government should have been doing, including, I'm proud to say, my home state governor Rick Perry.  Now when I introduced that legislation Democrats demagogued it, they vilified it, they said no we don't want to fix the problem. 

But I'm happy to tell you the House of Representative stood up and led.  Just over a week ago the House of Representatives passed two major bills that mirrored the legislation that I had introduced to end President Obama's amnesty and to solve the humanitarian crisis at the border.  What did Harry Reid do?  He refused to allow a vote on any meaningful reform and he sent the Senate home for August without doing anything to fix the problem.  Republicans in the House are leading and Senate Democrats are obstructing and doing nothing.  Now we haven't solved this problem yet as long as Harry Reid is majority leader, but let me tell you something right now, come January 2015 Harry Reid's not going to be majority leader any longer. 


And the final victory that we haven't yet won but we've laid the groundwork to winning is repealing every single word of Obamacare.  The fight we had last summer and fall where millions of Americans stood up and said stop this train wreck, this disaster that is Obamacare, that's killing millions of jobs, that's forcing millions into part-time work, that's taken away the health care of millions of Americans, that fight elevated the stakes of the debate and as a direct consequence suddenly Republicans instead of being competitive in five or six or Senate seats are competitive in 10, 12, 14 Senate seats all over the country as Obamacare is an albatross around the necks of the Democrats who foisted it on the American people.  And I'll tell you what, as a direct result of the damage Obamacare is causing, Republicans are going to retake the Senate, and we're going to welcome a new colleague in the Senate, Senator Joni Ernst from the state of Iowa.  And we're going to introduce some Senate Democrats to the private sector where they won't be exempt from Obamacare any more.

And as a result of your efforts, making the case, telling the truth, shining the light, empowering the American people, I am convinced come 2017 with a new president in the White House we will repeal every word of Obamacare.


Let me say finally, the lesson from these seven victories is there is a path to winning.  It is not being mamby pamby.  It is not standing for nothing and giving into the ways of Washington.  It is as Reagan said painting in bold colors and not pale pastels.  We need to stand unambiguously for the common sense conservative principles shared by the vast majority of Americans. 

We need to stand for life.  We need to stand for marriage.  We need to abolish the IRS.  We need to repeal Obamacare.  We need to repeal Common Core.  And we need to bring back jobs, growth and opportunity and defend the Constitution. 

That is a positive, hopeful, optimistic vision for America that brings us together, that turns us around, that brings us to a better path.  That is the victory that the men and women in this room are leading the fight; it is because of you, I am optimistic, it is because of you that together we are going to pull back from the precipice.  Together we are going to get back to the founding principles of this country.  Together we are going to restore that shining city on a hill that is the United States of America.  Thank you and God bless you.

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Transcript © 2014 Democracy in Action