Sen. Ted Cruz told conservative Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson yesterday that if he is elected president, “one of the things that will stop immediately” are efforts to resettle some of the millions of refugees fleeing Syria’s civil war.
“President Obama’s proposal to bring in tens of thousands of Muslim Syrian refugees makes no sense and I think it’s crazy,” the Texas Republican said, falsely conflating the refugees who are travelling to Europe with those who would be resettled in the U.S. and ignoring the intensive screening process for refugees.
“It is lunacy for President Obama to be bringing people into this country who are coming here to commit jihad to murder innocent Americans,” Cruz said in the interview, which was first flagged by Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski and Megan Apper. “It doesn’t make any sense and, sadly, it’s the result of the ideological extremism of this president and his unwillingness to protect our national security.”
“The real solution here is electing a new president,” he added, “because, unfortunately, there are consequences when you elect a commander in chief who is a radical and a zealot and is undermining our country.”
Later in the interview, Cruz implied that he would support taking only Christian refugees because Syrian Muslims would “put at jeopardy the safety and security of Americans.”
