Posted on 01/04/2016 2:19:43 PM PST by conservativejoy
Trump: Let's face it, Ted Cruz is copying me on building a border wall in order to step up his "weak" immigration game.
Skip to 4:55 of the clip below for the key bit from yesterday's "Face the Nation" interview. Pop quiz: Who said the following, and when did he say it - and to whom?
We have a crisis on illegal immigration. Neither party is serious about stopping it. I strongly oppose illegal immigration. I categorically oppose amnesty. I support legal immigrants who come here supporting the American Dream.
I come from the perspective of someone who spent much of my adult life in law enforcement. In a post-9/11 world, it is absolutely unacceptable that we don't know who comes over our borders. We need to do everything humanly possible to secure the borders. Electronic surveillance, a wall, helicopters and, most importantly, boots on the ground. If elected, the first thing I will do is triple the U.S. Border Patrol.
That's Senate candidate Ted Cruz, speaking to Dustin Siggins in May 2012 in an interview for .. HotAir.com. Three years before the GOP presidential primary got going, he was calling for a border wall in the border state of Texas. And not just parts of Texas, either. As Cruz made clear in a Senate primary debate that year, he wanted the entire Texas border walled off - even if it meant invoking one of Trump's favorite federal powers, eminent domain, to do it.
Cruz also distinguished himself from Dewhurst with his full-throated support for a border wall estimated by the Department of Homeland Security to cost $7.3 billion, or $6.5 million per mile.
Cruz defended the border wall proposal even if it meant expropriating private property - a position that the debate's moderators, WFAA reporter Brad Watson and Gromer Jeffers of the Dallas Morning News, said contrasted with Cruz's message of fiscal conservatism.
"One of the specific powers and responsibilities of the federal government is to secure the borders," Cruz said. "Property can be taken with due process of law and just compensation."
That was July 2012. One of the evergreen questions with Trump is whether he's merely misinformed or whether he knows the truth and is twisting it to suit his own ends. Which do you suppose it is for the "Cruz wouldn't have supported a border wall without me going first" claim? How about the additional claim he makes that immigration wouldn't have come up in the primaries if not for Trump forcing the issue? You think Ted Cruz, running to Marco Rubio's and Jeb Bush's right, would have given them a pass on their past support for amnesty, do you?
As always with Trump, there's a kernel of truth beneath the lies and blather. There's no denying, I think, that Cruz has been pushed further right than he would have gone if Trump had passed on the race. The most glaring example is his position on legal immigration. Until recently, Cruz always hedged his condemnations of amnesty with professions that there was no greater champion of legal immigration than him. In the immigration plan he released in November, though, he reserved the right as president to limit legal immigration depending upon the state of unemployment in the United States. That was his counter, I think, to Trump's mass deportation plan: If Cruz couldn't go along with "deport 'em all" sentiment for fear of how it might hurt him in the general election, he'd at least throw border hawks a bone by sounding a bit more like Jeff Sessions. His recent categorical refusal to legalize illegals as president was also driven mainly by fear of Trump, I suspect. Granted, it was Rubio who drew that out of him by publicizing his 2013 amendment to the Gang of Eight bill that proposed more work permits for illegals, but Cruz probably could have stood firm on that position if Trump wasn't in the race. He wouldn't have needed to move further right in a one-on-one battle with Rubio; even if you take a dim view of Cruz's amendment, his immigration credentials are still unquestionably better than Rubio's. With Trump running to Cruz's right, however, the calculus changes. If Cruz were to signal support for legalization in any way, Trump would destroy him over it and that would ruin Cruzâs long romance with Trump's voters. Result: Cruz now vows he'll oppose legalization "today, tomorrow, forever." It's not the border wall that left Cruz exposed on immigration, it was everything else.
That's what Trump should have said here, but maybe he's just warming up. Note what he says at 6:04 about how Rubio and Cruz were both weak on immigration in the past. That's an early hint, I think, that he's prepared to come after Cruz hard on amnesty if Iowa remains close over the last few weeks. If he does, the outcome on caucus night will give us a solid verdict on whether Trumpmania and the primaries writ large are really "about" immigration or whether there's more to the vote this year than that. If Trump wins the state by taking Cruz down over his 2013 amendment, that'll tell us a lot. If he fails, that'll tell us a lot too.
I should have said he was running his successful Senate campaign beginning in 2011. One of the issue where he differed from Dewhurst was that Cruz supported a border wall.
Damn the facts, full speed ahead!!!!
The GOP stall on such issues, I have no faith that any R or D will do anything about it.
The Donald is a true believer in the “Winning Through Intimidation” school of rhetoric and knows “the aggressor writes the rules in all contests/challenges!!!”
No, Trump’s not a liberal liar...not at all, LOL.
Cruz was for a border fence, not a wall. Does not matter anyway. Cruz worked in the Bush admin and so did his wife who advocated for open borders and the North American Union. They are not for the same as Trump.
Looks like another Trump is for amnesty quote. Do have a link for that? Thank you.
We need a leader not a follower. Cruz leads on anti-abortion. Trump leads on plans to restore the economy, immigration, foreign policy, veterans benefits, second amendment rights and replacing Obamacare.
The border wall/fence was passed into law a while back. It's the executive branch that has balked at building all of it, mainly Obama.
It’s okay, Trump, it just means he’s in your corner.
Thank Jesus for that. It's why Cruz is the clear choice.
Folks, let’s hope that soon EVERYONE will be “copying” Cruz’ and Trump’s hardnosed policies on border security. That will be long, long overdue.
Linked soundbites prove differently.
As for Cruz’s working in the Bush administration, do you REALLY want to play “guilty by association”?
I know I’m just giving you a hard time. It just seems like Cruz folks here are freaking out with their attacks on trump. Many of them I understand but there are some that are just over the top silly.
The over the top stuff actually hurts and does not help - which is why Ted won’t do that.
The problem with this is - even though Ted might have called for building a wall prior to his run for president - he never ONCE made it a campaign issue until Trump did. Therein lies the rub and the fact that Ted did copy him. M2T and COPY CAT CRUZ at his finest. Even now, he just jokes about the wall, saying he’ll have Trump pay for it, or to see Jeff Sessions about building that wall. This is no luaghing matter and tells me he isn’t serious at all about putting up a wall. All political speak. He doesn’t even watn to go anywhere near what to do with all the illegals already here - says we’ll have that conversation after the border is secure. Oh yeah, let’s not forget his little trip to the border with Glenn Beck to pass out toddy bears and soccer balls. Stick your head in the sand if you want, but many of us are wise to his parsing of words and slick lawyer talk.
I think by now we all know facts do not mean much to Trump when they are not on his side.
“I can predate this 2012 interview of Cruz advocating a border wall with a video from 2011 of Cruz on the border wall.”
Frank Luntz DEMANDED that Republicans not discuss ‘divisive’ issues regarding immigration, during THIS ELECTION CYCLE (i.e., 2016), as the Republican big-money (cheap labor) people, I mean his polling results, showed it was a losing issue for the party.
Until Trump showed up on the scene, it certainly appeared to me that EVERYONE was listening to Luntz, and that NO ONE was talking border walls or deportation in this cycle. Maybe they had talked it prior to 2012, but then George W. Bush SIGNED LEGISLATION to build a wall (in 2006)...and we all know what happened next (i.e., it got killed once the big-money people got their say).
Then Trump came along and everything changed. While I’m certainly happy that Cruz is again supporting a wall, and that Scott Walker supported one (even if on the wrong border)...it is harder to be sure that either of them, or any of the others, are all that serious about it.
If these two want to one-up each other on who can clean the illegal immigration issue up faster thats fine with me.
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