Sen. Ted Cruz Discusses the ObamaBomb Deal on SFR

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Frank Gaffney: It is my high privilege and great pleasure to welcome a man who brings an enormous amount of intelligence to the business of national security. In the United States Senate, he represents the people of Texas. He is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, also the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is also running for President of the United States, he is of course Senator Ted Cruz, always welcome here at Secure Freedom Radio. Senator thank you for joining us.

Ted Cruz: Frank, my friend, thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure to be with you.

FG: There’s been a development today in the immediate national security challenge of our time, namely the, well I call it the ObamaBomb Deal, the negotiated agreement of some kind that the President has struck with the Iranians. Senator Ben Cardin, your colleague from Maryland, has just announced that he will not support this agreement. Give us a flavor of what that means if anything at this late date, and what (inaudible) we can do to parlay that into a reconsideration of what a serious mistake I think he, among other, made in terms of the Corker-Cardinal alternative to the treaty making process. 

TC: Well, I think that’s right that it is significant now that you have Ben Cardin, who is the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. You also have Bob Menendez, who previously was the Democratic Chairman on the Foreign Relations Committee, and you have Democrat Chuck Schumer, who is slated to be the next Democratic Leader in the Senate. All three of them have come out against it, that’s significant, that is meaningful, it is my hope that that will give other Democrats cause. That will cause others Senate Democrats, other House Democrats to look to the merits of this deal, because anyone looking fairly and objectively at the merits has to conclude that this deal is a profound mistake, and an extraordinary threat to the national security of this country, and if this deal goes through there are three consequences that are likely. The first consequences, is that the Obama administrations will become quite literally the worlds leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism. Over one hundred billion dollars will flow to Iran, to the Ayatollah Khamenei. Billions of those dollars will go to Hamas, and Hezbollah, and the Houthis, and those jihadists will use those billions to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, to murder Europeans. Second consequence, is this deal abandons four American hostages in Iranian prisons including Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen sentenced to eight years in prison, for the crime of preaching the Gospel. It is wrong to abandon American citizens in Iran. But the third, and the most dangerous consequence of this deal, is that it only accelerates and facilitates Iran’s acquiring nuclear weapons. We have seen in the days since this deal was announced ballistic missile weaponry and material flowing into Iran. This deal will facilitate that these billions will be used to develop nuclear weapons. The inspection regime is farcical and the consequences of that an Iran with nuclear weapons poses an existential threat to Israel, and a profound threat to the United States, and so for every Senate Democrat in the coming weeks we are going to have a vote in Congress on this deal. For every Senate Democrat, for every House Democrat they face a choice, as you and I both know there was a time when there was a long and rich tradition of Scoop Jackson Democrats, of JFK Democrats, of Joe Lieberman Democrats, of Democrats who actually believed in defending our nation, believed in national security, and were willing to act accordingly. It is my hope, that the leadership of Chuck Schumer, and Bob Menendez, and Ben Cardin awakens that spirit in other Democrats and every Democrat faces a choice. Which do you value more highly, the national security of the United States, standing with our friend and ally the nation of Israel, and protecting the lives of millions of Americans, or do you value more partisan loyalty to the Obama White House? This should be an easy choice and I’m grateful for all the leadership you provided helping encourage every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, to value the safety and security of America first in this vote.

FG: Senator Ted Cruz, you mentioned an upcoming vote in the Senate, but isn’t it the case that the administration and some of your colleagues seem determined to prevent the Senate from actually expressing its opposition to this Iranian deal with a vote?

TC: Well that is certainly what the White House is trying to do, is urging Senate Democrats to filibuster a vote and prevent a resolution of disapproval from making it to the President’s desk. To defeat a filibuster, we need six Democrats to stand up and do the right thing. We right now have three. I have to say three is, to date, not an impressive performance for the Democrats, but there are a number of other Democrats who still siting on the sideline, and this is the moment. You know several weeks ago I was participating in a panel discussion on this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal with former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman, and Senator Lieberman rightly observed, this is the most important vote that any member of the Senate or any member of the House is likely cast in his or her tenure in Congress. It is my hope and prayer that Democrats treat it accordingly. I am convinced we are at a moment much like Munich in 1938, where allowing homicidal maniacs to acquire the military power to murder millions. History teaches us the consequences of that reverberate throughout history.

FG: Senator Cruz speaking of potential loss of millions of Americans’, lives you have warned of something we’re very concerned about here at Secure Freedom Radio, namely the possibility that an Iranian nuclear weapon could be used to take down our electric grid, and have that kind of devastating effect on our country. Talk about that if you would.

TC: Well that is exactly right and that would be the single most damaging thing that the Ayatollah Khamenei could do, if they are allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, and they can put one nuclear warhead anywhere on a ship, anywhere up and down the Atlantic, or for that matter the Gulf of Mexico, and they could fire it up into the air, into the atmosphere, straight up into the air, and if it gets high enough and the nuclear warhead detonates, it would set off what’s called an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse, and one done from the Atlantic would have the capacity to take down the electrical grid on the entire Atlantic seaboard. Now that would have number of immediate consequences. It would totally crater our banking, our finance our commerce, feeling a crippling blow to the economic strain of this country, but that would not be the most potent consequence of it. The most potent consequence is it would take down the delivery of food, and water, and transportation, and heating and air, and the consequence of that, the predictions are one EMP in the atmosphere above the Atlantic seaboard would cause the deaths of tens of millions of Americans dwarfing Hiroshima or Nagasaki, dwarfing September 11^th. One nuclear weapon in one ship, and mind you, you don’t need any sophisticated targeting technology, you don’t have to hit your target, you have to fire it straight in the air and simply get high enough that it can take down the grid. That is the threat of this catastrophic deal, and we need leadership in Washington to stand up and protect our self, and let me make a final point on this Frank that is important to your listeners to focus upon. If it is the case, that Senate Democrats continue to value partisan loyalty above our national security, and sadly thirty-four Democrats have come out in favor of this deal, which is sufficient to prevent Congress from overriding a Presidential veto, so if they stick to their guns in all likelihood the President will succeed in ramming through the catastrophic deal. If that happens, if we are not able to move these Senate Democrats to value national security above party loyalty, that will transform this issue, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, into perhaps the single most important issue in the 2016 presidential election; the one issue that poses a mortal national security threat to this country.

FG: Senator Ted Cruz of Texas we have to let you go. Thank you for your time today and for the leadership I know you will be providing at the rally on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, and also on the floor of the United States floor of the Senate in the days leading up to this momentous decision on the ObamaBomb deal. Keep it up come back to us again very soon.