Top 615 Quotes & Sayings by Ted Cruz - Page 9

The proper way to make policy changes is for you to convince your fellow citizens that there is a better policy outcome than the current one. And then in state legislatures, for those state legislatures to vote that change.

I'm a big believer that good policy is good politics. And so, when it comes to making decisions on policy issues, what I endeavor to do is simply speak the truth.

What I am endeavoring to do is simply speak the truth, speak common-sense values, free market principles and the Constitution. For every question, the Constitution is my touchstone.

What I've tried to do in politics is two very simple things: tell the truth and do what I said I would do.

As president, I wouldn't be making the day-to-day combat decisions. The job of the commander-in-chief is to lay the objective out and then you rely upon the generals and admirals and commanders to give you their expert advice on the tools needed to carry out that objective.

You would carpet bomb where ISIS is, not a city, but the location of the troops. You use air power directed - and you have embedded special forces to direction the air power. But the object isn't to level a city. The object is to kill the ISIS terrorists.

The proper way to make policy decisions under our Constitution in America is for the people to do so through the democratic process.

America has receded from the world. Today our friends and allies don't trust us. And our enemies don't fear us. I think we should get back, number one, to American leadership in the world.

We`re all aware that Hillary Clinton has a problem with the truth. Even among politicians, and that does not make her unique in the swamp that is Washington. But Hillary stands out.

What I'm encouraging President Trump and the Cabinet and congressional leaders to do, is let's keep our promises. Let's do what we said we would do, and that's what each and every one of you can hold all of us accountable for.

We need a president who stands up, number one, and says, we will defeat ISIS. And number two, says the greatest national security threat facing America is a nuclear Iran.

The court doesn't follow public opinion. The court's views are radically out of step with public opinion.

I'll tell you whose view on [Bashar] Assad is the same as mine. It's Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel doesn't have a dog in that fight because Assad is a puppet of Iran, a Shia radical Islamic terrorist, but at the same time, Prime Minister Netanyahu doesn't want to see Syria governed by ISIS.

The American people want jobs and economic growth. Congress is doing nothing to provide that. The American people want their constitutional liberties protected. Congress is doing nothing to provide that.

It's not a lack of competence that is preventing the [Barack] Obama administration from stopping these attacks. It is political correctness. We didn't monitor the Facebook posting of the female San Bernardino terrorist. She made a public call to jihad, and they didn't target it.

This country is always changing. But my point about the Supreme Court is the Supreme Court didn't wait for the country to change. Five unelected lawyers overruled 320 million Americans.

A lot of times your spouse sees things about you that you don't necessarily see.

We keep hearing from [Barack] Obama and Hillary Clinton and Washington Republicans that they're searching for these mythical moderate rebels. It's like a purple unicorn. They never exist. These moderate rebels end up being jihadists.

I'll fight with every breath in my body to stop the out of control spending and debt that are bankrupting our kids and grandkids.

Nidal Hasan communicated with Anwar al-Awlaki, a known radical cleric, asked about waging jihad against his fellow soldiers. The problem is because of political correctness, the [Barack] Obama administration, like a lot of folks here, want to search everyone's cell phones and e-mails and not focus on the bad guys. And political correctness is killing people.

The Scalia seat is defense. We're not going to get any better than Justice Scalia. The best we can do is preserve constitutional victories like upholding the Second Amendment, like protecting religious liberty. But we're not going to get any better.

The Tsarnaev brothers, the elder brother made a public call to jihad and the [Barack] Obama administration didn't target it.

I am long term optimistic and short term pessimistic on immigration. Long term, I'm optimistic because there's a lotta bipartisan agreement outside of Washington on immigration. There's overwhelming bipartisan agreement, number one, that we need to secure the borders. That we need to finally do something to stop illegal immigration.

ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism will face no more determined foe than I will be.

It is true that I voted against the National Defense Authorization Act, because when I campaigned in Texas I told voters in Texas that I would oppose the federal government having the authority to detain U.S. citizens permanently with no due process. I have repeatedly supported an effort to take that out of that bill, and I honored that campaign commitment.

We will not defeat radical Islamic terrorists as long as we have a president [Barack Obama] unwilling to utter the words 'radical Islamic terrorists'.

President Obama fuels that perception. That will change when militants across the globe see that when you join ISIS that you are giving up your life, you are signing your death warrant.

ISIS is gaining strength because the perception is that they're winning. And President [Barack] Obama fuels that perception.

We need to be focused on defeating radical Islamic terrorists.

We see a missile here, a bomb there - looks good on CNN. This is nonsense. This is not a strategy of a serious commander in chief.

The thing is, is that every terrorist attack we've had since 9/11 has been legal immigration.

In fact, I think we're less safe. We get so distracted by all of the information, we're not spending enough time getting specific immigration - specific information on terrorists.

We need a president who understands the first obligation of the commander-in-chief is to keep America safe. If I am elected president, we will hunt down and kill the terrorists. We will utterly destroy ISIS.

The judgment that every voter is making of every one of us [running for presidency] who has the experience, who has the vision, who has the judgment to be commander in chief. That is the most important decision for the voters to make. That's a standard I'm held to. And it's a standard everyone else is held to.

We need to focus on radical Islamic terrorists and we need to stop them before they carry out acts of terror.

What I put forward was an amendment that would have temporarily halted immigration from high-risk terrorist countries, but would have started it up, but I wanted them to go through Global Entry, which is a program where we do background checks.

We should not focus on ideas that divide us and pull us apart.

President [Barack] Obama and Hillary Clinton are proposing bringing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to this country when the head of the FBI has told Congress they cannot vet those refugees.

I'm very proud to have joined with conservatives in both the Senate and the House to reform how we target bad guys.

Marco [Rubio] has more of an allegiance to Chuck Schumer and to the liberals than he does to conservative policy.

One of the most troubling aspects of the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight Bill was that it gave President [Barack] Obama blanket authority to admit refugees, including Syrian refugees without mandating any background checks whatsoever. Now we've seen what happened in San Bernardino. When you are letting people in, when the FBI can't vet them, it puts American citizens at risk.

I have never supported legalization, and I do not intend to support legalization.

If I'm elected president, we will secure the border. We will triple the border patrol. We will build a wall that works and I'll get Donald Trump to pay for it.

Every parent is wondering, how do we keep our kids safe? We need a commander in chief who does what Ronald Reagan did with communism, which is he set out a global strategy to defeat Soviet communism.

There are millions of peaceful Muslims across the world, in countries like India, where there is not the problems we are seeing in nations that are controlled - have territory controlled by Al Qaida or ISIS, and we should direct at the problem, focus on the problem, and defeat radical Islamic terrorism. It's not a war on a faith; it's a war on a political and theocratic ideology that seeks to murder us.

I will happily support anything that protects life.

We're looking at a president [Barack Obama] who's engaged in double-speak where he doesn't call radical Islamic terrorism by its name. Indeed, he gives a speech after the San Bernardino attack where his approach is to try to go after the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens rather than to keep us safe.

Protecting life is a value that matters. Whether it is stopping partial birth abortion which I think is a barbarism. Or whether it is fairly enforcing the criminal laws against Planned Parenthood.

I introduced bill saying we need more security, we need more scrutiny. Once again, Marco [Rubio] opposed this. So Marco can't have it both ways. He thinks he wants to be this, "Oh, I'm great and strong on national defense." But he's the weakest of all the candidates on immigration. He is the one for an open border that is leaving us defenseless.

It is clear that Americans have a right to birth control.

Do you know how many aliens Bill Clinton deported? 12 million. Do you know how many illegal aliens, George W. Bush deported? 10 million. We can enforce the laws and if we secure the border, that solves the problem. And as president I will solve this problem and secure the border.

I've laid out a very, very detailed immigration plan on my website, tedcruz.org. It's 11 pages of existing federal law and in particular the question of what to do with people who are here now.

I will commend the Democrats for one thing. If they name Keith Ellison as the head of the DNC, then I'll commend them for truth in advertising.

I hope that we have a culture that values every human life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

Here at home, we need to do two fundamental things. Number one, we need to recognize that technology has moved on. The Patriot Act was signed in 2001, roughly. The iPhone was invented in 2007. The iPad was invented in 2011. Snapchat and Twitter, all the rest of it, have been around just for several years. Technology has moved on, and the terrorists have moved on with it.

We are not any safer through the bulk collection of all Americans' records.

On his [Marco Rubio] Gang of Eight bill, he would have liberalized immigration, but he did not - and he steadfastly opposed any new border security requirements for refugees or students.

One of the things we've seen here is how easy it is for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to get distracted from dealing with radical Islamic terrorism. They won't even call it by its name.

The principles Donald Trump is focused on are exactly the right principles: more choice, more competition, lower costs, lower premiums.

America is at war. Our enemy is not violent extremism. It is not some unnamed malevolent force. It is radical Islamic terrorist.