ABC "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" - Transcript: Immigration and Newtown

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

STEPHANOPOULOS: Just a little dodge from freshman Senator Barack Obama stumping in Iowa more than two years before election day. Well, we're more than three years from the next election day, but that state where the first votes are cast has already seen all kinds of wannabes.

And Jon Karl was there with one of them this week, another freshman senator, Republican Ted Cruz of Texas.

JON KARL, ABC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: George, let's just agree that it's an axiom of American politics no out of state senator ends up in Iowa by accident. So, I was surprised as I took that non-stop from Washington to Des Moines, that I saw not one, but two potential presidential candidates making the trek.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARL: The flight from Washington, D.C. to Des Moines, Iowa was packed with Republicans, including the party chairman...

REINCE PRIEBUS, RNC CHAIRMAN: Back in Iowa.

KARL: Texas senator Ted Cruz as well as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, not one, but two potential candidates for president.

Cruz has been in the Senate a scant six and a half months, but he's already becoming a national figure.

CRUZ: I'm holding in my hand a pistol grip.

KARL: Fiery defender of guns and traditional marriage, unrelenting critic of abortion, the IRS, and President Obama.

CRUZ: Jon, good to see you in Iowa.

KARL: The next presidential election is nearly three and a half years away, but Senator Cruz's travel itinerary looks more like a presidential candidate than a freshman Senator. Early primary states New Hampshire, South Carolina, two trips to Iowa, also Georgia, New York, and Florida.

What's going on here? Are you running for president?

CRUZ: John, we are having a national debate about which direction the country should go.

KARL: Understand the national debate.

CRUZ: And what I am doing now is trying to participate in that national debate.

I understand that everyone likes to focus on the politics.

KARL: Last year, that was your first election you've ever won. First time ever. Are you ready to run for president?

CRUZ: You know, I'm not focused on the politics.

KARL: Is it fair to say you're not?

CRUZ: John, I've been in the Senate all of seven months. The last office I was elected to was student council. So this has been a bit of a whirlwind.

KARL: You were born in Canada. Are you even eligible to be president of the United States?

CRUZ: My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She is a U.S. citizen. So I am a U.S. citizen by birth.

Mr. President, I object.

KARL: Cruz's confrontational style alienated members of both parties.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Senator Cruz has gone over the line.

KARL: Back in Washington, we asked him about that.

It's no secret, you've rubbed a lot of your colleagues the wrong way, maybe even most of them, some would say.

CRUZ: Well, I will leave that to others to share their views. I mean, I can tell you my focus from day one has been on substance and policy. It has been on going to the committees on which I serve, on trying to do the jobs -- I'm on the judiciary committee, so we had hearings on guns. I believe passionately in the second amendment right to keep and bear arms. And when the president used the tragic shooting in Connecticut as an excuse not to go after violent criminals, not to stop crime, but instead to push an anti-gun agenda, I wouldn't be doing my job representing the state of Texas, representing 26 million Texans, if I didn't come and stand up and fight for the second amendment.

KARL: Do you think he was exploiting the tragedy which happened in Newtown?

CRUZ: I think he had a political agenda, which was to restrict the second amendment right to keep and bear arms of law-abiding citizens. They took advantage of that horrible, tragic shooting to push that agenda. And they didn't focus actually on solving the problem.

KARL: You have Republicans that wouldn't do anything with President Obama. I mean, Obama's kind of like, you know, he's enemy number one, he's the villain. How do we get anywhere if you've got Republicans that won't even talk about a deal with the president on something like the debt?

CRUZ: See, I actually don't agree with the premise that have. I don't consider President Obama enemy number one. I think he is someone who believes passionately in his principles. And I respect him for that.

Now, I think...

KARL: You just said he was exploiting the Newtown shooting.

CRUZ: Actually, you used that word.

KARL: Well, you said he was using it was an excuse to pass a gun control, not that he was trying to protect kids (inaudible) how to do it.

CRUZ: I think the policies he was advancing were wrong and dangerous. And the point that I was finishing, is I admire and respect him in that he fights for his principles, but I think his principles are profoundly dangerous.

KARL: You have been called at various times a schoolyard bully, arrogant, a wacko bird.

CRUZ: Look, I cannot control insults that others will choose to hurl. What I can control is that I have not and will not reciprocate.

KARL: So what do you think when Jon Stewart comes out and says you're the guy, you're a run of the mill constitutional fringe right...

JON STEWART, HOST, DAILY SHOW: ...take our country back from the socialist Kenyan Tea Partier-type guy.

CRUZ: I think Jon Stewart is a very funny guy. In fact, he called me a dirty syrup guzzler.

KARL: Right, right, in reference to Canada.

CRUZ: Which I'll confess I wasn't sure what that was, but I will tell you in response to that, I did send Jon Stewart a letter saying that I rarely guzzled syrup. But any time I did, it was Texas syrup. And sent a bottle of it, and invited him to syrup festival in the state of Texas.

KARL: Did you hear back from him?

CRUZ: We got a very nice phone call back.

KARL: You recently said Republicans need to stop being, quote, like a bunch of squishes. Do you really think the problem with Republicans around here is that they're too moderate?

CRUZ: I think the biggest reason President Obama got elected in 2008 is Republicans lost their way. We weren't standing for principles. When you have a national debt that is larger than our entire economy -- the Democrats have driven that, but there are a whole lot of Republicans were complicit.

And I think Americans are fed up politicians in both parties who are digging us deeper into debt and who are together disregarding the constitution.

KARL: Because let's talk about immigration. We have seen poll after poll, latest ABC News poll, 55 percent of Americans say that they would -- they favor a path to citizenship for those that are here illegally. Are the majority of Americans wrong about this?

CRUZ: You know, Jonathan, there is no stronger advocate of legal immigration in the U.S. Senate than I am.

KARL: But you've got 11 million people here that are here undocumented immigrants, and you're saying that none of them should have a right, a path to become citizens. That's what you're saying.

CRUZ: What I am saying is if you want to fix the problem, you've got to focus where there is agreement.

The most divisive element of the gang of eight bill is that it grants amnesty. It grants a path to citizenship to those who are here illegally.

KARL: And you are adamantly opposed to that. Am I right? I'm asking you.

CRUZ: I think a path to citizenship for those who are here illegally is profoundly unfair to the millions of legal immigrants who followed the rules.

KARL: Is immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship dead?

CRUZ: I do not believe the House of Representatives will pass a path to citizenship.

KARL: So it's (inaudible)--

CRUZ: And I think--

KARL: It's not going to happen?

CRUZ: And I think the White House knows that.

KARL: So Senator Rubio has led the charge on this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RUBIO: I know that we must solve this problem once and for all or it will only get worse. And it will only get harder to solve.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: If there's a captain of the Gang of 8, it's Marco Rubio. So let me ask you, has he hurt his political chances? I mean, he was seen as possible frontrunner in 2016. What...

CRUZ: Oh I don't know. Marco Rubio is a friend of mine. He's a good man. I like him, I respect him. And I think on immigration I think he proceeded in good faith. I think he believes in the Gang of 8 Bill.

KARL: But you also think he's dead wrong on it.

CRUZ: If the Gang of 8 Bill became the law, in another 10, 20 years, we wouldn't have 11 million people here illegally, we'd have 20 or 30 million.

KARL: Senator Cruz is the son of a Cuban refugee who's story he often cites as proof the American Dream is real.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: He made 50 cents an hour. Paid his way through the University of Texas, got a job--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: Cruz himself has a resume that looks like anything but an outsider. Princeton graduate, Harvard Law degree and the first Hispanic to clerk for the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

You've got an interesting background for a Senator. You argued a case before the Supreme Court at age 32.

CRUZ: It's an extraordinary opportunity to stand before the U.S. Supreme Court. It takes your breath away. And we didn't have a prayer. We were not going to win that case and I stood up and for 30 minutes, there was not a single friendly question. Not a single neutral question. It was--

KARL: Scalia beat up on you too?

CRUZ: Scalia, Ginsburg, the chief. It was 30 minutes of getting pounded. It was a head of tuna being thrown to a school of sharks. I will tell you, I have always liked the fact that I sit in my office and I look at a giant painting of me getting my tail whipped 9-0. And it is very good for instilling humility. To look and see, OK that's what it looks like to lose.

KARL: Looking ahead to 2016, Cruz says Republicans must nominate an unapologetic conservative. In other words, somebody who's politics match his own.

Nationally it looks really tough for Republicans. You've lost five out of the last six popular votes, presidential elections. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have gone Democratic in all six of the last six Presidential races. That's 242 electoral votes.

CRUZ: You know if you look at the last 40 years, a consistent pattern emerges. Anytime Republicans nominate a candidate for president who runs as a strong conservative, we win. And we nominate a moderate who doesn't run as a conservative, we lose.

KARL: Back in Iowa, reports continue to pepper Cruz with questions about his presidential aspirations. Is he going to run?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRUZ: You know, I am here--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KARL: 160 words later, still no clear answer.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source