Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) argued that President Obama was “angry with the American people” in his promise to implement immigration reform through executive action and that the GOP should respond by refusing to confirm any nominees by the president on Thursday’s “Kelly File” on the Fox News Channel.
Cruz stated “there is no Republican, not one, who wants a government shutdown. The only person on this planet who wants a government shutdown is President Obama. What I think Congress should do is we should use the Constitutional authority that we’re given as checks and balances,” he clarified that he believed Congress should attack the funding, but he laid out another plank of his plan “the new Senate Majority Leader, [Sen.] Mitch McConnell (R-KY), should stand up and say ‘if you disregard the Constitution, if you disregard the law, if you issue this executive amnesty, the new Congress for the next two years will not confirm a single nomination, judicial or executive, other than vital national security positions, until you end this illegal amnesty.’ Now, that is a big and it’s a dramatic step. It’s never been done before in Congress. But the framers put in place checks and balances, and the confirmation power is a tremendously potent authority given to the Senate. the Senate Majority Leader has the unilateral ability to stand up and say ‘if you defy Congress, if you defy the Constitution, if you defy the American people, none of your nominees will be confirmed.'”
He also said “he are unfortunately witnessing a Constitutional crisis. What President Pbama’s doing is he is defying the law, he’s defying the Constitution. The president quite rightly said just a weeks ago his policies were on the ballot all over the country. This last election was a referendum among amnesty. And the american people overwhelmingly rose up and said, ‘no, we don’t want lawless amnesty.’ And I’m sorry to say President Obama’s reaction is defiant, and it is angry with the american people.”
Cruz added “in elections that he liked, the president was fond of saying ‘elections have consequences.’ well, this last election there was no ambiguity. There were two issues that dominated this last election. Number one, Obamacare, and number two, amnesty. This was a referendum on amnesty.” And “if they’re spinning that the message of this last election is that Congress should suddenly agree with President Obama’s policies and roll over, then they’ve traveled to some of these states that have legalized marijuana and they’ve been smoking something.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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