Cruz says he 'misspoke' to voters about military gun issue

Sen. Ted Cruz now claims he “misspoke” when he told potential New Hampshire voters that he has been “pressing” Sen. John McCain to hold hearings on whether service members can carry concealed weapons on military bases.

“Now, I will acknowledge, I may have misspoken in New Hampshire when I said that I had been pressing John McCain, and what I had been pressing was the Armed Services Committee,” Cruz said in an interview Tuesday on Fox News.


“John McCain is the new chairman of it, so I sent a letter to the previous chairman,” Cruz said.

On Sunday, Cruz told a gathering in Litchfield, New Hampshire, that he had spoken with McCain on the issue of “denying our soldiers the ability to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

When asked, McCain said the comments came as a “complete surprise” and suggested that he may have communicated his mission through “some medium I’m not familiar with.”

“Maybe it was through, you know, hand telegraph. Maybe it was sign language,” McCain said.

During his interview Tuesday, Cruz called McCain’s response “voluble” and said the Arizona senator “can always be counted on for a good quote.” Cruz, who is running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, said he has raised the issue repeatedly in open hearings where he believes McCain was present.

“I had not communicated [these policies] to John directly, although I had at a hearing and will continue to raise it with John McCain because the committee ought to look at and listen to the military’s arguments,” Cruz said.

“I’m a big believer in defending Second Amendment rights of everyone including our soldiers,” he continued.

After the interview, McCain took to Twitter to offer a short note.

“Ted Cruz is a friend and valued member of the Senate Armed Services Committee,” McCain said.