M.Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO Cruz stands by calling Obama a sponsor of terrorism

According to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is essentially financing terrorism. And he’s not backing down after the president called his comments “outrageous.”

“If this deal is consummated, it will make the Obama administration the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz said during a round table Tuesday. “Billions of dollars under control of this administration will flow into the hands of jihadists who will use that money to murder Americans, to murder Israelis, to murder Europeans.”


Cruz has said the remarks before.

On Monday, Obama responded to criticism of the deal. He also addressed Cruz’s comments, and others from members of GOP lawmakers, calling them “outrageous attacks” that crossed the line.

“We’ve had a sitting senator, who also happens to be running for president, suggest that I’m the leading state sponsor of terrorism,” Obama said during a press conference from Ethiopia. “Maybe this is just an effort to push Mr. Trump out of the headlines, but it’s not the kind of leadership that is needed for America right now.”

During the round table, Cruz said Obama had “belittled and attacked” his remarks, and invited the president to debate the merits of the deal.

“Nowhere in President Obama’s remarks did he dispute the underlying facts. Nowhere in President Obama’s remarks did he point to any other organization on the face of the globe that would be a larger global financier of radical Islamic terrorism than the Obama administration is trying to become,” the Texas senator said.

“Yesterday, I invited President Obama to participate in a debate, I would be happy to debate him … anywhere in the country in the next 60 days, to discuss the substance of this deal. If he believes that this deal can be defended, I would encourage him to defend it in front of the American people,” Cruz said. “If he’s unwilling to do so, then he can send as his proxy Secretary of State John Kerry because on the merits, this deal is catastrophic for the American people.”