Photo

One day after President Obama assailed the “political posturing” of Republicans who have called for barring the Syrian refugees from entering the United States, Senator Ted Cruz delivered this retort: “Come back and insult me to my face.”

Speaking to reporters in Washington on Wednesday, Mr. Cruz, a Republican running for president, challenged Mr. Obama to a public debate on refugee policy, criticizing Mr. Obama for having made his remarks on a trip to Manila.

“I prefer it in the United States and not overseas, where you’re making the insults,” Mr. Cruz said of the unlikely debate. “It’s easy to toss a cheap insult when no one can respond.”

Mr. Cruz’s office said he is preparing to introduce a bill this week that would bar Syrian refugees from coming to the United States, but it is not yet clear if it would apply to all refugees or only to Muslims.

Mr. Cruz, a Texas senator, has expressed an openness to welcoming Syrian refugees in the past, but since the Paris terrorist attacks last week, several Republican candidates have taken pains to establish a hard line on accepting refugees.

“It is the height of lunacy for a government official to welcome in tens of thousands of refugees when we know that among them will be ISIS terrorists,” Mr. Cruz said Wednesday.

He said that the Obama administration’s policies “produced this humanitarian crisis,” and argued that the United States “should compassionately help resettle” Syrian Muslims in majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Separately, Mr. Cruz hit a chief rival in the Republican presidential primary, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. The two have tangled over immigration policy, with Mr. Cruz criticizing Mr. Rubio’s past work on a bipartisan bill in the Senate. In recent days, Mr. Rubio has accused Mr. Cruz of voting to weaken the country’s intelligence capabilities to fight terror, a charge Mr. Cruz’s camp has rebutted.

“I think the campaign has discovered that his positions on amnesty are bad politics and they don’t want to talk about it, so they’re trying to change the subject,” Mr. Cruz said Wednesday. “I understand why they’re doing that. That makes perfect sense. But I don’t think it’s going to work.”