Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz stated that bringing in “tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America is nothing less than lunacy” and “I recognize that Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country” while advocating the US provide “safe haven” for Christians in the Middle East who are persecuted on Saturday’s “Fox & Friends” on the Fox News Channel.

Cruz said, “Well, first of all, I want to say, we stand in solidarity with the people of France, with President Hollande, with the families of all of the victims of these acts of horrific terrorism, and the American people are standing as one. We’re grieving with the nation of France today, and we are standing as your friend and ally. But secondly, these attacks underscore that we are facing an enemy who is fierce, who is relentless, who is at war with us, even if our own president doesn’t understand that it is at war with with us, and who will not stop until it is defeated. That enemy is radical Islamic terrorism. As long as we have a commander-in-chief unwilling to even to utter the words, ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’ we will not have a concerted effort to defeat these radicals before they continue to murder more and more innocents, whether Europeans, or Israelis, or Americans.”

He added, “President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s idea that we should bring tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees to America is nothing less than lunacy. If you look at the early waves of refugees that have flooded into Europe, one estimate was that 77 percent of those refugees were young men, that’s a very odd demographic for a refugee wave. The director of national intelligence here in America has said of those in Europe, it is clear that a number of them may well be ISIS terrorists. It makes no sense whatsoever for us to be bringing in refugees who are intelligence and cannot determine if they are terrorists here to kill us or not. Those who are fleeing persecution, should be resettled in the Middle East, in majority Muslim countries. Now on the other hand, Christians who are being targeted, for genocide, for persecution, Christians who are being beheaded or crucified, we should be providing safe haven to them. But President Obama refuses to that, and all of this is a consequence of being unwilling to acknowledge — you know, the president and the administration likes to say this is violent extremism. It’s random, unconnected violent extremism. It is a particular form, radical Islamism, that takes the view that anyone that doesn’t embrace their radical Islamic view must be murdered or forcibly converted. That’s what we’re seeing happening in Paris. It’s what we’re seeing happening in Israel, and I’m sorry to tell you, this will be coming to America. … It’s one of the reasons Congress needs to pass, immediately, the Expatriate Terrorists Act, legislation I’ve introduced, that says that any american that travels abroad, that joins ISIS, that takes up arms, and wages jihad against america, they immediately forfeit their citizenship.”

Cruz further said, “I recognize that Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country, that he may have been tired of war, but our enemies are not tired of killing us, and they’re getting stronger, and every region on earth has gotten worse under the Obama-Clinton foreign policy. Now, that doesn’t mean that we should be sending our sons and daughters to invade foreign countries, and stay there forever, and engage in nation-building, trying to turn Iraq into Switzerland. That’s not what our object should be. But we need a commander-in-chief who says we will defeat radical Islamic terrorism. Let me tell you what that would look like. That would look like number one, using overwhelming military power, in particular air power. … Number two, we should be arming the Kurds. The Kurds are on the ground, fighting ISIS, they are fierce allies of ours. They are out-armed, and yet they are our boots on the ground, and yet Obama for political reasons, he doesn’t want to upset Baghdad, so he won’t arm the Kurds. In a Cruz administration, we would be using overwhelming air power and the Kurds as our boots on the ground, and it would be clear to any militant on the face of the earth, if you go and join ISIS, if you wage jihad against America, you’re signing your death warrant.”

Cruz concluded by denouncing closing Guantanamo Bay and sending 50 troops to Syria as mistakes. He said specifically of Guantanamo, “I understand that President Obama and Hillary Clinton are ideologues, and they don’t recognize that enemies of America want to kill us.”

He also said, “the last major terrorist attack we saw in Paris, you know it was heartbreaking when you had every world leader just about, marching, standing in solidarity with France. Nowhere to be found was President Obama. Nowhere to be found was Hillary Clinton. Nowhere to be found was John Kerry.”

(h/t Real Clear Politics)

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett