Posted on November 18, 2013

Cruz: House, Senate Should "Render Judgement" On Impeachment Of "Lawless" Obama

In an interview with Newsmax's Steve Malzberg, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) opened the door to impeaching President Obama (relevant part at 10:30 mark in clip). Cruz says Obama's belief that he can just pick and choose which laws he wants to enforce is "unconstitutional." Pressed by the host about impeachment, Cruz says it is essentially up to the House of Representatives if they want to move forward with proceedings.



However, Cruz said if the House decides to impeach Obama, his responsibility "would be to render judgment."



"That's a question for the House, ultimately," Cruz said when asked about the possibility of impeachment. "The House, under the Constitution, makes the decision whether to impeach, and then the Senate is charged with trying it. So, that's a question for the House to access."



"Any impeachment would have to be tried in the United States Senate, so my responsibility would be to render judgment. I would not want to urge the House to do anything other than exercise its best judgment, and I would endeavor to the same on my end," Cruz said.





SEN. TED CRUZ: Over and over again, this president has said, 'I don't care what the law is, I'm going to refuse to enforce it.' And so we saw that with respect to immigration when he said, 'I'm not going to enforce the immigration laws against certain individuals.' We saw that with the drug laws when he said, 'I'm just going to pretend these laws don't exist and not enforce them.'



We've seen it with Obamacare where provision after provision he says, 'With big business, I'm not going to enforce against them for a year. For members of Congress -- even though Obamacare applies to members of Congress -- I, President Obama am going to refuse to enforce the law.'



And now, most strikingly, just last week, in response to people losing their insurance and more getting ready to lose their insurance, he simply says, 'fine, we won't enforce that part of the law.'



STEVE MALZBERG, HOST: Is that unconstitutional?



CRUZ: It's completely unconstitutional.



MALZBERG: Impeachable?



CRUZ: You know, Article II of the Constitution gives the president the responsibility to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.' We have never seen a president behave like President Obama, who believes he can just pick and choose. He'll enforce this law, not enforce another law. I mean that is --



MALZBERG: Impeachable?



CRUZ: Deeply dangerous.



You know, that's a question for the House, ultimately. The House, under the Constitution, makes the decision whether to impeach, and then the Senate is charged with trying it. So, that's a question for the House to assess.



MALZBERG: Would you urge them to consider it?



CRUZ: You know, any impeachment would have to be tried in the United States Senate, so my responsibility would be to render judgment. I would not want to urge the House to do anything other than exercise its best judgment, and I would endeavor to the same on my end.