Pastor Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, emphasized that his son would be the best president to appoint reliable “constitutional conservatives” to the Supreme Court.

Speaking to Breitbart Chairman Stephen K. Bannon, the host of Breitbart News Daily, the evangelical pastor declared:

Our America is in the balance. With the death of Antonin Scalia, it is very important that we elect a constitutional conservative that is going to appoint justices that abide by the Constitution that do not try to legislative from the bench. We cannot afford to get this wrong.

Donald Trump angered many constitutional conservative leaders in Washington, DC, by claiming that Cruz was somehow central to putting John Roberts on the Supreme Court.

In 2005 Cruz, then the solicitor general of Texas, reportedly wanted Bush to nominate federal appeals courth judge Michael Luttig to the Supreme Court. Cruz clerked for Luttig, himself Scalia’s first law clerk when Scalia became a federal appeals judge in 1982, then clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger. The first President Bush appointed Luttig to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in 1991, where he quickly earned the reputation of being a hardcore originalist in the mold of Antonin Scalia.

But once Bush decided to pass over Luttig and others in favor of Roberts, Cruz joined other conservatives in supporting Roberts’s confirmation. While he was not involved in conservative causes like the Federalist Society, at the time Roberts was nominated he was known as a brilliant appeals judge (appointed by Bush in 2003) who had made a number of conservative statements in his rulings, and had never disappointed conservatives earlier in his career.

When Bush had a second nomination, he again passed over Luttig and appointed Justice Samuel Alito, who has proven to be tremendous victory for constitutional conservatives.

Rafael Cruz makes the point that Americans “cannot afford to get [Supreme Court nominations] wrong.” Hear the entire interview:

Ken Klukowski is legal editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @kenklukowski.