Cruz: Obama 'an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists'

Sen. Ted Cruz says President Barack Obama is “an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists,” blasting the administration’s rhetoric and approach to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

In particular, the Texas Republican criticized what he calls Obama’s refusal to label the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians in Egypt and the burning of 45 people in Iraq this week as “radical Islamic terrorism.” Cruz also complained that the White House did not explicitly acknowledge that those beheaded in Egypt were Christian.


“ISIS is the face of evil, and these latest atrocities … our heart breaks,” he said on the Fox News program “The Kelly File” on Wednesday night, using an alternate acronym for the terrorist group. “And to see 21 Coptic Christians murdered, beheaded by radical Islamic terrorists, to see 45 people lit on fire … this is horrific and it is deliberate and it is targeted at Christians. It is targeted at Jews. It’s targeted at Muslims in the region who do not accede to the radical Islamist view.”

The president defended his words on ISIL on Wednesday during the White House summit on violent extremism, reiterating that the United States is not “at war with Islam.”

“We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” he said during his closing speech.

Cruz also slammed remarks from State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, who said earlier this week that the U.S. “cannot kill its way out” of the war against ISIL, suggesting an examination of the root causes of extremism in addition to military action.

“Now, with respect, that is idiocy,” he said. “The solution here is not expanded Medicaid. The solution is the full force of U.S. military power to destroy the leaders of ISIS. They have declared war … jihad on the United States. Jihad is another word the president doesn’t say.”

Cruz then blasted a “false moral relativism” from the administrating, admonishing the president for remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in which he mentioned people who “committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

“Now last I checked, the Crusades began a millennia ago, and I don’t think it’s too much to ask the president to stay in the current millennium,” Cruz remarked, before suggesting the president take a cue from his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Cruz praised al-Sisi, a Muslim, who used the occasion of his New Year’s Day speech to speak out against religious extremism.

“Why don’t we see the president of the United States demonstrating that same courage just to speak the truth about the face of evil we’re facing right now?” he asked.