Cruz opposes U.S. 'boots on the ground' now to fight ISIL

Sen. Ted Cruz said on Sunday he doesn’t now support U.S. combat troops on the ground to fight the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Texas Republican and tea party icon also slammed Republican congressional leaders for their strategy on funding the Department of Homeland Security.


Cruz, who’s considering a run for president in 2016, was in Munich at an international security conference as part of a congressional delegation, led by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.).

Cruz urged President Barack Obama to arm the Kurds in the fight against ISIL, adding he “doesn’t believe it is necessary” to put U.S. combat ground troops in Iraq or Syria if the Kurds are well supported.

McCain and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have been most vocal in their calls for U.S. combat forces on the ground in the fight against ISIL. But Cruz said on Sunday, “American boots on the ground should always be the last step,and we need to exercise other steps before that.”

Later in the interview, Cruz harshly criticized Republican leaders for their strategy on funding DHS. And he particularly pushed back against the notion that the strategy — blocking Obama’s immigration executive order in providing funding for DHS, which will run out on Feb. 27 — was his idea.

“It’s now up to leadership to lay out their strategy,” Cruz said, when asked about the GOP endgame on the issue. “I told them this was not a winning strategy, and they went down this road anyway, fighting tooth and nail.”

The senator noted that he urged Republican leaders not to pass the $1.01 trillion spending bill in December which set the funding deadline for DHS, noting that it would waste the party’s “leverage” in the fight against the White House immigration plan.

“It is a plan that is designed to lose,” Cruz said. Democrats three times last week successfully blocked a vote on a DHS funding bill that included riders to impede the president’s immigration executive action.

Republican leaders and Cruz have often feuded over tactics, and GOP senators dismissed his plan to block a vote on Obama’s attorney general nominee, Loretta Lynch, who supports the president’s executive action on immigration.

Cruz was also asked about comments from former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another potential 2016 presidential contender, who said the country doesn’t need another “young, untested United States senator” as president, an apparent jab at Cruz.

The senator, who said he’s looking at a bid for the GOP presidential nomination “very, very seriously,” largely chose not to engage Perry.

“I like Rick Perry. He was a good governor in the state of Texas. He’s a friend of mine. People occasionally throw rocks in politics. That’s his choice,” Cruz said. “I’m going to say I think he did a good and effective job as governor.”