Cruz thanked Obama for referring the Syria issue to Congress. | AP Photos Pigs fly, Cruz full of Obama praise

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), praised President Barack Obama on Wednesday for bringing the Syria strike to Congress, saying that the move gave the chance for the voices of Americans to be heard.

“I want to commend President Obama for two different things. Number one, I want to commend President Obama for listening to the bipartisan calls to submit to the constitutional authority of Congress. That was significant, it was the right thing to do and I’m glad he did so,” Cruz said in a detailed foreign policy speech at the Heritage Foundation’s 4th Annual Jesse Helms Lecture Series.


“And secondly, once the issue came to Congress, that gave the American people a chance to speak up,” he added, detailing how his constituents had almost total unanimity against intervention in Syria.

( QUIZ: Do you know Ted Cruz?)

Though critical of the administration for attempting to get involved militarily in Syria based on enforcing an “international norm” as opposed to actual U.S. national security interests, and mocking Secretary of State John Kerry’s “unbelievably small” description of a possible U.S. attack repeatedly throughout his speech, Cruz expressed confidence that should Congress vote down on Syria, the President would not cross the line and still attack, as some think he may.

( PHOTOS: What lawmakers said then (Iraq) and now (Syria))

“I commend [Obama] for…calling off the vote. I think it was better not to vote. Rather, than I think, if there had been a vote it would appear clear that the president would have been rejected overwhelmingly. And I think it is better for the presidency, better for the country not to have that vote occur,” Cruz said. “I would have voted ‘no,’ great many others would have voted ‘no.’ But I think it reflected a wise and prudent judgement on the part of the president to postpone the vote, rather than have that authority rejected and I don’t believe that the president is going to ignore the views of the American people.”

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