During Saturday night’s ABC News debate, co-moderator Martha Raddatz, a personal friend of Barack Obama’s, asked Ted Cruz an incredibly dumb gotcha question premised on the idea that Cruz is some kind of war-monger, but only when he wants to be. Cruz was first to speak about the news that, in violation of a treaty, North Korea fired a long-range rocket Saturday.

Cruz gave an impressive and detailed answer about the North Korean threat that included legitimate criticism of President Clinton’s mishandling of his failed nuclear deal. Raddatz then attacked:

RADDATZ: If you were commander-in-chief tonight, would you have ordered the U.S. military to destroy that missile pre-emptively on the launch pad to prevent North Korea from becoming an even graver threat?”

CRUZ: At this point, I’m not going to speculate on that without the intelligence briefing that any commander-in-chief would have knowing what exactly is there. One of the real problems–

Barack Obama’s personal friend then interrupted…

RADDATZ: Senator Cruz you have talked tough about this, you have talked tough about the Mideast — you haven’t gotten intelligence briefings about that. Why not tell us if you would pre-emptively strike a missile on a lunch pad that threatened the U.S.?

At this point, Cruz shut Raddatz down:

CRUZ: With due respect, I have gotten intelligence briefings on the Mideast. Those have been going on for many years. I haven’t gotten the intelligence briefings tonight on what North Korea is doing because I’m here in New Hampshire. And when you are responding to an immediate incident, you need to know the intelligence of what’s occurring.

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