Sen. Cruz: Keeping America Safe at Home and Strong Abroad

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today delivered an address focused on national security policy at The Heritage Foundation. In this policy rollout, Sen. Cruz detailed strategic points to keep our country safe at home and strong abroad, while protecting Americans’ liberty. 

Key themes and excerpts from Sen. Cruz’s speech can be read below: 

Protecting Americans’ Freedom at Home:

“When we are opening up our country to thousands of refugees from regions filled with terrorists, terrorists with the expressed intent to kill us, our immigration policy ceases to be merely an economic or social question. Border Security is national security.”

“There are some both on the right and the left who want to exploit the current crisis by calling on Americans to surrender our liberties as the only way to ensure our safety. The Bill of Rights is altogether compatible with protecting the safety and security of Americans.”

“More data, from millions of law-abiding Americans, is not better data… Instead, the bulk data program is emblematic of the bureaucratic tendency to gather more, not better, information, which gives the government tremendous opportunity for abuse, as has been displayed by Lois Lerner’s IRS.”

“We should not shy away from smarter policies that enhance our ability to target the bad guys while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens.” 

“Rather than stripping ordinary citizens of their constitutional liberties, we should instead have a clear strategy to utterly defeat ISIS.”

Defining and Defeating the Enemy: 

“Today, we face challenging times, both at home and abroad. We face an aggressive enemy whose goal is nothing less than the eradication of our very way of life… What America needs is a moment of clarity. Our enemy is radical Islamic terrorism, and this enemy can and will be defeated.” 

“In addition to protecting Americans here at home, the strategy to defeat the enemy begins by calling it by its name – radical Islamic terrorism… We need to take off the blinders of political correctness that prevent us from seeing what is right in front of us: that enemy is radical Islamic terrorism and it is trying to destroy our country and our way of life.”

Leading by Strength and Demonstrating the Positive Effect of Democracy: 

“We now know for a fact that if we withdraw from the Middle East the radical jihadists will not be content to stay there—they are going to attack our allies in the region and beyond. And they are on the lookout for every opportunity to attack us here at home.” 

“There will always be those who believe it is America’s obligation, as a free nation, to convince others that we are laboring for their freedom, whether they want it or not.  There will always be those who believe by insisting on anything less than our own democratic standards we are forfeiting the moral high ground… We do not betray the idea of America by accepting reality.”

Sen. Cruz concluded: “We can most effectively continue this process by embracing our own ideals; by standing unapologetically for freedom; by defending Americans here in our country; by having the courage to speak with moral clarity -- to call evil by its name; by unapologetically defending America’s interest around the globe; and by using the bully pulpit of the presidency to invite others to recognize the rights of individuals, to respect them, and to unite against the evil forces who seek to tear down freedom in every corner of the world.”

Watch Sen. Cruz’s speech in its entirety here.

A transcript of Sen. Cruz's full remarks is available here.

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