Cruz: Democratic Party ‘radicalized on every axis’
'This is not your father's Democratic Party,' the Texas senator said Sunday
Gage Skidmore
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) suggested in a call hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition on Sunday that a Biden administration would be “much worse” than the Obama administration when it comes to its policy on Israel.
“This is not your father’s Democratic Party. This Democratic Party is radicalized. It’s radicalized on every axis,” Cruz explained, citing legislators including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN). “If you look at the voices that are on the ascent in the Democratic Party, it is Bernie Sanders, it is AOC, it is Ilhan Omar, it is Elizabeth Warren — it is the angriest and most radical far-left views,” Cruz said.
“And when it comes to foreign policy, Bernie Sanders, who had the triumphant first night of the Democratic convention, described and said his movement is winning and has been adopted by Joe Biden,” he added. “I believe foreign policy under the Biden administration will be driven by Bernie, who wants to slash our military spending and gut the Defense Department. It will be driven by [Ocasio-Cortez] and Omar, who we see now with repeatedly antisemitic, anti-Israel comments. It is the Israel-hating far left that is dominant in the Democratic Party right now.”
The comments came on the eve of the Republican National Convention, which kicks off today in Charlotte, N.C., and in Washington, D.C., later this week.
Cruz posited that if Biden wins, the party’s more liberal contingency “will be calling the tune,” adding: “I think we would look back, wistfully, for the anti-Israel policies of Obama-Biden compared to where Biden-Harris would be with the angry left driving the agenda.”
“I don’t think it’s hyperbole to say Bernie Sanders could be secretary of state,” the Texas senator said.
Cruz stressed that Trump’s decisions to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and pull out of the Iran deal brought about the recent landmark agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. The Republican senator said his view was — contrary to the position of the State Department and the Pentagon — that “not only will this not hurt peace to the Middle East, but it will be seen as a clarion call throughout the Middle East and the world that America stands unequivocally with our friends and then we’re not afraid of the condemnation of the New York Times and CNN. And that clarity, I argued to the president, I argued to the White House, would be beneficial for both our friends and our enemies.”
“I think the U.A.E. recognition is a direct result of that clarity,” Cruz suggested.
Cruz said he held a recent conversation with UAE Ambassador to the U.S. Yousef Al Otaiba, in which the diplomat said that “a big part of the reason” they finalized a deal with Israel was because “it was so important to America and they care about their relationship with America.” Cruz added, “That clarity on the embassy helped make that decision much more palatable, and I think there’s a possibility other Arab countries will follow suit in the coming months.”