The Obama administration has no means of preventing Syrian refugees from being Islamic State terrorists, GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz said Tuesday, and it is time for the United States to implement serious vetting of refugees.
"We should not be allowing anyone to come to this country that we cannot vet to make sure that they are not radical Islamic terrorists," the Texas senator said in a press conference from Washington D.C. Tuesday morning, just hours after
bombs rocked Brussels on Belgium's largest airport and on a subway.
"ISIS stated its intention to infiltrate those terrorists. The time for the president's political correctness has passed. The first priority of the commander-in-chief should be keeping America safe."
Cruz also lambasted President Barack Obama for being in Cuba while the attacks were going on, and for not making an immediate response to the incident, and on Donald Trump's call for cutbacks to NATO.
"President Obama is spending his time going to baseball games with the Castro's and standing at a press conference with Raul Castro as a prop while Castro denies there are any political prisoners in Cuba," said Cruz. "Then President Obama goes out of his way to agree with Castro's attacks on America.
"I recognize President Obama began his presidency with a worldwide apology tour. The American people deserve a president who doesn't grovel before a communist dictator who hates America, is attacking our nation, and instead of the president enthusiastically agreeing with the Castro's on his attacks with America, we need a president who will stand up and defend America as the greatest light of freedom the world has ever seen. "
Further, said Cruz, Obama should be back in the United States keeping this country safe or traveling to Brussels.
"In the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks, world leaders came together in solidarity with the people of Paris," said Cruz. "And yet strikingly absent was Barack Obama."
Meanwhile, the attacks in Belgium were not an isolated incident and were not performed by a lone war attacker.
"This is a war with radical Islamic terrorism," said Cruz. "ISIS declared jihad on Europe, and on the United States of America. They have declared their intention to murder as many innocents as possible. And it is long past time that we had a president who will acknowledge this evil, will call it by its name, and outlay the full force and fury of the United States to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, to defeat ISIS."
And until ISIS is defeated, the attacks will continue, as "their target is each and every one of us."
"In the wake of Brussels we don't need another lecture from President [Barack] Obama on Islamophobia," said Cruz. "We need a commander-in-chief who does everything necessary to defeat the enemy, and we need to immediately halt the president's ill-advised plan to bring in tens of thousands of Syrian Muslim refugees. Our vetting programs are woefully insufficient."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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