Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Rubio 'not telling the truth' about immigration stance

Interview

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MARK STEYN, GUEST HOST: Welcome to "Hannity." Tonight, Ted Cruz continues to challenge GOP front-runner Donald Trump.

I'm Mark Steyn. Sean's getting an early jump on the eggnog.

According to a new CBS News/Yougov Iowa poll, Ted Cruz is in first place in the key state with 40 percent, while Trump comes in second at 31 percent. The only other candidate in double digits is Senator Marco Rubio.

In New Hampshire, according to the same poll, Trump is leading the way with 32 percent. Cruz is in second with 14, followed by Rubio and Governor Chris Christie. And in the latest Fox News national poll, Trump is on top with 39 percent, and then it's Cruz, Rubio and Dr. Ben Carson.

Here now with reaction is 2016 Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Great to have you with us, Senator. The New Hampshire result, frankly, must surprise you a little. Everyone thought, there it was going to come down to a choice between Donald Trump and a so-called establishment candidate. Instead, it's the Republican establishment's worst nightmare in the two-man race.

SEN. TED CRUZ, R-TEXAS, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, Mark, it's great to be with you this evening. You know, what we're seeing in New Hampshire and what we're seeing in Iowa is really a microcosm of what we're seeing nationwide, which is that more and more conservatives are uniting behind our campaign.

And it really has been encouraging. From day one, when we launched our campaign, the object was to bring back together that old Reagan coalition, to bring together conservatives and evangelicals and libertarians, to bring together young people and Hispanics and African- Americans and Jewish voters and women and Reagan Democrats. And we're seeing that happening, happening on the ground.

I think Iowa is further along in that. We've now had a number of polls fairly consistently showing us in first place. That's certainly encouraging, and we're going to continue working hard to continue to consolidate and grow that support.

But we're also seeing in New Hampshire conservatives coming together.  You know, in New Hampshire, you've got a much bigger libertarian population. We've got a lot of libertarian support. So I'm encouraged, what we're seeing in the early states and all across the country.

STEYN: Well, you've done something terribly cunning this campaign season because, as you know, it's an unusual campaign season.

CRUZ: Oh, yes.

STEYN: Every other candidate with the word -- who has had the misfortune to have the word "senator" or "governor" in front of their name, it hangs around their neck like a millstone plunging them into the toilet of history.

You -- you -- in a season of outsiders, you seem to have succeeded in being a U.S. senator running as an outsider. How are you managing to pull that off? Because the other guys would like to know.

CRUZ: Well, Mark, look, I think the reason is people are fed up with Washington. You and I are both fed up with Washington. We're fed up with politicians who say one thing and do another, who can't be counted on.
And it's one of the reasons why I'm so optimistic about where this presidential race is right now, that I think one of the most important things Donald Trump has done in this race is helped frame the central question of the Republican primary as, Who will stand up to Washington?

STEYN: Right.

CRUZ: Now -- now, if that's the central question, the natural follow- up is, OK, who actually has stood up to Washington? Who's taken on not just Democrats but leaders of our own party? And I think that's the reason that conservatives are uniting behind our campaign, is that of the nine people standing on that debate stage, I'm the only one who has a consistent record over and over and over again of standing up to what I call the Washington cartel, the career politicians in both parties that get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests and grow and grow and grow government.

And I think the people are looking for a leader who will do what he says and tell the truth and will stand with the American people. And that's what I've endeavored to do every single day I've been in public office.

STEYN: Well, let's talk about that, Senator, because this is what Marco Rubio has attacked as your "more purist than thou" routine. And he was on the TV over the weekend talking about this. Let's hear what he had to say.

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STEYN: Now, immigration is Marco Rubio's Achilles heel. He's trying to turn it on you by essentially turning it into a character issue. He's saying Ted Cruz speak (sic) with forked tongue on this. How does it stand with you, Senator?

CRUZ: Oh, listen, Marco's a good guy. He's a friend of mine, and I like him. He's one of the most personally charming people you could know.  He's very, very well liked in Washington.

I don't think it's surprising that he's attacking me and that other candidates in the field are attacking me. I mean, right now, we're winning. We're in first place in Iowa. We're seeing conservatives uniting.

And I understand the Rubio campaign. You know, they told The New York Times a couple of weeks ago that they were panicking because they're down in third and fourth place in states all over the country, and they've got to do something to change it, and so they're attacking. But he knows very well the attacks he's saying are not true.

And actually, I'll tell you what, Mark, I'll commend Jeb Bush. I think Jeb Bush has been very honest. He's been very candid about his support for amnesty. And Marco -- Marco, on the other hand, is trying to run away from his long support for amnesty. You know, Marco and Jeb have the same record on immigration, and Marco's team has gotten very nervous about it.

And I will say this, that all of the attacks that Marco has been saying -- in the last week, we've seen Senator Mike Lee come out and say Marco's not telling the truth and Ted is.

STEYN: Right.

CRUZ: We've seen Senator Jeff Sessions say Marco's not telling the truth and Ted is. We've seen Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin both come out and say Marco's not telling the truth and Ted is.

And I'm a big believer, at the end of the day, truth will win out, and his record and mine are very, very different, and anyone paying the least bit of attention can see that when it comes to amnesty and illegal immigration and immigration generally, we are on opposite sides of the fence. He stands with Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama. I stand with Jeff Sessions and Steve King and the American people.

STEYN: Since you mentioned Rush -- Rush a couple of days ago on his radio show said, basically, after the budget deal, what is the Republican Party for? Every other senator running for president -- Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, you -- managed to vote on this budget deal.  Marco Rubio didn't.
You invited me to the Senate a few days ago for a committee hearing for a committee that both you and Marco Rubio were on. Marco Rubio wasn't there for that, either. What's with the absence?

CRUZ: Well, listen, I'll let Marco defend his own voting record, and then that's really an issue for him and the voters.

You know, what I've tried to do is every day honor the promise that I made to the men and women who elected me. So that has been -- you look at this omnibus deal, this was a betrayal. It was disgraceful.

It was Republican leadership passing a trillion-dollar spending bill that funds the entire Obama agenda. It funds "Obama care." It funds amnesty. It funds Planned Parenthood. It does nothing to stop this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal. It does nothing to stop President Obama from bringing tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to this country that the FBI has said they cannot vet to determine if they're ISIS terrorists.

And it's why, Mark, people are so frustrated with Washington. They're looking for someone who will stand up and take on not just the Democrats but leaders in our own party who approach every fight by putting their hands in the air and surrendering to the Democrats, and it's why people are fed up.

CRUZ: Well, Mitch McConnell says that we have to choose electable people, as he puts it, in 2014 (sic). And you don't have to decode that too much to figure out that you're not one of the people he has in mind.

We were told that the Republican establishment was going to spend $100 million destroying Trump in the weeks before Iowa and New Hampshire. The problem they have now is if they do that, all the votes will go to you, and if anything, they seem to loathe you even more than they loathe Trump.

Can the Republican establishment actually do that to you at this stage?

CRUZ: Well, listen, right now, the Washington establishment is panicking. They're confused. Their chosen golden children are not succeeding in the polls, and the reason is the American people are fed up.  They don't want another Republican nominee to follow the path of a Bob Dole or a John McCain or a Mitt Romney, be really popular in Washington and to result in millions of conservatives staying home on election day because we cannot lose to Hillary Clinton.

And the only way to win is to follow the path in 2016, like we did in 1980, to paint in bold colors, not pale pastels. We win with a strong, principled, optimistic conservative who stands with the working men and women of this country.

STEYN: Well, Bob Dole says he's thinking of sleeping in on election day. I'm actually -- I think he slept in for a lot of the '96 campaign.  We'll get to that in a moment.

More with Ted Cruz, Senator Ted Cruz, right after the break.

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STEYN: Hillary Clinton made an outrageous claim about Donald Trump that the fact checkers say is not true. We'll tell you how Trump is responding and get reaction from our panel.

And later, President Obama is blaming the media and not himself for Americans being fearful of an ISIS attack on the homeland.

That and much more as "Hannity" continues.

STEYN: Welcome back to "Hannity" as we continue with 2016 Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz.

Senator, you introduced "Saturday Night Live" viewers to the lighter side of Ted Cruz this weekend with a special campaign commercial. Let's have a bit of that.

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STEYN: You have two really great professional child actors in that commercial, Senator. Where did you rent them for the day? They're terrific. They're really good.

CRUZ: Well, my daughters had so much fun with that. That's Caroline (ph) and Katherine (ph). And Caroline -- both of them have lines later in that commercial, where Caroline in particular enjoyed reading about the Grinch who stole her e-mails, and Caroline, with some gusto, reads about Hillary's secret server.

And they had a lot of fun with it. And it's -- you know, we try to bring our girls on the road with us. You know, we're in the middle of this nationwide road trip, touring across the super-Tuesday states, and the girls have been on the road with us.

But that "Saturday Night Live" commercial was a lot of fun. And you know, in just a day, we've had over a million hits. People have gone to TedCruz.org, they've watched it, they've laughed, they've passed it on to their friends.

And listen, Mark, you're someone who knows the power of humor. I think there are too many Republicans who act like a stick in the mud.  We've got to have some fun and laugh. And the way we win is we tell the truth and do it with a smile.

STEYN: Well, they are excellent in that. As you say, the way Caroline -- every time I try to get my kids to do something like that, they're terrible, and I have to have them edited out and replaced by professional union kids. So you really -- you've got the advantage on me there.

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: OK, so Mark, you've outed me that neither one of them has a SAG union card. So I may be in trouble for putting them up in that.

STEYN: No, well, just don't let it go to their heads. You don't want them turning into Justin Bieber.

(LAUGHTER)

STEYN: But that's -- that is a -- that's a pretty nice job they did there. You -- it's actually quite a sharp and pointed ad there. You talk about Frosty the Speaker, and the speaker who melted before Congress. And I wonder which speaker you had in mind there, Senator.

CRUZ: Well, look, I leave that to creative interpretation.

(LAUGHTER)

CRUZ: But listen, I will say we tried to have some fun with it but also to express -- people are frustrated. And so you can laugh and at the same time say what's happening in Washington doesn't make sense and we need a real change.

And look, I'm certainly trying to laugh at myself at the same time, which I think is important to do. And if I don't do, Heidi and the girls do it for me.

STEYN: Now, when we were looking at the poll numbers for six months ago, you were behind not only Jeb Bush, but you were also behind Huckabee and Rand Paul. It looked like for Rand Paul, there might be a libertarian moment, for want of a better word. The sort of neocon security state approach to foreign policy was out of favor.

Since then, we've had Paris, San Bernardino, massive expansion of ISIS. You seem to have been better at threading the needle between libertarianism and the security challenges. Where are you on that right now, as opposed to, say, Lindsey Graham, who just pulled out today?

CRUZ: Right. You know, there's no doubt that in the wake of Paris and San Bernardino, the most important question for Americans has become, Who's prepared to be commander-in-chief? Who has the experience, who has the judgment, who has the clarity of vision, who has the strength?

And I think that's one of the reasons, as people focused on the need to keep this country safe, we've seen our support just growing and growing and growing. There are a lot of good people in the race, but I think if people are making a judgment about who's prepared to be commander-in-chief, that my record of, number one, following the Constitution, which we don't have to be Barack Obama and trample on the Constitution to keep our country safe, but number two, being clear-eyed about the enemy we face.

It is radical Islamic terrorism. And as commander-in-chief, I will utterly defeat radical Islamic terrorism. We will destroy ISIS. And the single biggest national security threat facing America is the threat of a nuclear Iran. And I have pledged on day one of my administration to rip to shreds this catastrophic Iranian nuclear deal.

And I think Americans are looking for a commander-in-chief who will put the American people first, who will keep this country safe, and that is my very first and highest commitment.

STEYN: Senator, just finally, just quickly, before you can take out ISIS and take out the mullahs, you got to be able to take out Donald Trump.  Do you think you can do that in Iowa and New Hampshire?

CRUZ: You know, I'm very encouraged. And I'll tell you this. If conservatives continue uniting -- we've had over 160,000 volunteer at TedCruz.org, over 600,000 make contributions at TedCruz.org. If that keeps happening, we're going to win the primary.

And if conservatives show up in November 2016, we will win the general. We'll beat Hillary Clinton, and we'll turn this country around.

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