Fox News "Hannity" - Transcript: Interview with Ted Cruz

Interview

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Joining us now with reaction, Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Senator, you know, I've gone over this. I could spend an entire program playing your fellow Democrats and the media mob and they're changing and vacillating viewpoint almost by the day. But one thing is sure is that we every American was told again and again -- get the vaccine and guess what your life goes back to normal and you won't have to worry what other people do. Now, is that what you heard? Because that's what I was hearing every day.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Well, you're right. And the Democrats have from the beginning of this pandemic, treated it as a matter of politics. From the shutdowns we saw all over the country, to the schools that were closed, and the kids that were hurt, to the jackbooted thugs that went persecuting people of faith, who were going to church and singing in church, we saw a political agenda instead of common sense to keep us safe.

And I got to say that culminated yesterday in the CDC's absurd decision that people who have been vaccinated must nonetheless where masks when inside. And that decision, Sean, that's not science. That's politics. It's pure politics.

You know what? Yesterday, vaccines work. Today, they still work, but as a political matter, the Democrats decided they want to control your lives. They want everyone to wear a mask.

And my view is real simple -- we shouldn't have federal government mandates on COVID. That means no mask mandates, that means no vaccine mandates, that means no vaccine passports. This should be a question of individual choice.

Now, look, personally, I've gotten the vaccine. My family's gotten the vaccine. That's the choice we've made.

But I also believe in individual freedom and responsibility. It's your choice to decide what's right for you, what's right for your family and you don't need a bunch of meddling bureaucrats from Washington setting a mandate and deciding you have to do this, to go to work, to go to school, to get on a plane to live.

And this Democratic Party, you know, the CDC has destroyed their credibility. A year and a half ago, the CDC was one of the most respected scientific organizations in the world, and they allowed themselves to be politicized with Dr. Fauci at the helm of the politicization. And right now, their credibility is in tatters because they behave more like an arm of the DNC than an actual, serious, medical and scientific organization.

HANNITY: Yeah, we kind of learned that too when the NEA and the teachers unions were writing CDC protocols for schools and teachers. We learned a lot.

We'll have Governor Abbott on the program in a little bit, and we're seeing now this 25-year record surge at the border of illegal immigrants. We have kids in overcrowded Biden cages that he built on top of each other in the middle of a pandemic, very little testing.

The few illegal immigrants offered the vaccine, about a third of them are saying, no thanks, and they're still being allowed into the U.S. And then they're being transported I guess to the state of their choice.

How do you justify the onerous burdens that are being put on the American people and yet they're letting in people with a very high rate of positive COVID -- COVID positivity at the border and doing next to nothing about it with zero control? And even if they test positive, they just get put in a - - you know, in a hotel and nobody checks on them.

CRUZ: Look, Sean, the only explanation is that the Democrats are wildly hypocritical. They're more than happy to put all sorts of mandates on American citizens, whether it's mask mandates, whether it's shutdowns of your business. Whether it's shutting down your schools and hurting your kids, they're willing to do all of that.

But when it comes to illegal immigrants, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have had a complete open border. We're on a pace to have over million people cross illegally in this country. It's the worst rate of illegal immigration in years. It was caused by Joe Biden and kamala Harris.

And I got to say I've spent a lot of time at the border, I've spent a lot of time with Border Patrol agents down in the Rio Grande Valley, and we are seeing -- last month, we saw 180,000 people cross the border illegally. They are being crammed into the Biden cages.

You notice much of the corrupt corporate media won't show the Biden cages. They're helping Joe Biden cover it up. But I've seen the Biden cages. I brought 19 senators down to the valley to see the Biden cages of little boys and little girls packed in one on top of each other.

When we were there, they had a rate of COVID positivity of over 10 percent. And like a churning revolving door Joe Biden is releasing them. There was just a report this week that the Biden administration has released over 50,000 illegal aliens without even giving them a court date, just release them.

And you know what? They're asked to report into ICE. About 13 percent of them report into ICE. It's spreading COVID in our communities.

And I'll tell you right now, the election of Joe Biden, Joe Biden becoming president of this country was a COVID super-spreader event because they're releasing illegal aliens in south Texas and all across the country with COVID and they're spreading COVID. And yet their radical policies, they don't want to do anything to protect us.

HANNITY: Senator, thank you.

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