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

Interview

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Now, one senator thankfully is fighting back with a bill to ban many of the mandates. Here with more, Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Senator, I'll say it quickly, I've said it often. I've seen the worst of this.

I know people right now who's -- have loved ones on ventilators. I've seen people die. I'm telling everyone, take it seriously. You have to take into account your unique medical history, your current medical condition.

I urge everybody, research. If you own a telephone, you can do a lot of research on your own phone.

Then in consultation with your doctor, doctors or other medical professionals, you've got to make the decision. Everybody knows about masks, social distancing, three vaccines.

I'm not a doctor, Senator. I'm not going to play one on radio and TV. I'm not qualified.

Your thoughts?

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Well, I think with any serious disease, you have to take it seriously and you have to take reasonable precautions.

But in a time of crisis, people's character is revealed and the character of Democrats -- whether it is Joe Biden, whether it is Andrew Cuomo, whether it is Bill de Blasio, whether it is Gavin Newsom, the character from their perspective that they do not respect your liberty. They do not respect your right to make your choices about your health care, about your children, about your lives.

My views were very simple. There should be no mandates, zero, concerning COVID. That means no mask mandates, regardless of your vaccination status. That means no vaccine mandates. That means no vaccine passports.

And I've introduced legislation, a bill to ban vaccine passports. This week, I'm introducing a bill to ban vaccine mandates. And this will, I'm -- week, I'm introducing a bill to end mask mandates.

Now, that doesn't mean is the media likes to characterize that I'm opposed to vaccines. I actually think vaccines are terrific. I've taken the vaccine. My family's taken the vaccine, but I believe in individual choice, individual responsibility.

You can make the choice for your family. These mandates are coming, and as you noted a few minutes ago talking about Dr. Fauci, what they're talking about is political. It's not tied to the science.

One example, Dr. Fauci and the CDC and the Biden administration repeatedly ignores natural immunity. It ignores the immunity of tens of millions of people that had COVID. That's politically inconvenient. So, they pretend it doesn't exist.

And you look at schools. You know, what Dr. Fauci -- when Hugh Hewitt was asking about him mandating masks in schools, the reason they mandated mask in schools was because the teachers unions demanded that. It was a political demand. That's why he had no scientific basis for it because there are no hard data that support that, but there was a political reason. The teachers' union bosses demanded it.

And I think this is just abusive. It is dangerous where these government figures believe they have the right to impose rules on you -- rules that they don't intend to follow, as all the people partying up at Martha's Vineyard demonstrated.

HANNITY: I support your bill, and I support your explanation. Like you, I believe in science. I believe in the science of vaccinations.

CRUZ: Yeah.

HANNITY: You really can't deny vaccines like the polio vaccine, let's start there.

CRUZ: Sure.

HANNITY: My question is, what do you do with the people that have rare conditions?

CRUZ: Yeah.

HANNITY: Or if we're really following the science, I'm sure you agree with me that the Cleveland Clinic is a prestigious medical institution.

CRUZ: Sure.

HANNITY: And their studies show that if you got COVID-19, even if your antibody levels decrease, you still have T-cell antibody immunity. In other words, if you come into contact with COVID, again after you've had COVID, even the variants, that your body will recognize it immediately and begin to activate its own immune system, the natural immunity process.

CRUZ: Right.

HANNITY: What, we're not going to follow the science of the Cleveland Clinic? It's going to be one-size-fits-all medicine? And, oh, by the way, you happen to have a rare disease, you can't get vaccinated, so you're shut out of restaurants, sporting events, movies -- living pretty much?

CRUZ: Well, and that's so what's so damning about how these left-wing Democrats have approached this, is their exercise of power is arbitrary. It's not driven by the science. It's driven by the momentary politics.

And if you have a reason why medically it's a bad idea for you to take the vaccine, well, their view is tough for you. Then you lose your job, then you can't get on an airplane, then you can't go to school, then you can't go to a restaurant, then apparently you're cast into utter darkness.

And it would be one thing -- look, if we were dealing with the zombie apocalypse where anyone who came near this was dropping dead, you could understand at least why they were proposing some of this stuff. But they know what they're saying is nonsense.

The reason Barack Obama's party is so revealing is that when they're alone, the Democrats demonstrate they think all of this is nonsense. They take off their masks and they party like it's 1999. You know, they know this is a crock.

In the Senate, the Senate Democrats who pontificate, when they get in a room, they take their damn masks off. But when the TV cameras turn on apparently, it is only dangerous to be without a mask if a TV camera is pointed at them.

HANITY: Let me ask you this --

CRUZ: I mean, it is arbitrary power. It's not about science.

HANNITY: Are there any Democrats -- any of them that are supporting your common sense bill?

CRUZ: Zero.

HANNITY: Not one?

CRUZ: And I can tell you a little bit of history. So, on the Senate Commerce Committee, several weeks back, we had an amendment to end the mask mandate on airplanes, because it no longer makes sense based on the science. And we had a vote on it and it was a party line vote. All the Republicans voted to end it, all the Democrats voted to keep the mandate for flying on airplanes.

Now, one of the senators there, Brian Schatz, who's a Democrat from Hawaii. And he just gotten off I think a long flight from Hawaii wearing the stupid mask, he was like, look, I can't stand this mandate. I agree with you. The science doesn't back it up, but I don't want us to tell the federal government what to do.

How about we just pass a sense of the Senate that we should end the mask mandate on airplanes? And I'm like, okay, look, I don't know why we -- apparently, Congress under the Constitution, doesn't have the power to tell the federal government what to do. I thought that was actually what Article 1 was all about. But, fine, you want to make it a sense of the Senate, great.

And he suggested to me, he said, Ted, let's do this together. Let's make it bipartisan. So I went and drafted it and, you know, what? At the end of the day, he wasn't willing to join because the rest of his caucus, the other Democrats, they crack the whip.

And it's a weird thing, Sean, that there is a herd mentality among congressional Democrats that they obey Chuck Schumer and their only answer is "sir, yes, sir".

And so, we filed the bill, even it was the weakened sense of the Senate bill because that's what a Democratic senator suggested he might support, and even that, not a single Democrat was willing to support.

HANNITY: Senator, keep fighting. You're fighting hard. You were right also on the infrastructure bill.

I mean, why Republicans went along with that scam, I have no idea.

CRUZ: No (ph).

HANNITY: It's ridiculous.

Thank you for being with us.

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