Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz argued that based on a “classified briefing of the deals of the inspection regime” of the Iran deal “These inspections are not materially different than if we simply picked up the phone and called the ayatollah and asked him, ‘Excuse me, sir, are you developing nuclear weapons?'” on Wednesday’s “Hugh Hewitt Show.”
Cruz reacted to President Obama accusing the Republicans of having “common cause” with Iran’s hardliners by stating, “it is just sad the levels to which this president and the Democratic Party today will stoop.”
Cruz continued, “Iran gets twenty-four days notice, which on its face makes a mockery of the promise of anytime, anywhere inspection,s and indeed, if you think about it, in a local law enforcement setting, imagine if the state of California passed a law that said law enforcement cannot execute a search warrant on a drug lord without giving the drug lord twenty-four days notice of the place to be searched. Now any such law would produce predictable results. 100% of the time, the searches would produce no drugs. Even the dumbest drug lord in the world, with twenty-four days notice, could move the drugs, but it’s even worse, I will tell you, listening to the classified briefing of the deals of the inspection regime. These inspections are not materially different than if we simply picked up the phone and called the ayatollah and asked him, ‘Excuse me, sir, are you developing nuclear weapons? No? Sounds good to us.’ The idea that we are trusting Iran to ‘inspect themselves’ is so laughable as be horrifying, and I’ll tell you why it’s horrifying, Hugh. Because nobody would sign this agreement without knowing full well, the certain consequences of this agreement are that Iran acquires nuclear weapons, that anyone that would want a theocratic ayatollah who chants ‘Death to America’ while burning American flags is someone who is willing to profoundly endanger the national security and the lives of millions of Americans.”
He added, “Just a couple of weeks ago, I was part of a rally outside of the White House focused on the four American hostages, who have been forgotten and abandoned in Iran. And the White House press secretary slandered the people protesting for the release of our hostages by calling them warmongers. I mean, there’s a hatefulness to this.”
Cruz also re-iterated his previous point that President Obama’s criticisms of the Iran deal didn’t actually address the substance of Cruz’s criticism.
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