Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Thursday that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) often backs President Obama and Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton on foreign policy.
“He has far too often agreed with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” he said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
{mosads}“I think when it comes to foreign policy, he wants as much power in Washington as possible and he has agreed with [Sens.] John McCain [R-Ariz.] and Lindsey Graham [R-S.C.], and, for that matter, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama,” Cruz continued of his rival for the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination.
“[Rubio thinks] that we should keep sticking our nose in foreign entanglements where the result of their policies has made America less safe, because what it has done is it has helped the radical Islamic terrorists.”
Cruz then criticized Rubio for echoing Clinton and Obama’s policy ideas for handling Syrian leader Bashar Assad.
“It seems like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and people like Senator Rubio have not learned the lessons of Libya and Egypt because what are they trying to do?” Cruz asked, citing U.S. involvement in regime changes in those nations.
“[They want to] topple Assad,” he continued. “Now Assad is a bad man. He is a monster. But if they succeed in toppling Assad, ISIS will take over Syria.”
Cruz argued that Assad is a distraction from the danger the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) presents America.
“Instead of getting in the middle of a civil war in Syria, where we don’t have a dog in the fight, our focus should be on killing ISIS,” he said of the terrorist organization.
“We shouldn’t be trying to find these mythical moderate rebels that we keep being told, like a purple unicorn, that they’re going to exist,” Cruz continued.
“They turn out to all be jihadists. Instead, our focus needs to be on doing everything necessary to utterly defeat ISIS.”
Cruz additionally linked Rubio and other Republican White House hopefuls with liberal critics of his own Oval Office bid.
“Of course other candidates are attacking me,” he said. “Super-PACs of Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush have launched attacks on me. Several other candidates who are running on the Republican side have launched personal attacks on me.”
“Hillary Clinton has attacked me twice. Barack Obama has attacked me twice,” Cruz added. “My reaction to all of that was, ‘thanks for the endorsement.’
“It’s a reflection of the momentum we’ve got, that we are really seeing conservatives uniting and coalescing around our campaign.”
Cruz has surged into second place in the GOP’s crowded 2016 presidential field, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of samplings, with Rubio behind him by only 2 points.
He trails Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, by just under 15 points nationwide.