Sen. Ted Cruz on Sen. Mike Lee's public frustration with intel briefing on Soleimani strike
Trump administration officials were a little too quick to dismiss the role of Congress, says Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, ripped a fact check by The Associated Press that claimed President Trump spread a "false tale" about the Obama administration paying out billions of dollars to Iran as part of the Iran Nuclear Deal.
Appearing on "Fox News @ Night" Wednesday with host Shannon Bream, Cruz said that the AP and mainstream media have acted as apologists for Iran by "defending" their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"To serve as essentially apologists for the enemy of America, it's really sad," Cruz said. "I get that they don't like Donald Trump. That is not lost on anybody. The media has lost their minds, many congressional Democrats have lost their minds."
In an address to the nation on Wednesday which the AP said "fell short on facts," President Trump made an assertion that Iranian missiles fired at two Iraqi military bases housing U.S. forces were paid for by money "made available" to Iran by the previous administration.
It was a claim the AP labeled "as dubious as it was provocative."
However, Cruz disputed the premise of the fact check.
"Listen, here's a very simple principle: money is fungible," said Cruz.
"Under the catastrophic Obama Iran Nuclear Deal, the United States allowed between $100 billion and $150 billion to flow directly into Iran," he said.
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Cruz's claim directly contradicted the AP, which wrote that there was no $150 billion payout, but that there was a transfer of $1.8 billion to Iran to settle "an old IOU."
"The Obama administration sent $1.7 billion in cash, in unmarked bills, on pallets in the dead of night on a plane flown into Iran..." he recalled.
"Money is fungible and when you flood the Ayatollah -- who is chanting 'death to America' -- with over $100 billion, in a very real sense that money and the Obama administration allowed to flow into Iran is what helped fund those missiles that were attacking our servicemen and women [on Tuesday] night," Cruz concluded, referring to Iraniani assets unfrozen as part of the deal.
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