Ted Cruz on Wednesday continued to poke from afar at fellow senator and GOP presidential rival Marco Rubio, recognizing that the pair share policy differences that Cruz is increasingly willing to highlight.
The day after the two young, Cuban-American senators once again earned plaudits for their debate performances, the Texas Republican took his hardline message on immigration to New Hampshire, where he encouraged voters to look at which candidates are “blowing smoke” on a path to citizenship and which are “telling the truth.”
Cruz is quick to charge that most of his GOP rivals have at one point supported “amnesty,” and Rubio’s signature push in Congress was an abandoned attempt by a group known as the Gang of Eight to pass comprehensive reform that included a road to citizenship.
It is also an issue where Cruz, who has pledged to crack down on border crossings, sees an opening in the fight for conservative support against Rubio, who has distanced himself from his own bill.
“I like Marco. I respect him,” Cruz told reporters in Kingston. “I think he’s charming and talented and charismatic. We’ve had some policy disagreements, but that’s part and parcel of politics.”
When asked later for differences on immigration between him and Rubio, Cruz said simply to look at their records.
“It is not complicated that on the seminal fight over amnesty in Congress, the Gang of Eight bill — that was the brainchild of Chuck Schumer and Barack Obama, would have granted amnesty to 12 million people here illegally — that I stood with the American people and led the fight to defeat it in the United States Congress,” he said.
Cruz has not always been so kind as to not blame Rubio for that effort — in a Fox News interview two weeks ago, Cruz named Rubio as a Gang of Eight sponsor (in an earlier interview on Wednesday, he pointed fingers at “establishment Republicans.”)
Rubio stumped for that 2013 bill — a compromise between conservatives eager to secure the border and liberals set on a path to citizenship for the undocumented — which he helped negotiate before later backing away from it.
“Leaving things the way they are, that’s the real amnesty,” Rubio had said at the news conference unveiling the bill.
Cruz’s comment on Fox News was the beginning of a two-week offensive telegraphing how he would fight Rubio for conservative votes, should the Republican race barrel into a match-up between the two.
Just days later, Cruz went out of his way with radio host Hugh Hewitt to note that Rubio voted with the White House on granting the administration Trade Promotion Authority. Then in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper on “The Lead,” Cruz referred to Rubio as “formidable” among the field’s moderate candidates, a backhanded compliment to Rubio who rose in 2010 with tea party support.
And in his most high-profile dig, Cruz took a swipe at Rubio in Tuesday night’s debate over the Floridian’s support for sugar subsidies as an example of cronyism. Rubio’s support for the taxpayer-funded program has earned him the ire of groups such as the Koch Brothers and The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
The needling is out of character for Cruz, who has insisted on not engaging with Republican opponents until the primary’s “seasons change.” And on Wednesday, Cruz began to prosecute that case against those who have left the door open to citizenship, some of whom have used George W. Bush’s rhetoric of “compassionate conservatism” to make their argument.
“There’s nothing compassionate about exonerating the lawlessness and inviting millions of people to come illegal to this country,” Cruz told radio host Tony Perkins earlier Wednesday.