Ted Cruz: If you're looking for a candidate embraced by Washington elites, I ain't your guy

Twenty-four hours after announcing his campaign for President of the United States, Senator Ted Cruz joined Glenn on radio. During the interview, the two discussed the grassroots support that will be key to Ted's campaign, the theories that he isn't a natural born citizen, and his dark horse run for U.S. Senator in 2012.

GLENN: How are you, Ted?

TED: I'm doing great. Great to be with you.

GLENN: Good to have you here. What is it like to announce you're running for president of the United States? What is that day like?

TED: Well, I have to say, yesterday was electric. I mean, the energy and passion. We had 12,000 college kids - they were on fire. They were ready to stand up and lead a movement of courageous conservatives to turn the country around. And it was breathtaking. It was inspiring. Seeing their passion really gives me incredible strength. The very first voice I spoke to after the announcement speech was you when I was handed the phone to go on-air with you yesterday.

PAT: That's great.

GLENN: I want to tell you -- and I say this for you, not for us. This works out horribly for us. But, you know, being our friend may not be the best thing for you.

[laughter]

TED: You know what, I'm very proud to dance with who brought me. And we'll stand together happily.

PAT: Everyone wants to know how they can help you. Everyone wants to roll up their sleeves and get to work for you.

GLENN: Before you answer this, I just want to say, that people like James Carville, they are terrified of you.

PAT: Oh, my gosh.

GLENN: They are warning the Democrats, don't dismiss this guy.

PAT: Yeah.

GLENN: Weren't you world champion debate guy, something like that? I think that was the actual title.

TED: In college, I wasn't exactly one of the cool kids.

GLENN: Yes.

PAT: Didn't exactly play football.

TED: The star quarterback and then the star debater. There's a little bit of a difference.

[laughter]

GLENN: The smart people in the Democratic party, everybody else is blowing you off, and I'm telling you, between, what you've done and what I know of the people who actually believe in the Constitution, if you play your cards right, you're going to have the biggest grassroots campaign probably next to Obama, if not surpassing Obama. The passion will be there in spades.

TED: Well, and that is at the heart of our campaign. It is a grassroots movement from the people. You mentioned the smart Democrats. Look, the smart Democrats understand that the American people are fundamentally center right. And what worries them is a leader who understands that as well and will speak for the shared common sense conservative values we have across this country. So many Republican leaders have bought the media spin that the American people have abandoned our values. And that's simply not true.

I'll give you an example. Last week I was on your show. And on the show, we asked people to text in the word "Constitution" to the number 33733. Do you know how many people texted in?

GLENN: I do.

TED: 26,295.

STU: Wow.

PAT: That's great.

TED: It was incredible. That was ten minutes on your show. Over 26,000 people texted in. I'll tell you, the 24 hours since we launched the campaign, the number of people who have gone to our website, TedCruz.org, and contributed to the campaign has been astonishing. The website blew up yesterday. And all of the political elites in Washington and New York are saying there's no way a real conservative can compete with the establishment choice because you won't have the money that comes from the lobbyists.

Look, our strength is the grassroots. And we have been saying since the moment we announced, people over and over and over again coming to TedCruz.org. If they can, they max out. But even if they can't, they give $10, or $25, or $50. And that will fuel our effort to build a grassroots army of courageous conservatives all over this country.

GLENN: So, Ted, let me ask you this. This is a hard question. I like Rand Paul. I like Scott Walker. I'd like to see those guys advance. There are progressives in the Republican, i.e. Jeb Bush, that just need to be stopped or we'll end up with Jeb Bush. Is it at all part of your strategy or will you consider not going after Rand and Scott Walker, Rand in particular, to keep the guys who love the Constitution in play so folks your energy on the people who are the progressives?

TED: I very much like and respect Rand Paul. I like and respect Scott Walker. They're both good guys.

My focus is not going to be going after anybody. My focus will be making the affirmative case that, number one, what I think primary voters are looking for is someone who is a consistent conservative who says the same thing yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and who will stand up and do what he said he would do. And I think to win, the only way we'll win is if you have a full spectrum conservative who has a proven record standing for principle, whether it's on Obamacare; whether it is stopping the debt ceiling; whether it is stopping President Obama's executive amnesty; whether it's defending the first amendment, free speech, religious liberty; defending the second amendment; defending our privacy; defending the tenth amendment and stopping Common Core; standing with the nation of Israel; standing up to Iran and preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

And I'll tell you, as I look at the potential field, I see a lot of people who I like and respect who are friends of mine. If you look at those issues that I've just listed off and you ask of all of the senators and governors looking at this field -- looking at this race, how many of them have actually stood up and led and engaged meaningfully on the great issues today?

PAT: Only you.

GLENN: Only you. That's why we're such big supporters. So let me take you here. Yesterday there was pushback on education. You were talking about the right to education, et cetera, et cetera. Ronald Reagan came out and he wanted to defund and shut down the Department of Education. Will you go that far?

TED: Absolutely. Of course, we should shut down the Department of Education. It has been driving federal mandates and intruding into the critical role of education. I think education is too important to be dictated by unelected bureaucrats in Washington. It should at the state level or even better at the local level where we as parents can have direct influence and control over what's being taught to our kids.

GLENN: This is the thing that attracts me to Libertarianism. I can be as conservative as I want and my neighbor could be Ben & Jerry the ice cream guys, and we can get along as long as neither of us are trying to control the other's lives. That's where Washington needs to be stopped. Because we can get along if I'm not trying to tell you what church to go to and how to live your life and you're not telling me what education I have to have or how I must tolerate X, Y, or Z.

TED: Well, and that's one of the reasons you and I see eye to eye on so many issues. I have described myself - I am a conservative, but with strong Libertarian leanings. And I think the path to victory is reassembling the old Reagan coalition. Bringing together conservatives and Libertarians and evangelicals and Reagan Democrats and Republican women and young people and Hispanics. And that's one of the things we saw so powerfully in Texas when I ran for Senate in 2012. You know, I think it was the case that in 2012, that I was the only candidate in the country who was endorsed by both Ron Paul and Rick Santorum.

And you talk about two political leaders who don't generally see eye to eye on much, and their supporters often have sharp disagreements. And yet we had both Ron Paul and Rand Paul came, did an enormous rally with me in the state capitol. We had thousands of young people out in the hot sun. And Rick Santorum came to Dallas. We had another rally with thousands of evangelicals come together. If we're going to win, we have to appeal to the shared values that bring together courageous conservatives across this country. I think that's the path to victory

PAT: Sounds really good.

GLENN: I remember standing in Rick Perry's office, and I had just gotten here. And it was the week before your election. And he said to me, 'you're backing the wrong guy.' And I said, 'what?' And he said, 'Ted Cruz, you're backing the wrong guy.' And I said, 'governor, I don't think so.' And he said, 'you don't know Texas politics.' And I said, 'I don't think you know the American people on this. And I'm new to Texas, so maybe you're right. But I think you'll be surprised by this.'"

How much of that surprise, you were not supposed to win. You were way outspent. You were way outgunned and yet you won. How much did your win here in Texas play a role in your decision to run for president?

TED: It was a very significant factor. It demonstrated that the overwhelming power of the grassroots, and that's what a lot of the Washington political establishment don't understand. In Texas, when we launched the campaign, beginning of 2011, when we started, I was literally at 2 percent in the polls. As I've often joked, the margin of error was 3 percent.

[laughter]

And, Glenn, you'll appreciate this. When I went home to Heidi and said, 'sweetheart, we're at 2 percent.

And he said, 'technically couldn't you be at negative one?'"

PAT: This is all really promising, if only you weren't Canadian. Oh, darn it. Can you believe that's come up already? You have the View crew wanting to see your birth certificate. Whoopi Goldberg was accusing you of harping on the birth certificate with Obama. Which I never saw you do. Ever.

GLENN: Did you ever do that?

TED: No.

Look, I think you can tell a lot about a person by who comes out shooting at them. I thought it was very interesting that The New York Times said yesterday, Cruz cannot possibly be the candidate because the Washington political elites hate him. And my immediate reaction was, 'gosh, do I have to declare that to the FEC as a contribution.' Because I can't summarize what we're trying tolerance better than that. If you want a candidate embraced by the Washington political elites, I ain't your guy. But look, if you want someone who will actually stand with working men and women who want to believe again in the miracle of America, want to bring power back to the people and out of Washington, then that is exactly what we're trying to do in this campaign.

STU: Senator, when President Obama announced his run in 2007, there were a lot of conservatives who said this is a first term senator who has been in office for three years, he doesn't have the experience to be president. A lot of people made that argument on the conservative side. They'll make it against you. What's your answer?

TED: I think two things. Number one, there's a real difference in my tenure in the Senate and Obama's tenure in the Senate. In his time in the Senate, he was a back bencher who did not engage in a lot of issues of consequence.

In the time I've been in there on issue after issue, I've been leading the fight to stop Obamacare, to stop amnesty to stop the debt that is crushing our kids and grandkids. To defend our constitutionally rights. But number two, unlike Barack Obama, I wasn't a community organizer before I came. I spent five and a half years as a solicitor general of Texas, representing Texas in front of the Supreme Court. And we won some of the biggest victories in the country defending conservative principles whether it was the Ten Commandments, the Pledge of Allegiance or standing up to the world court of the United Nations and defending US sovereignty and winning.

GLENN: Senator, I hate to cut you off. It's TedCruz.org. TedCruz.org. Thank you very much.

The Crisis of Meaning: Searching for truth and purpose

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

Anxiety, anger, and chronic dissatisfaction signal a country searching for meaning. Without truth and purpose, politics becomes a dangerous substitute for identity.

We have built a world overflowing with noise, convenience, and endless choice, yet something essential has slipped out of reach. You can sense it in the restless mood of the country, the anxiety among young people who cannot explain why they feel empty, in the angry confusion that dominates our politics.

We have more wealth than any nation in history, but the heart of the culture feels strangely malnourished. Before we can debate debt or elections, we must confront the reality that we created a world of things, but not a world of purpose.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

What we are living through is not just economic or political dysfunction. It is the vacuum that appears when a civilization mistakes abundance for meaning.

Modern life is stuffed with everything except what the human soul actually needs. We built systems to make life faster, easier, and more efficient — and then wondered why those systems cannot teach our children who they are, why they matter, or what is worth living for.

We tell the next generation to chase success, influence, and wealth, turning childhood into branding. We ask kids what they want to do, not who they want to be. We build a world wired for dopamine rather than dignity, and then we wonder why so many people feel unmoored.

When everything is curated, optimized, and delivered at the push of a button, the question “what is my life for?” gets lost in the static.

The crisis beneath the headlines

It is not just the young who feel this crisis. Every part of our society is straining under the weight of meaninglessness.

Look at the debt cycle — the mathematical fate no civilization has ever escaped once it crosses a threshold that we seem to have already blown by. While ordinary families feel the pressure, our leaders respond with distraction, with denial, or by rewriting the very history that could have warned us.

You cannot survive a crisis you refuse to name, and you cannot rebuild a world whose foundations you no longer understand.

We have entered a cultural moment where the noise is so loud that it drowns out the simplest truths. We are living in a country that no longer knows how to hear itself think.

So people go searching. Some drift toward the false promise of socialism, some toward the empty thrill of rebellion. Some simply check out. When a culture forgets what gives life meaning, it becomes vulnerable to every ideology that offers a quick answer.

The quiet return of meaning

And yet, quietly, something else is happening. Beneath the frustration and cynicism, many Americans are recognizing that meaning does not come from what we own, but from what we honor. It does not rise from success, but from virtue. It does not emerge from noise, but from the small, sacred things that modern life has pushed to the margins — the home, the table, the duty you fulfill, the person you help when no one is watching.

The danger is assuming that this rediscovery happens on its own. It does not.

Reorientation requires intention. It requires rebuilding the habits and virtues that once held us together. It requires telling the truth about our history instead of rewriting it to fit today’s narratives. And it requires acknowledging what has been erased: that meaning is inseparable from God’s presence in a nation’s life.

Harold M. Lambert / Contributor | Getty Images

Where renewal begins

We have built a world without stillness, and then we wondered why no one can hear the questions that matter. Those questions remain, whether we acknowledge them or not. They do not disappear just because we drown them in entertainment or noise. They wait for us, and the longer we ignore them, the more disoriented we become.

Meaning is still available. It is found in rebuilding the smallest, most human spaces — the places that cannot be digitized, globalized, or automated. The home. The family. The community.

These are the daily virtues that do not trend on social media, but that hold a civilization upright. If we want to repair this country, we begin there, exactly where every durable civilization has always begun: one virtue at a time, one tradition at a time, one generation at a time.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

A break in trust: A NEW Watergate is brewing in plain sight

Gary Hershorn / Contributor | Getty Images

When institutions betray the public’s trust, the country splits, and the spiral is hard to stop.

Something drastic is happening in American life. Headlines that should leave us stunned barely register anymore. Stories that once would have united the country instead dissolve into silence or shrugs.

It is not apathy exactly. It is something deeper — a growing belief that the people in charge either cannot or will not fix what is broken.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf.

I call this response the Bubba effect. It describes what happens when institutions lose so much public trust that “Bubba,” the average American minding his own business, finally throws his hands up and says, “Fine. I will handle it myself.” Not because he wants to, but because the system that was supposed to protect him now feels indifferent, corrupt, or openly hostile.

The Bubba effect is not a political movement. It is a survival instinct.

What triggers the Bubba effect

We are watching the triggers unfold in real time. When members of Congress publicly encourage active duty troops to disregard orders from the commander in chief, that is not a political squabble. When a federal judge quietly rewrites the rules so one branch of government can secretly surveil another, that is not normal. That is how republics fall. Yet these stories glided across the news cycle without urgency, without consequence, without explanation.

When the American people see the leadership class shrug, they conclude — correctly — that no one is steering the ship.

This is how the Bubba effect spreads. It is not just individuals resisting authority. It is sheriffs refusing to enforce new policies, school boards ignoring state mandates, entire communities saying, “We do not believe you anymore.” It becomes institutional, cultural, national.

A country cracking from the inside

This effect can be seen in Dearborn, Michigan. In the rise of fringe voices like Nick Fuentes. In the Epstein scandal, where powerful people could not seem to locate a single accountable adult. These stories are different in content but identical in message: The system protects itself, not you.

When people feel ignored or betrayed, they will align with anyone who appears willing to fight on their behalf. That does not mean they suddenly agree with everything that person says. It means they feel abandoned by the institutions that were supposed to be trustworthy.

The Bubba effect is what fills that vacuum.

The dangers of a faithless system

A republic cannot survive without credibility. Congress cannot oversee intelligence agencies if it refuses to discipline its own members. The military cannot remain apolitical if its chain of command becomes optional. The judiciary cannot defend the Constitution while inventing loopholes that erase the separation of powers.

History shows that once a nation militarizes politics, normalizes constitutional shortcuts, or allows government agencies to operate without scrutiny, it does not return to equilibrium peacefully. Something will give.

The question is what — and when.

The responsibility now belongs to us

In a healthy country, this is where the media steps in. This is where universities, pastors, journalists, and cultural leaders pause the outrage machine and explain what is at stake. But today, too many see themselves not as guardians of the republic, but of ideology. Their first loyalty is to narrative, not truth.

The founders never trusted the press more than the public. They trusted citizens who understood their rights, lived their responsibilities, and demanded accountability. That is the antidote to the Bubba effect — not rage, but citizenship.

How to respond without breaking ourselves

Do not riot. Do not withdraw. Do not cheer on destruction just because you dislike the target. That is how nations lose themselves. Instead, demand transparency. Call your representatives. Insist on consequences. Refuse to normalize constitutional violations simply because “everyone does it.” If you expect nothing, you will get nothing.

Do not hand your voice to the loudest warrior simply because he is swinging a bat at the establishment. You do not beat corruption by joining a different version of it. You beat it by modeling the country you want to preserve: principled, accountable, rooted in truth.

Adam Gray / Stringer | Getty Images

Every republic reaches a moment when historians will later say, “That was the warning.” We are living in ours. But warnings are gifts if they are recognized. Institutions bend. People fail. The Constitution can recover — if enough Americans still know and cherish it.

It does not take a majority. Twenty percent of the country — awake, educated, and courageous — can reset the system. It has happened before. It can happen again.

Wake up. Stand up. Demand integrity — from leaders, from institutions, and from yourself. Because the Bubba effect will not end until Americans reclaim the duty that has always belonged to them: preserving the republic for the next generation.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Grim warning: Bad-faith Israel critics duck REAL questions

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Bad-faith attacks on Israel and AIPAC warp every debate. Real answers emerge only when people set aside scripts and ask what serves America’s long-term interests.

The search for truth has always required something very much in short supply these days: honesty. Not performative questions, not scripted outrage, not whatever happens to be trending on TikTok, but real curiosity.

Some issues, often focused on foreign aid, AIPAC, or Israel, have become hotbeds of debate and disagreement. Before we jump into those debates, however, we must return to a simpler, more important issue: honest questioning. Without it, nothing in these debates matters.

Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

The phrase “just asking questions” has re-entered the zeitgeist, and that’s fine. We should always question power. But too many of those questions feel preloaded with someone else’s answer. If the goal is truth, then the questions should come from a sincere desire to understand, not from a hunt for a villain.

Honest desire for truth is the only foundation that can support a real conversation about these issues.

Truth-seeking is real work

Right now, plenty of people are not seeking the truth at all. They are repeating something they heard from a politician on cable news or from a stranger on TikTok who has never opened a history book. That is not a search for answers. That is simply outsourcing your own thought.

If you want the truth, you need to work for it. You cannot treat the world like a Marvel movie where the good guy appears in a cape and the villain hisses on command. Real life does not give you a neat script with the moral wrapped up in two hours.

But that is how people are approaching politics now. They want the oppressed and the oppressor, the heroic underdog and the cartoon villain. They embrace this fantastical framing because it is easier than wrestling with reality.

This framing took root in the 1960s when the left rebuilt its worldview around colonizers and the colonized. Overnight, Zionism was recast as imperialism. Suddenly, every conflict had to fit the same script. Today’s young activists are just recycling the same narrative with updated graphics. Everything becomes a morality play. No nuance, no context, just the comforting clarity of heroes and villains.

Bad-faith questions

This same mindset is fueling the sudden obsession with Israel, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in particular. You hear it from members of Congress and activists alike: AIPAC pulls the strings, AIPAC controls the government, AIPAC should register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The questions are dramatic, but are they being asked in good faith?

FARA is clear. The standard is whether an individual or group acts under the direction or control of a foreign government. AIPAC simply does not qualify.

Here is a detail conveniently left out of these arguments: Dozens of domestic organizations — Armenian, Cuban, Irish, Turkish — lobby Congress on behalf of other countries. None of them registers under FARA because — like AIPAC — they are independent, domestic organizations.

If someone has a sincere problem with the structure of foreign lobbying, fair enough. Let us have that conversation. But singling out AIPAC alone is not a search for truth. It is bias dressed up as bravery.

Anadolu / Contributor | Getty Images

If someone wants to question foreign aid to Israel, fine. Let’s have that debate. But let’s ask the right questions. The issue is not the size of the package but whether the aid advances our interests. What does the United States gain? Does the investment strengthen our position in the region? How does it compare to what we give other nations? And do we examine those countries with the same intensity?

The real target

These questions reflect good-faith scrutiny. But narrowing the entire argument to one country or one dollar amount misses the larger problem. If someone objects to the way America handles foreign aid, the target is not Israel. The target is the system itself — an entrenched bureaucracy, poor transparency, and decades-old commitments that have never been re-examined. Those problems run through programs around the world.

If you want answers, you need to broaden the lens. You have to be willing to put aside the movie script and confront reality. You have to hold yourself to a simple rule: Ask questions because you want the truth, not because you want a target.

That is the only way this country ever gets clarity on foreign aid, influence, alliances, and our place in the world. Questioning is not just allowed. It is essential. But only if it is honest.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

The melting pot fails when we stop agreeing to melt

Spencer Platt / Staff | Getty Images

Texas now hosts Quran-first academies, Sharia-compliant housing schemes, and rapidly multiplying mosques — all part of a movement building a self-contained society apart from the country around it.

It is time to talk honestly about what is happening inside America’s rapidly growing Muslim communities. In city after city, large pockets of newcomers are choosing to build insulated enclaves rather than enter the broader American culture.

That trend is accelerating, and the longer we ignore it, the harder it becomes to address.

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world.

America has always welcomed people of every faith and people from every corner of the world, but the deal has never changed: You come here and you join the American family. You are free to honor your traditions, keep your faith, but you must embrace the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. You melt into the shared culture that allows all of us to live side by side.

Across the country, this bargain is being rejected by Islamist communities that insist on building a parallel society with its own rules, its own boundaries, and its own vision for how life should be lived.

Texas illustrates the trend. The state now has roughly 330 mosques. At least 48 of them were built in just the last 24 months. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone has around 200 Islamic centers. Houston has another hundred or so. Many of these communities have no interest in blending into American life.

This is not the same as past waves of immigration. Irish, Italian, Korean, Mexican, and every other group arrived with pride in their heritage. Still, they also raised American flags and wanted their children to be part of the country’s future. They became doctors, small-business owners, teachers, and soldiers. They wanted to be Americans.

What we are watching now is not the melting pot. It is isolation by design.

Parallel societies do not end well

More than 300 fundamentalist Islamic schools now operate full-time across the country. Many use Quran-first curricula that require students to spend hours memorizing religious texts before they ever reach math or science. In Dallas, Brighter Horizons Academy enrolls more than 1,700 students and draws federal support while operating on a social model that keeps children culturally isolated.

Then there is the Epic City project in Collin and Hunt counties — 402 acres originally designated only for Muslim buyers, with Sharia-compliant financing and a mega-mosque at the center. After public outcry and state investigations, the developers renamed it “The Meadows,” but a new sign does not erase the original intent. It is not a neighborhood. It is a parallel society.

Americans should not hesitate to say that parallel societies are dangerous. Europe tried this experiment, and the results could not be clearer. In Germany, France, and the United Kingdom, entire neighborhoods now operate under their own cultural rules, some openly hostile to Western norms. When citizens speak up, they are branded bigots for asserting a basic right: the ability to live safely in their own communities.

A crisis of confidence

While this separation widens, another crisis is unfolding at home. A recent Gallup survey shows that about 40% of American women ages 18 to 39 would leave the country permanently if given the chance. Nearly half of a rising generation — daughters, sisters, soon-to-be mothers — no longer believe this nation is worth building a future in.

And who shapes the worldview of young boys? Their mothers. If a mother no longer believes America is home, why would her child grow up ready to defend it?

As Texas goes, so goes America. And as America goes, so goes the free world. If we lose confidence in our own national identity at the same time that we allow separatist enclaves to spread unchecked, the outcome is predictable. Europe is already showing us what comes next: cultural fracture, political radicalization, and the slow death of national unity.

Brandon Bell / Staff | Getty Images

Stand up and tell the truth

America welcomes Muslims. America defends their right to worship freely. A Muslim who loves the Constitution, respects the rule of law, and wants to raise a family in peace is more than welcome in America.

But an Islamist movement that rejects assimilation, builds enclaves governed by its own religious framework, and treats American law as optional is not simply another participant in our melting pot. It is a direct challenge to it. If we refuse to call this problem out out of fear of being called names, we will bear the consequences.

Europe is already feeling those consequences — rising conflict and a political class too paralyzed to admit the obvious. When people feel their culture, safety, and freedoms slipping away, they will follow anyone who promises to defend them. History has shown that over and over again.

Stand up. Speak plainly. Be unafraid. You can practice any faith in this country, but the supremacy of the Constitution and the Judeo-Christian moral framework that shaped it is non-negotiable. It is what guarantees your freedom in the first place.

If you come here and honor that foundation, welcome. If you come here to undermine it, you do not belong here.

Wake up to what is unfolding before the consequences arrive. Because when a nation refuses to say what is true, the truth eventually forces its way in — and by then, it is always too late.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.