Cruz Sets the Immigration Record Straight With Megyn Kelly

January 29, 2016

WRITER

The Context

At last night's Fox News/Google GOP Debate in Iowa, Sen. Rubio did a song and dance with Sen. Cruz on immigration. Rubio accused Cruz of supporting a bill that Rubio himself authored as part of the so-called Gang of Eight, trying to make it look like Cruz had flip-flopped his stance on immigration policy. The bill in question allowed for citizenship and legalization. Cruz had introduced a series of amendments, each designed to fix problems in the bill, but the way he handled it keeps coming back to bite him.

The Poison Pill

Rubio's immigration reform bill allowed for both citizenship and legalization. Knowing the bill would not stand without one of those key issues, Cruz proposed an amendment to remove citizenship, leaving the option of legalization. It's what's called a "poison pill," making the bill completely undesirable to the opposition. Now Rubio is trying to say that Cruz was in favor of legalization. Cruz was never in favor of legalization --- and Sen. Rubio knows it.

For the Record

Marco Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight trying to pass immigration reform. It's an extremely complex issue, and he's used that complexity to his advantage this election season to muddy his opponents positions on immigration. Truth be told, Rubio is the candidate that supports giving citizenship and legalization to people who are currently in the U.S. illegally.

"I just can't believe that Marco Rubio is allowed to distort his own record so much," Glenn said Friday on The Glenn Beck Program.

The Kelly File

So, was Megyn Kelly's line of questioning during the debate foul? She presented a series of edited clips that made it appear Sen. Cruz had flip-flopped on the issue of immigration. However, in her follow-up interview (see below), she admitted Cruz's record did not support that argument, that he had been solid on the issue of immigration.

Common Sense Bottom Line

Ted Cruz has never supported amnesty and anyone who says otherwise is playing games. Rubio authored an immigration reform bill that included citizenship and legalization for illegals. Cruz tried to block it. For Rubio to paint Cruz as supporting legalization is blatantly false.

Listen to the exchange on immigration between Megyn Kelly and Senator Cruz, beginning at about 3:45:

Below is a rush transcript of this segment, it might contain errors:

GLENN: Let's go to Mo in California. Hello, Mo.

CALLER: Well, good morning. Thank you guys so much for all you're doing. You know, I have a unique perspective. I listen to all these debates on the radio because I'm always driving. So I'm on the road a lot. I live in California.

I'm a Christian conservative. I've got seven kids, five in the military. I've served myself. So I started out a Ben Carson guy. And I always loved Ted. Now I'm a big Ted fan. I kind of switched over to Ted. I don't think last night did him any favors. I was really concerned with some of the -- him and Rubio -- Marco too, some of the clips they played, I didn't watch the clips, I had to hear them. But by listening to what they were saying, they really did a job on him. He really came across as kind of flippy-floppy. Not what I expected. I was kind of surprised. I do the best I can to read. I listen to you guys all the time. I try to keep as informed as I can. I didn't realize there was a history of changing positions and not being -- I really thought Ted was a lot more solid. I still will vote for him, no doubt.

PAT: He is solid actually.

GLENN: He is. In fact, I want to play the audio because after the debate, Megyn Kelly came up to him -- right after the chute. And she said, "Let's go over this again." Because I don't know what the hell is wrong with Ted on this. He has the best reason for doing this. And he eventually got to it with Megyn Kelly.

PAT: It took a long time though.

GLENN: But it really took a long time.

PAT: And we've looked into this. We've dug into this really deeply. We wanted to know ourselves. And he's got a reasonable explanation for it.

GLENN: I think he just doesn't want to say, "I put a poison pill out."

PAT: He doesn't.

GLENN: But that's exactly what he did, and he admitted that finally with Megyn Kelly last night. But by then, I think the damage was done. But we'll play that really fascinating interview with Megyn Kelly immediately following the debate. Next.

(OUT AT 8:33AM)

GLENN: This is the exchange with Megyn Kelly right after the debate with Ted Cruz. Listen to this.

MEGYN: Was that all an act? It was pretty convincing.

TED: You know, the amendment you're talking about is one sentence. It's 38 words. Anyone can go online on TedCruz.org and read exactly what it said. In those 38 words, it said, "Anyone here illegally is permanently ineligible for citizenship." It didn't say a word about legalization.

MEGYN: But the bill allowed both. The bill you were amending allowed citizenship and legal- --

TED: But, Megyn, the bill was 1,000 pages. I introduced a series of amendments, each designed to fix problems in the bill. The fact that each amendment didn't fix every problem didn't mean that I supported the rest of the bill.

PAT: So that was the exchange.

MEGYN: So what I was trying to get at there was, you know, the bill offered both, legalization and citizenship. And you tried to take away citizenship, which would have allowed legalization still.

But, I mean, I look back at your record a lot to see, "Did Ted Cruz really want legalization, or didn't he?" I think the record supports you, that you did not want it.

PAT: And to your point, Stu, where was that during the debate?

STU: Yeah, I like Megyn Kelly. I think she did generally a good job. This moment bothered me a little bit because she made this big montage of these clips that were like cut up in real short segments.

PAT: That made him look bad.

STU: And said, "What were you doing, just acting out there? What was the deal?"

PAT: Making him look like a flip-flopper.

GLENN: I think that's her job though. As a person in the debate, you're not supposed to -- Chris Wallace was like, "Marco Rubio, that's Ted Cruz over there. Get him." Where a job is not to flip it one way or the other. It's to present it and say, "What were you doing there? What is that? Was that a good piece of acting, or did you mean something different?" I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

STU: I just think if she went through the work and realized and came to the conclusion that he did not support this amnesty in this particular bill, it just seems to me like that should be at least a mention in -- as you're discussing it. You know, she comes here and says multiple times, "I looked at your record. You did not want amnesty. So what's the deal with the parliamentary tricks?"

I mean, that's a fair question. I think he should have to answer that, why did he do it? That's fine. But she did the homework and she came to the come conclusion that he didn't want amnesty, and the way the question came off, to me, at least was like, "Hey, you obviously wanted amnesty and then now -- and now you're saying you didn't."

Again, I'm not blaming her that she did a terrible job or anything by any means. I think she did a good job. I just wish that was part of the question. I think a lot of people in Iowa are saying, "Wow. I just saw 19 clips edited very tightly with very little context." And now Ted is sitting there saying, "Well, look, this is what I tried to do." It seems like he's on the defensive. When Megyn Kelly herself, the person asking the question, has done the math and found out that it wasn't true.

PAT: Knew the answer. Yeah.

GLENN: All right. Play the rest.

MEGYN: It does. That it really was a poison pill amendment. What I was trying to get to you was, it just seems weird for the average person to see, like, the acting when you're trying to sell it, saying I want the bill to pass.

TED: But no, no. What I said was I wanted immigration reform to pass.

MEGYN: You also said the bill.

TED: I didn't say I want the bill to pass.

MEGYN: You did. I have it. I played it. That was the very first sound bite we played. The very first one.

TED: What I said was I want immigration reform to pass, and I've laid out on my website an 11-page very, very detailed immigration plan that I would like to have passed. We've got to secure the borders. We've got to stop illegal immigration.

MEGYN: You were talking about people coming out of the shadows. It seems like acting.

TED: Well, look, what I often do, particularly when debating Democrats -- and I was debating Chuck Schumer there -- is use the language of the Democrats to show their hypocrisy. Because, you know what, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats talked about people coming under the shadows. But it wasn't about that. It was about votes.

MEGYN: And they were saying at the time that it wasn't about citizenship. And you were trying to put the lie to that? Is that the --

TED: Yes. Right.

MEGYN: As I read your testimonials on this, that's how I read it.

GLENN: Yes.

TED: No, that's exactly right. They said it was all about bringing people out of the shadows. And I said, "Well, great. Then you should be happy to take citizenship off the table." And, of course, Chuck Schumer responded, "If there is no citizenship, there is no reform. We'll kill the whole thing." And, you know, there's an old joke that the new politically correct term for illegal aliens is now undocumented Democrats. This was about votes. And that amendment laid that there. And when the hypocrisy was shown to the American people, that's one of the reasons we were able to kill it.

MEGYN: I got it.

TED: It's why Jeff Sessions said if it wasn't for Cruz -- he said, "If Ted wasn't there, they would have passed."

MEGYN: I thought is he lying about this poison pill thing? The record supports you that it was a poison pill.

PAT: Well, there you go. It took a long time to get to. But it was a poison pill. And he was doing parliamentary, he was playing parliamentary politics. He was trying to show the hypocrisy of the left.

GLENN: He was doing exactly what we said he was doing about three months ago.

PAT: Yeah. That's right.

GLENN: Because we looked at it as well.

PAT: And, by the way, Marco Rubio was part of that. They were part -- he was part of the Gang of Eight trying to get that bill passed. He helped write it.

GLENN: But I just can't believe that Marco Rubio is allowed to distort his own record so much.

PAT: I know. I know.

STU: It is comical.

PAT: It's amazing.

GLENN: He's flipped him.

STU: What Rubio was accusing Cruz of inaccurately is -- as an attack --

PAT: Is what he has done?

STU: He's like, "You, jerk, you used to believe the thing that I believed."

PAT: Right.

STU: It's like, wait a minute. So you're saying -- your attack against him is that he may have supported part of the bill that you wrote. That's not -- that shouldn't be a good attack. But it seemed -- it seems to be --

PAT: It's weird that it seems to be working.

STU: You could argue I guess that it's just people trying to hide their record or something, and that's what he's attacking. But the huge negative you'd be accusing Cruz of was saying the same thing you believed then too. And, by the way, that's not true.

PAT: And part of what Rubio said last night was that Cruz is now trying to out-Trump, Trump. Well, Trump is for a path to citizenship. Trump has been the one that's been trumpeting, there's got to be a way for these people to become legal citizens.

STU: You can't kick out people who have been living here 20 years. You can't do that. You can't get them all.

PAT: He just said that.

GLENN: Do you have the audio of that?

PAT: Yeah, I'll have to find that.

GLENN: 68 percent of Iowans still have not made up their mind.

STU: It's amazing.

GLENN: It really is. It really is. This is the weekend most people begin to make their mind up in Iowa, studies show. Tomorrow and the next day.

Featured Image: Fox News anchor and debate moderator Megyn Kelly speaks with Republican Presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) after the Republican Presidential debate sponsored by Fox News and Google at the Iowa Events Center on January 28, 2016 in Des Moines, Iowa. The Democratic and Republican Iowa Caucuses, the first step in nominating a presidential candidate from each party, will take place on February 1. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Breaking point: Will America stand up to the mob?

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

Get ready for sparks to fly. For the first time in years, Glenn will come face-to-face with Megyn Kelly — and this time, he’s the one in the hot seat. On October 25, 2025, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, Glenn joins Megyn on her “Megyn Kelly Live Tour” for a no-holds-barred conversation that promises laughs, surprises, and maybe even a few uncomfortable questions.

What will happen when two of America’s sharpest voices collide under the spotlight? Will Glenn finally reveal the major announcement he’s been teasing on the radio for weeks? You’ll have to be there to find out.

This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

Get your tickets NOW at www.MegynKelly.com before they’re gone!

What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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