Cruz: GOP Will Win Senate, And Unraveling Biden’s Assault On Religion Will Be First Priority

Republicans are done taking the Biden administration’s assault on liberty sitting down, claimed Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in an interview with The Federalist. He said that means stopping the executive branch’s attempts to erode Americans’ constitutional rights, one sweeping order at a time.

When Covid tyranny terrorized Americans who wanted to proceed with work, school, and life as normal, Cruz stood up to fight. He introduced a bill to ban vaccine passports, proposed legislation to end the Biden administration’s mask mandate on federal grounds, pressed U.S. military academies over their refusal to offer shot exemptions to soldiers, and fought for Navy SEALs who were torn between obeying orders to get the jab and their convictions.

In his latest move to preserve Americans’ rights, Cruz, among 38 other Republican legislators, signed an amicus brief in support of federal workers who oppose the Biden administration’s “illegal vaccine mandate” on religious grounds. When I talked with Cruz last Thursday he said, above all, religious liberty requires the utmost attention and care because its degradation affects the exercise of every other constitutional right.

“It is not by accident that religious liberty is the very first liberty protected in the very first clause of the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Religious liberty is foundational to every other liberty,” Cruz said. “America was founded by men and women fleeing religious persecution, coming to a land where each of us could worship the Lord God Almighty with all our hearts, minds and souls without government getting in the way.”

Cruz has championed the free exercise of religion long before many in the Republican Party recognized just how severe the left’s quest to undermine the First Amendment would become.

Ever since Cruz graduated high school in the 1980s, he says, he’s been aware of how serious is the risk of losing religious liberties in the United States. As solicitor general of Texas, private practice attorney, and now senator, Cruz fought for the rights of Texans and Americans to display the Ten Commandments on state capitol grounds, to keep a Latin cross honoring World War I veterans, and to keep “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.

“Religious liberty has been a lifelong passion for me,” Cruz said.

Cruz knows that the battle to protect Americans’ freedom of religion often plays out in the courts, but says senators like him still have major responsibilities in protecting the First Amendment’s guarantees to Americans through what is supposed to be the dominant branch of the federal government, the legislature.

Since Joe Biden assumed the presidency, the Democrat-controlled Senate has confirmed 75 federal judges he’s appointed, 24 more than Trump secured despite his party also holding the legislative majority in the same timeframe. That indicates Democrats have been more successful than Republicans in achieving their judicial goals while in both the minority and majority.

Cruz, who sits on the Senate judiciary committee, said Biden’s judges, most of whom have publicly displayed hostility towards the First and Second Amendments, are “one of the reasons why control of the Senate is so critically important.”

“Chuck Schumer as majority leader has leaned impressively to ramming through radical and extreme judges,” Cruz said. “And I’ve got to say, it has been breathtaking to see the zealots that the Biden administration has appointed. These judicial nominees had been the most extreme of any president in the history of this country. Over and over again he has nominated radicals and extremists.”

Cruz didn’t offer a specific plan to tackle Biden’s successful judicial appointment frenzy, but he did say that he expects “that pace of confirmation to slow dramatically” in coming years.

“Biden will know that if he puts radicals and Marxists and zealots forward, that a Republican Senate majority will not move to confirm those nominees,” Cruz said.

Earlier this year, three Republican senators voted to confirm Biden’s first Supreme Court nominee, Ketanji Brown-Jackson, despite her clear record of anti-Constitution positions. Those senators were Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has put significant campaign dollars behind each.

The Time For The GOP To Act Is Now

Cruz refused twice to directly answer whether he thinks McConnell is still the best fit to lead the GOP on its quest to protect Americans’ rights. Each time The Federalist asked him this, Cruz started talking about completely different topics without mentioning McConnell’s name.

But the Texan’s reluctance to offer a verdict on his party leader didn’t stop him from expressing confidence that Republicans would work to protect Americans’ constitutional rights, including religious liberty, once they regain control of the upper chamber.

“If and when Republicans win a majority — and I am optimistic and even confident that we will win a majority in the House and that we’ve got a very good chance to win a majority in the Senate — it’s my intention to continue leading the fight to defend both religious liberty and our rights to bodily autonomy and not having the government try to force you, whether or not you decide to take a Covid vaccine,” Cruz said.

When Republicans do regain power, they must use it wisely and effectively. For Cruz, that doesn’t just mean protecting religious liberty. It also includes pushing for a “serious and thorough housecleaning” of the FBI, the Department of Justice, and all U.S. intelligence agencies.

“When we have a Republican majority, I expect serious oversight of those agencies. And when we have the next Republican president, I very much hope that he or she appoints strong leaders to those agencies that will remove the corrupted and politicized career senior leadership that has done enormous damage to the credibility of those agencies,” Cruz said.

That “politicized career senior leadership” includes Attorney General Merrick Garland, whom Cruz said has damaged the credibility of the DOJ beyond recognition.

“He has been content to use DOJ as the political enforcers of the Biden White House right down to directing the FBI to target parents as domestic terrorists, using authority such as the Patriot Act. That was abusive, it was wrong, and we need leadership from Congress and, ultimately, the executive to stop it,” Cruz sait.

Just like the threat to religious liberty grew to the forefront in American politics in just a few decades, Cruz said Garland’s rampage against true justice is the result of years of corruption that rooted itself in powerful, bureaucratic agencies due to the lack of accountability imposed by Congress.

“This politicization started under Barack Obama. It metastasized and burrowed deeply into the senior career positions under President Trump. And now, under Biden, we see law enforcement, the Department of Justice, and FBI more politicized than ever. What Richard Nixon tried to do to use the machinery of government as a weapon to punish his political opponents, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden has succeeded in doing,” Cruz explained, noting he has a new book coming out next month on the subject.

Despite the Biden administration’s constant assault on Americans’ liberty, Cruz is optimistic that the GOP is ramping up to push past letter-writing campaigns and made-for-TV hearings and take real action to protect Americans from the increasing threat of a government and an opposition party that despises the Constitution.

“I’m working night and day between now and Election Day to help us win the elections to give us that [power],” Cruz said.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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