The political funny season continues as Republican presidential candidates, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, continue to exchange barbs as they jockey into position to try to win over the conservative base of their political party.
Senator Rubio took a jab at Cruz at the Wall Street Journal‘s CEO Council in Washington, saying that his colleague in the Senate “voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence programs…and the weakening of our intelligence gathering capabilities leaves American vulnerable.”Rubio is referring to the USA Freedom Act, of which he voted ‘Nay’, and Cruz voted ‘Yay.’
In short, the USA Freedom Act restored several provisions of the expiring Patriot Act, including reauthorization of roving wiretaps and new limits on the collection of metadata on U.S. citizens by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Do you think the 2nd Amendment will be destroyed by the Biden Administration?(2)
Here is the official summary of the bill found on Senate.gov:
Cruz’s campaign spokesman Rick Tyler asked if Rubio thought that “Senators Scott, Ayotte, and Grassley also ‘voted to weaken the U.S. intelligence programs?”A bill to reform the authorities of the Federal Government to require the production of certain business records, conduct electronic surveillance, use pen registers and trap and trace devices, and use other forms of information gathering for foreign intelligence, counterterrorism, and criminal purposes, and for other purposes.
Tyler forgot to mention that another Republican that supposedly voted to weaken U.S. intelligence agencies was Senator Corey Gardner (R), who recently endorsed Senator Rubio for president.
Ouch.
Here are the other Republicans Rubio believes voted to weaken U.S. intelligence capabilities:
Senators Mike Lee, Cassidy, Cornyn, Daines, Flake (Gang of Eight cosponsor), Kirk, Johnson, Inhofe, Hoeven, Heller, Murkowski, Rounds, Sullivan, and Vitter.
But if Rubio thinks that Cruz’s vote weakens U.S. national security, can’t the same be said about Rubio’s cosponsoring and support of the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill of 2013?Rubio’s bill, which was endorsed by President Obama, offered amnesty for illegal immigrants, and failed to deliberately address the known radical Islamic threat that exists just across the U.S. border.
