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WATCH: Cruz Agrees It’s Inappropriate To Say ‘China Should Look Into The Biden Family’

   DailyWire.com
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) answers a question from MSNBC's Chris Hays during a panel at The Texas Tribune Festival on September 28, 2019 in Austin, Texas.
Photo by Sergio Flores/Getty Images

On Sunday, CBS’ “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan played a Saturday-taped interview with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

During the segment, Brennan asked Cruz if he believed it was appropriate for President Trump to ask China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son. Cruz replied, “Of course not.”

BRENNAN: So, China’s a surveillance state.

CRUZ: Yeah.

BRENNAN: Is it appropriate for President Trump to be saying China should look into the Biden family? Is that appropriate?

CRUZ: Look, of course not. Elections in the U.S. should be decided by Americans, and it’s not the business of foreign countries, any foreign countries, to be interfering in our elections.

Brennan followed up by asking the senator about Ukraine, and specifically Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani:

BRENNAN: Even Ukraine? I mean when you’re talking about some of this, I mean do you think that, say, the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who’s been talking about China, who’s been talking about Ukraine. Do you want to hear him testify about this sort of shadow foreign policy?

CRUZ: Listen, foreign countries should stay out of American elections. That’s true for Russia. That’s true for Ukraine. That’s true for China. That’s true for all of them. It should be the American people deciding elections. I don’t know what Rudy’s been saying. I do know though that we should decide our elections. It should be the American people making those decisions.

BRENNAN: And you do want him to testify before your committee?

CRUZ: I think it [would] make a lot of sense for Rudy to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. That’s ultimately a question for the committee chairman, Lindsey Graham, but I’d like to see Rudy testify. Yes.

Cruz’s comments come less than two weeks after the president suggested to reporters that China should investigate the Bidens.

Standing before a gaggle of press outside the White House on October 3, Trump said, “China should start an investigation into the Bidens because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.”

When asked a followup question about whether he’d spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president replied:

I haven’t, but it’s certainly something we can start thinking about because I’m sure that President Xi does not like being on that kind of scrutiny where billions of dollars is taken out of his country by a guy that just got kicked out of the Navy. He got kicked out of the Navy — all of a sudden, he’s getting billions of dollars. You know what they call that? They call that a payoff.

The next day, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) was asked about the appropriateness of such a remark. The senator stated that it was his belief that President Trump was essentially trolling the media with his China remark. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) echoed Rubio’s sentiment just days later during an interview on ABC.

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) had a decidedly different take on Trump’s remarks, as The Daily Wire previously reported:

In a written statement to the Omaha World-Herald regarding Trump’s China ask, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said, “Hold up: Americans don’t look to Chinese commies for the truth.” He added, “If the Biden kid broke laws by selling his name to Beijing, that’s a matter for American courts, not communist tyrants running torture camps.”

However, Sasse also accused Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) of “running a partisan clown show in the House.”

The suggestion that the president’s remarks were a troll of the media are somewhat undermined by the following two tweets sent on October 3 and 5:

As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!

Somebody please wake up Mitt Romney and tell him that my conversation with the Ukrainian President was a congenial and very appropriate one, and my statement on China pertained to corruption, not politics. If Mitt worked this hard on Obama, he could have won. Sadly, he choked!

After the initial exchange regarding appropriate presidential behavior, Cruz further noted that the Justice Department “should investigate violations of law … if there’s credible evidence of a violation.”

BRENNAN: So the president is often talking about the need to look in to Joe Biden. If he is so concerned, would it be in any way appropriate for him to bring it to his own Justice Department instead of talking about foreign countries looking into his political rival?

CRUZ: I have long advocated that the Justice Department should enforce the law, should investigate corruption, should investigate violations of law, regardless of party.

BRENNAN: But to be clear, you’re not calling for the Justice Department to investigate the Biden family?

CRUZ: Look, I believe the Justice Department should investigate violations of law. If there’s credible evidence of a violation of law, yes, they should investigate, and I’ll tell you what I have called for. I think President Trump wisely released the transcript of his conversation with the Ukrainian government. I think that was good because a lot of what the Democrats had been raising, alleging an illegal quid pro quo, was not in fact backed up by the transcript. But I think actually the administration should do the exact same thing for Joe Biden. That it should release the transcripts of Joe Biden’s conversations with Ukraine. Use the same standard for President Trump and Joe Biden and let the American people read the transcripts and decide.

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