Ted Cruz: 'Social worker' Obama wants to fight ISIS with 'expanded Medicaid'
In an appearance on Fox News' Hannity, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz lamented the fact that the president and U.S. military leaders sound too much like "social workers" and not enough like soldiers.
According to The Hill blog, Cruz fretted that renewed combat operations against the terror group ISIS are really just a move to implement socialist policies abroad, calling it international Medicaid expansion.
President Barack Obama's response to ISIS thus far, said Cruz, has been "fundamentally unserious," as have the responses from other members of the president's cabinet.
"When I asked Gen. Dempsey, militarily, how would we go in and kill the terrorists before they're able to take jihad to America, his answer was, 'Well, we need to see political reconciliation,'" said Cruz to Sean Hannity. "'We need to change the conditions on the ground so people are not susceptible to extremism.'"
"Look," Cruz said, "it's not our job to be social workers in Iraq and put them all on expanded Medicaid. It is our job to kill terrorists who have declared war on America and who have demonstrated the intention and capability to murder innocent Americans."
"I mean, frankly, their answers were far more those you would expect of a social worker than of military leaders," he said at another point in the interview.
In a speech on Wednesday afternoon, President Obama reiterated that he does not intend to send ground troops to Iraq, that his strategy includes bombing runs in Iraq and Syria, but that the U.S. is not headed back into full-scale military operations in the still-unstable region.
"I will not commit you, and the rest of our armed forces, to fighting another ground war in Iraq," the president told a group of troops stationed at U.S. Central Command in Tampa, FL.
Watch video of Ted Cruz's remarks, embedded below:
[hat-tip to Talking Points Memo]
[Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R), screencap]