Ted Cruz Smears Obama With Lie That The President Released Iranian Terrorists

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During an interview on Fox News Sunday, Ted Cruz smeared President Obama with outrageous lie that the President released Iranian terrorists in exchange for four American prisoners.
Transcript of Cruz via Fox News Sunday:

CRUZ: Well, listen, praise God that the prisoners are coming home, that the Americans are coming home. You know, in particular, millions of believers across the world have been lifting up Pastor Saeed Abedini in prayer and speaking out for his case. And so, we celebrate their coming home, Jason Rezaian, Amir Hekmati, the fourth individual. We celebrate all of them coming home.

I spoke yesterday briefly to Naghmeh, Pastor Saeed’s wife, who I’ve gotten to know very well, and we’re all very grateful he’s coming.

But at the same time, this deal is a problematic deal, and it reflects a pattern we have seen in the Obama administration over and over again of negotiating with terrorists, and making deals and trades that endanger U.S. safety and security.

This deal has a lot of deals in common with the Bowe Bergdahl deal, where in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl — someone now facing court-martial — we released five senior Taliban terrorists.

And this instance, this deal to bring back Americans who were wrongly imprisoned, we release seven terrorists who helped Iran with their nuclear program and we agreed not to prosecute another 14 terrorists for doing the same thing. That’s 21 terrorists helping Iran develop nuclear weapons that they intend to use to try to murder us.

And I think it’s a very dangerous precedent. The result of this, every bad actor on earth has been told go capture an American. If you want terrorists out of the jail, capture an American and President Obama is in the let’s make a deal business. That’s a really dangerous precedent.

Cruz was lying. There were no terrorists released in exchange for the four Americans that were being held in Iran. The Washington Post reported that the seven Iranians were arrested for violating trade sanctions, “President Obama offered clemency to seven Iranians charged with violating U.S. trade sanctions against Iran as part of a historic prisoner agreement with Iran that freed four Americans Saturday, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian.”

These people were not terrorists. They were not committing acts of terror. Cruz lied, but Fox News Sunday’s Chris Wallace didn’t bother to correct the lie. In typical Fox News fashion, Wallace left the untrue statement unchallenged so that it can be repeated throughout conservative media.

The White House specifically refused to release any Iranian with ties to terrorism. Ted Cruz and Fox News can’t give Obama credit for a job well done, so they are lying about what really happened.

Cruz is relying on that old Republican trick of the false Obama that only resides in their heads. Cruz’s is playing to the Republican belief in the false Obama, who is weak and incompetent so he releases terrorists which make America less safe.

Ted Cruz knows exactly what is in the agreement that brought the American prisoners home. He didn’t make a mistake. Cruz lied, and in the process smeared the President Of The United States.

Sen. Cruz’s willingness to throw away the truth demonstrates why he is completely unfit to be the nation’s next Commander In Chief.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association