Cruz, Kelly say media hyping GOP spats with pope

Fox News host Megyn Kelly and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, agreed Tuesday night that the press is trying to advance a story that Pope Francis agrees with Democrats on climate change and income inequality, but is also working to obscure the fact that Democrats in Congress oppose a ban on 20-week abortions, and that the Obama administration is suing a Catholic charity.

“Pope Francis has been an incredible voice for life … for marriage … for religious liberty, and on all three of them we’re seeing an assault that’s unprecedented in the history of our country,” Republican presidential candidate Cruz told Kelly.

Kelly said some in the media are suggesting “Republicans are going to have to avoid photo-ops with the pope” because they disagree with Pope Francis on the issues of climate change and immigration. She said that while the media keep highlighting the issues where the pope and the GOP diverge, they fail to mention that the Obama administration is suing the Little Sisters of the Poor in order to force the religious order to provide contraception, and Cruz agreed.

“The Democrats and the media don’t want to talk about the fact that today, Senate Democrats stood virtually united in support of late-term abortion. They don’t want to talk about these horrifying Planned Parenthood videos that show them selling the body parts of unborn children,” said Cruz. “They don’t want to talk about the assault on marriage that Pope Francis has stood up against. And they certainly don’t address the continued assault on religious liberty.”

“This is an administration … that is litigating against a Catholic charity, the Little Sisters, attempting to force the nuns to pay millions of dollars of fines under Obamacare, in order to try to force them to pay for abortion inducing drugs,” said Cruz.

“It’s radical and extreme and I’m curious if the mainstream media will ask Democrats how they feel about litigating against nuns while the Holy Father is here in America,” he said.

“The media chooses to focus on the divide between the Republican Party and this pope … but where is the focus on the fact that he’s going to go address a joint session of Congress that just today refused to sign off on a ban of 20-week abortions, of a 5-month-old baby in the womb?” asked Kelly rhetorically. “They stood up and said ‘We don’t want to ban that, even if there’s an exception for the life of the mother, we’re still not going to get behind that.’ That is not highlighted.”

As further evidence of bias, she cited a Monday New York Times article titled: “In Pelosi, Strong Catholic Faith and Abortion Rights Coexist.”

“That’s fine, you can coexist if you’re pro-choice,” she said of the story that indicated Democrats can safely disagree with the pope on some issues. “But if you want to coexist when it comes to income inequality or immigration, you need to avoid your photo-ops with the pope.”

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