Ted Cruz took a swipe at fellow fellow Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio for siding with Hillary Clinton on war with Libya in 2011.
In an interview in Iowa with Bloomberg, Cruz chided Rubio for “emphatically” supporting Clinton in toppling Muammar Gadhafi in Libya.
“I think that made no sense,” Cruz said. “Qaddafi was a bad man, he had a horrible human rights record. And yet … he had become a significant ally in fighting radical Islamic terrorism.”
“The terrorist attack that occurred in Benghazi was a direct result of that massive foreign policy blunder,” he added, referring to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on a U.S. consulate that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead.
In 2011, Rubio sent a letter to Senate leadership pushing for the passage of a resolution that would authorize President Obama’s push for military action in Libya. The resolution, he wrote “should also state that removing Muammar Qaddafi from power is in our national interest and therefore should authorize the President to accomplish this goal.”
Cruz also bashed Rubio and Clinton for their support of a no-fly zone and moderate rebel groups in Syria, saying the U.S. has “no dog in the fight” of the civil war.
He added that Rubio and Clinton are “are repeating the very same mistakes they made in Libya. They’ve demonstrated they’ve learned nothing.”
The Texas senator’s criticisms of Rubio echo that of another Republican presidential candidate: Rand Paul. In an interview with CNN earlier this month, Paul said he sees Rubio and Clinton as the same person.
“They both wanted a no-fly zone. They both have supported activity in Libya — the war in Libya that toppled Gadhafi, an intervention that made us less safe,” Paul said. “They both have supported pouring arms into the Syrian civil war, a mistake that I think allowed ISIS to grow stronger. And they both have supported the Iraq war. So I mean, what’s the difference?”
