Cruz on Rubio: ‘Talk is Cheap’

After a pair of stellar debate performances, Sen. Ted Cruz has Sen. Marco Rubio in his crosshairs, aiming squarely at the Florida senator’s history of supporting amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“Talk is cheap. You know where someone is [on an issue] based on their actions,” Cruz said during a Thursday interview on “The Laura Ingraham Show” when he was asked about Rubio’s past support for amnesty. “As the Scripture says, you shall know them by their fruits.”

Cruz’s comments suggest a significant new rivalry is shaping up within the GOP field pitting the two youngest contenders against each other, each representing a wing of the party: Cruz, the conservative base, and Rubio, the Establishment.

Cruz presaged Thursday’s direct criticism of Rubio when he took a strong line against amnesty during Tuesday’s Fox Business News debate. “If Republicans join Democrats as the party of amnesty, we will lose,” Cruz thundered.

In a recently released ad, the Cruz-aligned Courageous Conservatives Super PAC hammered Rubio for having no accomplishments in Congress other than his participation in the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform effort.

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The Gang of Eight proposal was put together by a cadre of senators in 2013, which included incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, and was supported by President Obama.

The bill the group put forward included gaping loopholes that would have allowed amnesty and taxpayer-funded benefits for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants currently living in the nation.

A 2013 report from then-Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jeff Sessions concluded that the Rubio, Schumer, Obama backed measure would offer legal status to an additional 32 million newcomers over the course of ten years.

Cruz, who has referred to Rubio as a “formidable moderate,” has a stocked campaign armory at his disposal to potentially savage his Florida adversary on the issue of amnesty.

Cruz noted on Ingraham’s show that he introduced amendments to triple the border control, quadruple the number of aircraft patrolling the border, create strong E-Verify requirements and strengthen enforcement of people who overstay visas.

Rubio, said Cruz, “opposed every single one of them.”

The Texas senator, who has referred to Rubio as a “formidable moderate,” has a stocked campaign armory at his disposal to potentially savage his Florida adversary on the issue of amnesty if he sees Rubio as his main opponent for the nomination.

Cruz is armed with the the most cash on hand of any Republican contender, with $13.8 million, according to the most recent fundraising reports, and several Cruz-aligned Super PACs have only just begun to tap their vast war chests.

Cruz can thank still-current frontrunner Donald Trump for bringing the immigration issue to the forefront of the GOP contest, but the Texas senator moved decisively to take ownership of the issue during Tuesday’s debate.

“I can tell you, for millions of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue,” Cruz said, “I will say the politics of it will be very, very different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press. Then, we would see stories about the economic calamity that is befalling our nation.”

Rubio has been largely mum on Cruz so far, holding most of his jabs for fellow establishment contender Jeb Bush.

With less than 80 days until Iowa, the two senators, one populist, one Establishment, are both gaining steam and are on a path to full-on collision for the chance to topple outsider frontrunners.