Victory speech in Iowa

TED CRUZ

Support a candidate who spent decades of his life fighting to defend life and marriage and religious liberty. If you want a candidate to defend the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, then ask of every candidate, “Where were you in the spring of 2013 when Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer tried to undermine the second amendment right to keep and bear arms?”

If you want a candidate who will stand unapologetically with the nation of Israel, then support a candidate who has led the fight over and over again to stand by our friend and ally, the nation of Israel.

And if you want a commander in chief who will fulfill the most solemn obligation of the president to keep this nation safe, then support a candidate who has demonstrated the commitment, the judgment, the experience, the clarity of vision, to identify our enemy, to call it by its name, radical Islamic terrorism, and to utterly and completely defeat ISIS. If I am elected president, every militant on the face of the planet will know, if you go and join ISIS, if you wage jihad on the United States of America, if you attempt to murder innocent Americans you are signing your death warrant.

And I’ll tell you this. If the other states across the country follow the lead of the good men and women of Iowa, and support this campaign, then I tell you this: This July, in Cleveland, you will hear these words spoken from the podium of the unified Republican convention:

Tonight, I want to say to every member of the Democratic party, who believes in limited government, in personal opportunity and the United States Constitution, and a safe and secure America: come home. To the Reagan Democrats, your party has left you, and the Republican Party wants you, we welcome you back. Because together, this year, Republicans and the Reagan Democrats can send an unmistakable message, the message of a Reagan-like landslide that once and for all will drive the liberal elites and the Washington cartel into the Potomac and out to sea, never to be seen again. Together, we can bring out a new era of economic growth, of military strength, of international security and the future of hope that our children deserve. If we commit to do more than hope, if we aspire to govern by a higher standard, a standard that transcends political party and race and gender and income, and to everyone that is tired of a president that divides us daily on racial lines, on ethnic lines, on religious lines, on gender lines, on socioeconomic lines, we will have a president that once again seeks to bring us together and unite us on our shared values of who we are as Americans.

The most solemn responsibility of the president is to keep this country safe. And we will stop the weakness and appeasement; we will stop making excuses for global bullies and terrorists and rather, simply do what it takes to defeat them. I give you my solemn promise. We will finally, finally, finally secure the borders and end sanctuary cities.

And I want to speak for a moment to the soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines, I want to speak to the moms and dads who have a child serving overseas; I want to speak to the husbands and wives who wake up at night wondering if their loved one is still alive; I want to speak to the little kids who have been waiting months upon months to get a hug from daddy, a kiss from mommy; to all of our fighting men and women who have been sent into combat with their arms tied behind their back with rules of engagement that are wrong, that are immoral; that will end on January 2017. You will have a commander in chief who finally has your back.

And to the police officers, and the firemen, and the first responders, the heroes who rushed into burning buildings instead of out of burning buildings, the last seven years of having a president, having an attorney general that demonizes you, that vilifies you, that sides with the criminals and looters instead of the brave men and women of law enforcement, that will end on January 20, 2017.

So tonight, the state of Iowa, the Democrats here seem to be in a virtual tie, between one candidate, who admits he’s a socialist, and the other candidate who pretends she’s not. I wish them both luck. But I will tell you this, as Margaret Thatcher observed, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money.

And let me tell you tonight, I cannot wait to stand on that debate stage with Hillary Clinton.

We will win by speaking the truth with a smile. The truth is the American people are fed up with Washington, with a corrupt class that enriches itself and leaves behind the working men and women of this country. The truth is the American people are fed up with a federal government that views the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as a rough draft, as an inconvenience, as something to be set aside, and we are ready to get back to the vision of the framers, of protecting the unalienable rights given to each of us by our Creator.

You know, the reason all of you are here is the same reason I am here; the same reason Heidi and I have spent every waking moment for the last year: We love our kids, our girls, Caroline and Catherine, at age seven and age five.

Every one of us here, when we go to bed at night, we think, “What kind of world are we leaving our kids? Are we giving our children a brighter future? Are we giving our children what our parents gave us? A country with greater freedom, greater opportunity, more promise, more hope?”

You want to know why I’m getting on a plane in about an hour and flying all night to New Hampshire to knock on doors and sit down and visit with people and ask for their support?

The reason is simple: Because when I look my girls in the eyes, ten, twenty years from now, I am not going to tell them, “We could have stood up and saved this country, but we didn’t do everything we could.” Instead, I’m going to tell them: “Millions of Americans saw that America was in jeopardy and we rose up together and said, ‘We are going to preserve this nation for our children and grandchildren.’”

To those who supported other candidates in this race, the Republican Party is so blessed to have a bounty of talented young dynamic candidates, people who are friends, people who I like and respect. To those who supported other candidates, I will tell you, each of them, we welcome you as part of our team. Because if we stand together as one, if the American people stand together and say, “We want our country back,” there is no force in Washington that can stand against the American people, that can stand against the grassroots, that can stand against our unity. We are going to do this together, as a movement from the people. And I tell you tonight, Iowa has made clear to America and the world, morning is coming.

Morning is coming.

Thank you and God bless you.