Senator Ted Cruz - Ted Cruz's Speech at the 2014 Value Voters Summit lyrics

Thank you so very, very much, and I want to thank especially Max (sp). I think that is the youngest introducer I have ever had. (Laughter.) God bless the Value Voters Summit. (Applause.) One year ago this week, I stood on the Senate floor and said I instead to stand until I can stand no longer. (Cheers, applause.) Twenty-one hours later, together, a great many men and women across this country had elevated the debate about the disaster that is “Obamacare.” AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right! SEN. CRUZ: So in honor of that anniversary, sit back, relax. We're going to be here awhile. (Laughter.) But don't worry. You'll know we're nearing the end if and when I bring out and begin to read “The Cat in the Hat.” (Laughter.) You know, a lot of you all have gotten to know our daughters, Caroline and Catherine. Caroline is six, Catherine's three. Caroline, the six year-old, is a cynic. Absolutely nothing I've done in the U.S. Senate has impressed her at all -- (laughter) -- except for reading “Green Eggs and Ham.” And I'll tell you, when I came home, Caroline -- she was five then -- she had her arms crossed -- she looked at me and she said, “OK, dad, that was kind of cool,” -- (laughter) -- which, when your kindergartener gives you that kind of rea**urance, it's pretty good. Now, look, we all saw the news. How many of you all saw the news that a man was stopped after he climbed the fence at the White House? Yeah, the Secret Service stopped him. They said, I'm sorry, Mr. President, you have two more years left on your term. (Laughter.) That one actually came from Jimmy Fallon. (Laughter.) But, you know, we do actually -- we should actually hold the media to account, because I will say, in their reportings on this person who broke into the White House, they really have not used the politically correct term, and we should insist that ABC, NBC, CBS, they refer to the visitor according to the term that is politically correct, an undocumented White House visitor. (Laughter, applause.) I am so grateful that you all are here today standing up for our country. You know, the word tells us, weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. We are here today because every man and woman in this room knows and understands morning is coming -- morning is coming. (Cheers, applause.) We have seen that abroad. We have seen that in our lives. We have seen that at home. You look at abroad -- this conference is particularly blessed to welcome in our midst an extraordinary hero, Meriam Ibrahim. (Cheers, applause.) I just had the opportunity to visit with Meriam and her son Martin and her little baby girl, Maya, and her husband Daniel back stage. What an incredible peace and joy radiates from Meriam -- a young wife, a young mother, imprisoned, thrown into a pit, giving birth to her daughter with her legs in leg irons, sentenced by a cruel and oppressive government to receive 100 lashes and then to hang by the neck till dead for the crime of being a Christian. And the government of Sudan told Meriam, if you will only renounce Jesus, we will spare you this terrible fate. And Meriam looked at her captors, and she said I cannot and I will not renounce Christ. (Cheers, applause.) How many of us have ever had our faiths tested like that? How many of us have faced a question like that? If you start to feel hope and despair for what's happening in this country, remember that prison cell in Sudan. And I asked Meriam just a few minutes ago, in the dark of it all, how did you not lose faith? How did you not give up hope? And she responded very simply. She said: God was with me. Anyone who forgets the promise, simply remember “joy cometh in the morning.” Millions of believers across the world lifted Meriam up in prayers, spoke out in support of her, and the attention, the heat, the light was too much on the government of Sudan, and they were forced to release her. Free, free at last. (Applause.) I'm reminded of the Book of Acts, where Paul and Silas were thrown in prison, just like Meriam. And God brought an earthquake that broke the prison open. And their jailer, afraid for the consequences, began to take his own life, and Paul stopped him. And the jailed asked of the Apostle Paul, what must I do to be saved? We're seeing modern days Pauls and Silases across the world. In Iran, Pastor Saeed Abedini. Tomorrow night at the Value Voters Summit, you're also going to hear from Naghmeh Abedini, his wife, who I've visited with several times – a woman of incredible faith. She's an American. Her husband is an American. Their two little kids are American children living in Idaho. If you haven't seen it, she recorded a simple video of their children saying please, send our daddy home. Today is the two-year anniversary of the Republican Guard showing up and throwing Pastor Saeed in prison for professing his Christian faith. Two years. You know, one of the incredible things talking to Naghmeh is hearing the story about how Pastor Saeed, while in an Iranian prison, has led dozens of fellow prisoners and their jailers to Christ. (Cheers, applause.) Just as with Paul and Silas, the jailers are turning to Pastor Saeed saying, what must I do to be saved? God is president (sic) in the darkest corners. And we are standing on the promise of the Word. You know, right now this week, the government of Iran is sitting down with the United States government, swilling Chardonnay in New York City, to discuss what Prime Minister Netanyahu rightly described as an historic mistake, a very, very bad deal that tragically is setting the stage for Iran to acquire nuclear weapon capability. We so desperately need a president who will stand up and say: These discussions do not even begin until you release Pastor Saeed and send him home. (Cheers, applause.) Oh, the vacuum of American leadership we see in the world. We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, prisoners of conscience. We need a president who will stand up and say to the over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram because they're Christians, little girls sold into slavery. We need a president who will speak out for prisoners of conscience, like Kenneth Bae in North Korea; like Leopoldo Lopez in Venezuela; like Amir Hekmati in Iran; like Alan Gross in Cuba; like Sergeant Tahmooressi in Mexico. (Applause.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: Bring him home! SEN. CRUZ: Abroad we see a lot of weeping that may endure for the night, but we stand on the promise that joy is coming in the morning. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Amen. SEN. CRUZ: And part of the reason we can stand with such confidence, with such optimism, with such hope is we understand it in our own lives. This is not something abstract and theoretical. This is something each of us has lived. Many of y'all have gotten to know my father, Pastor Rafael Cruz. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: He's very, very shy, very soft-spoken – (laughter) – and beloved by the media. (Laughter.) But – OK, even the folks in the press are cracking up at that one. (Laughter.) But you know, my dad, as a teenager, experienced that same captivity. He was 14 when he began fighting in the Cuban Revolution. He was in the student council. The revolution in Cuba came from the student councils, from high school kids and from college kids. When my father turned 17, my grandparents bought him a brand-new white suit. And he went out partying, enjoying the town, because he was 17, and then he disappeared. And my grandfather went searching for him because he knew that his son had been in the underground. He searched from jail to jail to jail. My father had been thrown in a Cuban prison and tortured, beaten, hour after hour. He'd had his teeth crushed in as his head was stomped into the ground by an army boot. My grandmother told me when she saw my father again, that white suit – you could not see a spot of white anywhere on the suit. It was covered in mud and blood, and his teeth were dangling from his mouth. And yet even when he was in that Cuban jail, God was with him. By all rights, my father should have perished there, but God's hand brought him from captivity to freedom. God's grace brought him to the United States of America. (Applause.) You know, when I was a young child, my parents were living up in Calgary. They were in the oil business. And neither of my parents were people of faith at the time. Neither of them had a relationship with Christ. Both of my parents drank far too much. Both of them had serious problems with alcohol. And when I was 3 years old, my father decided he didn't want to be married anymore, and he didn't want a 3-year-old son. So he got on a plane and left Calgary, and he flew back to Texas, to Houston, and he left us. Now when he was in Houston a colleague in the oil and gas business invited my father to come with him to Clay Road Baptist Church. And my father accepted that invitation. He went to Clay Road Baptist Church, and he gave his life to Jesus. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Amen! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: And he went and bought an airplane ticket and flew back to Calgary, to rejoin my mother and to rejoin his son. So when anyone asks, is faith real, is a relationship with Jesus real, I can tell you if it were not for my father giving his life to Christ, I would have been raised by a single mother without having my dad in the home. Every one of us, we have seen firsthand that in utter darkness hope remains. As the words of “Amazing Grace” put it, how sweet the sound that saved my soul. I once was blind but now can see. What an incredible story that every one of us knows and understands in our lives. And we see it at home. We see it in our nation. There is today in America an urgency that none of us have ever seen before in politics. You know, polling today shows that 76 percent of Americans don't believe that our children will have a better life than we did. That is unprecedented, and it is fundamentally un-American. The American idea that this country was built on – every generation for centuries has believed with freedom, with standing for our values, that our kids will have a better life than we did, and their kids will have a better life than they did. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Right. SEN. CRUZ: This is a time of great crisis. But it's no greater than the crisis Meriam Ibrahim faced in that cell in Sudan. It is no greater than the crisis so many of us have faced in our own lives. You know, last night I had dinner with an Israeli friend of mine for Rosh Hashana, and he made a remarkable observation. He said, America begins with the fundamental premise of religious liberty. It's the very first thing in the Bill of Rights. It's the very first freedom upon which all our other liberties are built. This country was built on a revolutionary idea that our rights don't come from government, they come from almighty God. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! Yes! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: As the Declaration said, we hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and they're endowed, not by a king, not by a queen, not even by an all-powerful president – endowed by their Creator – AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! SEN. CRUZ: – with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We are seeing fundamental challenges, and yet we're seeing victories such as phenomenal victory for religious liberty that was the Hobby Lobby case. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: Now by a vote of 5-to-4, the Supreme Court said the federal government cannot force people of faith to abandon their faith. Think about it for a second, that that was 5-to-4. One vote difference and the outcome is different. Now there are people in Washington who say Republicans, to win, have to abandon values. AUDIENCE MEMBER: No way! It's a lie. SEN. CRUZ: You're exactly right. (Laughter.) Look, our values are who we are. Our values are why we're here. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah! AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: And our values are fundamentally American. This country remains a center-right country. This country remains a country built on Judeo-Christian values. This country remains a country that values and cherishes our constitutional liberties. (Applause.) AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right! SEN. CRUZ: And anyone who tells you differently is lying to you. AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's right. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes. SEN. CRUZ: You know, every American should know about the Little Sisters of the Poor. (Applause.) You want to talk about values? Right now the federal government is suing the Little Sisters of the Poor to try to force Catholic nuns to pay for abortion-inducing d**. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Shame on them. AUDIENCE MEMBER: They'll lose. SEN. CRUZ: You know what? The modern Democratic Party has become an extreme, radical party. AUDIENCE MEMBER: It is. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! AUDIENCE MEMBER: It is! AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: We ought to invite Hillary Clinton to spend a day debating the Little Sisters of the Poor. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes! Yes! (Applause.) SEN. CRUZ: She can embrace, yes, the federal government should be suing and fining Catholic nuns to force them to pay for abortion-inducing d**. As for me, I'll stand with the nuns. (Cheers, applause.) And a pretty good rule of thumb, by the way -- if you're suing nuns, you've done something really wrong. (Laughter.) Look, just a few weeks ago, following Hobby Lobby, the Democrats introduced legislation in the Senate to repeal the protections on religious liberty in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That act pa**ed just two decades ago with almost unanimous support, signed into law by a Democrat, Bill Clinton. There used to be bipartisan agreement regardless of our differences over marginal tax rates. We used to come together and say, we're going to respect the religious liberty of everyone. When the vote came to strip Hobby Lobby and Christian companies of their religious liberty rights -- when the vote came to strip the Little Sisters of the Poor and Catholic charities of their religious liberty rights, do you know how many Senate Democrats stood with religious liberty, stood with the Catholic Church? Zero. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Shame on them! SEN. CRUZ: It is heartbreaking. Two weeks ago, Democrats in the Senate introduced a Constitutional amendment to repeal the free speech protections of the First Amendment. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Shame on -- SEN. CRUZ: To take away the rights of the people in this room to speak out -- to give Congress the authority to determine whether your speech and my speech is, quote, “reasonable” or not. Do you know how many Democrats stood with the First Amendment against that effort? Zero. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Shame on them! SEN. CRUZ: These are dangerous, extreme, radical times. You know, in 1997, the Democrats tried something similar, and that famed right-wing activist, Ted Kennedy, spoke against it. He stood up and said, in over 200 years, we haven't amended the Bill of Rights; now is no time to start. I gave a floor speech on the Senate floor with a giant poster of Ted Kennedy's face, and that quote next to it. (Laughter, applause.) Scared my father to d**h. (Laughter.) He turned on C-SPAN and said, good God, my son's gone native. (Laughter.) How do we turn this country around? We offer a choice, not an echo. How do we turn this country around? We don't paint in pale pastels, we paint in bold colors. We're 39 days away from a pivotal election. If you want to defend the First Amendment, our free speech, our religious liberties, vote Harry Reid out. (Cheers, applause.) If you want to defend our Second Amendment, our right to keep and bear arms, vote Harry Reid out. (Cheers, applause.) If you want to defend the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, our right to privacy -- if you want to defend the 10th Amendment, then vote Harry Reid out. (Cheers, applause.) How do we win? We defend the values that are American values. We stand for life. We stand for marriage. We stand for Israel. (Cheers, applause.) We bring back jobs and opportunity and unleash small businesses to make it easier for people to achieve the American dream. (Applause.) We abolish the IRS. (Cheers, applause.) We repeal Common Core. (Cheers, applause.) In 39 days, I believe we're going to retake the United States Senate and we are going to retire Harry Reid as majority leader. (Cheers, applause.) And in 2017, with a Republican president in the White House – (cheers) – we are going to sign legislation repealing every word of “Obamacare.” (Cheers, applause.) Each and every one of you is here because you believe in our nation, you believe in our values. And I'll tell you why I'm optimistic. From the founding of our nation, America has enjoyed God's providential blessings. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Amen! AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yeah! Amen! SEN. CRUZ: At every stage in the Revolutionary War, a ragtag bunch of colonists had no prayer of defeating the mightiest army on Earth. But with God's blessings, we did so. In the Civil War that pitted brother against brother, spilled blood upon our soil to expunge the original sin of this nation of slavery, that should have rent this country apart forever. And yet, with God's blessings, this nation came back together after that bloody conflict. In World War II, standing against the grotesque evil that was the Nazis, the American people rose to the occasion and saved the free world. In the Cold War, with leadership from America, the American people rose up and we won the Cold War without firing a shot and tore the Berlin Wall to the ground. (Applause.) I'm optimistic because of you. I'm optimistic because I believe in the American people. And I'm optimistic because I am convinced God isn't done with America yet. (Applause.) We stand on the promise of the word. Weeping may endure for the night, but joy cometh in the morning. Thank you, and God bless you! (Cheers, applause.) (END)