Interview with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back to NEW DAY. Let's once again get back over to our friend Don Lemon. I can't enunciate. We were just joking about not enunciating our words in the break. And I fell for it.</s>DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: My third grade teacher, enunciate, Ms. Bolduan.</s>BOLDUAN: Enunciate, Don, I will.</s>LEMON: We have some breaking news. A lot of news to tell you about. We're going to start with some breaking news now -- fresh street battles breaking out overnight between riot police and protesters in Kiev's Independent Square. That has been ground zero for anti- government demonstrations. At least 20 protesters have died in the latest violence. The chaos happening despite an announced truce last night. Twenty-eight people were killed in the clashes on Tuesday. Opposition groups want Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to step down. Homeland security officials are warning all U.S. airlines to be on the lookout for shoe bombs. They're calling the threat nonspecific, but intelligence officials say terrorists are working on new more sophisticated shoe bomb designs. And they maybe targeting direct overseas flights to the United States. This morning, families in the Korea separated for more than half a century are being reunited as part of a five-day event negotiated by North and South Korea. The emotional reunions taking place in a mountain resort in North Korea. With no regular form of communications between the two Koreas, family members have gone decades without phone calls, letters or e-mails, unable to know whether their loved ones are alive or dead. Very emotional there. Major document dump could dampen the presidential hopes of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker. Thousands of pages of emails and other documents shredding -- shedding, I should say, new light on a criminal investigation that led to the conviction of six former Walker aides when he was running for governor and still Milwaukee's county executive. Prosecutors say Walker was never a target and hasn't been charged with a crime. But at least two of those aides were found guilty of performing political business on county time while Walker was mounting his campaign for governor. And a summons from Atlantic City police says that Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens knocked his fiancee unconscious during a fight last weekend. Rice and Janay Palmer were both arrested Saturday morning and charged with simple assault and domestic violence. Video posted online shows Rice lifting Palmer out of the elevator by her arms and layering her on the ground. Rice is due in court on Tuesday. Certainly disturbing. A lot of people are paying close attention to this story. It's unbelievable, yes.</s>CHRIS CUOMO, CNN ANCHOR: Bad situation, bad situation. All right. We have exclusives today. We're going to have one right now. This one, one on one with Senator Ted Cruz -- very important individual in the senate and now slamming his own party this morning. The Texas Tea Party darling angering fellow Republicans by blocking a vote to raise the debt ceiling last week. Top GOP leaders crossed the aisle to break Cruz's filibuster and possibly put themselves in jeopardy this fall. With the answer to why, CNN's Dana Bash is in Houston. She's the one that went toe to toe with the senator. And he says he has no regrets, Dana, although he may regret going toe to toe with you.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I don't know. We'll see about that, Chris. But it's absolutely true, he has no regrets. Look, the Republican leadership plan last week was to allow the debt ceiling to be increased without any Republican votes because it's so unpopular among conservatives. Well, Ted Cruz put a stop to that because he said it is trickery and he's still saying that today.</s>BASH: I did not think it was possible to hear your colleagues, your Republican colleagues, angrier at you than they were after the government shutdown. But I actually think you have topped it. That they are really, really upset with you, that you tried to stop the debt ceiling with a filibuster and forced your colleagues to take really, really tough votes that you knew would be tough for them.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R), TEXAS: Well, you know, it's interesting. I think last week actually is a perfect illustration of everything that's wrong with Washington. Republican leadership said is we want this to pass. But if every senator affirmatively consents to doing it on 51 votes, then we can all cast a vote no and go home to the constituents and say we opposed it. And, listen, that sort of show vote, that sort of trickery to the constituents is why congress has a 13 percent approval rating.</s>BASH: Now, you're talking about Republican leadership. One of the people you're talking about is your senior senator in your own party from the state, who happens to be the number two in the Senate, John Cornyn, who voted to try to stop your filibuster. Is he trying to fool Texas voters?</s>CRUZ: Listen, I like John Cornyn. He's a friend of mine. He and I have agreed on the vast majority of issues. I disagree with him on this.</s>BASH: Part of the eyebrow raising criticism of this particular filibuster is that it wasn't the kind of one you did over the shutdown. You were not there for 21 hours saying green eggs and ham, reciting that. In fact, you didn't give a speech at all. I was watching you, you were sort in the corner on the floor at your seat, and just watching the chaos quietly. So it wasn't even sort of a real filibuster. If you wanted to really block it, why didn't you talk about it?</s>CRUZ: What I said at the outset is I am not going to affirmatively consent to giving Harry Reid the authority to do this because it's irresponsible. It is selling our nation's future down the road. And, you know, you go back to the Senate lunches, I won't identify anything, but I'll tell you several people raise add question just like you did there. Why are you trying to throw five Republicans under the bus and make them vote for raising the debt ceiling? And I'll tell you my response. My response is, I don't want to throw any Republicans under the bus. I would like to see all 45 Republicans stand together and actually do what we tell our constituents.</s>BASH: "The Wall Street Journal" called you the minority maker. The idea there is that -- this is really what it's all about, is that you forced Republicans to take votes that could hurt them in their races and could put the Republican Party in a minority again. Do you not want to be in a majority? What's more important to you, being in the majority or party purity?</s>CRUZ: Dana, I want to win and turn this country around and the way we lose is not standing for anything.</s>BASH: On a human level, I know you're in Washington fighting for the grassroots, but you are a human being and you are sitting with people around you who -- I would think that you have some respect for, fellow senators in your own party. For them to be so mad at you, so mad at you, what's that like?</s>CRUZ: Oh, listen, you know, what I try to keep an eye on is that I don't work for the party bosses in Washington, I work for the 26 million in Texas.</s>BASH: But as a human being. You are a human being, does it sting?</s>CRUZ: As a human being, I can't control what they say, how they behave. I can control what I do. So, every interaction that I have with every senator, Republican or Democrat, is consistently civil, courteous, respectful, treating them with the dignity they deserve.</s>CUOMO: Dana, that's a great interview. I was so riveted. I was waiting for you to tag it. Let me ask you a question, though. Does the senator acknowledge the contempt that he tells people about for the entire process of Washington? Does he acknowledge that his strategy to date has been to obstruct? Does he own that?</s>BASH: Oh, absolutely. He doesn't use the word obstruct. He uses terms like standing up for the people here in Texas, of course. But that is what he's doing, whatever term you want to use. As you just heard, he doubles down on it even more than that. You know, what's really fascinating, Chris, is that I've been covering Congress for a while and I see the place and how it works as a club. And to watch somebody who has only been in the Senate for a little more than a year to push back against that club-like mentality in such a vigorous way, which is why I asked that human level question, he is sitting with these colleagues all day long who are so mad at him. You know, one thing for Democrats to be mad. For his fellow Republicans, it's another thing. But this is the third time I've been here in Texas in this year to interview him. I see here on the ground why he is able to be like that, because he is applauded everywhere he goes for doing what he is doing by the conservative grassroots and even beyond that here in Texas, the people who elected him. And let's just be honest about what he's doing with regard to his long term game. He doesn't deny that he wants to be president, doesn't deny that he probably will make that run. He is banking on the fact that there is a constituent out there, conservatives who -- and may others -- who are so mad at Washington that they are going to continue to applaud him for standing up against Washington and being virtually the only one to do that at times like this.</s>CUOMO: Dana, great interview. Very insightful because Ted Cruz, he is the face of half of the problem. Half of the problem is you want to go in there and obstruct people -- love that because you're exposing the game, the club as you call it. But then there's the other half. What are you going to do to make it better? Higher ambitions won't happen until that piece has been filled as well. Thank you very much for the interview. Great to have you.</s>BASH: Thanks.</s>BOLDUAN: And Dana makes an important point. And she points out, it matters because with her expertise and the year she's been covering the Senate, you don't often see someone who so quickly comes in and makes waves in this institution and has so much support who also isn't committing political suicide, who has so much support back home. Not that's just because he says wild things and reads green eggs and ham on the Senate floor that we cover him, it's because he's making waves.</s>CUOMO: He's harnessing the outrage of the people. The task as a leader is now how do you take that and then create progress. That's the part we need to see.</s>BOLDUAN: That's the part of it that we haven't seen yet. Coming up next on NEW DAY, huge deal in the tech world. Why Facebook believes an app called WhatsApp is worth $19 billion. And wait until you here the incredible rags to riches story of the messaging app's co-founder. We all love that kind of a story. We've got one for you.