Why Did Sen. Cruz Give Obama Executive Action On Iran?

This primary season has been full of blunders. Some from being less than knowledgable about areas of expertise that they are still getting up to speed on. Others from pretending to be something they are not. Some from treating nearly every woman he speaks about as though she’s an ex-wife who just took him to court.

Some blunders have less historical significance.

Others are recorded in Senate history for posterity.

Sen. Cruz on Iran is a blunder so historical it leaves me scratching my head.

Cruz and Mr. Trump were the keynote speakers at last week’s “Stop Iran Rally.” And while the rally posted lower turnout than the numbers the original rally in New York City, they still received national attention and massive TV presence.

Cruz spoke powerfully, as have most of the GOP presidential candidates as to the reasons why the Iran deal should never have been agreed to. He listed the reasons why it is so morally objectionable. He articulated the very essence of why the American people know beyond any doubt that it is the single biggest foreign policy mistake made in our lifetimes. He properly communicated why it will be seen historically as worse than Neville Chamberlain upon his return from Munich.

So imagine most Americans' surprise when they learn that Cruz actually voted to do the opposite of what every American wanted done with the deal—make it a treaty, enforceable under real Congressional teeth. Americans did not want to let President Obama use his “pen and phone” style executive order to wield foreign policy insanity.

But that’s what the senator voted for in May of this year.

I found it incredulous to even comprehend. I read the senator’s quote attempting to defend the action—but at the end of the day, the facts were—Sen. Cruz voted in favor of giving President Obama the right to treat the “treaty” with Iran, as nothing more than an executive order, rendering Congress completely useless in the process.

My mind did return to the day I heard Josh Earnest snickering from the White House press room about how they didn’t have to even go to Congress, that Congress was more or less unimportant to the deliberation’s outcome.

Turns out he was right, and in an action so bizarre, Cruz not only voted in favor of it happening that way, but he actually co-authored the language of the legislation that made it all possible.