In the wake of a deadly mass shooting in California, Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) told the Washington Free Beacon that these incidents should serve as a warning that the "threat of radical Islamic terrorists murdering innocents is growing graver and graver."
Cruz, who spoke to the Free Beacon following a presidential candidates forum hosted by the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that while "the details are still murky" about what motivated 28-year-old Syed Rizwan Farook to allegedly gun down a room full of people, the threat posed by radical terrorists in the United States is growing unabated.
"Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of those murdered and injured in San Bernardino, and all of us are obviously concerned that this was a manifestation of radical Islamic terrorism," Cruz said. "In the wake of the Paris attack, that threat of radical Islamic terrorists murdering innocent Americans is growing graver and graver."
Farook, an American citizen, was a "very religious" Muslim, according to his father.
"He was very religious. He would go to work, come back, go to pray, come back. He’s Muslim," the elder Farook told the New York Daily News.
Cruz said that the threat posed to the United States by Islamic State terrorists and other radicals is growing as the Obama administration continues to look the other way.
"Our enemies are at war with us, even if President Obama refuses to acknowledge or admit it," Cruz said. "They are waging a war to murder innocent Americans, and we need a commander in chief who not only will recognize the threat but will stand and lead to defeat radical Islamic terrorism, to utterly destroy [the Islamic State, also known as ISIS] and ensure that under no circumstances Iran acquires nuclear weapons."
Incidents such as this "underscore the stakes in the next election," Cruz said.
Asked about the Obama administration’s plan to allow more than 10,000 Syrian refugees to resettle in the United States, Cruz described the proposal as "nothing short of lunacy."
American authorities lack the ability to properly vet these individuals, and could potentially grant terror-linked individuals asylum in the United States, Cruz said.
"President Obama and Hillary Clinton’s plan to bring tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to America is nothing short of lunacy," he said. "President Obama’s own FBI director told Congress that the Obama administration cannot vet the refugees to determine whether or not they are ISIS terrorists."
Essentially, the administration has "no information as to which Syrians are involved with ISIS or jihadists so they can query the database till the cows come home and get no results," Cruz said.
Yet, Obama and his allies remain wedded "to their politically correct obsession to not even acknowledge radical Islamic terrorism," Cruz said. "They are insisting on bringing refugees to this country even though the FBI cannot tell us whether or not they are terrorists."
Cruz is the Senate sponsor of legislation that would bar the Obama administration from accepting any new refugees from countries in which terror organizations control a significant amount of territory.
The bill specifically targets Libya, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen due to the presence of Islamic State militants and other radical terror forces.