After the release of the Senate torture report in 2014, Cruz told the Heritage Foundation that “Torture is wrong. Unambiguously. Period. The end.” Cruz has said that “America does not need torture to protect itself,” and last June, he voted for an amendment sponsored by Sen. John McCain, which required that overseas interrogations comply with regulations in the U.S. Army Field Manual.
Cruz’s stand on torture put him at odds with many of his Republican colleagues. Twenty-two Republican senators opposed the amendment, including rival presidential candidate Marco Rubio. According to a new Pew Survey, a large majority of Republican voters — 73 percent — think torture can be justified against people suspected of terrorism.
At Saturday’s Republican debate, when Cruz was asked whether waterboarding is torture, he replied that it is not. “Under the law, torture is excruciating pain equivalent to losing organs and systems,” he said. So waterboarding “does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.”
President George W. Bush adopted a similar position: He admitted that he authorized waterboarding on national television, while maintaining that “The United States does not torture. It’s against our laws, and it’s against our values. I have not authorized it, and I will not authorize it.”
During Saturday’s debate, Cruz went on to say that he would bring waterboarding back, but not “in any sort of widespread use.”
GOP frontrunner Donald Trump said that he would “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding.” Cruz’s more limited endorsement of torture led Trump, at a rally on Monday, to repeat an insult from the crowd, calling Cruz a “pussy.”
