Only four days after Bernie Sanders came to town, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz also made Binghamton a stop on his campaign trail.
Around 1,500 people packed into the Forum Theatre in Downtown Binghamton on Friday morning to hear him speak. Cruz, a senator from Texas, participated in a question-and-answer session held by Sean Hannity, the host of “The Sean Hannity Show.” The segment will be broadcast on the Fox News Channel on Friday night.
“I’m so honored to see such a huge crowd here,” Hannity said to loud cheers from the crowd before introducing Cruz. “America needs to have a major change in direction.”
The question-and-answer-style event, which lasted just under an hour, covered topics from job growth in America to fighting terrorist groups overseas. Members of the audience shouted both praise and criticism at Cruz throughout the event, after Hannity announced “there is only one rule, which is there are no rules.”
Hannity began by asking Cruz about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Unlike Democratic presidential candidate Sanders, who praised Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s bill banning fracking, Cruz focused on the negative effect the bill has had on job growth in the area.
“We are seeing all across this country an energy renaissance, and Democratic politicians in New York and California, where the resources are, won’t allow us to develop them,” Cruz said. “And the answer, my number-one priority as president, is bringing jobs and economic growth back to this country.”
In response to a question on debt in the United States, Cruz stated that the situation could be resolved by focusing on small businesses instead of federal debt-decreasing initiatives.
“There is one way, and that is to bring economic growth back,” Cruz said. “The heart of our economy doesn’t come from Washington D.C., it comes from small businesses all across this country.”
Terrorist organizations such as ISIS have made their way into presidential campaign conversations, especially among Republican candidates. Cruz made it clear that he does not believe that there is currently enough being done to combat terror threats.
“I think there are a lot of Americans who are fed up with a president who follows every terror attack by going on TV, refusing to name our enemy, and instead lecturing us on Islamophobia,” Cruz said.
Cruz’s main competitor for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump, has taken a clear stance on America accepting refugees from the Middle East. Cruz has taken a similar viewpoint, stating that there is no way to ensure immigrants coming to the United States are not terrorists.
“ISIS has told us they intend to infiltrate those refugees,” Cruz said. “With the Paris terror attacks, they infiltrated those refugees. James Comey, the head of the FBI, told Congress that they cannot vet the Syrian Muslim refugees to determine if they are ISIS terrorists. If I am elected president, we are not going to be letting in Middle Eastern Muslim refugees.”
Torrey Barlow, a first-year graduate student at Binghamton University studying mechanical engineering, said that he was excited for the New York primaries because they will play a major part in the election. As a libertarian, he said Cruz’s views were most closely aligned with his.
“I like Ted Cruz because he’s my biggest ally when it comes to limited government and conservative values,” Barlow said. “He’s someone who cares about people like me, so I’m here to support him.”
Stephen Flagg, the Broome County majority leader and the first legislative district representative, said he was thankful for the opportunity to hear Cruz speak in person, and that he thought the event’s format was an effective way to hear from a presidential candidate.
“I think it was good that he clarified some of his points; he really addressed security, education and bringing jobs back,” Flagg said. “I think that those are three key issues that are facing America today, so I’m glad that he addressed it. He was very clear, Sean [Hannity] pressed him on it and I thought it was a very good interview.”
Toward the end of the Q&A, Cruz stressed the importance of the Republican Party uniting to win the election in November and emphasized his faith in forming a coalition of Republicans across the board in support of him.
“We have got to unify the party to win,” Cruz said. “It’s one of the reasons that I’m so encouraged by what we’re seeing in the last three weeks. We have won eleven elections in a row, because Republicans are uniting behind our campaign.”