Post by Logan on Jan 16, 2016 21:40:15 GMT -6
Trump, Cruz aim fire on Obama and Iranian deal, prisoner release
After pillorying each other during the Republican presidential debate two days earlier, front-runners Donald J. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz toned down the personal attacks and instead joined in criticizing the U.S. prisoner swap with Iran as they sought to highlight their conservative credentials in separate appearances Saturday at a tea party convention in South Carolina.
The two candidates, battling each other at the top of the crowded field in the race to win the Iowa caucuses in two weeks, said that they were happy to see the release of four Americans, but that the U.S. had come up short in the deal.
Cruz said none of the four had done anything wrong, highlighting in particular Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Boise, Idaho, while adding that the seven Iranians set free by the U.S. had been jailed for or facing charges of violating sanctions.
"There is a false moral equivalence in a deal like this," Cruz said. "Saeed was in prison for the crime of preaching the gospel. He shouldn't have been there." Nor, he added, should have the others - Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian; Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran, of Flint, Mich.; and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, whose incarceration had not been previously reported.
Read more here: www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article55129415.html
After pillorying each other during the Republican presidential debate two days earlier, front-runners Donald J. Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz toned down the personal attacks and instead joined in criticizing the U.S. prisoner swap with Iran as they sought to highlight their conservative credentials in separate appearances Saturday at a tea party convention in South Carolina.
The two candidates, battling each other at the top of the crowded field in the race to win the Iowa caucuses in two weeks, said that they were happy to see the release of four Americans, but that the U.S. had come up short in the deal.
Cruz said none of the four had done anything wrong, highlighting in particular Saeed Abedini, a pastor from Boise, Idaho, while adding that the seven Iranians set free by the U.S. had been jailed for or facing charges of violating sanctions.
"There is a false moral equivalence in a deal like this," Cruz said. "Saeed was in prison for the crime of preaching the gospel. He shouldn't have been there." Nor, he added, should have the others - Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian; Amir Hekmati, a Marine veteran, of Flint, Mich.; and Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari, whose incarceration had not been previously reported.
Read more here: www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article55129415.html