problem for both parties but a , political problem and there is , no clear solution. host: jennifer haberkorn and cq roll call. thank for joining us on "newsmakers". we appreciated. >> c-span gives you the best access to congress, live congress and house. bringing you events that shape public policy. every morning, washington journal is live with elected officials and journalists and your comments by phone, facebook and twitter. c-span, created by america's cable companies and brought to you as a public service by your local cable or satellite provider. >> thursday, c-span set down with 2016 presidential candidate ted cruz of texas. he discusses family history, he

is senate record, and his decision to enter the gop presidential field. it is part of a series of conversations with declared and potential 2016 presidential candidates as part of c-span's road to the white house coverage. we spoke with ted cruz in his office on capitol hill. this is just under one hour. >> senator ted cruz, republican of texas. we will talk about the politics and policies that have shaped your life, but the personal first. how did you become such a good debater? sen. cruz: as a kid, i like to argue. we had time around the dinner table, politics, issues of the day, and always lively. my parents are very different people. both of them shaped me. my father story, he fled cuba as

a teenager, imprisoned tortured , came to america with nothing. that had a big impact on me at home. in terms of being engaged in the political world. i remember some years ago my wife and i were having some friends of the house and they said when did you first get interested in politics? i told them that i don't remember a time when i wasn't. i said i'm not sure why that is. my wife begin laughing. you know how sometimes your spouse will see things about you that are blazingly obvious in your two up to sisi it yourself? -- you are too obtuse to see it yourself? i've always said it is an incredible blessing to be the

child of immigrants who came here seeking freedom. there was always an urgency to politics. it wasn't just pick up the newspaper and that is what is happening. it was having principle men and women in office, how do we protect ourselves. debating starts from knowing which you believe and speaking from principal and with genuine passion. >> did anyone teach you the skills? if so, who? sen. cruz: sure. i got involved in a group called the free enterprise institute. they had students study free market economics. we would reread, then give speeches on free-market economics. later on, we formed a group

five high school students studying the constitution federalist papers, anti-federalist papers, and we memorize the constitution in a shortened mnemonic form. we would go to a rotary club and while you were there having lunch, we would set up five easels in the front of the room and we would write the entire constitution from memory in shortened mnemonic form. we would write a definition of socialism, government ownership and control of the means of distribution. if you don't know what it is, you can identify when you have it. finally, we would write a quote from thomas jefferson, if the nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. in four years of high school, i gave 80 speeches all over the

state of texas on free-market economics in the constitution. what they would do is pay you $100 scholarship money. i was earning money to pay for college. that training, i have to tell you to be 14 years old and standing in front of several hundred businesspeople, giving a speech, having a q&a was terrifying, a lot more terrifying than standing on the floor of the senate. it was incredible experience. so that played a really formative part in learning the skills of how to give a speech and answer questions, how to think through fundamental issues. when i was in college, i was very active on the debate team, and the debate team was wonderful training experience as well because you learned how to formulate arguments, how to respond and persuade. why do you think the

constitution still works today? sen. cruz: the constitution was in a act of political genius. it started with the two revolutions in america. one that was a bloody revolution of guns and bandits here it we had another that was a revolution of ideas, where for bulimia -- millennia men and women had been told that sovereignty originates on top that kings and queens have all power and any rights we have are given by >>grace of the monarch. america began with a revolutionary concept, and is reflected in the declaration that our rights, not from making the queen or president, but they, from god almighty, and that sovereignty resigns with we the people -- resides with we

the people. we hold these truths self evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator -- those were revolutionary words -- with certain and alienable rights -- that led directly to the constitution, but the constitution was not a monarch granting rights to the people, rather it was a sovereign we the people establishing a government. as thomas jefferson put it that comcast at to service -- the constitution was to service changed to bind the government. we would call them today special interests, the framers understood human nature.

they understood that avarice and greed are part of human nature. so they sought the liberty to divide our between the branches, three branches, legislative, executive, and judiciary, and the federal government and the state and local government. madison explains that the purpose of that is that if power is divided, no special enters, no faction can seize the entire government. if it's all unified, unchecked power means that it can be abused. the framers understood that checks and balances were designed for each of the federal branches to fight against each other. people talk about gridlock in washington, that is part of the constitutional design. gridlock is a way of slowing down the attempt by one branch of government to expand its power. it underscores right now one of the profound dangers of the obama administration.

president obama is i believe the most lawless president we have ever seen. he has claimed to be unilaterally ignore laws, change laws. we are a nation that was founded on the rule of law, that no man is above the law especially the president. one of the things that i think his front and center in this 2016 election is whether we the people will reign in out-of-control president who is refusing to follow federal law or the constitution, whether we will get back to those checks and balances that at the end of the day protect our individual liberties. >> i want to come back to that. if you could go back in time and ask one of the founding fathers a question, what would you ask them? sen. cruz: that's a terrific question. i don't know if i have a good answer to that.

i would love to sit down with james madison and just take his brain, listen to him think about how we establish institutions that will persevere. if you think about it, the united states has very much been an anomaly in history. , hobbs said --,thomas also said that life is nasty, brutish, and short. united states of america -- what are framers designed in crafting the constitution is a brief exception for virtually the rest

of the history of mankind. to create a land where everyone's rights are protected where anyone can start with nothing and achieve anything, that was extraordinary and the danger, how you check against the abuse of power, the natural avarice for power that has been the state of nature for the history of mankind. the framers endeavor to do so, but what we are seeing now i think would have deeply troubled madison and jefferson hamilton washington and franklin, but it would not surprise them. they understood the lust for power, and they were designing a nation and a constitution to rain that in.

one of the things they did not count on is that congress would be so submissive. part of the reason the president has been able to usurp so much power is that congress has rolled over and taken it. it was based on the branches checking each other. we have senate democrats who uniformly are unwilling to stand up to the president, even when he ignores the law and the constitution. that is unprecedented. we have far too many senate republicans that are likewise unwilling to stand up to the president. our system does not support if the branches don't check each other. that component, the bipartisan corruption of washington, i don't think the framers anticipated that it would get this bad. they anticipated human nature but what we are seeing right now in washington is corrupt and

it's both parties. we need fundamentally to get back to the framers vision, to the free market principle and constitutional liberties that builds america, made our nation great. >> have you had the chance to sit down and talk to the president? sen. cruz: briefly, but not a great length. he doesn't deal with congress. he doesn't talk to members of congress. he certainly doesn't talk to republicans. he doesn't even really talk to democrats. when democrats talk privately one of the things they vent about is the president largely ignores members of congress and senators. he is fond of saying that he has a phone and a pen and he is ruling imperiously. it is a curious thing why he doesn't. he has had lunch with senate republicans are senate democrats, but it is usually when he wants to lecture us on something and then he leaves. the practical matter is that he

has very little interaction with congress. it is one of the reasons why so little has gotten done to the harry reid senate was a do-nothing senate. president obama has been so partisan that he spends his time vilifying and attacking the opposing party rather than trying to find common ground. >> you have told you stories are often about your father and your mother, born in canada, but let me take a step further. how has your relationship with your daddy ball from a young child to an adult? sen. cruz: he was always my hero. he was larger-than-life. when i was a child, a very young child, we were living in canada. my parents had moved up to calgary in the oil and gas business. this is when i was four years old. neither of my parents were christians at the time. both of them were drinking far

too much. my father when i was three years old left us. he flew back to houston. he decided that he didn't want to be married anymore and didn't want to remain in the home and be a father to his young sun. he spent a number of months in houston, and a colleague from the oil and gas business invited my dad to a bible study. he came to the bible study at the home of an insurance agent in houston. he said that one of the things that struck am at the bible study was the pieceace he sought in the christians gathered there. a one woman -- one woman had a

sun who would beat her and steal from her to pay for his drug addiction. he was flabbergasted, confuse, couldn't understand how that could be. that night, he kept asking questions and they said that the pastor is coming by tomorrow night. why don't you come back the next night? he came back the next night in spinnaker number of hours arguing with the pastor. my father is a very intelligent man. he is a mathematician and computer programmer and self-taught geophysicist. he argued that he could prove the bible wrong. they argued into the night. finally, my father said well, what about the man in tibet who has never heard of jesus? and this pastor very wisely

didn't take the bait to argue with my father and said, i don't know about the man in to that. you have heard of jesus. what's your excuse? that, my dad described, hit him like a sledgehammer. he fell to his knees and became a christian, asked jesus to save him and become his lord and savior. it transformed him. he'd drove to the airport and flew back to calgary , my mother and me. >> do you remember that moment? sen. cruz: i don't. i don't have recollections of it. i know the story that my parents told me. i can only assume that my mother was probably drinking even more. i don't have any recollection of that myself. what i do have a recollection of

this when he came back and they got back together and my mom became a christian as well, and being raised in a home where faith was integral. in my family it saved our family could i would have been raised by single mom without my dad and the house were not for my father giving his life to jesus. >> you talk about faith and prescription abuse pic you lost a half-sister. what happened? sen. cruz: i had to have sisters. -- half sisters. he and his first wife divorced. they divorced when the girls were about seven years old. then he and my mother got buried and i was born. -- he and my mother got married and i was born. the oldest of the divorce hard. my sisters would live with their mom during the year.

so during the school year, i was an only child, but during the summers, they would live with us. during the summers, was a kid brother with two older sisters in the house. she was bright, pretty, full of life, but she also -- her parent's divorce impacted her and she was angry. she was actually trapped as an angry teenager, and she proceeded to make a series of just really bad life choices. she had a serious drinking problem. she had drug problems. she made decisions. she got married to a man who had been in and out of prison and was physically abusive of her. she had a son and she was a single mom raising her child and

her diction got worse and worse. -- and her addiction got worse and worse. i was 27, a young lawyer, just practicing law, and she took a serious turn for the worse. she had been in prison and had met a guy who is a hard-core drug addict. when she came out of prison, she went to a crackhouse. she was living in a crackhouse with his boyfriend of hers. her son was in sixth grade. his mom was completely unable to care for him. i was living in washington d.c. and was working there. my dad and i left everything in

my apartment because we were driving to a crackhouse and did not know for we would be shot or robbed. we picked her up and took her to a denny's. we sat down with her and tried to spend several hours trying to talk sense into her. she was just angry, angry, why did you leave us? she was angry that he had missed a swim meet when she was in high school. i confess that i was probably not the most understanding kid brother. my father's younger sister was present and -- was impotent and tortured and cuba. we have a lot of strong women and single moms who have endured a lot of hardship. i said, i'm sorry your parents got divorced. life sometimes isn't fair.

i'm sorry that your father missed eight swim meet. look what she went through but you have not been in prison and tortured. you have a child. he needs you. miriam was at a point where her demons, her addictions, that argument would not move her. we struggled with what to do. i had just started practicing at a law firm $100,000 in student loans, my parents were broke declared bankruptcy earlier, so i took a cash and vance on a credit card ahead for $20,000 and i use that cash to pay for joey to go to military school. it ended up that he went and lived there and it provided a safe place, order, and

discipline for him for a year which he desperately needed. at the end of the year, miriam was doing better. she wasn't doing great, but she was no longer in the crackhouse. she had righted her life somewhat. so joey went back with his mom. then, a few years ago, miriam passed away. she had an overdose, which the cornel -- corner road was an accident overdose. it was ruled an accidental overdose. >> you have seen the scourge of rugged use. it is a growing problem in this country. sen. cruz: an addiction is a terrible, terrible disease. every family sees the ravages of life. i come from a family, my

father's family is given, but my mother's family is irish and italian. we have more than a few irish drunks in the family paid my mother's father drank way too much. he was a mean man. he wasn't physically abusive but he was emotionally abusive. he would yell at her. my mother is a quiet person. she has a spine of steel. she is strong. she stood up to her dad. she became the first person in the family to ever go to college. he did not want her to do that. he did not want her to think that she did nothing that was any reason for women to be educated and he certainly didn't think his daughters to be the first person in the family to go to college. she got accepted to rais university, one of the best colleges in the country. at the time, rice at such a big

endowment that there was no tuition. every student when for free. that was the only way she was going to go because her father would not pay for it. my uncle eddie was an alcoholic at a level that most people never in counterpoint he couldn't work. he was emaciated because he drank to such abuse that he destroyed his body. he lived with his parents until he died. he died a young man, but he looked like he was a90. it was an addiction that consumed him. it is a difficult thing. >> princeton, harvard, how did you pay for it? sen. cruz: when i was in high

school, my parents went bankrupt. that was a hard challenge. they had started a small business in houston in the oil and gas industry, but in the mid-1980's, the price of oil plummeted. when that happened, they went out of business. when i went to college, i found myself at ages 17 financially independent involuntarily. i did a number of things. i earned a fair amount of scholarships, things like we talked about, giving speeches where i won scholarship money. i won a scholarship from the american legion vfw washington crossing foundation, participated in a lot of contests. then i took student loans. when i was a partisan, i had two jobs. i worked two different jobs.

-- when i was at princeton, i had two jobs. that was challenging. princeton, both princeton and harvard were worlds i did not know. i did not come from a wealthy family. i had gone to -- graduated from a very small christian high school in houston. there were 43 people in our class. so, no one in our family had ever gone to an ivy league college. that was something -- we were one generation removed from known having gone to college. it was a world that was pretty intimidating when i got there. you had people, dynasties, generation after generation titans of industry, royalty from across the globe. i remember that one of the

people in our class who i did not know was a princess this is olga of greece. she was listed in the student directory under o. i thought what am i doing it place where classmates are princesses and billionaires, not a world i knew. it was a wonderful experience. i certainly learned a lot. >> you got one of the plum assignments, law clerk to the chief justice of the time, justice rehnquist. what did you learn from him? sen. cruz: that was a wonderful opportunity coming out of law school. i applied to clerk on the court of appeals and u.s. supreme court. chief justice rehnquist hired me. that was a number legal experience. he was an extraordinary man. william rehnquist was brilliant

staggering intellect. he was deeply principled. he also had a humility that was the most startling aspect about him. he was unbelievably down to earth. william rehnquist would not have interacted people any differently if he had been a plumber. midwestern, born in milwaukee. when he was 18, he enlisted in the army. he was in north africa in world war ii. he was an enlisted man a sergeant. i thought that was a wonderful statement about a country that the chief justice of the united states was an enlisted man. one of his colleagues on the court had been a colonel in world war ii, and he used to kid him and say, il thank you. -- i outrank you.

and the chief would say, not anymore. he was a wonderful man. i interviewed with him. he was a wonderful man. i interviewed him. the interview was very short. it was 17 minutes long. the chief -- he had been a law clerk at the supreme court. he clerk for robert jackson. he would typically interview 12 to 15 law students and to get the interview, it had to be at the top of your class in law school. have a very strong recommendation. he was so smart that the chief did not need law clerks. i think that the interviews -- he was looking for three people

that he would not mind spending every day with for a year. the interview is getting to know you. the toughest question -- he asked if i would be willing to play tennis with him every week and the chief played tennis every week with his clerks and i said -- absolutely it sounds like a lot of fun. i should tell you that i am not very good. what he did not know at the time was that i was unbelievably horrible at tennis. it was the single thing most daunting to me about the clerkship, that i would play tennis every week. it is interesting. in the course of the interview.

i said mr. chee's justice i am a little bittersweet about being here. -- mr. chief justice, i am a little bittersweet about being here. he said, tell me what you made. i said we are in the nba finals and the houston rockets are getting ready to sweep game for and we will win our second activex jeff fitchett. i had -- our second back to back championship. i had tickets to the game. and i gave them up to come here. he laughed and said, i think you made the right decision. i'm convinced today the only reason i got the clerkship was that i made the chief justice laugh. he was just an incredible friend and mentor. steve: i had read that you

wanted to be a guard for the houston rockets. >> i'm not sure i could even be a water boy. i have some talents but athletic talent is not among them. steve: two daughters. you met your wife during the bush campaign. how did that come about? sen. cruz: i was doing domestic policy and she was doing economic policy and we were both in our late 20's and she came along and she was beautiful, vivacious, a blonde seven california girl. she was in her second year of harvard business school and i was completely smitten from day one. i took her out to dinner to a place called the bitter end.

i said, tell me the history of your family starting with the birth of your grandparents. and i said, heidi is an extraordinary woman. she is the daughter of missionaries. she lives in africa. a couple of different times. her parents were christian missionaries, her dad is a dentist and a dental hygienist. her grandfather had been a missionary in africa for over 30 years. she is exceptionally strong-willed. it is interesting. one of the things that resonated with me -- her family is seventh day adventist's. they strictly observe the

sabbath. her parents had both gone to adventist schools and they very much -- she wanted to go to claremont and mckenna. her dad did not want her to and she battled with her father. heidi started her first business when she was six years old. she started her bread baking company and she and her brother would break -- fake bread every day after school. on sunday they would sell them. she sold thousands of loaves of bread. she had saved $15,000 from her bread baking. she said dad, if you won't pay for college, i will pay for it. she used that money to go to

claremont mckenna. with my mother's background standing up to her father to go to rice, that was something i admired about heidi. her dad is a wonderful man. he is strong-willed. he climbed mount everest. you want to talk about an intimidating father-in-law, try one who has climbed mount everest. one of the things that led me early on to fall in love with heidi -- she has a steel backbone. like my mother. there are a lot of similarities in terms of their powerful dedication. steve: when you daughters want something do they want -- do they ask you or your wife? sen. cruz: i am the pushover. heidi is a lot tougher.

my girls have me wrapped around their finger. they are the loves of my life. caroline is seven. catherine is four. you have four kids? as you know, every child is different. catherine, the baby, is just sweet. she crawls in your lap and she hugs you and she is a sweet girl. caroline is a rascal. she is fiery and opinionated. they have both grown up with me running for office and especially caroline is not impressed at all. she is like, yeah, whatever. she said, not everyone wants to be on tv. as you know, when i was doing the obamacare filibuster, one of the things remember from that is

that i read green exit and him -- i read green eggs and ham. it was the girl's bedtime. normally when i am home, i read them bedtime stories. our team told the girls to turn on c-span. they flipped it on, and i was reading "green eggs and ham" as a bedtime story. i have a picture on my wall of the two in their pajamas utterly amazed at watching their daddy read them "green eggs and ham" on television. when i came home, caroline was five. tough to please. she had her arms crossed and she said ok, dad. that was kind of cool.

that was a nice personal victory. it is not easy to impress your kindergartner, but i was glad to have done something that earned me brownie points. steve: you said at the beginning about your own ideology. you talk about ronald reagan one of your heroes. he was able to get things done. immigration. tax reform. at one point does ted cruz stickier principles and to cover mice with democrats -- and compromise with democrats? sen. cruz: my attitude is the same as reagan. what do you do when someone offers you half a loaf? you take it. then you come back for more. i was asked the same question and i say, i am happy to compromise with democrats libertarians -- i will cover

mice with martians, -- i will compromise with martians, if they are willing to shrink the power of government, expand constitutional rights, fight for liberty. the problem is far too many republicans, mice going backwards in a way that makes it worse. it makes the problem deeper. you don't get an $18 trillion debt without bipartisan compromise. you say, we will spend for your project and your project and your project another $1 trillion and you are done. the people that lose are the taxpayers. i have been happy to work with democrats and some of the legislation that we have passed. they are on the wall was hanging a bill last congress that i introduced. when the nation of iran named as

its ambassador a known terrorist who participated in holding americans hostage. it was a slap in the face. everyone in washington is saying this is terrible. that he barred other known terrorists. it passed the senate 100-0. it passed the house 435-0. president obama signed it into law. that is an example, repeatedly i've been able to work with democrats. beneath this is a resolution that i introduced -- when hamas was raining rockets on israel, i joined with -- in a resolution condemning hamas's use of human

shields as a war crime. that resolution passed unanimously. i joined with new jersey number -- democrat bob menendez that the state department would give a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture and -- he was a dual israeli-american citizen. that passed the senate 100-0. there have been a number of events were i have cite out and worked with democrats -- sought out and worked with democrats. for 2.5 years i have worked closely with kirsten gillibrand. she and i disagree on a number of issues but she has been heroic infighting to combat sexual assault and rape in the military. she has introduced reforms to

change the decision of whether to prosecute a sexual assault case from a commanding officer to an impartial prosecutor outside the military. i have worked closely with her on that. we have an obligation protect the men and women of our military to ensure that they are safe. with that we have the majority of the senate. it has not been passed yet. president obama is fighting to stop it. there are a lot of democrats and republicans fighting to stop it, but it is the right reform. it is the reform that we will see an acted -- enacted because it protects our soldiers but also offers good discipline. if you have a military unit where servicemen and women are afraid of sexual assault, not

confident that the military justice system will protect them, that undermines the effectiveness of our military. steve: as you know, you have not been without criticism. sen. cruz: i hadn't noticed. steve: when john mccain referred to you as a wacko bird, what was your reaction? sen. cruz: i like john mccain and i respect john mccain. my approach has been consistent. if others choose to throw rocks i will not reciprocate. what we endeavor to do is take the high road. in my time in the senate, to my knowledge, i have not spoken ill of any other congressmen. when john mccain said that i went to the senate floor and rose to give a speech in praise of john mccain. it happened to be the 40th

anniversary of his release from the hanoi hilton. i spoke about what an incredible privilege to serve with a patriot and hero like john mccain. who was tortured -- being in my family being imprisoned and tortured is something my family and door, too -- endured, too. not at the level that john mccain did but most extraordinary, john mccain was offered early release and turned it down because he believed it would be dishonorable. i said, none of us have face that. i have never been in prison and i have never been tortured. all of us hope we would make the same decision as he did but not one of us knows for sure. i said, what a privilege to serve with an american hero like john mccain.

every word of that was heartfelt, but it was also very conscious. i am not going to respond with an attack. i will note behind you on that bookshelf is a baseball cap when i came back to texas grassroots supporters printed up baseball caps with daffy duck that say "wacko birds." in the grassroots people make t-shirts saying i am a proud wacko bird, and i say if standing for the constitution and liberty make you a wacko bird then count me of proud wacko bird. steve: why does ted cruz want to be president? sen. cruz: the country is in crisis. the stakes have never been higher. we are bankrupting our kids and grandkids. our constitutional rights are under assault.

america has receded from leadership in the world. radical, islamic terrorism is on the rise. this is a fork in the road. there are times that elections are major turning points. i believe that 2016 is going to be an election like 1980. reagan said, the way that we win is we paint in bold colors, not pastels. if we continue on this road, we risk doing irreparable damage to the greatest country in the history of the world. i am running for president because we are fighting to get back to the free market principles and the constitutional liberties that made america the greatest country in the history of the world. i want my daughters to inherit the same, exceptional nation, the same blessings of liberty

that you and i were fortunate to inherit. we cannot do that if we continue bankrupting this country undermining the constitution and the bill of rights, if we continue receding from the world. this election is about a choice. how do we bring back and reignite the promise of america? how do we get back to that fundamental ideal? steve: let me conclude with a couple of points. ted cruz fax. cts. you are a videogame junkie? sen. cruz: indeed. steve: favorites? sen. cruz: i remember christmas when the first game we got was ponca. -- pong. my parents gave me that for christmas. then we had nintendo.

i played computer games. i collected computer games. now, i mostly play on my iphone. i don't have a consul because ole, because if i did, i would use it. but i play cvandyandy crush plants vs zombies and a "star wars" game i just downloaded. it drives my wife crazy. she cannot stand it, but my girls love it. we play plants versus zombies caroline has it on her ipad. we play together. when we take the girls out one of the favorite things to do -- we go to the aquarium and play carnival games there but we. also take them to chucky cheese i tried to get brownie points

with heidi. but she says, you have more fun than they do. i don't get brownie points for it, but i enjoy playing nonetheless. steve: the role in sound of music and you cannot sing. sen. cruz: one of the great banes in my childhood, in high school i was very into acting. in high school i thought i would drop out of school and go to california and become an actor. my parents were not fans of this plan. i'm glad i did not. that was not my calling. but one of the veins of my existence is in high school you do physical theater and i cannot carry a tune to save my life. i guess i came upon it honestly. neither of my parents can sing. my mother, in grade school, the choir teacher asked my mom, please don't sing.

you are throwing the other children off. i inherited that. in seventh grade i was cast as rolph in "the sound of music." i sang on stage, you are 16, going on 17. my guess is that i did not hit a single note. it was only very tolerant parents of junior high kids who endured this kid butchering the song. subsequently, i did "the sound of music" again in high school. i played max. he has one line where he says, ♪ one little girl in a pink coat ♪ but the rest of the lines were spoken. my campaign team was horrified a couple years ago. i was speaking at first baptist

church in dallas. i was talking about the history of the declaration of independence, and the constitution, and protecting religious liberty and i observed that i am a graduate of second baptist high school. i said, there are things you discover going to second baptist high school. some good. some not. one of the things i discovered is "amazing grace" and the theme from gilligan's island are interchangeable musically. ♪ amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me ♪ ♪ was blind but now i see ♪ ♪ was blind but now i see ♪ within minutes the political

team was saying he is singing on stage, the political career is over. but i survived. steve: i don't think that i can top that. you went from the who and pink floyd to country music. how did that evolve? sen. cruz: i grew up listening to classic rock. i saw pink floyd in concert. it was an amazing concert. i saw the police in concert. emerson lake and powell. but my music tastes changed on september 11. it was a strange thing. i mentioned this in another interview and people on the media thought it was a strange political thing -- look, when september 11 happened, heidi and i were living in washington,

d.c. south of the pentagon. a good friend of ours was on the plane that crashed into the white house -- pentagon. heidi was in the white house. she is actuated, when the -- evacuated when the first plane hit, a secret service told everyone to stay where you are. she was working at that u.s. trade representative's office and when the second plane hit the secret service began running through the hallways saying, get out. don't walk, run. heidi sprinted out. they would not let her get her car so, she walked home. in her bare feet across memorial bridge. i remember that next night, we put together a prayer service. it was an interfaith prayer

service. christian and jewish friends. we sang hymns. i did not lead the hymns. we came together and prayed together. one of the consequences in the aftermath -- i liked how country music responded. alan jackson's song, "where were you when the world stopped turning on that september day." that song moved me powerfully. toby keith, the way that he responded. that was powerful. it was an emotional reaction that these are my people. these are people who share my values. intellectually i find it odd that your music taste would change because of 9/11 -- i still enjoy classic rock.

i think the who is fabulously talented. i saw pete townsend saying, i hope i die before i get old. it was amusing. he was in his 60's at the time. but now on the radio i listen to country music. every morning when i get dressed, the radio is on country music. it was that emotional reaction that the way country music is bonded resonated. steve: thank you for your time. sen. cruz: thank you, i have enjoyed it. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> the annual faith and freedom collision wrapped up last night. the speaker was scott walker who is considered a presidential candidate. his remarks are just over 30 minutes.

gov. walker:>> thank you. good evening. thank you. thank you. afterg an introductiono like that i shouldv just say thanks, you said it all. i want to begin by thanking all of you, but i will add. if we can pause for just a moment and offer up your prayers. not only to keep in mind the nine brothers and sisters in christ taken wednesday but offer prayer if you would for their families. their friends, their fellow church members, for others in charleston and that community and that state and all of us in this country. it is not just about them, it is about all of us.

can we just pause for a moment and lift up your prayers? thank you. in fact, i don't know about all of you, but yesterday i read a little bit about the intake court hearing -- i won't say his name because i refuse to recognize his name, the person who perpetrated those crimes. it is something that we all condemn, not just his act, but his beliefs. as you saw that intake where they had that first reaction looking at someone who could commit such an evil act especially as they were studying the bible and listening to the word of god as frustrating as that would be to see that, to see these family members and

these friends, people talking days after about forgiveness and helping that god might reach his soul. one of my favorite verses was apropos yesterday for them, second corinthians verse 12 -- 12:9, i should say. paul talking about the thorn in his body and the pain and christ says to him, my grace is sufficient for you because my. power is made perfect in weakness. that is great to say. but they lived it. they showed us. they show the community and their state and the world what it means to be a christian. as awful as the week was, what a wonderful testimony.

to see that there is a way to minister and to witness -- my father used to say that he and others were ordained, but all of us were called to be ministers. [applause] i also want to say, right off the bat, it was a great chance -- we were swapping stories about not only five years ago when faith and freedom coalition started putting things together in wisconsin wasn't even the governor, but way back i still have one of my old christian coalition shirts from 20 years ago when my good friend from wisconsin, one of our first leaders, thinking about those days and what an impact that had, i mentioned at the reception, but i