CBS' "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer interviewed Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday about his wish list for President Barack Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday, but many of the Texas Republican's comments on the president's "abuse of power" appear to have been edited out.
Video from Cruz's You Tube page showed the senator's criticism of the administration's handling of the events surrounding Benghazi and, more recently, conservative author
Dinesh D'Souza, remarks that were not seen on the video that aired on "Face the Nation," reports
newsbusters.org.
After introducing Cruz as the tea party Republican who led the shutdown of the government last fall and then grilling the senator on the State of the Union address, Schieffer asked, "Will you run for president?"
Cruz responded, "Well, look, my focus is on the challenges facing this country right now. My focus, for example, is on the abuse of power from the president. Let's take something like the IRS scandal ..."
At which point Schieffer interrupted with "So, do I take that as a yes or a no? Or still thinking about it?"
"Well, what you can take that as, is that my focus is standing and fighting right now in the Senate to bring back jobs and economic growth. Economic growth is my No. 1 priority ..."
That is where the CBS broadcast ended, with Schieffer's abruptly saying, "Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll talk to you again."
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That is not where the interview posted by Cruz ended.
In that video, Cruz continued, "And let me tell you something that is deeply concerning: the abuse of power from this administration. We've seen multiple filmmakers prosecuted, and the government's gone after them. Whether it's the poor fellow that did the film that the president blamed Benghazi and the terrorist attacks on, turns out that wasn't the reason for the attack but the administration went and put that poor fellow in jail on unrelated charges."
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"Just this week it was broken that Dinesh D'Souza, who did a very big movie criticizing the president, is now being prosecuted by this administration," he added.
Schieffer cut in, saying, "Senator," but Cruz kept speaking.
"Can you image the reaction if the Bush administration had went, gone and prosecuted Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn?" he asked.
Schieffer again tried to stop him, but Cruz went on to say, "It should trouble everyone the government uses government power and the IRS in particular to target their enemies, and you are talking in a few minutes to Chuck Schumer ..."
It was then that the interview on Cruz's video ended, with Schieffer breaking in to say, "We are going to leave this for another day, Senator. Thank you for joining us, and we'll talk to you again."
NewsBuster's Jeffrey Mayer, who monitors liberal media for the Media Research Center, offered his take on the Schiefer's interview that aired Sunday:
"Now, it is certainly plausible that CBS edited out the ending of the Cruz interview for time; however, given that Cruz's comments were extremely critical of the president and came just two days before an embattled President Obama gives his State of the Union speech, the timing of such editing is highly inappropriate and unusual."
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