RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the closing minutes of Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate in South Carolina, Marco Rubio unleashed a torrent of accusations against Ted Cruz after Cruz slammed his participation in the “Rubio-Schumer amnesty bill.”

“[You] had no fewer than eleven attacks there,” Cruz said, pleading for response time. “I appreciate you dumping your opposition research folder on the debate stage.”

“No, it’s your record,” Rubio shot back.

“At least half of the things Marco said are flat-out false,” Cruz snapped.

Not quite. Most of Rubio’s statements about Cruz’s past positions check out, with a few wild exaggerations tossed into the mix. To the tape . . .

1. “Ted Cruz, you used to say you supported doubling the number of green cards. Now you say that you’re against it.”

In May 2013, Cruz introduced an amendment to double “the overall worldwide green card caps from 675,000 visas per year to 1.35 million per year (not including refugees and asylum-seekers).” Cruz’s current immigration plan only mentions “green cards” in the context of punishing companies that misuse the H-1B visa program.

2. “You used to support a 500 percent increase in the number of guest workers. Now you say that you’re against it.”

Indeed, another amendment Cruz offered in May 2013 would have “immediately increase[d] the H-1B cap by 500 percent from 65,000 to 325,000.” But as a presidential candidate, he has called for suspending “the issuance of all H-1B visas for 180 days to complete a comprehensive investigation and audit of pervasive allegations of abuse of the program” and greatly limiting the circumstances in which companies can hire H-1B visa immigrants.

H-1B visas are for “high-skilled temporary workers,” so Rubio could have been a little more precise in characterizing the “guest workers” in question.

3. “You used to support legalizing people that were here illegally. Now you say you’re against it.”

This point is hotly disputed by Cruz and his campaign. Cruz did introduce an amendment that would establish a path to legalization for those here illegally, but he insists he never actually supported the amendment’s substance, and it was meant as a poison pill. But Cruz spent spring 2013 touting the measure, which would have preserved the larger bill’s path to legal status, but not its path to citizenship.

4. “You used to say that you were in favor of birthright citizenship. Now you say that you are against it.”

In a 2011 interview, then–Senate candidate Cruz said:

I served five-and-a-half years as the solicitor general of Texas, the chief lawyer for the state of Texas, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and I have repeatedly defended the Constitution. The 14th Amendment provides for birthright citizenship. I’ve looked at the legal arguments against birthright citizenship, and I will tell you, as a Supreme Court litigator, those arguments are not very good. As much as someone may dislike the policy of birthright citizenship, it is in the U.S. Constitution. I don’t like it when federal judges set aside the Constitution because of their policy preferences are different, and I think it’s a mistake for conservatives to be focusing on trying to fight what the Constitution says on birthright citizenship. I think we are far better off focusing on securing the border.

If that statement doesn’t explicitly favor birthright citizenship, it certainly dismisses efforts to abolish the practice. But by August of last year, Cruz was singing a different tune:

“We should end granting automatic birthright citizenship to the children of those who are here illegally,” Cruz, who is running for president, said during an interview with the Michael Medved Show. “That has been my position from the very first day of my running for the Senate.

5. “And by the way, it’s not just on immigration. You used to support [trade-promotion authority]. Now you say you’re against it.”

Rubio’s charge is technically true, but Cruz argues that along the way the proposal he initially supported underwent substantial changes.

On April 21, 2015, the Texas senator co-wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed with Paul Ryan declaring that “we strongly urge our colleagues in Congress to vote for trade-promotion authority.” Cruz voted against the bill in June, declaring it had become tied to other unacceptable policy changes: “I cannot vote for TPA unless McConnell and Boehner both commit publicly to allow the Ex-Im Bank to expire — and stay expired. And Congress must also pass the Cruz-Sessions amendments to TPA to ensure that no trade agreement can try to back-door changes to our immigration laws.”

6. “I saw you on the Senate floor flip your vote on crop insurance because they told you it would help you in Iowa, and last week, we all saw you flip your vote on ethanol in Iowa for the same reason.”

On crop insurance, Cruz did indeed change his position:

The GOP senator from Texas initially voted with fiscal hard-liners to retain $3 billion in crop insurance cuts that were made as part of a budget deal approved in October. After a visit to the Senate cloakroom, Cruz returned and flipped his vote to side with farming interests, which ultimately prevailed.

But for what it’s worth, Cruz voted against the final legislation, a highway bill, as did Rubio, who is no more eager to alienate Iowa farmers than Cruz.

Rubio’s charge is less accurate when it comes to ethanol. In 2013, Cruz called for an immediate end to the ethanol mandate; in 2014, he shifted slightly and called for winding down the mandate over a span of five years. Last week, he said he wanted to phase out the mandate from 2017 to 2022, and ethanol supporters touted it as a concession. So Cruz’s support for a five-year phaseout remained the same, but ethanol fans and Cruz foes interpreted the Texas senator’s comment as a signal that he would fund the program at current levels until 2022.

7. “When I am president, I will work consistently every single day to keep this country safe, not call Edward Snowden, as you did, a great public servant.”

Here Rubio stretches Cruz’s past words beyond recognition. It’s possible to be simultaneously upset with the National Security Agency for its domestic snooping and with Snowden for running to Russia, and that appears to be Cruz’s perspective:

If it is the case that the federal government is seizing millions of personal records about law-abiding citizens, and if it is the case that there are minimal restrictions on accessing or reviewing those records, then I think Mr. Snowden has done a considerable public service by bringing it to light. If Mr. Snowden has violated the laws of this country, there are consequences to violating laws and that is something he has publicly stated he understands and I think the law needs to be enforced.

8. “Every single time that there has been a Defense bill in the Senate, three people team up to vote against it: Bernie Sanders, Rand Paul, and Ted Cruz. In fact, the only budget you have ever voted for, Ted, in your entire time in the Senate is a budget from Rand Paul that brags about how it cuts defense.”

Rubio’s characterization here is more careful than his December statement that “the only budget [Cruz has] ever voted for in his time in the Senate is a budget that cut defense spending by more than Barack Obama proposes we cut it.”

Paul’s 2013 budget would have increased total defense spending from its 2012 level, but at a slower rate than President Obama, Rubio, and some other Republicans wanted. At issue is the question of whether a less-than-expected increase qualifies as “a cut.”

Rubio is right that Paul “bragged” about his budget cutting defense:

This budget proposal does not simply reduce military spending, but provides directives to realign the military for the 21st Century. . . . Each year the military experiences roughly 5 to 7 percent turnover through natural attrition. The military should use this natural process to begin reducing our force levels.

If you’re counting, that’s five accurate accusations, two debatable ones, and two plainly inaccurate ones. Whether or not you think Rubio’s litany was, on balance, fair probably correlates strongly to what you thought of each man before last night.

— Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent for National Review.