Lives at sea in the history of this maritime nation. Some of the survivors are still alive today and many of course more to those who died and was kept secret at the time for reasons of wartime secrecy, and i think it is appropriate to do in this house of commons to them all of those who survived and those who died and their families who still mourn them. Here, here. Order. Views been watching prime ministers questions. Question time is live every wednesday at 7 00 a. M. Eastern cspan2 and reairs here on cspan. You can watch anytime at cspan. Org. Like many of us, first families take vacation time, and like president s and first ladies, a good read can be the perfect companion. What better book than one that peers inside the personal life of every first lady in American History . First ladies, president ial historians on the lives of 45 iconic american women. Inspiring stories of fascinating women who survived the scrutiny of the white house, a great summertime read, available from Public Affairs as a hardcover or ebook. Monday night on the communicators, cochair of the congressional privacy caucus texas republican joe barton on the recent fcc regulation rules and the issues with privacy and cyber security. Representative barton whose information is it . Is it automatically in the Public Domain because i choose to use a mobile app . You know the way these things work, they go into the cloud and all that. Can i use it and still have a reasonable expectation of personal privacy . If you take the latter view, that it is personal, and changes the way you regulate and the way you legislate. If you take the position, i am, by act of being a part of, i am by participating by using the app, im forgoing my right to privacy. Thats a different issue in its entirety. Monday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on the communicators on cspan2. Coming up next, some of cspans road to the white house coverage, beginning with our recent interview with republican president ial candidate ted cruz. That is followed by Carly Fiorina speaking at this weekends faith in freeman summit in washington, d. C. Our conversation with stephen puyleo. Texas senator ted cruz became the first person to officially enter the 2016 president ial race in march when he announced his candidacy to a crowd gathered at Liberty University in virginia. We recently sat down with senator cruz to talk about his family, his record in the senate , and his decision to seek the republican president ial nomination. This is among the series of interviews with declared president ial candidates with part of cspans road to the white house coverage. Its just under an hour. Senator ted cruz, we want to talk about the politics and policy that has shaped your life. I want to talk about the first. How did you become such a good debater . I guess as a young kid. I like debating. My parents were very different people, and both of them really shaped me. My fathers story, he fled cuba as a teenager. He was imprisoned and tortured and came to america with nothing. That had a big impact on the at home. In terms of being engaged in the political world. I remember some years ago, my wife and i were having dinner, and they said, when did you first get interested in politics . I said, i dont know. I dont remember a time when it doesnt. When i was 3, 4, 5 years old. Im not sure why that is. Heidi begins laughing. You know how sometimes you are will see things about you that are blazingly obvious, and you are too obtuse to see it . Heidi says, no wonder. Think of your family. Ive always said, its an incredible blessing to be the child of an immigrant who came here seeking freedom. In our house, there was always an urgency to politics. It wasnt just, picking up the newspaper and saying, thats interesting. It is understanding that having principalled people in office is how we protect ourselves from tyranny. Debating comes from speaking from principal and with genuine passion. Did anyone along the way teaching the skills, and if so who . Sen cruz in high school, i got involved in a group called the Free Enterprise institute. It was a small nonprofit in houston. What they did, they had students study free market economics. We would read Milton Friedman and hightech hayek, and then we would give speeches on freemarket economics. Later on, we formed a group called the constitutional ground breakers. It was five high school students. We spent hundreds of hours reading the federalist papers, the antifederalist papers, the debates on ratification, and we memorize the court the constitution in a short form. We toured the state of texas speaking on it. We would go to a rotary club. While you were sit in having lunch, we would set up five easels, and each of the high school students, we would write the entire constitution from memory in a shortened, pneumonic form. Then we would write a definition of socialism, government ownership of the means of distribution and production in the economy. She dont know what it is, you cant identify when you have it. Finally, we wrote a quote from Thomas Jefferson. If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. In four years of high school, i gave roughly 80 speeches all over the state of texas on freemarket economics and the constitution. What the Free Enterprise institute would do, they would pay you 50 or 100 for each speech. I was earning scholarship money. That training i have to tell you, to be 13 or 14 years old and standing in front of several hundred business people, giving a speech and doing q a, it was a lot more terrifying than standing on the floor of the senate, but it was an incredible experience. That played a really formative part in learning the skills of how to give a speech, how to answer questions, how to think through fundamental issues, and then when i was in college, i was very active on the debate team, and the debate team was wonderful training experience. You learned how to formulate arguments, how to respond, and how to persuade. Why do you think the constitution still works today . Sen cruz the constitution was an extraordinary act of political genius, and it started with two revolutions in america. We had one that was a bloody revolution of guns and bayonets, but we had another that was revolution of ideas where, for millennia, men and women have been told that sovereignty originates at the top. That kings and queens have all sovereignty and power, and any rights we have are given by grace by the monarch like crumbs from the table to be taken away at the win of a monarch. America began with a revolutionary concept, and its reflected first in the declaration, that our rights come not from a king clean, or president , but they come from god almighty. Sovereignty resides with we the people, and so the declaration famously observed, we hold these truths to be selfevident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator. As a revolutionary words. That led directly to the constitution, but the constitution was not a monarch granting rights to the people. Rather, it was a sovereign people establishing a government. As Thomas Jefferson put it, the constitution was to serve as chains to bind the mischief of government. That was an extraordinary understanding that the key to Liberty Madison in federalist 10 writes about factions, and he writes about we would call them special interests. The frameers understood human nature. They understood avarice and greed were part of human nature. They sought to divide power between the branches between three branches of government the legislative, executive, the judiciary, and between federal government and the states and local government. Madison explains that the whole purpose of that is, if power is divided, no faction or special interest can seize the entire government. Its all if its on unified unchecked power means it can be abused, and what the framers understood was, checks and balances was designed for each of the federal governments a to fight each other. Gridlock in washington was part of the design. Gridlock is a way of slowing down the attempt of one government of one branch of government to expand its power. It underscores right now one of the profound dangers of the obama administration, which is president obama, i believe, is the most lawless president we have ever seen. He has claimed the authority to unit what unilaterally ignore laws, change laws. We are a nation that was founded on rule of law, founded on the understanding that no man is above the law, especially the president , and one of the things that i think is front and center in this 2016 election is whether we the people will reign in an outofcontrol president who is refusing to follow federal law for the constitution, whether we will get back to those checks and balances that at the end of the day protect our individual liberty. If you have the chance to go back in time and ask one of the Founding Fathers a question what would you ask them . What intrigues you the most about the constitution . Sen cruz thats a terrific question. I dont know that i have a good answer. I would love to sit down with James Madison and just pick his brain, listen to him think listen to him think about how we established institutions establish institutions that will persevere. If you think about it, the United States has very much been an anomaly in history. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes said, the experience of man is nasty, brutish, and short. That has been the condition for most of history, that men and women have been oppressed, that weve been peasants ruled over by tyrants, and the United States of america i believe powerfully in american exceptionalism. What our framers designed in crafting the constitution is a brief exception from virtually the rest of the history of mankind. To create a land where everyones rights are protected or where anyone concerned with nothing and achieve anything, that was extraordinary. 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, and the framers endeavored to do so. You know what we are saying now . It would a deeply troubled madison, franklin. It wouldnt necessarily have surprised them. They understood the lust for power, and they were designing a nation and a constitution to rain that in. One of the things that i think they didnt count on is that congress would be so submissive. Part of the reason the president has been able to usurp some of power is congress has rolled over and taken it. Federalist 10 was based on the branches checking each other. What weve seen, weve got 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 willing unwilling to stand up to the president. Our system doesnt work if the branches dont check each other and that component, the bipartisan corruption of washington i dont think the framers anticipated that it would get this bad. They anticipated that human nature, but what we are seeing right now in washington is corrupt. Its both parties. I think we need fundamentally to get back to the framers vision to the free market and constitutional principles that made our nation great. Have you had the chance to sit down and talk to the president . Sen cruz briefly but not at great length. One of the strange things about president obama, he doesnt deal with congress. He doesnt talk to members of congress. He certainly doesnt talk to republicans. He doesnt even really talk to democrats. When democrats talk privately one of the things they vent about is the president largely ignores members of congress, senators. He is fond of saying hes got a phone, and hes got a pen, and hes ruling in. Sleep. Its a very hes ruling imper iously. Hes come over a few times and has lunch with Senate Republicans and democrats. As a practical matter, he has very little interaction with congress. Its one of the reasons why so little has gotten done. The Harry Reid Senate was a donothing 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 told your story so often about your father, cuban, and your mom, american born. Can you walk through how your relationship with your dad has evolved from a young child to an adult . Sen cruz my relationship with my dad, he was always my hero, and he was larger than life. At one point, he left. Sen cruz he did. When i was a very young child we were living up in canada. My parents had moved up there to calgary in the oil and gas business. This is when i was three or 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, and he flew back to houston and decided that he didnt want to be married anymore, and he didnt want to remain in the home and be a father to his young son. He spent a number of months back in houston, and a colleague from the oil and gas business invited my dad to a bible study. He came to a bible study at the home of an Insurance Agent in houston, and he sat at that bible study. My dad said one of the ins that struck him the things that struck him was the piece he saw on the christians gather their. Scripture refers to it as a peax ce that passes understanding. One woman had a son that would beat and steal from her to pay for his drug addiction, and yet she was emanating gods peace. He was flabbergasted. He was confused. He couldnt understand how that could be. That night, he kept asking questions. They said, our pastor is coming by tomorrow. Why dont you come back and keep asking your questions . Fishing back the next night. He spent a number of our hours arguing with the pastor. My father is a very, very intelligent man. Hes an application and Computer Programmer and a selftaught geophysicist. He was convinced he could prove the bible wrong. They argued into the night. Finally, my father said, what about the man into that in tibet who has never heard of jesus . This pastor very badly did not take the date. He said rafael, i dont know about the man in to debt, but youve heard of jesus. What is your excuse . My dad has described that hit him like a sledgehammer, and that night, he fell to his knees and became a christian, ask jesus to save him, to come into his life. It transformed him. He drove to the airport. He bought an airplane ticket, and he flew back to calgary, my mother and me. Do you remember that . Sen cruz i dont. I was three years old at the time. I dont have recollections of it. I know the story, because my parents have told me the story. I can only assume that during that time my mother was probably drinking even more, but i dont have any recollection of that myself. What i do have a recollection of is, when he came back and they got back together, my mother became a christian, as well. I was raised in a home where faith was integral. In my family faith literally saved our family. I wouldve been raised by a single mom were it not for my father giving his life to jesus. You talk about faith and prescription abuse. You lost a halfsister. How did you and your family get through that, and what happened . I have two halfsisters, mary and roxana. My father was married when he was young men and had two little girls relay. He and his first wife divorced. They divorced when mariam and roxanna were about six or seven years old. Then he and my mother got married, and i was born. My sister is particularly mary and the eldest took her parents divorce very hard. My sisters would live with their mom during the year. During the school year, i was an only child. During the summers, they would come live with us. During the summers, i was a kid brother with two older sisters in the house. Miriam was bright. She was pretty. She was full of life. Also, her parents divorce really infected her, and she was angry. She was perpetually trapped as an angry teenager, and she proceeded to make a series of bad life choices. She had a serious drinking problem. She had a drug problem. She made decisions. She got married to a man who had been in and out of prison and was physically abusive. She had a son who unsurprisingly the man she married left her and so she was a single mom raising her son, and her addictions got worse and worse. I remember i was about 27, and i was a young lawyer. I just started practicing law, and miriam took a serious turn for the worse. She had been in prison, and she had met a guy who was a hardcore drug addict. When she cannot imprison, she went to a came out of prison, she went to a crack house, and she was living at this crack house with this boyfriend of hers. Her son joey was in sixth grade and his mom wasnt come completelwas completely incapable of caring for him. I remember my dad and i both left our watches and our rings and our wallets, we left everything in my apartment. We were driving to a crack house. He didnt know if we would be shot or robertbed. We picked up miriam and took her to a dentist. My dad and i sat down with her trying to talk sense into her, and she was angry. Daddy, why did you leave us . Kid brother. Our aunt was imprisoned and tortured in castros jails. And yet my aunt raised my cousins baby. As a single mom. We had a lot of strong women in my family and i said miriam, i am sorry that your parents got divorced. Life is sometimes not fair. I am sorry that your father missed a swim meet. Look at what our aunt went through. You have not been imprisoned and tortured but you have a son. Joey needs you. Miriam was at a point where her demons and addictions that argument would not move her. We struggled with what to do. I had just started practicing in a law firm. I had about 100,000 in student loans. My parents were broke. They had declare bankruptcy a few years earlier. I took a cash advance on my credit card for 20,000 and i used that cash advance to pay for joey to go to a military school at valley forge military school. It ended up that he went and lived there. It provided a safe place with order and discipline for him. For a year. He desperately needed. At the end of the year, miriam was doing better. She was not doing great, but she was no longer at the crack else. She had righted her life somewhat and so joey went back with his mom. A few years ago, miriam passed away. She had an overdose which the coroner ruled was a next dental overdose. She had gone to sleep after taking a bunch of pill