< “Did Cruz repeat the lie that so many others did—that Trump’s Muslim Pause was “unconstitutional”? >>
I think Cruz did *not* say that. Only because he was still hoping to bring in TRUMP voters, at the time, who were themselves all-in for a temporary ban on Muslim refugees packing in here, risking they were infiltrated with ISIS fighters.
At the time, I remember Cruz instead countering the ban by naming another version of it— that Muslims from a few Muslim inhabited countries could not come to our shores.
Cruz was criticized for failing to address the fact that ISIS sympathizers and ISIS fighters only had to get to countries he had left off his ban list and they could travel here from those countries.
After that critique surfaced, Cruz ignored the issue— at least I never heard him bring up his version of a ban, ever again.
Same with The Wall. Cruz wreathed and squirmed against that, also, mocking it at first but then peeping out other ideas to avoid an actual “wall”. Finally, in one debate, he dove in and supported the wall, and his punch line followed, saying he “ would get ‘Donald’ to pay for it”.
I lost count of the “conservatives” piling on, quoting “no religious test, no religious test.” Of course, the Constitutione says there shall be no religious test for public office.
Congress ought to find that Islam is not a religion.