Ted Cruz spoke about the National Security Agency's surveillance program during an exchange with Marco Rubio during the fifth GOP debate on Tuesday night, and in doing so, potentially leaked classified information to the nation. Cruz said that the old program covered "20 or 30 percent of phone numbers" while the new program covers roughly 100 percent.
Cruz's comment drew a response not only from Rubio, who said, "Let me be very careful in answering because I don't think national television in front of 15 million people is the place to discuss classified information;" but also from Becca Glover Watkins, a spokeswoman for Sen. Richard Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, who took to Twitter to share her views, reports The Hill.
Cruz shouldn't have said that.
— Becca Glover Watkins (@beccaglover) December 16, 2015
Later, Burr, the chairman of the Intelligence Committee, told reporters, "I'm having my staff look at the transcripts of the debate right now. Any time you deal with numbers ... the question is, 'Is that classified or not?' Or is there an open source reference to it?" reports The Hill.
Cruz, meanwhile was very clear on his thoughts that the information was not classified.
"What I said last night has been widely reported. It's been saturated in the public sphere. And what has been said over and over again, what the intelligence community told Congress, was that the USA Freedom Act expanded their ability to target terrorists. And listen, this is another example of the Rubio campaign trying to spread misinformation," he said during a stop at Los Angeles Airport, reports New York Daily News.
Ultimately, Cruz was proved right, when the Intelligence Committee retracted its statements and said, "The Committee is not investigating anything said during last night's Republican Presidential debate," in a statement by Burr, and Vice Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, reports CNN.
Watch Cruz during the debate below.
