Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz got into a few public spats this week over a strong comment the Senator made about President Obama and the Iran deal. One of his critics was a fellow Republican, 2012 presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Earlier in the week Cruz said the Iran deal would effectively make President Obama "the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism." Thursday Romney chided Cruz for the "way over the line" comment:

In a radio interview (above) with KFYO’s Chad Hasty, Cruz stood by his comment and responded to Romney's criticism by arguing that being "afraid" of telling the hard truth is one of the reasons GOP candidates keep losing.

"When you send billions of dollars to jihadists trying to kill Americans, you bear responsibility for the murder that they carry out with the money you have given them," said Cruz. "One of the reasons Republicans keep getting clobbered is we have leaders like Mitt Romney and like Jeb Bush who are afraid to say that." 

"Now it’s not a question of rhetoric," said Cruz. Quoting John Adams, the Senator suggested that when political candidates have the facts on their side, they need not fear speaking in bold terms. 

"John Adams famously said facts are stubborn things," Cruz said. "Describing the actual facts is not using rhetoric — it is called speaking the truth."

In the interview Cruz also addressed President Obama's criticism of his comment:

"He attacked me personally, but you know what he didn’t do? He didn’t disagree with the facts," said Cruz, who stood by his argument that the deal would infuse hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iranian regime to inevitably be directed toward further terrorist activity. 

\Audio via KFYO.