During Obama's final State of the Union Address, the president said the US approach to the Islamic State terror group "needs to be more than tough talk or calls to carpet bomb civilians. That may work as a TV sound bite, but it doesn't past muster on the world stage."
Cruz, a Republican presidential candidate, famously called to "carpet bomb" the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. He repeated that position Tuesday night to Kelly.
"If I am elected president, we will defeat radical Islamic terrorism, and we will utterly destroy ISIS. And yes that means carpet bombing them into oblivion," he said.
Obama and Cruz appear to be defining "carpet bombing" differently here as it relates to indiscriminately hitting civilian areas. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the verb means "to drop large numbers of bombs so as to cause uniform devastation over" or "to bombard repeatedly, widely, or excessively."
During his Fox News interview, Cruz also bashed Obama for not his speech's "stunning" lack of references to recent Islamic State-linked terror attacks in France and the US.
"I will apologize to no one for my willingness and commitment to killing terrorists," he told Kelly. "This entire speech President Obama continued his politically correct denial, refusing to even say 'radical Islamic terrorism.' It is stunning that this State of the Union address did not say a word about the Paris terror attacks, did not say a word about the San Bernardino terror attacks, did not say a word about the Philadelphia police officer shot at 13 times - hit three times - by a terrorist pledging allegiance to ISIS."