1:28
THE OBAMA COMPARISON
Cruz's entry into the race has already brought comparisons to another freshman senator who had eyes on the White House: Then-senator and current President Barack Obama.
When asked if he has enough experience to be president, Cruz said: \"I’m going to leave that question to the voters,\" but managed to get in a jab at the president, who he is a notorious critic of.
\"I will note, before I was in the Senate I wasn’t simply a community organizer,\" he said. \"I spent five and a half years as the solicitor general of Texas, leading the state, representing the state before the US Supreme Court and we won landmark victories over and over again.\"
THE ‘IMAGINE’ CAMPAIGN
In his presidential announcement Monday—the first of the cycle—the 44-year-old senator told the crowd to “imagine” a different type of America, one where he is leading. He used the word 38 times in his remarks.
“I want to ask each of you to imagine, imagine millions of courageous conservatives, all across America, rising up together to say in unison ‘we demand our liberty,’ he said.
Karl asked Cruz if he was a “big John Lennon fan,” mentioning Lennon’s 1971 song “Imagine.”
“I am,” Cruz quipped. “I will admit I did kind of envision pulling out some John Lennon little round glasses but I didn’t bring any to the talk.”
ABC's Arlette Saenz contributed to this report.
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