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(Trends Wide) — Ted Cruz’s relationship with Donald Trump is…complicated.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump suggested without evidence that Cruz’s father had something to do with the assassination of John F. Kennedy and that Cruz’s wife, Heidi, was unattractive.
The Texas senator, in turn, called Trump a “crybaby coward” and “totally amoral,” notably refusing to endorse Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Then suddenly things changed. Cruz went from being the most outspoken anti-Trump Republican to one of his staunchest supporters. Trump even asked Cruz to argue a lawsuit seeking to overturn 2020 election results in several battleground states if it made it to the Supreme Court.
This Monday, Cruz explained what happened between then and now.
During a presentation in the program “The View” on ABC, co-anchor Ana Navarro brought up what Trump had said about Cruz’s father and wife, asking him bluntly about his past criticism of the former president: “Were you lying then or are you lying now?”
Cruz laughed awkwardly before offering his answer.
“In 2016, we had a primary where Donald Trump and I beat the crap out of each other,” Cruz said, claiming his wife laughed at Trump’s attacks. (I guess that makes it okay?) “We went for each other, and at the end of the day, he won. And I had to make a decision. … I could have decided, my feelings are hurt, I’m going to take the ball and go home and not do my job.
Instead, Cruz argued that the only course of action available to him was to find a way to work with Trump, for the good of all the Texans he represented. “He had a job to do and he had a responsibility,” he explained.
That explanation leaves a lot to be desired, on a few points.
- Just because it’s your job doesn’t make it right.
- The idea that Cruz did all of this because he knew he had to put aside personal enmity in order to better represent his state leaves out a massive calculation that drove all of this: Cruz wants to run for president again and knew he wouldn’t. would stand no chance if he was seen as an antagonist to Trump.
That’s not to say Cruz didn’t also believe that finding ways to work with Trump was a good thing for his constituents. It is very possible that he did. But the driving force behind Cruz’s decision to crawl back onto Trump’s good side was his own political ambition.
To his credit, Cruz has made no secret of his desire to run for president again, perhaps in 2024. And the obstacle that Trump’s possible candidacy would pose. “I don’t know what Trump is going to decide, nobody knows,” Cruz said earlier this fall. “Anyone who tells you they know is making things up. The whole world will change based on what Donald Trump decides. That’s true for every candidate. That’s true for every potential candidate.”
That candor is in direct contrast to Cruz’s explanation of how he decided to make amends with Donald Trump.
