Ted Cruz is explicitly leaning into his longstanding feud with Tucker Carlson to set the stage for a 2028 presidential bid that would put him on a collision course with Carlson ally Vice President JD Vance, Axios reported on Monday.
When asked about Cruz’s ploy, Carlson texted Axios that the effort was “hilarious” before further mocking the Texas Republican and 2016 GOP presidential candidate.
“Good luck,” the former Fox News star wrote. “That's my comment and heartfelt view.”
Months after clashing with Carlson in a heated two-hour sitdown that saw the right-wing pundit raging at the “sleazy, feline way” that Cruz implied he was an antisemite, the GOP senator has spent the past several weeks blasting Carlson for platforming notorious white supremacist Nick Fuentes.
Carlson’s chummy interview with Fuentes, meanwhile, has sparked an internal “civil war” within the Republican Party and led to an “open rebellion at the prominent conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, which has seen a flood of resignations after its president initially defended Carlson.
Besides treating the Holocaust-denying “groyper” leader with kid gloves throughout last month’s podcast episode, which saw Fuentes griping about “organized Jewry in America,” Carlson also provoked fury among the Christian right and Jewish conservatives by denouncing Christian Zionism.
Cruz, a self-described Christian Zionist, was one of the earliest and loudest conservative critics of Carlson’s interview with Fuentes, and has used the growing controversy to stake out a claim “as a traditional, pro-interventionist Republican” ahead of 2028. In doing so, he has also called out his GOP colleagues for not forcefully calling out Carlson.
“My colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because he has one hell of a big megaphone,” Cruz said in a speech at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention earlier this month.
During an appearance at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual summit, where the Fuentes interview overshadowed the whole convention, the Texas lawmaker accused Carlson of spreading “a poison that is profoundly dangerous” while blasting the ex-Fox host for not pushing back on Fuentes’ rhetoric.
“If you sit there with someone who says Adolf Hitler was very, very cool, and that their mission is to combat and defeat global Jewry, and you say nothing, then you are [a] coward and you are complicit in that evil,” he told the coalition earlier this month.
“We have a responsibility to speak out even when it's uncomfortable,” Cruz told Axios this week. “When voices in our own movement push dangerous and misguided ideas, we can't look the other way. I won't hesitate to call out those who peddle destructive, vile rhetoric and threaten our principles and our future. Silence in the face of recklessness is not an option.”
Of course, Carlson’s friendly interview with Fuentes – which was preceded by a dinner in which Carlson put his guest at ease and went over the discussion topics – is just the latest flashpoint for Cruz with the one-time Fox News primetime anchor.
Cruz’s contentious appearance on Carlson’s podcast back in June came amid a rift within MAGA over Donald Trump backing Israel’s short-lived war with Iran, which culminated in U.S. airstrikes on Iranian nuclear sites. In the lead-up to the strikes, Carlson called Trump “complicit” in Israel’s attack on Iran and warned that it could lead to a “full-scale war,” leading the president to mock the ex-Fox News host and label him “kooky Tucker.”
During the interview, which Cruz later likened to a “bloodbath,” Carlson berated the senator for his aggressive stance towards Iran and overt support for Israel.
“It’s a very weird thing, the obsession with Israel,” Cruz grumbled at one point, prompting Carlson to grow furious. “It’s interesting that you’re trying to derail my questions by calling me an antisemite, which you are,” the conservative commentator seethed.
With Cruz becoming increasingly outspoken about Carlson, who has been an influential voice in Trump’s inner circle and helped push the president to choose Vance as his running mate, prominent GOP figures have taken notice.
“Top Republicans say that in challenging Carlson, Cruz is endearing himself to powerful pro-Israel donors who are deeply angered by the podcaster's embrace of Fuentes and worried about the GOP's shift toward isolationism,” Axios reported.
Cruz has taken many of the early steps toward a presidential run, including hitting the speaker’s circuit, hosting a Republican donor retreat next year and endorsing candidates in down-ballot races. On top of that, he hosts a podcast and a radio show, which Axios noted should help him build a small-dollar contributor base.
“Cruz will need to reckon with a Republican primary electorate that has largely abandoned its George W. Bush-era support for an interventionist foreign policy in favor of the more isolationist ‘America First’ approach that Carlson and Vance support,” Axios added.
While Cruz tries to exploit the fault lines in the MAGA movement over the Fuentes interview to his advantage, Carlson is also making it crystal clear just what he thinks of the wannabe presidential contender.
“I have contempt for Ted Cruz,” Carlson told The New York Times recently. “Not just in his public positions, but in the way that he lives.”
