Politics Ted Cruz Wants Tucker As His 2028 Enemy The Texan senator is a canny politician, but it isn’t clear that embracing neoconservatism is a winning gambit. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Axios clarified the obvious this week: Ted Cruz is preparing to run for president, again.  A lot has changed since Cruz conceded to Donald Trump in 2016. Trump completely remade the GOP and American politics over the last decade. Different issues and new rhetoric determine political discourse. Cruz ran as an anti-establishment insurgent in 2016, only to be outflanked by the genuine outsider Trump. This time, the Texas senator wants to restore the old order against the Trumpist takeover. But Cruz is smart enough to know he can’t outright attack the president or his legacy. To be a successful Republican candidate, one will need to present as pro-Trump: Over 90 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s performance. The base’s attachment to the president remains as strong as ever.  That leaves Cruz in a difficult situation. He needs to distinguish himself from JD Vance, Trump’s assumed heir who will run on the administration’s legacy. But Cruz can’t attack Trump or his movement. Instead, he’s set on Tucker Carlson as a proxy target to deride Trumpism. With Tucker as his preferred nemesis, Cruz can claim he’s MAGA while he demands the GOP return to the old guard conservatism Trump buried in 2016. The senator will simply brand Carlson’s America Firstism as un-MAGA and his own conservatism as true MAGA. No matter how much Cruz claims otherwise, it won’t be America First. Cruz wants to drag the right back to the days before Trump came down the escalator. He’s just pragmatic enough to put a MAGA hat on it. Cruz and Carlson have been in a war of words for months. Ever since the commentator embarrassed the senator in an interview on Iran, Cruz has taken every opportunity to attack Carlson. It’s a rare week when he doesn’t whine about the popular podcast on his X account. In the wake of Tucker’s controversial interview with Nick Fuentes, the senator ramped up his attacks. Railing against Tucker served as a core part of his recent addresses to both the Republican Jewish Coalition and the Federalist Society.  A chief theme of Cruz’s anti-Tucker diatribes is foreign policy. “On foreign policy, Tucker has gone bat-crap crazy,” Cruz said after his contentious interview with Carlson. What does he think a non “bat-crap crazy” foreign policy looks like? Naturally, it would offer unquestionable support for Israel and allow zero tolerance for anyone on the Right who disagrees.  Cruz declared during the Tucker interview: “I came into Congress 13 years ago with the stated intention of being the leading defender of Israel in the United States.” He may earn that title now with his fervent advocacy of bombing Iran and demanding every American back Israel “100 percent.”  It’s not just Israel where he displays neocon instincts. He’s also a leading advocate for intervening in Nigeria and Venezuela. He also believes it’s imperative for America to deliver a “clear loss” to Vladimir Putin in Ukraine.  Cruz wasn’t always like this. He opposed intervention in Syria in 2013. In his previous presidential bid, he condemned the nation building of the Bush years and called the Iraq war a mistake. He insisted that toppling Bashar al-Assad would not be in the national interest and opposed sending more troops to the Middle East. Steve Bannon even praised Cruz’s “Jacksonianism” at the time, arguing it was far superior to Marco Rubio’s “Wilsonian internationalism.”  But, like many politicians, Cruz changed. His neocon pitch may not resonate with voters in the way Trump’s immigration message did with the base. But it will excite a very important demographic in GOP politics: donors. Axios reports Cruz is already finding an eager audience at top-dollar events. Many conservative donors view Carlson as a menace that must be destroyed. A number of them stopped giving money to Turning Point USA over its hosting of Carlson at its events. They want someone to call Tucker out by name and say he’s not welcome in the conservative movement. They see that man as Ted Cruz. Unsurprisingly, several of these donors also don’t like Trump. Cruz is courting many of the big-money names who backed Nikki Haley’s presidential bid against Trump. It’s obvious these people want Trumpism purged as well from the party. Cruz offers them the hope of moving the party back to the old days when no one questioned Israel, dissident Right views were consigned to the margins, and the only thing the party offered to voters was tax cuts. The Texas senator likes to portray himself as the only Republican brave enough to denounce Carlson by name. This was the theme of his recent Federalist Society speech. “My colleagues, almost to a person, think what is happening is horrible, but a great many of them are frightened because [Carlson] has one hell of a big megaphone,” he told the crowd of conservative lawyers. “Fuentes and Tucker and the rest of that ilk have a right to say what they are saying. Every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong.” “It’s easy right now to denounce Fuentes,” the senator added. “Are you willing to say Tucker’s name?” This message may come across as music to the ears of many establishment donors. They want Tuckerism purged from the party. Nominating someone like Cruz may realize their dream. This is a major change for Cruz. In 2016, he wanted to be the Tea Party insurgent who would upend the stale GOP establishment. Now he’s pitching himself as the candidate for the same establishment.  Making Tucker his chief enemy also allows Cruz to undercut JD Vance. It’s well-known the vice president is good friends with Carlson. It’s already become the favorite way to criticize Vance within conservative media. Cruz can claim associating with Tucker is disqualifying or immoral, hitting Vance while not even naming him. His target audience will know who he’s talking about. It’s inevitable that Ted will make this anti-Vance attack explicit when primary season arrives. But he will likely keep it subtle before then. Vance is the vice president, not his presidential primary opponent at the moment. It’s bad form to directly attack the Republican president’s second-in-command. This attack may sway donors, but it could fall flat with actual voters. Rasmussen Reports finds that 62 percent of Trump voters have a positive opinion of Tucker. He’s also a political commentator, not a politician. It may strike voters as odd for presidential hopefuls to fight so fiercely over who’s friendly with a podcaster. They would prefer the candidates to real issues, not inquisitions over friendships. Cruz is a crafty politician. He knows how to further his ambitions in whatever moment he faces. In the Obama era, he made himself known as the chief bombthrower of the GOP and more Tea Party than the Tea Party. In the Trump era, he became one of the president’s most loyal supporters in the Senate. As he looks to a new era, Cruz reinvents himself as a diehard neoconservative who will restore Con Inc. to its former glory. This pitch will certainly get Cruz donations, but it’s much more uncertain whether it will earn him votes. I wouldn’t bet on the MAGA faithful turning to Neocon Ted as their next leader. The post Ted Cruz Wants Tucker As His 2028 Enemy appeared first on The American Conservative.