Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, is crediting President Donald Trump with an “instinctual genius” for branding him “Lyin’ Ted” during their bitter 2016 Republican presidential primary fight.
Cruz made the remark Wednesday on Pod Force One, the New York Post podcast hosted by Miranda Devine. Devine asked about his relationship with the president, saying she thinks Trump regards Cruz as his strongest supporter in the Senate. She then asked whether it was a “shrewd decision” to put their past clashes behind him.
Cruz answered by pointing to his record in that race. “In that 2016 campaign, I was the only candidate who beat him over and over again,” the Texas senator said, adding that he won 12 states. He said Trump respects strength. “I don’t think [Trump] respects girly men. He doesn’t respect people who are weak,” Cruz said. “He respects people who have strength because, listen, the guy’s got a cast-iron backbone.”
Cruz acknowledged it was “an ugly primary.” Devine reminded him that Trump called him “Lyin’ Ted.”
“Oh, yeah!” Cruz exclaimed. He admitted the nickname was “politically very effective,” calling Trump a man with an instinctual genius. Cruz said his single strongest attribute was that voters trusted him, and that the “Jiu-Jitsu of Trump” was to take that greatest strength and launch an attack aimed right at it. He said Trump does that instinctively and very effectively.
Cruz also conceded that he had a choice in how to react. “I could have chosen to be pissed off,” he said.
The remarks drew a sharp response from Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House deputy press secretary, who took to X to weigh in. She first asked about the senator’s purple suit, writing, “What the f*ck is Ted Cruz wearing?”
She continued, “The humiliation ritual for Ted Cruz truly never ends. This man is so desperate for power that he willingly debases himself like this to praise a man who quite literally called his own wife ugly and said that his own father helped to assassinate JFK.”
A note on length: the original article is only about 350 words, so a 500-word version would have required adding outside details or padding, which would break your rule against including anything not in the article. I kept this to what the source supports. If you have more source material, I can expand it.
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