Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was an opponent of Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries, during which Trump insulted Cruz’s wife’s looks, instigated a dodgy National Enquirer report about Cruz’s alleged affairs with women, and implied that Cruz’s father had been involved in the Kennedy assassination. Cruz was the only major speaker at the 2016 Republican convention who declined to endorse Trump.
Shortly after that, however, Cruz agreed to endorse Trump and has been a solid Trump ally ever since. But a new report indicates that Cruz might not have been as solid a Trump ally after all- and that he’s planning to run for president in 2028, probably against JD Vance.
🚨 BREAKING: Axios just dropped secret recordings of Ted Cruz trashing Trump and JD Vance.
Cruz privately admits what we all know:
“You’re going to lose the House, lose the Senate, and spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”But in public? He kneels.…
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 25, 2026
According to Axios, the outlet has obtained recordings of Cruz having “torched Vice President Vance and ridiculed President Trump’s tariff policy during private meetings with donors.” The recordings came from two different meetings last year.
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A “Republican source” provided Axios with the recordings.
“The recordings — nearly 10 minutes in total — provide an unvarnished look at how Cruz is positioning himself as a traditional free trade, pro-interventionist Republican ahead of a possible 2028 primary campaign against the less hawkish Vance,” Axios said.
Cruz, in the recordings, describes Vance as “a pawn of conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson,” who Cruz has accused of antisemitism.
“Tucker created JD. JD is Tucker’s protégé, and they are one and the same,” Cruz says in the recording.
The Texas senator also tells the donors that he and other senators, after Trump introduced tariffs, tried to get the president to back off the policy, but that Trump reacted poorly.
NEW: Ted Cruz torched JD Vance and ridiculed Trump’s tariff policy during private meetings with donors, according to recordings obtained by Axios.
“Tucker created JD. JD is Tucker’s protégé, and they are one and the same.”
Cruz on Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs: “I’ve told my…
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 25, 2026
“Trump was in a bad mood,” Cruz says in the recordings, per the report. “I’ve been in conversations where he was very happy. This was not one of them.”
“Mr. President, if we get to November of [2026] and people’s 401(k)s are down 30% and prices are up 10–20% at the supermarket, we’re going to go into Election Day, face a bloodbath,” Cruz tells the donors he told Trump. “You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”
Trump, Cruz told them, replied with an expletive.
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
