Posted on 01/13/2017 11:07:50 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Ted Cruz was once one of Donald Trump’s most vocal critics. Now he's one of the president-elect's most important Senate allies.
Ted Cruz met with Donald Trump exactly one week after Election Day. As it turned out, Cruz’s tete-a-tete with the president-elect he had spurned from the stage of the Republican National Convention just months before wasn’t the most consequential meeting he would have that day.
After his talk with Trump, the Texas senator and his chief of staff, David Polyansky, then sat down with his chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, who sounded him out about his interest in filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by the late Antonin Scalia. Cruz — widely considered one of the best Supreme Court litigators of his generation — swatted down the idea, according to four people to whom he has relayed the conversation.
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. Handing Cruz a lifetime appointment to the high court would have been a political masterstroke. It would have simultaneously eliminated Trump’s chief adversary within the Republican Party and elated conservatives. That may not happen, but the conversations Cruz had that day with Trump and several of his aides touched off a congenial and cooperative relationship between the onetime rivals.
Though Cruz may have been one of Trump’s most vocal critics during the campaign, as Inauguration Day nears, he has become perhaps the president-elect’s most important — and most unexpected — ally in the Senate. Not only are the two teaming up on several pieces of legislation, but Cruz also offered glowing introductory remarks for one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominees, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, during his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, calling him “a serious man who understands the value of perseverance.”
Cruz’s high-profile snub of Trump at the Republican convention overshadowed a web of personal connections between the two men. Both Bannon and Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie, who has for years overseen the conservative grassroots organization Citizens United, are longtime Cruz friends. Kellyanne Conway, who served as Trump’s campaign manager and will head to the West Wing with him, ran a super PAC that supported Cruz’s presidential campaign before she joined the Trump team. And Trump transition aide Jason Miller previously served as the Cruz campaign’s communications director.
Those ties have helped to foster a far more productive relationship between Cruz and Trump than many had expected. During his visit to Trump Tower in November, Cruz discussed two pieces of legislation with Trump’s team, and they agreed to push forward on them together. The first is a constitutional amendment Cruz introduced earlier this month along with Florida Congressman Ron DeSantis, that would limit senators to two terms and congressmen to three. The second, the Super PAC Elimination Act, would allow donors, whose contributions are capped at $2,700 per campaign, to give unlimited sums to federal political candidates.
They will also work together on legislation Cruz introduced on Thursday to defund the United Nations in retaliation for its vote late last month to condemn Israeli settlement building.
“These are measures we have discussed with the transition that we see eye to eye on and can work together to push forward,” said Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier.
Even before he delivered his speech at the convention in July, Cruz’s Senate colleagues were talking about how the Texas senator had emerged from his failed presidential campaign a changed man — more collaborative and accommodating of his colleagues, less combative and strident. Some had begun jokingly to refer to him as “Cruz 2.0.”
Trump’s victory, fortified by Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, has accelerated and deepened the change, taking Cruz from the country’s leading oppositionist and putting him in the unlikely role of facilitating Trump’s Senate agenda. Cruz’s legislative priorities are “very much the president-elect’s legislative priorities,” said a senior Trump transition aide.
It’s no coincidence that Cruz’s new role will also help his 2018 reelection campaign. For months, the senator’s head-turning convention speech and grudging endorsement of Trump has fueled talk that he might face an aggressive primary challenge — and even that Trump himself might encourage one.
The president-elect eliminated one potential adversary when he tapped former Texas Gov. Rick Perry to lead the Department of Energy, but Cruz’s newfound desire to cooperate with the incoming administration will also go far to win over the sorts of loyal Republicans who cast primary ballots and are eager to see the Trump administration get off to a smooth start. Texas Congressman Michael McCaul hasn’t ruled out the possibility of challenging Cruz in the primary.
Several of Cruz’s closest allies said that despite his deep interest in the law, he turned his back on a potential Supreme Court nomination because he is fundamentally a political creature. “I think the bottom line with Ted is that the monastic life of a Supreme Court justice is simply not something that appeals to him at this stage in his life and that’s notwithstanding the fact that he has already in his young legal career established himself as one of the nation’s premier Supreme Court advocates,” said a longtime Cruz friend. “But being on that side of the lectern is a different thing. He’s an advocate, he’s passionate about advancing the causes he believes in.”
It’s something of an open secret among Cruz allies that the reason Cruz swatted down the Supreme Court inquiry is the same as the one propelling his eager cooperation with Trump: Despite Trump's victory and Bannon’s overtures, his political ambitions are still simmering. He wants to be president and, at the age of 45, still thinks he can pull it off.
“Who knows what’s gonna happen eight years from now? Ted would be a young man, he would still be a young man," said the Cruz friend. "Honestly, that’s another negative to being a Supreme Court justice, it’s a lifetime commitment…Ted wasn’t ready to lay down his sword and pick up a pen for the rest of his life.”
Nobody has ever successfully run for office from a perch on the Supreme Court. That said, other Cruz allies think, should additional vacancies on the court appear, he may change his mind. “I would be surprised if Ted said, ‘Not now, not ever, don’t ask me again.’ It could be six years down the road and he’s just bored to tears in the Senate and that seat looks different to him,” said a second Cruz friend.
LOL....hooray for NY.
I think 2DV has something considerably more urgent to attend to...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3513805/posts
He’s a globalist snake, and he has proven beyond any doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that his judgement is absolutely atrocious.
There’s no excuse to continue to be fooled by this man.
Cruz's recent statements during the confirmation process have been spot on.
I have still ignored Cruz's pleas for donations (I'm on his lists because of my early financial support) but will likely send a little if it looks like he is in trouble against any Democrat challenger (unlikely with Texas but possible in this topsy-turvy world) but would hesitate if another Conservative Republican was showing signs of making it.
Many have totally written Cruz off permanently but he still has a lot of potential.
Give Cruz credit that he legitimately is working for this country now and policies that are good for it. There’s bitterness with Graham and McCain where at times it’s them betraying what they have been for just to enjoy attention or make things difficult.
I was very disappointed in Cruz after his convention speech. I wrote him off at that point. But I also acknowledge human growth and redemption. I believe Cruz is in the process of becoming Trump’s most loyal ally in the Senate. He will be valuable in that role. To me, politics is the lowest, filthiest of all human endeavors. So I will not hold what Cruz did last summer against him forever. Lower muck than he have been raised up by the Almighty. But I will keep everything he did during the campaign in mind.
Another one! Lyn’ Ted. VERY DOUBTFUL that PRESIDENT-elect Trump likes Lyn’ Ted. Not in a nice way that is. Who around likes Lyn’ Ted. No one but a couple die-hard fanatics here on FR. He’s everything Trump is not—First, a Natural Born Canadian, a serial liar, father of daughter that literally cringes from him, etc. Lyn’ Ted is CREEPY. PRESIDENT-elect Trump is not. Trump WON, elections have consequences. Lyn’ Ted was exposed for who he realy is and deservedly lost. Good riddance.
Perhaps it's time to let bygones be bygones between the two camps. If these two individuals are willing to work together for the greater good, then certainly their supporters should be willing as well.
Having said that, I still have lingering questions regarding Senator Cruz's Presidential eligibility, and, as we know, Republicans simply don't have the luxury of ignoring such issues the way the Democrats do.
It's time to bury the hatchet...
Cruz and Trump were also allies early on, even appearing at that anti-Iran agreement in DC about a year ago. Some of their views also were similar on for example, immigration.
Yes, I know. My reply to that is in there somewhere along the line. But thanks!
He would have a much greater influence from the SCOTUS bench than more losing attempts at national office.
As long as Cruz keeps up his recent behavior as a defender of Trump's cabinet picks, and the Trump agenda, my hatchet is gone, gone, gone. Deep in some old log.
I'm glad he's returning to common sense conservatism.
Personally, I think Cruz is setting the stage as the “good guy” so he can keep his name in the front, hopefully convincing people that he IS a good guy so they will vote for him when he runs for president the next time. He would be smart to consider that SCOTUS position as I do NOT see him becoming POTUS.
Personally, I think Cruz is setting the stage as the “good guy” so he can keep his name in the front, hopefully convincing people that he IS a good guy so they will vote for him when he runs for president the next time. He would be smart to consider that SCOTUS position as I do NOT see him becoming POTUS.
No, he would have 4 liberals eager to help him gut the protections of the natural born citizen clause in perpetuity.
Hear! Hear!
I second that and thank him for his input to the conversations here.
I am still a supporter of Ted Cruz.
Nobody has to agree with me.
I would love to see him in the Supreme Court. I believe his strong views about America are important to defend and protect from all those liberals; plus his exceptional knowledge of the law.
Ted just made one fatal error .. he allowed another person with suspicious links to sanity .. convince Cruz that he was the “chosen one” to run for President. That was false.
You should never allow another person (sometimes even a family member) to tell you GOD has called you to do anything. The key is to learn to hear from GOD yourself - first - and then allow GOD to also encourage you by connecting with people who agree with your plans.
However, I never believed Cruz would stay in that place .. and I’m glad to see he has figured a lot of it out.
Wasting time hating people is just STUPID.
“Until he renders a decision that a child born to a Palestinian father and an American mother in Saudi Arabia is a natural born citizen eligible to be President...”
Funny, very true, but useless involving a True Believer Cruz-bot.
Remember the Consistent Conservative meme? As if he has been around long enough to establish the veracity of that, and despite voting for TPA, etc.
Most of us Trump supporters are so for what Trump has accomplished and for what he espouses, among other things. Cruz-bots are so merely for Cruz’s state of being, an assigned state of being.
My reply #59 to Paul R. post #42 was not anything about Cruz. It was a response ti the link to another thread. So your comment here on #53 is not relevant to the issue in view regarding 2ndDV.
I would love to see Cruz on the court but I really think a few republicans like McCain would try to shoot him down. No democrat would vote for him. Just my view. Also I don’t think he will have a problem being re-elected. Not making a endorsement at the convention was his big goof but I think that is in the past for most folks
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