Ted Cruz Didn’t Get a Convention

Invite. He Still Has Plenty to Say.

In 2016, the Texas senator addressed his fellow Republicans but declined to explicitly
endorse Donald Trump. One close Senate race and many conciliatory public comments
later, he is on the sidelines this year.

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Senator Ted Cruz on Capitol Hill in March. Mr. Cruz was not asked to speak at this
year’s Republican National Convention.Credit...Erin Scott for The New York Times

By Matt Flegenheimer
 Published Aug. 26, 2020Updated Feb. 18, 2021

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Four years ago, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas delivered the most stunning speech of
the Republican National Convention, conspicuously declining to endorse Donald J.
Trump, his former presidential primary rival, and urging viewers instead to “vote your
conscience.”

This time, well.

“They didn’t ask me to participate,” Mr. Cruz said in a phone interview from his home in
Houston. “So, I’m not on the speakers’ roster.”
Amid the whiplashing loyalties and perpetual game theory of Trump-era Republicanism,
Mr. Cruz is at once a singular figure — former antagonist, wannabe successor, current
ally generally (convention lineups notwithstanding) — and perhaps the most striking
exemplar of a certain kind of 2020 party leader.

He would like to be there for whatever comes after Mr. Trump, openly aspiring to run
for president again if the opportunity presents itself. And like most Republican peers, he
is not quite sure what will be there on the other side.

Mr. Cruz’s bet, as in his runner-up finish in the 2016 primary, is that ideological
conservatism will eventually win the day, despite the manifest indifference many Trump
supporters have shown toward some traditional stated priorities of the right, like
controlling deficits.

Asked in the interview to make a convention-style case for Mr. Trump’s re-election on
the spot, Mr. Cruz cited the “remarkable policy successes” of the last four years, paused
for 12 seconds, then set off on an auditorium-ready, fully-composed celebration of tax
cuts, deregulation and the “historic economic boom” that preceded the coronavirus.

Asked if Mr. Trump was making this argument effectively, the senator ruled:
“Sometimes.” (Mr. Cruz made clear that he “would have been happy to” step to a
microphone this week, if invited.)
Image

Senator Ted Cruz was booed at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio,
in 2016. He declined to endorse Mr. Trump during his speech.Credit...Doug Mills/The
New York Times
As his state tries to manage the health and economic fallout from the virus, Mr. Cruz,
49, has sustained a longstanding push to remain in the national mix.

He hosts a popular podcast that began with Mr. Trump’s impeachment proceedings
(“Verdict with Ted Cruz,” he plugged mid-interview), plans to release a book this fall
about the Supreme Court (“each chapter focuses on a different constitutional liberty,” he
enthused) and has tended to a puckish Twitter feed that seems to have grown more
prolific in this period of relative social isolation, holding forth on “Comrade Pelosi” and
a faux Democratic proposal to give each American “three soy lattes a day.”

“I try to have fun,” he said.

While other Republicans said to be interested in future presidential runs, like Senator
Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, were allotted convention
speaking time on Mr. Trump’s behalf, those who know Mr. Cruz say his absence from
the programming might well do more good than harm to his cause.

“I think the smart money is to lay low and see how this shakes out,” said Amanda
Carpenter, a former Cruz aide who has opposed Mr. Trump. “It is a huge risk for
speakers to try to hitch their star to Trump in this moment.”
For Mr. Cruz, of course, there is also their history. Many Republicans said things they
wish voters would now forget in the time between Mr. Trump’s debut as a presumed
sideshow candidate and his tenure as the nation’s 45th president.

But few could match Mr. Cruz — known on the campaign trail for his hammy imitations
and extended stabs at comedy — in the raw showmanship of the reversal.

Just before dropping out in 2016, he appraised Mr. Trump as a “pathological liar” and
“serial philanderer” of boundless narcissism and no moral compass. While Mr. Cruz has
not dwelled on these assessments, he has not taken anything back, either.

Before his convention speech in Cleveland, Republicans had hoped that Mr. Cruz, by far
Mr. Trump’s most formidable primary opponent, would project party unity by
expressing his unqualified support. The senator left the stage instead to ferocious boos
after advising delegates to “vote for candidates up and down the ticket who you trust to
defend our freedom” — without explicitly placing Mr. Trump among them.
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Mr. Cruz has moved to present this decision as a function of policy aims, saying his
purpose was merely “to help move the president in a more conservative direction” by
outlining an agenda he hoped the nominee would embrace and leaving himself space to
reward Mr. Trump with an endorsement if he did.

“I do think there were some who misunderstood what the speech was saying,” Mr. Cruz
said, “and in particular some in the Trump campaign who chose to misinterpret it.”

This accounting is somewhat incomplete. In his own telling at the time, Mr. Cruz’s
rationale was rooted at least partly in Mr. Trump’s merciless, meritless attacks on his
family. These included a baseless insinuation that Mr. Cruz’s father was involved in the
Kennedy assassination and an ominous threat to “spill the beans” about the senator’s
wife.

Image
Mr. Cruz attended a campaign event in Lafayette, Ind., in 2016, as a Republican
candidate for president. Mr. Cruz was known on the campaign trail for his hammy
imitations and extended stabs at comedy.Credit...Eric Thayer for The New York Times

At a breakfast reception with Texas delegates the morning after his speech, Mr. Cruz
strained to explain himself as taunts rained down, a “Clinton-Cruz 2020” sign waving in
front of him.

He said his position was a matter of “principles and ideals.” He said politics was about
more than “red jerseys and blue jerseys.” He would not, he said, be a “servile puppy
dog,” no matter how many Republicans demanded he come to heel.

“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,”
Mr. Cruz said.