REPORT: GOP Senator Plotting To Challenge JD Vance For 2028 Nomination

Sen. Ted Cruz sat down with a longtime ally last November at an office near Washington’s Union Station to talk politics, the future of the Republican Party and, before long, his own next move.

Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization for America, warned Cruz that “Jew hatred and Israel bashing” were creeping into parts of the right and said Republicans needed to confront it head-on. Cruz, who had already begun delivering speeches condemning antisemitism within the GOP, told Klein he had been getting encouragement to consider a 2028 presidential run.

Klein said Cruz appeared to be “seriously” weighing it.

With President Donald Trump not expected to be on the ballot in 2028, Cruz has increasingly positioned himself as a defender of a more traditional, hawkish Republican foreign policy. He has also taken direct aim at influential MAGA pundit Tucker Carlson, accusing him of spreading antisemitic narratives through his criticism of Israel. Carlson has rejected that charge.

As the feud simmers, Cruz is quietly considering a second White House bid, according to people familiar with his thinking. Such a run would put the 55-year-old Texas senator on a collision course with Vice President JD Vance, widely viewed as a leading contender for the Republican nomination.

Tensions are already apparent. Cruz has warned Republican donors that Vance’s foreign policy views veer too far toward isolationism, according to people familiar with the conversations. Vance has been one of the party’s most prominent skeptics of U.S. intervention overseas and maintains close ties to Carlson.

The dynamic underscores how much the GOP has shifted in the Trump era. Cruz entered the Senate in 2013 as a tea party insurgent challenging party leadership. Today, he is defending long-standing Republican positions on foreign policy, capitalism and national security, even as a newer generation of conservatives pushes a different vision.

Some observers question whether Cruz could gain traction in another presidential run, noting his clashes with Trump during the 2016 campaign and his diminished outsider status. Still, Cruz has spent years cultivating activists and donors nationwide, and the shape of the 2028 GOP primary remains uncertain.

“Can Ted help craft or meld together the traditional Republican approach with the new reality of what the Republican Party is now?” asked Daron Shaw, a University of Texas political science professor who worked with Cruz during George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign. “It’s a heavy lift.”

The day after his meeting with Klein, Cruz sharpened his rhetoric. Speaking to a group supporting Jewish conservatives in Las Vegas, he called Carlson “a coward” and denounced what he described as the “poisonous lies” of antisemitism. He praised Trump as a president who “loves the Jewish people.”

“When Trump is not in the White House, what then?” Cruz asked the crowd.

“Ted Cruz!” someone shouted back.

Cruz smiled and continued.

Any Republican eyeing 2028 faces a major hurdle in Vance, who leads early polling and is widely seen as Trump’s most natural successor. While Trump has not formally endorsed Vance as heir to the MAGA movement, his continued influence looms large over the primary field.

“The Republicans will be fighting for their identity,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said of the coming contest. A close Carlson ally, Greene added bluntly: “There’ll be Ted Cruz, I’m sure, running against JD Vance. All of us hate Ted Cruz.”

Cruz’s political career has been defined by adaptation. After working in the Bush administration, he became Texas solicitor general, then rode the tea party wave to a Senate upset victory in 2012. In Washington, he gained notoriety for hardline fights over spending and the Affordable Care Act, including a government shutdown in 2013.

His 2016 presidential bid ended when Trump eclipsed him with a more populist message. Cruz famously told convention delegates to “vote your conscience” rather than endorse Trump, earning lasting resentment from parts of the base. Over time, he rebuilt his standing, rising to chair the Senate Commerce Committee and cutting bipartisan deals on issues such as aviation safety.

Cruz describes himself as a “noninterventionist hawk” and has long been an outspoken supporter of Israel. He argues that turning against Israel weakens U.S. national security and emboldens terrorist groups.

“Those who are anti-Israel quickly become anti-capitalist and anti-American,” Cruz said in a brief interview. “Tucker’s obsession is unhealthy and dangerous.”

The clash highlights a real divide inside the GOP. Carlson is closely aligned with Vance, an “America First” populist who is skeptical of the foreign policy establishment and some corporate interests. Cruz, by contrast, is drawing a line against isolationism and what he sees as tolerance for antisemitism on the right.

Vance has rejected claims that antisemitism is widespread within conservative circles. “It’s kind of slanderous to say that the Republican Party, the conservative movement, is extremely antisemitic,” he said recently, adding that criticism of Israeli policy is not the same as hatred of Jews.

Cruz disagrees.

“Every Hamas or Hezbollah or IRGC terrorist that Israel took out makes Americans safer,” he said. “And those who don’t see that are not acting in accordance with American national security interests.”

The feud intensified after a contentious interview between Cruz and Carlson over Israel, followed by increasingly personal attacks from both sides. Cruz has called on Republicans to repudiate Carlson after the pundit hosted white nationalist Nick Fuentes, while Carlson has accused Cruz of reckless rhetoric and raw ambition.

Trump has stayed above the fray, calling Carlson a “nice guy” and Cruz a “good friend” in recent months.

Whether Cruz can turn his high-profile fight into a viable 2028 campaign remains an open question. Some GOP donors are unconvinced.

“If JD Vance is running, I’m going to be supporting JD Vance,” said Hal Lambert, a longtime Republican donor who backed Cruz in 2016. “I just don’t understand what the platform would be.”

For now, Cruz is staking out his ground, betting that foreign policy, Israel and the direction of the conservative movement itself will matter when Republicans choose their next standard-bearer.

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