REPORT: Ted Cruz Plotting To Betray JD Vance

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is planning to run for president in 2028, according to Axios, and he may be launching his platform by picking a very public fight with Tucker Carlson as he positions himself as the GOP’s old-school, hawkish alternative.

Cruz has spent weeks jabbing Carlson over the commentator’s isolationist foreign policy takes, even accusing him of antisemitism. Cruz’s animosity is being viewed as a direct shot across the bow of Vice President JD Vance, a Carlson ally and the early favorite for the next Republican nomination.

“We have a responsibility to speak out even when it’s uncomfortable,” Cruz said in a statement to Axios. “When voices in our own movement push dangerous and misguided ideas, we can’t look the other way. I won’t hesitate to call out those who peddle destructive, vile rhetoric and threaten our principles and our future. Silence in the face of recklessness is not an option.”

Carlson responded with trademark snark, calling the whole thing “hilarious.”

“Good luck,” he said. “That’s my comment and heartfelt view.”

Cruz has been hammering Carlson nonstop on social media, at donor retreats, and in speeches. The tension has been building since June, when Cruz went on Carlson’s podcast and torched him for opposing Trump’s strike on Iran’s nuclear weapons facility — and later blasted him for ripping Israel’s war effort in Gaza and U.S. aid to Ukraine.

“On foreign policy, Tucker has gone bat-crap crazy,” Cruz said afterward. “He’s gone off the rails.”

The Texas senator has since accused Carlson of flirting with antisemitism, unloading on him for a soft-focus interview with podcaster Nick Fuentes. At an October event for the Republican Jewish Coalition, Cruz labeled Carlson a “coward” and “complicit in evil.”

At the Federalist Society convention in Washington this month, Cruz went even further, warning Carlson had “spread a poison that is profoundly dangerous” by promoting Fuentes, whom he blasted as “a little goose-stepping Nazi.”

Some of Cruz’s broadsides echo conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who also torched Carlson over the Fuentes interview earlier this month.

Cruz is scheduled to address the Jewish Federations of North America’s General Assembly this week, another move that hasn’t gone unnoticed among hawkish GOP megadonors furious with Carlson and worried about the party’s drift toward isolationism.

“It’s definitely getting noticed,” RJC CEO Matt Brooks told Axios.

Many of those donors backed Nikki Haley in her failed 2024 primary run against Trump, and they’re now eyeing alternatives to Vance — though crossing Trump’s White House could be risky. Vance, unlike Carlson, has repeatedly disowned Fuentes, calling him a “total loser.”

Cruz, the 2016 runner-up to Trump, is acting like a man preparing to run, Axios says. He’s been hitting the paid-speaking circuit, showing up before Miami-Dade Republicans and the Maverick PAC. He’s also hosting a top-ranked podcast and a syndicated radio show, which have enabled him to build a massive small-dollar machine.

His perch atop the Commerce Committee has opened doors to deep-pocketed business leaders, especially those aligned with his opposition to Trump’s tariff agenda. He’s also been doling out endorsements, another classic sign of a looming run for higher office in the midterm season.

But today, the GOP base looks nothing like the Bush-era interventionists who once backed Cruz’s foreign-policy playbook. Carlson and Vance’s “America First” doctrine has taken hold, and early polls show Vance with a commanding lead for 2028.

Cruz may be looking for a fight, but the voters he needs might not be in the mood for another neocon comeback tour.

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