President Donald Trump floated the idea of nominating Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to the Supreme Court on Thursday during a visit to the state.
The president was giving a shoutout to the conservative senator when he made the remarks while speaking in Corpus Christi, less than a week before voters in the state head to the polls for the first major primary race of the midterm elections.
“We have a senator who’s really an amazing guy,” Trump said, as he acknowledged the controversial senator in the audience. “I’m thinking about wanting him in the Supreme Court.”
“He is such a pain in the a--, but he’s so good and so talented,” he added.
There are currently no vacancies on the nine-member Supreme Court, but Trump still has nearly three years left in office.
If one of the justices stood down from their lifetime appointment on the bench, Trump could get the chance to nominate a fourth justice to the country’s high court.
This would add to the three conservative justices he appointed in his first term: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
With the midterms approaching—and Republicans at risk of losing their majority in Congress—there has also been speculation that Justices Samuel Alito, 75, or Clarence Thomas, 77, could possibly step down due to their ages and a desire from MAGA world to secure a conservative successor. So far, neither has indicated immediate plans to do so.
Trump, however, teased the crowd in Texas about potentially elevating their local senator. Acknowledging that it was “very tough” to get nominations through the Senate, Trump said in relation to Cruz: “He’s the only guy I know, he’ll get 100 percent of the Democrat vote, 100 percent of the Republican vote.”
“They want to get him out of there,” he added, appearing to jokingly acknowledge that Cruz has been known as one of the most disliked senators in Congress.
“If we ever had a problem, I’d just pick Ted. That would solve that problem.”
Such a move would likely be controversial, given that the former Texas Solicitor General has long been a polarizing figure in politics.
Democrats dislike him for his staunchly conservative positions on issues like abortion, gun rights, and climate change, while some Republicans have bristled at his combative style.
The 55-year-old senator also came under scrutiny in 2021 when he flew to Cancun during a deadly winter storm that left millions of Texans without power—a trip that he later acknowledged was a mistake.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Cruz about the president’s comments.
In recent months, however, he appears to be positioning himself for a potential 2028 presidential bid.
This could set up a possible clash with the MAGA wing of the Republican party, with Cruz recently advocating for his party to ostracize pundit Tucker Carlson for interviewing a white nationalist who has said Adolf Hitler is “cool.”
“Every one of us has an obligation to stand up and say it is wrong,” Cruz said.
Trump’s visit to Texas was his first public trip since Tuesday’s State of the Union address, and the first since the Supreme Court struck down his signature tariff policy earlier this month.
The move infuriated Trump, who lashed out at the justices who voted against his global tariffs, calling them “lap dogs,” a “disgrace to our nation,” and “disloyal to the Constitution”.
This resulted in somewhat tense scenes at Trump’s State of the Union address, where one of those justices, Neil Gorsuch, refused to attend, while another who rebuked him, Amy Coney Barrett, stared the president down as he described the ruling as “unfortunate” and “totally wrong.”
Before his speech on Friday, Trump also posted to Truth Social, asking: “Is a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case possible???”
“It doesn’t make sense that Countries and Companies that took advantage of us for decades, receiving Billions and Billions of Dollars that they should not have been allowed to receive, would now be entitled to an undeserved ‘windfall,’ the likes of which the World has never seen before, as a result of this highly disappointing, to say the least, ruling,“ he lamented.
After the speech, Cruz accompanied Trump to a Whataburger restaurant in Corpus Christi, where the president bought burgers for customers—and for his flight to Palm Beach on Air Force One.
“Are these the best burgers?” Trump asked, clearly ignoring his own “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
The president then headed to the cash register. “Are you ready?” he asked the adoring crowd. “Hamburgers for all!”
