Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican widely expected to make another bid for the White House in 2028, was reportedly caught on tape tarring Vice President JD Vance with the same brush he uses on Tucker Carlson and criticizing President Donald Trump's tariff policies.
Unlike politicos keen to fault Vance for his enduring friendship with Carlson, Cruz has avoided publicly broadening his critique of the podcaster to the vice president. Behind closed doors, however, Cruz has apparently exercised no such restraint.
In secret recordings provided to Axios by an unnamed Republican source, which were apparently taken during a pair of private meetings with donors last year, Cruz allegedly characterized the vice president as a non-interventionist puppet of Carlson.
"Tucker created JD," Cruz reportedly says in the recordings. "JD is Tucker's protégé, and they are one and the same."
