Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, maybe you’ve heard, are great friends now. Trump traveled to Texas Monday night to give Cruz a boost in his re-election bid against Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke, bringing his signature high-energy, low-focus rally style to a sold-out crowd in Houston’s Toyota Center.
“I’ll tell you what: Nobody has helped me more, with your tax cuts, with your regulation, with all of the things that we’re doing, including military and our vets, than Senator Ted Cruz,” Trump told the 18,000 assembled faithful. “He defended your jobs, he defended your border . . . he defends your families, he defends your faith, and we are defending together, with a lot of other great Republicans, your freedom.” Cheers, applause.
You will recall it was not always thus. Two years ago, Cruz and Trump slugged it out in one of the most brutal presidential primary fights in memory. Not brutal in the sense that it was ever close: Cruz led Trump by a single delegate after the Iowa caucuses, and then never again. But the attacks that flew between the two scorched-earth rhetoricians were breathtaking. Cruz denounced Trump as a reckless and rudderless political opportunist: He was a “pathological liar,” “utterly amoral,” and a “serial philanderer.” Trump, for his part, speculated that Ted Cruz’s father had helped Lee Harvey Oswald assassinate John F. Kennedy, and retweeted pictures jeeringly comparing Heidi Cruz’s looks to his wife Melania’s. Even by the standards of that wild year, it was insane stuff.
“The problem with Ted is he walks in with the Bible, holds up the Bible—you know I call him Lyin’ Ted—puts down the Bible, and then he lies,” Trump said in May 2016. “I’ve never seen a man lie this much.”
And now that’s all behind them. “To me, he’s not Lyin’ Ted anymore,” Trump told reporters Monday before the rally. “He’s Beautiful Ted. I call him Texas Ted. No, Ted Cruz and I had a very, very nasty and tough campaign. It was a very competitive—it was a very tough campaign. Once it ended and we got together—and, by the way, very late into the campaign we lasted—people were shocked. I said, ‘Don’t worry, it’s only a question of time.’”
Cruz seems to agree—or at least he’s resigned to the new arrangements. He himself introduced Trump to the crowd Monday. “I am honored that President Trump is here endorsing and supporting my campaign,” he hollered, “and I look forward to campaigning beside him in 2020 for his re-election as president of the United States.”
Touching stuff. But wait a minute, because here’s a serious question: What changed? Did Donald Trump himself bring about a pang of conscience to the craven heart of Lyin’ Ted, the result of which is that he now lies no longer?
We all know the answer, obviously: In the moment, Trump said what he needed to say to crush a political opponent. Cruz, no longer an opponent, no longer needs crushing. Still, it’s a little unsettling to see it all laid out so baldly.
Maybe you remember seeing the video from May 2016 of Cruz talking to a knot of Trump supporters in Indiana, days before that state’s all-important primary, the primary that would end up breaking Cruz’s campaign more or less for good. Cruz, the former debate-club nerd, is trying his best to have a real conversation with these guys about the policy differences between him and Trump, but they’re having none of it. “Okay, Lyin’ Ted,” they sneer.
That’s the vote Cruz needs now. It’s looking more and more like he’ll get it.
