Donald Trump Floats Ted Cruz for the Supreme Court at Texas Rally

Donald Trump suggested that Senator Ted Cruz could be his answer to the difficulty of getting Supreme Court nominees confirmed, pitching the idea during a rally in Lubbock, Texas, on October 27. Trump joked that senators from both parties might support Cruz, although the article notes there is no current vacancy on the court. Trump recalled appointing three justices during his first term and said confirmations can be hard to secure. He told the crowd he had an idea for avoiding a drawn-out fight: nominate Cruz. Trump praised the Texas senator as a brilliant lawyer with strong credentials and said he would not even need to make a phone call to win approval. The president’s reasoning was presented as a punchline about Cruz’s relationships in the Senate. Trump claimed Democrats would vote for him because they wanted him out of the Senate, while Republicans would do so for the same reason. He predicted unanimous support and said Cruz would do a good job as a justice. Trump added that the idea could be useful if he encountered approval problems in the future. The article cautions that the proposal is hypothetical. It reports that there had been speculation about Justice Samuel Alito potentially stepping down, but that he had not done so. No formal nomination was announced in the remarks described. Cruz has had a contentious reputation among some colleagues, the report notes. In 2016, the late Senator Lindsey Graham made a widely reported joke about Cruz’s unpopularity, then criticized him in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. Graham called Cruz an opportunist in his political career and questioned whether his ideological approach would appeal to voters. Trump’s comments therefore combined praise for Cruz’s legal qualifications with a teasing account of how the Senate might react to losing him as a member. The rally remarks, as reported, were a piece of political humor and speculation—not a confirmation that Cruz would be nominated.