Ted Cruz Got Nuked by Tucker Carlson — But Like a Cockroach, His Political Career Will Survive

Screenshots via Tucker Carlson Network

Senator Ted Cruz got his clock cleaned this week in a brutal, two-hour interrogation by Tucker Carlson — and it was the kind of political mugging you don’t often see outside of opposition attack ads.

Carlson, with his trademark snide condescension and smug mastery of loaded questions, grilled the Texas senator on his foreign policy record, particularly his support for aid to Ukraine and his perceived coziness with the “globalist uniparty.” Cruz, clearly unprepared for the full-force ambush, flailed. He tried pivoting. He tried parsing. He even tried flattering. None of it worked.

By the end of the interview, Cruz wasn’t just bruised — he was thoroughly emasculated. Tucker’s fans were suddenly aligned with Democrats who loathe Cruz, both cheering the carnage by gleefully sharing clips of Cruz looking like a schoolboy caught plagiarizing his book report. If there’s a political version of getting pantsed on the playground, this was it.

And yet — judging by his past shamelessness — Cruz’s political career will almost certainly be just fine.

That’s the infuriating truth. For all the humiliation, the facts remain: Ted Cruz is a two-term senator from Texas with a loyal GOP base, a gift for performance politics, and — most importantly — an utter lack of shame. In today’s political climate, that’s not a flaw. That’s armor.

Let’s be clear: Carlson wasn’t just tough; he was out for blood. At one point, he flat-out accused Cruz of “doing the bidding of foreign governments” and abandoning America First principles. Rather than defending himself with any ideological clarity, Cruz gave a masterclass in cowardly triangulation — praising Trump, nodding to Tucker’s concerns, and then falling back on empty patriotism and anti-Biden red meat.

It was pathetic. But also very on-brand.

Cruz has spent the last decade auditioning for whatever form of Trumpism will keep him viable. He went from calling Trump a “pathological liar” in 2016 to phone-banking for him in 2020. He objected to certifying the 2020 election results on January 6th, then denounced the violence hours later — a tap dance so clumsy even his allies cringed.

Let’s not forget his performative outrage after then-candidate Donald Trump insulted his wife for being “ugly,” when Cruz insisted that he would not be some “servile puppy dog.”

“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” he said in the summer of 2016.  “That pledge (to support whoever won the GOP primary) was not a blanket commitment that if you go and slander and attack Heidi, that I’m going to nonetheless come like a servile puppy dog and say, ‘Thank you very much for maligning my wife and maligning my father.’”

Within months, and the nine years that have followed, Cruz has become perhaps the most servile of all Republican senators to roll over and play dead in the service of President Trump. This is not a man with a core ideology. It’s a man who checks the wind and shouts whatever MAGA talking point is trending.

So when Tucker carved him up like a Thanksgiving turkey, the embarrassment wasn’t that Cruz had betrayed his beliefs — it’s that he looked weak. That’s the cardinal sin in today’s right-wing media ecosystem. You can be wrong, craven, or even corrupt, but you cannot look like a beta. And in that moment, with Carlson towering over him like an inquisitor, Cruz absolutely did.

Still, weakness isn’t fatal in Texas politics. Having just won in 2024, Cruz isn’t up for re-election until 2030. Despite being one of the most disliked senators nationally — and almost losing to Beto O’Rourke in 2018 — he will still likely win. Why? Because Texas Republicans don’t care if Cruz is slippery. They don’t care if he gets dunked on by Tucker. As long as he owns the libs and backs the party line, they’re with him.

Call it partisan inertia. Call it Stockholm syndrome. But Cruz has figured out the modern Republican base: They reward loyalty over principle, theatrics over truth, and volume over coherence. And Cruz, for all his awkwardness, knows how to perform. He’s a Harvard-educated debate nerd who cosplays as a grassroots flamethrower. It’s dishonest — but effective.

So no, this interview won’t end his career. It won’t even dent it. Cruz might lay low for a few news cycles, maybe fundraise off the “deep state media” trying to silence him (irony be damned). And when the next outrage cycle begins, he’ll pop back up with a snide tweet or a viral Senate floor stunt because Ted Cruz doesn’t believe in shame. He believes in survival. And that makes him the perfect — and perfectly maddening — embodiment of today’s political landscape.