Texas Sen. Ted Cruz declined to rule out a 2028 presidential campaign during an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” while also mounting a fierce defense of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his judicial record.
Moderator Kristen Welker pressed Cruz on his future political plans after playing a clip of an exchange between the senator and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. In the recording, Patrick repeatedly asked Cruz if he planned to launch another campaign for the White House following his 2016 run. Cruz had responded, “Time will tell.”
Asked directly by Welker if he is considering a 2028 bid, Cruz shifted the focus to the upcoming congressional midterms.
“You know, the Book of Ecclesiastes tells us there’s a time for every season. And this is not that season right now. This is the season of the midterms,” Cruz said.
The Texas Republican pointed to his extensive travel schedule supporting party candidates across the country, calling the upcoming cycle the most critical in modern history.
“In the last decade, there has not been another Republican who’s campaigned for more Senate candidates, more House candidates, more gubernatorial candidates than I have,” Cruz said. “I’m going to be on the road non-stop from now to Election Day. If the Democrats take the Senate and House, we will see the entire Trump legislative agenda grind to a halt. We will see non-stop impeachment circus. We will see a relentless attack of subpoenas and investigation.”
Cruz claimed Democrats are running on opposition to Donald Trump rather than policy solutions, adding that voters want economic stability rather than legislative gridlock. Pushed once more by Welker on whether a presidential run remains an active possibility, Cruz stood by his stance: “As I said, there will be a time for that conversation.”
The discussion then turned to Cruz’s latest book, “Going Further: The Incomparable Clarence Thomas”. Cruz said the project came together after Thomas agreed to roughly nine and a half hours of exclusive, one-on-one interviews.
Welker asked Cruz about public perceptions of the conservative jurist and noted that Thomas grew up in deep poverty in 1950s Georgia before eventually voting to strike down race-conscious college admissions. She cited an excerpt from Cruz’s book describing Thomas’s years at Yale Law School, where the future justice wore combat fatigues, attended radical rallies, and harbored deep anger before adopting conservative legal thought.
Cruz argued that liberal critics hold a unique animus toward Thomas that was never directed at other conservative jurists, such as the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I believe Clarence Thomas is a true American hero,” Cruz said. “If you look at Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia was every bit as conservative as Justice Thomas. But yet, Scalia didn’t have the scorn, the contempt, the derision. And the left I think has a real bigotry. They look at Clarence Thomas and they say, ‘How dare a Black man believe what he believes?’ And Clarence Thomas is someone who is not going to be told what to believe.”
Cruz outlined Thomas’s early life, describing his journey from rural Pin Point, Georgia, to studying for the Catholic priesthood, which Thomas abandoned in the 1960s over frustration with the church’s response to racial segregation. Cruz traced Thomas’s subsequent shift from a campus radical at the College of the Holy Cross and Yale to an originalist legal scholar.
Addressing criticism that Thomas helped dismantle affirmative action despite benefiting from similar initiatives early in his career, Cruz stated that Thomas’s legal philosophy developed directly from his own professional hurdles. According to Cruz, law firms refused to hire Thomas after graduation because they assumed his degree reflected racial preferences rather than personal capability.
“He took a 15-cent sticker from a cigar box. And he stuck it on his Yale Law School degree because that’s what he thought the degree was worth,” Cruz said. “He’s experienced first-hand the negative consequences of discriminating based on race.”
Cruz concluded his defense by saying Thomas views racial preferences as fundamentally unconstitutional.
“Clarence Thomas believes, and I think he’s right in this, that the Constitution does not allow discriminating based on race, that it is pernicious,” Cruz said.
READ: South Carolina Rep. Clyburn Calls 1991 Clarence Thomas Endorsement ‘Mistake’ And Backs 13-Seat Court
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