Explosive leaked recordings claim Ted Cruz lashed out at President Donald Trump and Vice President Vance in conversations with Republican donors last year.
The Texas senator, who is expected to run for president in 2028, lashed out at Trump’s tariff campaign and said he even threatened his staff that he would fire them immediately if they used the term “Emancipation Day” to refer to the day of sweeping taxation, Axios reported.
Cruz, 55, told donors that he and other senators expressed their distaste for Trump’s tariffs in a lengthy phone call, warning they would devastate the economy and lead to his impeachment. Cruz told donors that the call, which went past midnight, “didn’t go well” and that Trump was “yelling” and “cussing” at lawmakers.
Cruz claimed he received a particularly clear response from the president that night.
“Mr. President, if we get to November [2026] “People’s 401(k) benefits are down 30%, prices in supermarkets are up 10-20%, we’re going into Election Day and we’re facing a bloodbath,” Cruz told Trump, the recording shows. “You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to be impeached every week for the next two years.”
Trump allegedly responded bluntly: “‘Fuck you, Ted.'”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz stands behind then-President-elect Donald Trump during the launch of a SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, in November 2024. /Brandon Bell/Getty Images
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Cruz’s office did not deny the contents of the recording in a statement to Axios. Still, Cruz’s office claims he remains “the president’s greatest ally in the Senate, fighting in the trenches every day to advance his agenda.”
Axios reports that the recordings total “nearly 10 minutes” and come from conversations “in early to mid-2025.” The website said the recordings were provided by “Republican sources.”
It’s unclear which donors Cruz is talking to.
Donald Trump’s attack on Heidi Cruz during the 2016 Republican presidential primary.
Trump called Cruz “Liar Ted” during the 2016 Republican presidential primary and even suggested that his wife, Heidi, was ugly compared to Melania. Still, Cruz has largely done Trump’s bidding in the Senate since then and even campaigned for Trump in 2024.
Cruz, 55, is now believed to be considering another run for the White House, hoping to become a more traditional Republican successor to Trumpism. Standing in his way is Vance, 41, who prediction markets view as the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination.
Prediction market Kalshi ranks Vice President JD Vance as the most likely candidate to win the Republican presidential primary. /Karshi
According to Axios, Vance was “fired” by Cruz in a secret recording. Sources also told The Washington Post last month that Cruz privately badmouthed the vice president to donors.
In the recording obtained by Axios, Cruz claimed that Vance was a “pawn of conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson,” one of Cruz’s biggest enemies who clashed with the former Fox News host in an explosive interview last summer over the Trump administration’s strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Cruz supports the intervention and has repeatedly criticized Carlson for opposing U.S. military support for Israel.
“Tucker created J.D.,” Cruz told the donor, according to Axios. “J.D. is Tucker’s protégé. They are the same person.”
Publicly, Cruz has never explicitly linked Vance to Carlson. He claimed to donors that national security adviser Mike Waltz, who was ousted because of Signalgate infamy, was ousted from the Trump cabinet by Carlson and Vance.
“[He] “Tucker and JD took out Mike,” Cruz said, according to Axios.
Carlson told Axios he had nothing to do with the high-profile ouster.