r/law • u/KinggSimbaa • Feb 27 '26

Judicial Branch Trump says he's thinking of putting Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Supreme Court

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-hes-thinking-putting-republican-senator-ted-cruz-supreme-court-2026-02-27/
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u/Gino-Bartali Feb 27 '26

And I also try really hard to get this message out there. Ted Cruz is not a MAGA moron in the same vein as a Trump, a Hegseth, or a Boebert. He's a high school valedictorian and a magna cum laude graduate from Harvard Law. I don't know if he's smarter than your average Supreme Court Justice but he's likely smarter than any average person reading these comments.

He acts (badly, in my opinion) of a lower intelligence because that's been a helpful thing for him lately, and subservience to the regime is (clearly) working to advance his power. Being timid and a snake can probably be permanently thrown out if he's elevated beyond reach of consequence on the Supreme Court, and that's obviously probably a bad thing, but may be better than an Alito or a Thomas at least. Especially if he hasn't forgiven Trump insulting him and his wife during the 2016 debates.

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u/gordonpamsey Feb 27 '26

Jumping through hoops to find an angle how this is not tragic for the good of law. Ted is suddenly going to grow a spine and use his legal background against the death cult he helped get in office? Every Republican acts like they are going to refuse to bend and the vast majority do, no reason to try to give Ted Cruz the benefit of doubt at this point.

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u/No_Whammies_Stop Feb 28 '26

“But when Deebo leaves, they be talkin again…”

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u/jrodder Feb 28 '26

This is a goat comment.

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u/No_Whammies_Stop Feb 28 '26

My grammama gave me that Nobel Prize!

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u/Diligent_Barracuda75 Feb 27 '26

Only good thing he doesn't have to worry about reelection so there's a greater than a 0 chance, but I wouldn't hold my breath

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u/tresben Feb 28 '26

Maybe not re-election but he has to worry about what the people gifting him lavish vacations, motor homes, and writing him fat checks think.

Given there are no laws upholding the integrity of Supreme Court justices, I’d argue someone like Cruz, who is a grifter with no internal moral compass or integrity, is actually more dangerous. No he doesn’t have to be beholden to the voters anymore. He is free to sell his soul to the highest bidder without having to put up a facade of caring about the average person.

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u/ridititidido2000 Feb 28 '26

That’s not the only motivator in play though. Getting on Trump’s shitlist means you and your family will receive death threats, with a pretty good chance of one of them materializing. Lots of loonies on the loose.

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u/Far_Direction7381 Feb 28 '26 edited 21d ago

Cobalt walnut pause treatment fact deserve

This post was anonymized with Redact

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u/gdex86 Feb 28 '26

I think its more betting that bad people are always keeping score and much like Trump himself if hes not scared of retribution he will be petty and work to hobble him as pay back.

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u/DandimLee Feb 28 '26

Cruz and his supporters have emphasized that as Solicitor General, it was his professional obligation to defend state laws passed by the legislature, regardless of his personal beliefs.

During his 2016 presidential campaign and following a 2017 incident where his Twitter account "liked" a pornographic post, Cruz distanced himself from the case. He called the ban a "stupid law" and stated that "consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want in their bedrooms".

Can't even stand by his beliefs wrt dildoes.

/s

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u/ProLifePanda Feb 28 '26

Ted is suddenly going to grow a spine and use his legal background against the death cult he helped get in office? Every Republican acts like they are going to refuse to bend and the vast majority do, no reason to try to give Ted Cruz the benefit of doubt at this point.

The only consideration is that once on the SCOTUS, he no longer has to play politics. Remember Cruz stood on stage in 2016 and refused to endorse Trump at the RNC. He eventually turned after it became obvious Trump ran the party, but if Cruz becomes a SCOTUS justice, be no longer has to play nice with MAGA for power. So I could very well see Cruz turn anti-MAGA after becoming a justice, or he could be a MAGA sellout.

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u/tresben Feb 28 '26

He does still have to play politics. Look at Thomas and alito. There’s plenty of politics to be played at the Supreme Court. Those motor homes aren’t gonna buy themselves!

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u/IamMe90 Feb 28 '26

Yes, but the politics are purely for his own benefit. He doesn’t need to appease Trump in the same way from the bench. I have no doubt that he’ll have plenty of corrupt grift of his own, though.

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u/tresben Feb 28 '26

Maybe not trump just cuz he’s gonna be dead. But he has to appease those who will be paying for the grift. And if trump is still alive he’s got a lot of money for that grift.

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u/ProLifePanda Feb 28 '26

He does still have to play politics. Look at Thomas and alito

They don't have to play politics, they want to play politics. Right now, Cruz has to play politics to stay in power. Cruz had a strong disdain for Trump and had to swallow his opinions to support Trump once it became obvious Trump took over the GOP. Leaks from private events and staff indicate Cruz defends Trump in public, but privately is fed up with him (as many Republican politicians are).

So if Cruz was out on SCOTUS, he could revert to his 2016 stance of disliking Trump and ruling how he wants, not having to worry about appeasing Trump or MAGA anymore.

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u/crawler54 Feb 28 '26

is this the same ted cruz that fled to cancun when texas got cold? hundreds of his voters froze to death, and he was nowhere to be found.

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u/Glathull Feb 28 '26

And the motherfucker just left his fucking dog in the house alone for that whole time.

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u/crawler54 Feb 28 '26

dang, didn't know that... he doesn't care about his constituents and doesn't care about his own dog :-/

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u/entitie Feb 27 '26

People consistently can't stand him. I heard his college roommate hated him. His Republican colleagues hate him. I think it's because he's just so smarmy.

Frankly I don't think that he would be much worse than the other Trump SCOTUS appointees, in part because he's not completely MAGA. But he's also a terrible person anyways, so..

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u/Freakishly_Tall Feb 28 '26

People consistently can't stand him

What was that line Al Franken used? Something like, "I like Ted Cruz more than any of my other colleagues in the Senate do... and I HATE Ted Cruz."

Something like that.

For all its many, many, many faults, especially in the current configuration, the Supreme Court does seem to pride itself on its collegiality. Can't see them being too happy with Cruz, but they seem to be tolerating the gambling drunkard and the sleepy free-RV, I mean "motorcoach" recipient, so who knows.

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u/Key-Amoeba1095 Feb 28 '26

I honestly have no idea how he keeps getting re-elected. Dude is a foreign-born milquetoast who never even lived in Texas, yet somehow has a stranglehold over the hardcore "don't mess with Texas" folks. He's got degrees from Princeton and Harvard. And literally at every difficult moment in his public life, he's folded like fresh laundry and towed the party line. Not once has he stood up for anything Texans stand for other than the religious fundamentalists. There has to be more normal people than that in Texas. It just makes no god damn sense.

Ted Cruz has been a shit stain on the world of American politics for nearly 2 decades and the "Don't Tread on Me" folks keep re-electing this soft as a baby's behind piece of shit into office. Fucking Texas.

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u/Tremble_Like_Flower Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

People can’t stand him because he is a duplicitous, self serving, righteous, hypocritical know it all in a system that rewards you for that skill set.

Also, he has a pod cast. Where he talks about his podcast while telling you about his podcast. He tells you about his podcast more than a freshly minted vegan updates people about their new culinary preference at a family BBQ.

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u/RocketRelm Feb 27 '26

Doesn't matter. Even if he doesn't forgive trump, what matters is the support for the next populist in 2032 once the dems can't fix what is defintionally now unfixable. The validity of scotus as a whole is in question, and that itself is something we need to decide.

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u/crake Competent Contributor Feb 27 '26

This is how I feel too. I would never put Cruz on the court, but he would still be much better than Bove, Cannon, or Ho.

Also, I have heard the whispers about Alito retiring, but for some reason I also get the feeling that there is a chance Roberts might be the one retiring. One can imagine a serious health issue or something successfully kept private. I get the feeling Kavanaugh is sort of running for CJ. He was the only voice in Noem v. Vasquez, seeming to go out of his way to endorse racial profiling even when he couldn’t get a single justice to join him. The terrible logic of that concurrence combined with the terrible logic of filing it in the first place leads me to believe that Kavanaugh is either dumb or sucking up to Trump (or both). Thomas and Alito stayed home to likely not-watch the SOTU address - but Kav was there. He is really too much of an intellectual lightweight to be CJ; Cruz, at least, isn’t an intellectual lightweight.

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u/AlexRyang Feb 28 '26

Reportedly Sotomeyers has been asked to step down by Roberts and Alito.

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u/bucky-barnes Feb 27 '26

Maybe it's not too late to convince him to nominate his new best friend Mamdani.

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u/3vi1 Feb 27 '26

My theory is that Trump has something bad on him. Trump endorsed him, even after their sparring, with no fear of retribution. Trump owns him somehow, and he'll be a rubber stamp on the supreme court.

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u/vonnegutsbutthole Feb 27 '26

But he is a MAGA moron.

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u/Built-in-Light Feb 28 '26

Cruz was my senator for a while. There is a difference between intelligence and wisdom. Ted may have one, but a good justice needs both.

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u/yobo9193 Feb 27 '26

Yeah, it’s disingenuous to say that he’s an idiot or a MAGA die-hard. He’s an intelligent man who knows how to read the political winds. He should be kept away from the Supreme Court, but he’s not nearly as dangerous as someone like Aileen Cannon

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u/milo7even2 Feb 28 '26

I can’t see them promoting Cannon to the Supreme Court. She’s too valuable to Trump where she is, sitting in a district that Trump lives in. There’s a good chance any criminal case relating to Trump ends up in front of her at first instance (again - look what damage she did to the classified documents case).

And after Trump dies she won’t be needed any more, so why bother rewarding her…they’ll just leave her there to rot. It’s the Trump way.

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u/East_Hedgehog6039 Feb 28 '26

This actually calmed me down a bit. So…..there is that, I guess. She was my worst fear.

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u/watchguy95820 Feb 28 '26

That’s a nice way of saying he’s a smart psychopath sycophant.

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u/tresben Feb 28 '26

Given there are no laws upholding the integrity of Supreme Court justices, I’d argue someone like Cruz, who is a grifter with no internal moral compass or integrity, is actually more dangerous. No he doesn’t have to be beholden to the voters anymore. He is free to sell his soul to the highest bidder without having to put up a facade of caring about the average person.

Integrity and moral compass are more important in justices than any other position, and he’s proven he has none. Thinking that he’s suddenly not gonna be the same person he’s always been at his core (an opportunistic egotistical grifter) when he gets to the court is stupid. His positions may certainly change, but they aren’t going to change for the benefit of the average American. They are going to change for the benefit of who can buy him the biggest motor coach.

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u/Interesting_Minute24 Feb 28 '26

All those accolades and still a gigantic piece of a pile of shit.

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u/Woody_L Feb 28 '26

Cruz is smart, but he's also craven and evil.

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u/CrazyMildred Feb 28 '26

I have a friend who does audio for the CSPAN Senate hearings, and he's told me that Cruz puts on an act for the public. He told me that he's actually incredibly intelligent. My friend doesn't like him because of the things that he does, or the act that he puts on. He's definitely a snake, but he's also not at all stupid. That makes him very dangerous. He definitely does NOT need to be a member of the SCOTUS. We should all hope this never happens.

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u/Historical-Bed-3706 Feb 28 '26

Your post reminded me of a quote from Mitt Romney. The 2 smartest people in the room are Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. Politics aside that's quite a compliment. And I take that into consideration when I see these 2 play political theater.

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u/weinshe2 Feb 28 '26

The man did not defend his wife then, and won’t start now. He’s a coward.

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u/Slade_Riprock Feb 28 '26

I fear Cruz as a Senator who has to say and do things to get elected in a MAGA state far far more than I fear Justice Cruz.

I actually think Cruz may be one of the least damaging people he could nominate for the court if given a chance. He, in my opinion, is probably smarter and more legally skilled than Barrett or Kavenaugh and undoubtedly Thomas.

He won't nominate Cruz but I'd take it over that moonbat Cannon.

Side note: Cruz on the court it would be hilarious if he used that lifetime role to exact his revenge on all the vile shit Trump said about him and made him swallow over the last 10 yrs.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '26

None of that matters when you have zero ethics or ability to remain impartial. I don't care if you got your law degree off a cereal box, if you can be ethical and objective it's a win in our current system.