Ted Cruz is discussed in The Bob Zadek Show as a political figure referenced by guests and by host Bob Zadek, rather than as an interview subject. Across the excerpts he appears in three distinct contexts: as a Republican presidential candidate whose immigration positions were described as changing, as a foil in accounts of the 2016 Trump campaign’s internal battles, and as a senator who publicly confronted Twitter’s chief executive over the platform’s handling of a news story. No excerpt presents Cruz’s own account of his views.
Immigration positions
In a December 2015 episode on immigration, guest Alex Nowrasteh was asked by Bob Zadek to summarize the positions of the leading presidential candidates in both parties. Turning to Cruz, Nowrasteh said his position had changed so much over the preceding three years that he had almost no idea where Cruz currently stood. Nowrasteh stated that in 2013 Cruz had favored legalizing current undocumented immigrants without a path to citizenship, describing this as a permanent green card, and had wanted to increase the number of highly skilled immigrants by five-fold. Nowrasteh added that Cruz now seemed to be backing off his support for more skilled immigration Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
The same segment placed Cruz within a broader Republican field. Nowrasteh described Donald Trump as wanting a moratorium on almost all immigration, characterized Jeb Bush as always supportive of comprehensive immigration reform, and said Rand Paul had introduced an act earlier that year called the SECURE Act, which would have substantially limited green cards and refugees issued to people from majority-Muslim nations. On the Democratic side, Nowrasteh described Hillary Clinton as having moved around on the issue over her career and Bernie Sanders as having been an immigration restrictionist throughout his career, citing a Vox interview in which Sanders said open borders would destroy wages for Americans Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
Bob Zadek framed the discussion by noting that the candidates seemed to speak almost as one on immigration, with Rand Paul possibly an exception, and asked Nowrasteh to summarize their positions. Zadek also offered an aside distinguishing Sanders’ position from the others, saying Sanders’ anti-immigration stance rested on his view of economics rather than national security; Nowrasteh agreed, describing it as a union-focused, old-school Democratic view about immigrants taking jobs and impoverishing the middle class Immigration Nation: Nowrasteh Sets it Straight Again (2015).
The 2016 campaign and the Republican Party
Cruz appears again in a September 2018 episode featuring Frank Buckley, author of The Republican Workers Party. Responding to Bob Zadek’s question about where personal freedom fits in political discourse, Buckley described the Trump campaign as a war fought on two fronts: against what he called extreme anti-nationalists in the Democratic Party, and against people like Ted Cruz on the right. Buckley said the campaign was not talking about freedom per se, though he said what it was saying mostly overlapped with a libertarian agenda — removing regulatory burdens on small business, opposing crony capitalism as represented by Hillary Clinton, and opposing campaign finance laws The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
Buckley’s framing placed Cruz on the opposite side of an intra-Republican contest rather than in a policy dispute over immigration. He said that in the 18 months since the campaign, politics had gone crazy, that there was no possibility of deal-making with the Democrats, and that the right had a completely fractured party still in shock and not yet having figured out the Republican Workers Party The One Book You Must Read to Understand American Politics in 2018 (2018).
In a July 2022 episode, Buckley returned to the theme of what he called progressive conservatism, describing it as the sweet spot in American politics and saying it was not Ted Cruz and not simply the social conservatives of the religious right. Buckley described it as a middle-of-the-road movement last best expressed by Dwight Eisenhower, with important elements visible in the 2016 Trump campaign. He said he had worked on that campaign, pitched themes such as the rise of aristocracy and the decline of economic mobility, and found that those themes went nowhere with Trump Progressive Conservatism with F.H. Buckley (2022).
Buckley also criticized Trump directly in that episode, saying Trump had disgraced himself on January 6th and was even before then a failure as president by virtue of an inability to cut deals, that domestic policy in the first two years was run by the Paul Ryans, and that the Russian collusion matter had prevented a deal with Putin. He said the Republican Party had better cut its ties with Trump as an individual while still attracting the 74 million people who voted for him Progressive Conservatism with F.H. Buckley (2022).
Twitter and antitrust
Cruz appears in a November 2020 episode on antitrust and Big Tech as the senator who publicly scolded Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey. Bob Zadek recounted that after the New York Post released a story relating to Hunter Biden’s laptop, Twitter blocked the Post’s release of the information on its feed, later apologized, and that Jack Dorsey and others were dragged before Congress. Zadek said Cruz publicly scolded Dorsey and complained about Dorsey’s power, and quoted Cruz as asking, “Who elected you, Mr. Dorsey?” Zadek said Dorsey did not have a good answer because the answer is nobody Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020).
Zadek used the episode to frame a broader question about who listeners should root for in disputes between tech companies and the government, presenting the choice as nonpartisan. He described the Department of Justice antitrust lawsuit against Google and asked whether the audience should root for the DOJ or Google, then posed the same question about Twitter and the United States government Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020).
Guest Ryan Young, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, responded to the Twitter matter by criticizing Republicans for short-sightedness. He said that even supposing tech companies had in-house bias and used their products to mute conservative thought, Republicans were proposing to gear up a large antitrust and speech regulation machine that would hand power to Democrats. He called this tactically a strikingly poor and short-sighted judgment. Bob Zadek compared it to Harry Reid’s short-term approach as Senate majority leader, saying Reid compromised long-time norms on the supermajority 60 votes required to confirm federal judges and that this came back to haunt him, resulting in Amy Coney Barrett and perhaps Kavanaugh Why Trustbusting Big Tech is a Bad Idea (2020).
Across episodes
The excerpts show no development in the treatment of Cruz himself. He is named in a December 2015 episode on immigration, a September 2018 episode on Frank Buckley’s book, a November 2020 episode on antitrust and Big Tech, and a July 2022 episode on progressive conservatism; in each he serves as a reference point for a guest’s or the host’s argument rather than as the subject of discussion, and no excerpt records a response from Cruz or a sustained examination of his record.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not include any interview with Cruz or any extended statement from him beyond the quoted question to Dorsey. They do not state his Senate seat, his state, his committee assignments, his legal career, or his positions on issues other than immigration as described by Nowrasteh. They do not describe the outcome of the Twitter episode, the SECURE Act, or the Google antitrust lawsuit. The July 2022 excerpt breaks off mid-sentence after Bob Zadek’s name, so whatever he said next is not available here.