Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) took aim at President Trump’s tariff policy and Vice President JD Vance during closed-door donor meetings last year, according to recordings obtained by Axios. The recordings reveal deep rifts inside the GOP over trade and foreign policy.
The recordings, totaling nearly 10 minutes, were provided by a Republican source and were made during two donor sessions in early and mid-2025.
In the recordings, Cruz repeatedly singled out JD Vance and Tucker Carlson, accusing them of driving an anti-interventionist foreign policy inside the Trump administration. Cruz claimed the two were responsible for pushing out former national security adviser Mike Waltz because he supported military action against Iran, even though Trump later embraced that approach.
“Tucker created JD. JD is Tucker’s protégé, and they are one and the same,” Cruz told donors. He has been feuding publicly with Carlson on social media for months.
Cruz also said Vance and Carlson played a role in briefly installing Army veteran Daniel Davis in a senior intelligence position. Cruz described Davis as fiercely hostile to Israel and said their involvement triggered backlash that ultimately led to Davis being forced out.
In the second recording, Cruz recounted a tense late-night phone call with Trump after the president rolled out his tariff plan in early April 2025. Cruz and several other senators tried to persuade Trump to back off the policy. The call stretched past midnight and “did not go well,” Cruz said. Trump was “yelling” and “cursing” during the conversation.
“Trump was in a bad mood,” Cruz told donors. “I’ve been in conversations where he was very happy. This was not one of them.”
Cruz warned Trump that the tariffs could wreck the economy and imperil the GOP’s political standing.
“Mr. President, if we get to November and people’s 401(k)s are down 30% and prices are up 10–20% at the supermarket, we’re going to go into Election Day, face a bloodbath,” Cruz said he told Trump.
“You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”
Trump’s response, according to Cruz, was blunt: “F**k you, Ted.”
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the trade deficit shrank to $29.4 billion in October. That marks the smallest gap since June 2009 and a sharp 39% decline from September’s $48.1 billion. The economy also grew at an annualized rate of 4.4% in the third quarter — the fastest pace in two years.
When a donor brought up “Liberation Day,” Trump’s branding for the tariff rollout, Cruz mocked the phrase. He said he told his staff that anyone using it “will be terminated on the spot.” He added, “That is not language we use.”
Cruz also told donors he had been “battling” the White House to secure a trade agreement with India. When asked who inside the administration opposed such deals, Cruz pointed to economic adviser Peter Navarro, Vice President Vance, and “sometimes” Trump.
A Cruz spokesperson downplayed the recordings in a statement, insisting that Cruz is “the president’s greatest ally in the Senate and battles every day in the trenches to advance his agenda.”
“Those battles include fights over staffers who try to enter the administration despite disagreeing with the president and seeking to undermine his foreign policy,” the statement continued. “Sen. Cruz is proud of those fights, his accomplishments, and his close relationship with the president. These attempts at sowing division are pathetic and getting boring.”
Loading recommendations…
