Ted Cruz on Supreme Court Nod: I Want to Stay “in the Political Fight”

President Donald Trump stunned observers last week when he added three prominent Republican senators – Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton, and Ted Cruz – to his shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees. While Cotton released a statement suggesting that he might be interested in the lifelong position on the nation’s high court, both Hawley and Cruz demurred, suggesting that they are more comfortable in the political dogfight on Capitol Hill.

In an interview with “Sunday Morning Futures” this weekend, Cruz elaborated on what he called a tremendous honor.

“It is deeply honoring. It’s humbling to be included in the list,” said the Texas Republican. “I’m grateful that the president has that confidence in me, but it’s not the desire of my heart. I want to be in the political fight. I want to be fighting to nominate and confirm principled constitutionalist justices but it’s not where I want to serve. I want to stay fighting right where I am in the U.S. Senate.”

While the idea of Ted Cruz being a sitting justice is intriguing, we tend to think he has the right idea. Cruz is a smart politician with razor-sharp instincts, a willingness to compromise when the situation calls for it, and an absolute refusal to back down when his principles are on the line. He took a lot of grief from Trump country in the 2016 election, but his ability to put that nasty primary behind him and support the president…well, that just shows what kind of guy he really is. For him, it’s God, country, and family, and that’s all that matters. He’s not going to let hurt feelings and ego get in the way of doing what’s right for America.

Cruz was also asked about the state of the nation in late 2020, and he said that uncertainty and unrest could lead to a chaotic election.

“I think it is exceptionally volatile and I think it depends on what happens over the next two months,” he said. “I think if we see people starting to go back to work, I think if we see a renewed sense of hope and optimism, we could have a phenomenally good election and see the president re-elected by an even bigger margin than last time. We could see Republicans growing our majority in the Senate, we could even see Republicans re-taking the House of Representatives and I’m fighting hard for all of those to happen.”

Cruz acknowledged that things might go another way, however.

“If in the next two months, we see more people losing their jobs, more shutdowns, we see COVID numbers going up, if people are depressed and demoralized, if they are giving up hope, we could see a terrible election,” he warned “We could see an absolute blood bath where Biden wins the presidency, and we wake up and Chuck Schumer is the majority leader, and Nancy Pelosi is the Speaker of the House.”

He concluded: “The stakes right now are enormously high.”

Yeah. You don’t have to tell us twice.