Originally Posted: October 22, 2018
Jeff Engel, Director of the SMU Center for Presidential History lends expertise for this Oct. 22 USA Today article.
One of the political world’s most fractious couples gets together again Monday in Texas.
President Donald Trump heads to Houston to stump for embattled incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz, the latest phase in a political relationship that has gone from warm to bad to tolerable.
“Ted Cruz has become a friend of mine,” Trump said during a political rally over the weekend in Missoula, Montana – never mind that Trump once nicknamed him “Lyin’ Ted,” insulted his wife, and suggested his rival’s father was somehow involved in the John F. Kennedy assassination.
For his part, Cruz has expressed his support for the president, though he recently declined to describe Trump as either friend or foe.
“He’s the president,” Cruz said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” “I work with the president in delivering on our promises.”
Perhaps Cruz still remembers describing Trump as a “pathological liar.”
The two men are apt to be all smiles Monday night at the Toyota Center in Houston. They have a common interest in holding the Texas Senate seat for Republicans, as Cruz faces a well-funded challenge from his Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
“He’s not Lyin’ Ted anymore,” Trump said as he departed for Texas. “He’s beautiful Ted.”
With Cruz moving up in polls – Real Clear Politics’ average of recent surveys gives him a 7 percentage point lead – many political analysts have suggested Trump is traveling to Texas in order to take credit for Cruz’s expected victory on Nov. 6.
“He wants to look like the guy who got to bail out Cruz,” said Rick Tyler, an aide to the Texas senator during his 2016 presidential bid. “It’s just a transactional relationship.”
Many Republicans criticized Trump during his rise to the presidency in 2016 – Cruz included – but in 2018, many have welcomed him back to the campaign trail as the GOP struggles to keep control of Congress.
Trump, ever the campaigner, is happy to help as he loads up his schedule with rally after rally. He needs all the Republican lawmakers he can get to move his agenda.
And candidates like Cruz need votes from Trump supporters who might be inclined to stay home for the midterms because the president himself is not on the ballot.
“This is a marvelous example of how principles in politics last only until the next election,” said Jeffrey Engel, director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. READ MORE