Strange Things Everyone Ignores About Ted Cruz

Ted Cruz is a unique politician in his own right. Few American political figures have been as openly disliked by their own party as he has. As the Stanford Daily reported, in 2016, former house speaker and fellow Republican politician John Boehner dubbed Cruz "Lucifer in the flesh" during a panel at Stanford University. He also admitted that although he could get along with both Democrats and Republicans just fine, Boehner couldn't stand the Texas senator. And it seems most GOP members share that sentiment because almost none of them endorsed Cruz for his 2016 presidential bid. 

There may be a variety of reasons why Cruz has been deemed so unlikeable by his peers, ranging from the politician's polarizing opinions and questionable choices to his smile. As USA Today noted, in a 2022 chat with Quartz, Richard E. Cytowic, a neurology professor at George Washington University, explained why the Texan's expressions seem off-putting to many. Most people have a "Duchenne smile" with the expert elaborating, "The mouth goes up, the eyes narrow and the eyes crinkle at the outside, forming crows feet." 

Cruz, on the other hand: "His mouth goes in a tight line across or else it curves down in an anti-Duchenne smile. So he doesn't come across as sincere at all." Further, the neurology professor asserted that the Republican senator's curt body language only fed into people's dislike of him even more. In addition to having a strange demeanor, Cruz has done plenty of weird things that only seem more questionable with hindsight.

Ted Cruz's marriage to Heidi Cruz is weirder than most people probably imagine. Speaking at a CNN Town Hall event, the Texas senator's wife revealed that after they returned home from their honeymoon, he headed straight down to the grocery store alone and brought back around 100 cans of Campbell's Chunky Soup. Heidi shared that they had a "tough conversation" about the bizarre purchase, which she recalled: "I said, 'You don't buy 100 of anything, much less canned soup. We can't do this. I'll be making things.' He said, 'No, I know you. You won't be making things,'" (via YouTube). 

After Heidi made a trip to the grocery store herself, the following morning, to return the soup cans, she rang her mom to get reassurance about her decision. However, her mother believed Heidi had made the wrong move because the soup cans could come in handy for two career-focused people who also happened to be pretty awful in the kitchen. This change of perspective prompted Heidi to restock their pantry with 100 soup cans. And, as the years passed, Heidi continued standing by her husband's questionable decisions. 

Although Donald Trump heavily implied that Heidi was ugly in comparison to his own wife, Melania Trump, in a 2016 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ted still endorsed him for the 2024 elections. In addition to taking metaphorical jabs from his political opponents, Heidi has also taken literal, accidental jabs from her husband. After Ted announced that he was dropping out of the 2016 presidential elections, he got into an awkward group hug with his father and Heidi, which resulted in him accidentally elbowing her in the face.

Failed candidate Ted Cruz elbows wife in face https://t.co/DFh93RMs0D pic.twitter.com/CXMf7Ehm6U

— Gawker (@Gawker) May 4, 2016

Ted Cruz's 2021 travel plans raised eyebrows, and for good reason. While Texans were dealing with a terrible winter storm that left millions without electricity, the Republican senator conveniently left his home state to travel to Cancún, Mexico. The backlash over Cruz's controversial decision only worsened when an X user shared a photo of the politician's dog, Snowflake, sitting in the doorway of the home he had abandoned. In typical fashion, Cruz only made the situation worse with his explanation for the vacation. 

In a statement, the divisive politician shifted the blame for his decision onto his young daughters by clarifying on X, "With school canceled for the week, our girls asked to take a trip with friends. Wanting to be a good dad, I flew down with them." Although the Texas senator acknowledged his home state's turmoil, Cruz's empathy seemed disingenuous because he followed it up with a declaration of how he was able to comfortably leave his home to go on a vacation. Nevertheless, his team continued to do more damage control. 

Cruz's press secretary, Jessica Skaggs, informed the Associated Press that the family had hired a dog watcher to care for Snowflake while they were away. While his team scrambled to deal with the backlash, Cruz made an awkward Cancún joke that had the Internet seeing red. At that year's CPAC event, the Texan quipped, "I've gotta say, Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancún, but it's nice." Cruz only dug himself into a deeper hole by joking that the Internet believed he had "fed Snowflake to the wolves," (via the New York Post).

In 2013, Ted Cruz tried voicing his concerns about Obamacare during a marathon 21-hour speech. However, at certain points during the filibuster, the senator veered off-topic by a considerable margin. At one point, in fact, Cruz stated that he wanted to read his daughters a bedtime story, so he pulled out a copy of Dr. Seuss' classic "Green Eggs and Ham." After concluding, the Republican politician likened the lines to Barack Obama by saying, "I did not like Obamacare in a box with a fox, in a house or with a mouse" (via YouTube). 

The exhaustion apparently caught up to him around 1 a.m., since Cruz started listing the rules from "Duck Dynasty." By morning, he was making "Star Wars" references and saying things like "Mike Lee, I am your father." His excruciating speech confused Democrats and Republicans alike. Senator Chuck Schumer (D) was particularly baffled about his choice to read the Dr. Seuss book. "The moral of that story is to try things you may not like," he argued (via CBC). "If he tasted Green Eggs and Ham, he may actually like them." 

Cruz warranted a similarly confused reaction when he made a strange joke to oil lobbyists in 2018. As the New York Times reported at the time, the senator shared how he had seen an X user with the username "Ted Cruz ate my son," confessing, "I was really tempted to tweet, 'He was delicious." Considering the viral conspiracy theory about Cruz being the Zodiac killer, this word choice seems even more bizarre.

In a 2013 chat with the Daily Beast, some of Ted Cruz's Princeton classmates described him as "creepy" because he had a tendency to wear a paisley bathrobe and wander around the hallways of the female students' rooms. As the senator's roommate in his freshman year, Craig Mazin, detailed, "I would end up fielding the [girls'] complaints: 'Could you please keep your roommate out of our hallway?'" Needless to say, Cruz only got weirder as he rose through the ranks. 

During a 2013 appearance on ABC's "This Week," the Texan senator disclosed that his office featured a portrait of himself arguing against a Supreme Court that he dismally lost. Cruz explained that he kept the painting within eyesight to keep himself grounded. However, the embarrassment from that major loss likely pales in comparison to the time the whole world started paying attention to his strange social media behavior. In 2017, Cruz's X account liked a tweet of a pornographic video, and several people took screenshots of it before he managed to unlike it again. 

While the staunch Republican addressed the embarrassing incident with reporters, Cruz joked that he could have used that kind of publicity when he was going up against Donald Trump in the crucial Indiana primary, which the senator ultimately lost. Additionally, Cruz insisted that he wasn't the one who liked the post. After pointing out that several of his staff members had access to his account, he asserted, "It was a staffing issue, and it was inadvertent, it was a mistake, it was not a deliberate action," per The Guardian.

While most politicians were busy arguing amongst themselves, Ted Cruz was picking fights with "Sesame Street" characters. In November 2021, the X account for Big Bird tweeted that he had got the COVID-19 vaccine and was doing perfectly fine afterwards. While then-President Joe Biden commended the beloved children's character for the move, Cruz expressed his disdain by writing, "Government propaganda...for your 5 year old!" As Thanksgiving rolled around, Cruz took his imaginary feud with Big Bird to the next level by sharing a bizarre drawing of other "Sesame Street" characters feasting on the bird for the special occasion. 

Somewhat surprisingly, Big Bird wasn't the only character from the children's show that ruffled the Texas senator's feathers either. In June 2022, the official "Sesame Street" account posted a video in which Elmo's dad encouraged viewers to have an open discussion with medical professionals to clear up any lingering doubts about the COVID-19 vaccines. In a response tweet, the staunch Republican appreciated that Elmo had encouraged parents to voice their concerns about vaccines. However, he added, "You then have @elmo aggressively advocate for vaccinating children UNDER 5. But you cite ZERO scientific evidence for this." 

His feuds with children's characters seem much weirder considering that Cruz voiced his support for children's vaccinations in 2015 and even announced that he had vaccinated his own two kids. However, it seems like the Texas senator never grew past his middle school phase. While speaking at the 2022 CPAC, he referred to then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki as "Peppermint Patty," referencing the red-headed freckled character from "Peanuts," (via YouTube). And yet, Psaki later gave an unexpected response to Cruz's attempted diss, indicating that she really couldn't care less what he had to say about her.