by Ted Cruz
At my Princeton graduation with my roommate, debate partner, and best friend, David Panton. We were both headed to Harvard Law School.
Watching the returns the night George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas. I was a busy second-year law student but took the time to savor the victory—and a cigar.
I was deeply fortunate to clerk for William Rehnquist, the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Our first meeting lasted twenty minutes, and his most vexing question was if I’d be willing to join him playing tennis each week.
After my time in Washington during George W. Bush’s first term, I returned to Texas to serve as solicitor general. Greg Abbott, my dear friend, who went on to become governor of Texas, was then attorney general—and my boss.(AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)
As solicitor general, I argued a wide range of cases before the Texas Supreme Court as well as the Supreme Court of the United States. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)
The best thing about my experience on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign was meeting a vivacious and brilliant California blonde named Heidi Nelson, who was also on the policy team. As a child, Heidi had traveled with her parents to Africa, where they did missionary work (this picture was taken in Kenya).
Heidi and I were married on May 27, 2001.
Heidi and I were blessed with two little girls, Caroline and Catherine. The three of them are the loves of my life.
Caroline’s first day of school in September 2013. Fortunately, both girls look like their mother.
I launched what would most kindly be called an underdog campaign for the United States Senate in 2011. With time, the crowds started to grow as a grassroots army joined our effort.
In October 2011 the conservative National Review put me on its cover with the headline “First-Class Cruz.” It was a turning point that gave me a national profile and suggested that my candidacy was viable. (Permission by National Review)
Throughout the campaign, Caroline and Catherine were enthusiastic supporters.
Our first job was to force a runoff in the Republican primary, which would be triggered if no candidate broke 50 percent. I was confident I could win in a head-to-head contest with the establishment candidate, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. We stared at computer screens all night as the good news came in—Heidi was so tense, I thought she would break my wrist. (AP Photo/Houston Chronicle, Nick de la Torre)
Once we were in the runoff, our poll numbers swung 25 points in days. But we still had our work cut out for us. When I told Heidi we would need to raise $3 million in three weeks, I thought she would have a heart attack. But we did it, and we won!
After the general election, Heidi and I visited Israel together. It was an amazing spiritual experience, and also an eye-opener to visit the Jewish state and see the amazing success and strength of the Israeli people.
I was sworn in as the junior senator from Texas on January 3, 2013, with Vice President Joe Biden administering the oath.
From my earliest days in the Senate, I seemed to rub some of my senior colleagues the wrong way—especially the leadership of my own party. Senator John McCain, for example, called me a “wacko bird,” less than two months after I was sworn in. We went on to become friends nonetheless. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
It turned out being considered a “wacko bird” by the establishment was considered a compliment, not an insult, outside Washington.
I expressed my opposition to funding Obamacare by filibustering against a budget deal for twenty-one hours from September 23 to 24, 2013. I will never apologize for doing everything I possibly could to stop this disastrous legislation. About eight hours in, when it was Caroline and Catherine’s bedtime, I read them Green Eggs and Ham from the Senate floor. It was the one thing I had done in the Senate that actually impressed them.
The day after the filibuster, I attended a prayer vigil for Pastor Saeed Abedini, an American citizen who had been unjustly detained by the Iranian regime for the crime of being a Christian. I couldn’t understand why President Obama was not making this an issue with the Iranians by insisting Abedini be released before any diplomatic contact with the Islamic Republic. It was an important reminder of how vital—and fragile—our freedoms are. (Courtesy of the American Center for Law & Justice)
Getting out of Washington—and back to America—kept me grounded. I was honored to be the one who could do what the people wanted, which was to #makeDClisten.
One of the consequences of the Obamacare filibuster was that I became, however unwittingly, something of a pop culture figure. On a trip to Los Angeles, we found the street artist SABO had plastered the city with posters of my head on a ripped, tattooed body with the text “Blacklisted & Loving It.”
President Obama poked fun at my new reputation at the 2014 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when he did a riff on the legislation I had authored that prevented the Iranians from sending a known terrorist, who had participated in the 1979 hostage-taking in Tehran, to be their United Nations ambassador. It had passed both houses of Congress unanimously. The president showed a slide of the signing ceremony, with him, me, the devil—and hell freezing over. (Photo Credit: youtube.com/user/whitehouse)
I was the only Republican senator to join the congressional delegation to Nelson Mandela’s funeral in South Africa. Mandela is a hero of mine because of his passionate fight against racial injustice and his ability to look beyond vengeance and bring healing to his nation after the end of apartheid. But I wasn’t blind to the faults of some of his admirers: when Raúl Castro spoke, I walked out.
In May 2014, I traveled to Israel, the Ukraine, Poland, and Estonia—all allies of the United States who expressed considerable nervousness about the state of our relationship. In Kiev we were guided through the Maidan Square by one of the brave teenage student protestors, who had seen her friends shot during the revolution earlier in the year. (Courtesy of Secure America Now)
Texas has been front and center in the extraordinary energy renaissance that has transformed America in recent years. Rather than being dependent on bad actors like Russia, Iran, and Venezuela, now the future can be fueled by the U.S. and our allies. It will be a wonderful thing if the federal government will just get out of the way.
One of the more pernicious aspects of Obamacare has been the imposition of requirements, such as birth control, on entities for whom this is a violation of faith—from the Little Sisters of the Poor to the Hobby Lobby. I was proud to stand with them.
In the 114th Congress, with the Republicans in the majority, I became chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness. It is an honor to oversee Texas’s proud tradition of pioneering and exploration.
Visiting the memorial to the brave men and women who died in the terrorist attack on Fort Hood on November 5, 2009. It was one of my proudest moments on the Armed Services Committee, when I offered legislation authorizing the army to make the victims eligible for the Purple Heart, and it was unanimously approved by the committee. The Purple Hearts were awarded on April 10, 2015.
The 2014 midterm elections came down to two issues: Obamacare and amnesty, and the voters spoke out loud and clear against them. I was proud to campaign with a number of terrific candidates, including this memorable stop with Ben Sasse, who was running for the Senate from Nebraska, along with my good friends Governor Sarah Palin and Senator Mike Lee. Like many others in this cycle, Ben was successful, and we managed to retire Harry Reid as Senate majority leader. (Courtesy of Ben Sasse for U.S. Senate)
In the spring of 2015, I participated in a round table with Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel to discuss the genocidal threat posed by a nuclear Iran. Truly a great man. (Courtesy of This World: The Values Network)
With Heidi, Caroline, and Catherine at my side, our family took the plunge, and I announced my 2016 presidential campaign at Liberty University.
Standing on the stage, I couldn’t help but think of my parents—one an immigrant fleeing oppression in Cuba, the other a pioneering wo
man succeeding against all odds—neither of whom could have imagined their son would become a United States senator, let alone aspire to the presidency. The truly amazing thing is that in our country, similar stories happen every day. That is the promise of America.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos are courtesy of the author.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many hands were involved in the crafting of this book, and I am grateful to have this opportunity to acknowledge them. That list starts, of course, with my wife, Heidi, who went on much of this adventure with me, as well as our daughters, Caroline and Catherine, who made that journey all the more meaningful and joyous.
In many ways this book is a celebration of two Americans of grit, passion, and fortitude. I am as ever very proud and thankful to be the son of Rafael Cruz and Eleanor Darragh.
I’m grateful for the editorial advice and reminiscences of my dear friends David Panton and Chad Sweet. I also appreciate the guidance of those on my staff who assisted with this effort. Victoria Coates took time from an already busy schedule to help oversee this project from start to finish. I thank as well my friends and advisors John Drogin, Jason Johnson, Jason Miller, Jeff Roe, Chip Roy, Alec Aramanda, and Scott Keller. In helping to cull together a diffuse collection of photographs, my thanks to Samantha Leahy, Josh Perry, Bruce Redden, Bobby Rodriguez, and David Sawyer.
As a new author, I have benefited greatly from the skill and persistence of my agents, Keith Urbahn and Matt Latimer of Javelin. I also owe a debt of thanks to an accomplished lawyer and fierce advocate for her clients, Cleta Mitchell.
Adam Bellow and Eric Meyers led the charge for this book at HarperCollins on a very quick turnaround schedule. Their advice and guidance is greatly appreciated.
I owe a profound and eternal debt to the people of the great state of Texas for having faith in me, for giving me the honor of representing them in our nation’s capital, and for offering a steady and reliable supply of support and prayers. Those prayers have strengthened me enormously during our many ongoing battles in Washington, D.C.
Lastly, and most importantly, I offer my gratitude to the American people and to our blessed and wonderful country. Every day of my life I remember the lessons of my father, a Cuban immigrant who came here with nothing. Only in a land like America is his story—is our story—even possible.
NOTES
Introduction
1. Matthew Yglesias, “It’s Worth Actually Reading Obama’s 2006 Debt Ceiling Speech,” Slate.com, October 9, 2013, http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/10/09/obama_s_2006_debt_ceiling_speech.html.
2. Ibid.
3. Stephen Dinan, “U.S. Borrows 46 Cents of Every Dollar It Spends,” Washington Times, December 12, 2012, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/dec/7/government-borrows-46-cents-every-dollar-it-spends/.
4. Alexandra Jaffe, “McConnell Sets Up Fight Over Debt Limit,” The Hill, January 26, 2014, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/196434-mcconnell-sets-up-fight-over-debt-limit.
5. Betsy Woodruff, “Behind Closed Doors, a Messy Fight over the Debt-Ceiling Hike,” National Review Online, February 12, 2014, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/370987/behind-closed-doors-messy-fight-over-debt-ceiling-hike-betsy-woodruff.
6. Allahpundit, “Revealed: Senate clerks didn’t announce names during debt-ceiling vote so that Republicans could secretly switch,” HotAir.com, February 13, 2013, http://hotair.com/archives/2014/02/13/revealed-senate-clerks-didnt-announce-names-during-debt-ceiling-vote-so-that-republicans-could-secretly-switch/.
7. Manu Raju, “Some GOP Colleagues Angry with Ted Cruz,” Politico, October 2, 2013, http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ted-cruz-blasted-by-angry-gop-colleagues-government-shutdown-97753.html.
8. “The Minority Maker,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2014, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304434104579379374287357650.
Chapter 1
1. “Cuba dissident Farinas awarded Sakharov Prize by EU,” BBC News, October 21, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-11594804.
Chapter 2
1. James L. Haley, Sam Houston (Tulsa: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 390.
Chapter 3
1. http://news.yahoo.com/u-generals-sex-crimes-trial-delayed-indefinitely-151003096.html.
Chapter 4
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/10/us/execution-approaches-in-a-most-rare-murder-case.html.
2. Court documents can be found here: http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/beazley779.htm.
3. CNN Transcript, “Scheduled to Die,” May 25, 2002, http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/25/cp.00.html.
Chapter 6
1. Barry Goldwater, With No Apologies: The Personal and Political Memoirs of United States Senator Barry M. Goldwater (New York: William Morrow, 1979), 262.
2. Ibid.
3. Stanley Kutler, The Wars of Watergate (New York: Knopf, 1990), 532.
4. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 262.
5. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate, 535.
6. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 261.
7. Ibid., 262.
8. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, The Final Days (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976), 398.
9. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 263.
10. Ibid.
11. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate, 542.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 263.
15. Kutler, The Wars of Watergate, 539.
16. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 261.
17. Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days, 414.
18. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 267.
19. Woodward and Bernstein, The Final Days, 414.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 415.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid.
25. Goldwater, With No Apologies, 268.
26. http://www.texnews.com/1998/2003/texas/texas_Maverick_929.html.
27. Michael King, “Maps, Balls and Testifying,” Austin Chronicle, December 26, 2003, http://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2003-12-26/191173/.
28. Compare http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/2002/2002Stat.htm#43 with http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/electionInfo/2006/2006Stat.htm#43.
29. Medellín’s confession is available here: http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/preview/publiced_preview_briefs_pdfs_07_08_06_984_RespondentAppendix.authcheckdam.pdf.
30. Allan Turner, “Medellín executed for rape, murder of Houston teens,” Houston Chronicle, August 5, 2008, http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Medellín-executed-for-rape-murder-of-Houston-1770696.php.
Chapter 7
1. “Cover Story: Ronald for Real,” Time, October 7, 1966, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,199339,00.html.
Chapter 8
1. PolitiFact, “Ted Cruz says Americans invented ‘Pong,’ ‘Space Invaders’ and the iPhone,” June 6, 2009. http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2013/jun/06/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-americans-invented-pong-space-invade/.
Chapter 9
1. Quotes from Reagan’s 1961 record on socialized medicine come from Eric Zorn, “Ronald Reagan on Medicare, circa 1961. Prescient rhetoric or familiar alarmist claptrap?” Chicago Tribune, September 2, 2009, http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2009/09/ronald-reagan-on-medicare-circa-1961-prescient-rhetoric-or-familiar-alarmist-claptrap-.html.
2. Lenin’s quote was likely not as pithy. Various accounts dispute the authenticity and translation of the quote, but it appears that Lenin did express the idea in his private notes.
Chapter 10
1. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2009/06/-brotherhood-invited-to-obama-speech-by-us/18693/.
2. Jonathan Turley, “Turley: Obama The President That Richard Nixon Always Wanted To Be,” Real Clear Politics, June 3, 2014, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/06/03/turley_obama_the_president_that_richard_nixon_always_wante
d_to_be.html.
3. For a complete list, see Ted Cruz, “The Legal Limit: The Obama Administration’s Attempts to Expand Federal Power,” http://www.cruz.senate.gov/files/documents/The%20Legal%20Limit/The%20Legal%20Limit%20Report%204.pdf.
4. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President on the Government Shutdown,” October 3, 2013, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/10/03/remarks-president-government-shutdown.
5. Barack Obama, “Remarks by the President to the National Council of La Raza,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/25/remarks-president-national-council-la-raza.
6. President Barack Obama, “Remarks on Immigration Reform,” Google Hangout, February 21, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9lmy_8FZM.
7. Barack Obama, “Obama: ‘If Congress Won’t Act, I Will,’ ” ABC News.com, October 29, 2011, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/obama-congress-wont-act-14841368.
