OXON HILL, Md.—As President Donald Trump reforms the executive branch, rooting out gender ideology, “Marxist equity,” and waste from the federal government, Democrats and leftist groups have filed lawsuits to block him, and some judges have abetted these efforts. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has predicted that this lawfare will not stop.
“The entire four years of Trump’s presidency, the Left is going to wage lawfare against him,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in an interview at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday.
“You’re going to have Democrat attorneys general who are going to sue the federal government over and over and over again,” the senator predicted. “You’re going to have left-wing activists paid for by George Soros, paid for by leftist billionaires, that are just going to file relentless lawsuits. And they’re going to go seek out friendly judges—they’re going to file these cases in blue states, they’re going to go out and seek left-wing radical judges, and that means the Department of Justice is going to be defending the president day in and day out.”
Soros, a Hungarian American billionaire who has funded most leftist causes, founded the Open Society Foundations, a large nonprofit now run by his son, Alex Soros. Open Society Foundations or its sister nonprofits have funded the American Civil Liberties Union and the Human Rights Campaign, two organizations that have already sued the Trump administration to block its border and gender policies.
Federal judges have issued nationwide injunctions in some cases, ordering the Trump administration to halt its freeze on federal spending, to rehire a special counsel, to restore deleted government websites, and to refrain from giving the Department of Government Efficiency (an effort headed by Elon Musk to root out waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal government) access to federal records, among other things.
Cruz noted that the very notion of a “nationwide injunction” is highly controversial. Judges have the authority to resolve the dispute in front of them, between the person who sued and the defendant or between the prosecutor and the accused, but that does not necessarily mean they can order the federal government to block a nationwide policy outside of a specific dispute.
“The issue of nationwide injunctions is actually hotly contested in the law,” the senator said. “You see a single district judge that tries to govern the entire country, and the basic principle is that a judge has the authority to resolve the case and controversy in front of him between the litigants, but the authority of one district judge to issue a nationwide injunction is hotly contested.”
Cruz, a former Supreme Court clerk and solicitor general of Texas, declined to predict whether the Supreme Court would rule on the issue, but he suggested the nation’s highest court would ultimately uphold Trump’s authority in specific cases.
“Whether the Supreme Court reins it in or not, I don’t know,” he said. “You’re going to see the Department of Justice appealing those cases and you’re going to see those overturned either in the courts of appeal or, ultimately, I think in the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“I think it’s something that Congress can address, as well,” he added.
While the Supreme Court oversees the federal courts, Congress has the authority to create courts and the Senate confirms Supreme Court justices.
Cruz spoke with The Daily Signal after he interviewed Attorney General Pam Bondi on the main stage at the conservative conference for his podcast, “Verdict With Ted Cruz.”
“She is very focused on No. 1, keeping us safe—putting murderers and rapists and child molesters and gang members and terrorists—putting them in jail, securing the border, going after the cartels, going after the people who are threatening our safety,” he said. “She is also laser-focused on ending the politicization and weaponization of the Department of Justice and the FBI.”
Cruz also praised Musk and DOGE for exposing how the Democrats’ machine funneled taxpayer money to leftist causes.
“The simplest principle in terms of how you catch mobsters, how you catch criminals, is follow the money,” he said. “We need to follow the money behind the antisemitic protests on college campuses and who’s funding that.”
He said the Left’s decision to use taxpayer money to prop up their causes makes up one of three major ways the Biden administration weaponized the federal government.
“One aspect of the politicization and weaponization of government under the Democrats was indicting and prosecuting Donald Trump, was targeting pro-life activists, was targeting faithful Catholics, was targeting parents who speak up at school boards,” Cruz said. “That’s one aspect of weaponization.”
“Another aspect of politicization and weaponization is turning a blind eye to the illegal conduct of your friends and allies,” such as the “cartels and human traffickers, and letting criminals go,” he added.
“Yet another aspect of politicization is sending cash to your political allies,” Cruz said. “Everything the Biden administration did was politicized, and they were shoveling millions and billions of dollars to left-wing groups. We need to root all of that out. I’m really grateful Elon’s putting the energy into finding that, because the relentlessness … every agency, every program. It was accepted.”
The senator noted that an Environmental Protection Agency staffer reportedly compared the $20 billion in funding for “green” grants at EPA to throwing gold bars off the Titanic.
Cruz also condemned former President Joe Biden, who sought to tie Trump’s hands on policy as Biden exited the Oval Office.
“There’s never been a president after his party is defeated, who has behaved more petulantly and with more contempt for democracy and the voters than Joe Biden did,” the senator said. “He spent his last two months as president doing everything he could to try to frustrate Donald Trump and the will of the voters, and one of the examples is signing agreements with the federal employee unions saying they don’t have to go into the office to work.”
Cruz praised Trump for requiring federal workers to return to the office. “This is not a dial-in from home in bunny slippers job,” he quipped.
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