TMZ Grills Ted Cruz on Whether He’s Team Trump or Team Pope
Senator Ted Cruz refused to pick a side in President Trump’s petty tiff with Pope Leo XIV.
“Are you on the pope’s side or the president’s side?” a TMZ reporter asked Cruz on Monday evening.
“You know what, I’m quite confident that both the pope and the president can speak for themselves,” Cruz replied.
“Well, they are going through a very public sort of beef right now—”
“I understand you wanna get me in the middle of that,” Cruz interrupted. “I trust both of them to express their own views.”
TMZ then proceeded to ask Cruz various questions regarding Trump’s attack, all of which Cruz rebuffed. “Every way you ask the question you’re gonna get the same answer.”
? EXCLUSIVE: Republican senator Ted Cruz wouldn't say if he's Team Trump or Team Pope, no matter how many different ways he was asked. ? pic.twitter.com/AO3qbXVS0A— TMZ (@TMZ) April 13, 2026
This beef with the pope—in which Trump called him “weak on crime” and accused him of wanting Iran to have a nuclear weapon—comes while Trump and his base are still reeling from the president’s AI post depicting himself as Jesus Christ. Cruz, a devout Southern Baptist, hasn’t commented on that either.
