After graduating from Princeton University and Harvard Law School, Cruz pursued a career in politics, eventually serving as a policy advisor in the George W. Bush administration.

[49] At the firm, Cruz worked on matters relating to the National Rifle Association and helped prepare testimony for the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.

[50] After Bush took office, Cruz served as an associate deputy attorney general in the United States Department of Justice[3][53] and as the director of policy planning at the Federal Trade Commission.

[57] In the landmark case District of Columbia v. Heller, Cruz drafted the amicus brief signed by the attorneys general of 31 states arguing that the Washington, D.C. handgun ban should be struck down as infringing upon the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

[55][59] Cruz successfully defended the constitutionality of the Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds before the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court, winning 5–4 in Van Orden v.

[44][43][48][55] With the support of the George W. Bush administration, the petitioners argued that the United States had violated the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by failing to notify the convicted nationals of their opportunity to receive legal aid from the Mexican consulate.

[71][72] After leaving the Solicitor General position in 2008, Cruz joined the Houston office of the Philadelphia-based law firm Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, often representing corporate clients.

[75] Cruz represented drug manufacturer B. Braun before the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit after the company was found guilty of wrongfully discharging a former employee.

[78] He represented a mentally disabled man who was allegedly raped by an employee of the facility where he lived, and the family of a 78-year-old resident of an Albuquerque nursing home who died of internal bleeding.

"[144] Cruz has repeatedly said that the 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran "will make the Obama administration the world's leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism".

[148] In June 2016, Cruz blamed the Obama administration for the Orlando nightclub shooting, reasoning that it did not track the perpetrator Omar Mateen properly while he was on the terrorist watch-list.

[185] Cruz later led an effort by a group of Republican senators to refuse to count Pennsylvania's Electoral College votes,[186][187] citing baseless allegations of fraud.

[197] The Texas Democratic Party called on Cruz to resign, saying that his efforts to block Biden's lawful victory empowered the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol.

[296] On October 10, after the 2005 audio recording of Trump was released and several Republicans retracted their endorsements, Cruz reaffirmed his support, calling Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton "manifestly unfit to be president".

[81][301][302][303] Cruz is a critic of the rapprochement between Cuba and the United States, saying on Fox News in December 2014 that the thaw in relations was a "manifestation of the failures of the Obama-Clinton-Kerry foreign policy" that "will be remembered as a tragic mistake".

[343][344] Cruz has been an adamant opponent of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 international nuclear agreement with Iran negotiated by the U.S. and other world powers, calling it "catastrophic" and "disastrous".

[359] A co-sponsor of the resolution to commemorate the Armenian genocide, Cruz said that while Turkey is a NATO ally, "We should never be afraid to tell the truth, and alliances grounded in lies are themselves unsustainable.

[361][362][363] In August 2018, Cruz and 16 other lawmakers urged the Trump administration to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China's Xinjiang region.

[366] He co-signed a letter to Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick that read, "As China amplifies its campaign of intimidation, you and your company must decide whether to look beyond the bottom line and promote American values—like freedom of speech and thought—or to give in to Beijing's demands to preserve market access.

[370] Beginning during his time as a Dublin, California, city councilman, Eric Swalwell was targeted by a Chinese woman believed to be a clandestine officer of China's Ministry of State Security.

"[385] The New York Times wrote that "of 23 examples of extraneous spending that a spokesman for Mr. Cruz provided, all but one—$195 million in discretionary funds for the secretary of health and human services—were Sandy-related or sought to mitigate future storms, as the law required.

[397] In September 2024, Cruz tweeted an image macro of two cats hugging with captions that reiterated a false claim by Donald Trump that Haitian immigrants steal and eat American citizens' pets.

[398][399] Twitter users condemned Cruz for perpetuating a racist hoax, with some citing his Cancún controversy to doubt the authenticity of his concern for the safety of Americans' pets.

[400][401] In March 2016, about seven months before the forthcoming presidential election, Cruz argued the Senate should not consider Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court on the grounds that "this should be a decision for the people.

In September 2020, less than two months before the next presidential election, Cruz supported an immediate vote on Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court vacancy caused by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death.

[415] During the campaign, one of Cruz's promises was to return manufacturing jobs to the U.S. His choice of running mate, Carly Fiorina, was met with pushback due to her record of outsourcing, but he defended her.

[416] In 2022, Cruz voted against Bernie Sanders's proposed measure for the United States Innovation and Competition Act, which promised to fund semiconductor manufacturers amid a shortage of their products during the COVID-19 pandemic.

[428] While speaking to students at a summit for Turning Point USA, an American nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative politics on high school, college, and university campuses, Cruz joked that his favored personal pronoun is "kiss my ass".

[430] In July 2022, Cruz issued a press release saying that he supported the repeal of the 1845 Texas anti-sodomy law, writing, "consenting adults should be able to do what they wish in their private sexual activity, and the government has no business in their bedrooms.

Senators Tim Scott, Lindsey Graham, and Mike Lee, Trump administration officials including White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, then-U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, and actors Jon Voight and Isaiah Washington.