Has Ted Cruz explicitly said Israel is his reason for running for president?
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Executive summary
Senator Ted Cruz has publicly framed support for Israel as a central, personal motivation for his political work and has said he wants to be a leading defender of the modern State of Israel — language he used in a June 2025 interview with Tucker Carlson that many outlets and commentators quoted [1] [2]. He stopped short of an explicit line like “Israel is the reason I am running for president,” instead describing his pro‑Israel stance as a personal motivation and a pillar of his foreign‑policy identity while also saying it is not the sole or exclusive justification he would offer as an elected official [2] [3].
1. What Cruz actually said on record
In a widely circulated interview with Tucker Carlson, Cruz said that part of his motivation is to be “the leading defender” of Israel and that supporting Israel stems from his faith — and he explicitly called support for Israel a personal motivation [1] [2]. Multiple commentators and faith‑focused outlets reported the same line, quoting Cruz as saying his upbringing in Sunday school taught him that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and that this biblical view informs his commitment [4] [5]. Those quotes amount to an explicit admission that Israel is a motivating factor in his public life and political priorities [1] [2].
2. How he qualified that claim
Cruz did not present his personal faith as the exclusive policy rationale for all Americans — he qualified that his religious conviction “is for me a personal motivation” and acknowledged that not everyone he represents shares his faith, saying as an elected official he can’t make faith the public justification for policy [2]. Campaign materials and press statements also situate his pro‑Israel advocacy within a broader conservative foreign‑policy record and family history — for example, Cruz’s campaign has tied his support for Israel to experiences from his father’s refugee background and to consistent advocacy on Middle East policy predating his presidential runs [3] [6].
3. What critics and commentators say
Critics and some religious scholars push back on Cruz’s framing: commentators at outlets like Christian Courier and analysts of Christian Zionism argue that biblical texts do not straightforwardly command contemporary political support for the modern nation‑state of Israel, and they interpret Cruz’s appeals as theological and political reasoning that can be disputed [1] [5]. Other observers have noted that Cruz’s rhetoric blends personal faith with realpolitik — citing his claim that Israel is also “the strongest ally of the United States in the Middle East” — which signals a dual religious and strategic justification rather than a single, campaign‑defining reason [5].
4. What is not present in the reporting
None of the supplied sources contains an unambiguous, word‑for‑word declaration from Cruz that “Israel is my reason for running for president” as a singular, overriding motive. The available reporting documents him saying support for Israel is a primary or personal motivation and that he seeks to be a leading defender of Israel; it also shows him qualifying faith‑based reasons for public policy and tying his support to strategic and personal biographical factors [1] [2] [3]. Therefore, while the record shows he has explicitly stated Israel is a central motivation, it does not show a categorical statement that it is the sole or explicit reason he chose to run for the presidency.
5. Bottom line
The accurate, balanced reading of the record is that Ted Cruz has explicitly said Israel is a primary, personal motivation for his political life and that he aspires to be a leading defender of Israel — statements he made publicly and that have been widely reported [1] [2]. He has also qualified those remarks by noting the limits of using personal faith as a public justification and by framing his support in strategic terms and through longstanding advocacy, so the stronger claim that “Israel is his reason for running for president” is not literally documented in the supplied reporting as an unqualified, sole cause [2] [3].