Cruz, Ruddy, and the 2028 whisper: what a Daily Mail report actually reveals

An anonymous donor claims Senator Ted Cruz told supporters at a late-2025 fundraiser that Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy would deploy his media platform behind a Cruz 2028 presidential bid, which would be a massive clash with the current plans of the GOP to have Vice President JD Vance inherit MAGA from Trump. Both Cruz's office and Ruddy's camp deny it. And the whole thing landed the same week Ruddy is scheduled to sit before Cruz's own Senate committee.

That's the story — a single unnamed source, two on-the-record denials, and a timing coincidence the Daily Mail framed as a bombshell. Whether it's a genuine leak, donor gossip, or someone grinding an axe, the report opens a window into something more interesting than the headline suggests: the collision of 2028 presidential positioning, conservative media consolidation battles, and Senate oversight power.

The claim and the denials

The anonymous attendee — described only as someone who has contributed financially to Cruz — told the Daily Mail what he says he heard at the fundraiser:

"I attended a Ted Cruz fundraiser late last year and during the fundraiser Senator Cruz mentioned that Chris Ruddy would be using Newsmax to support his candidacy when and if he runs for the Republican primary, which is expected."

Cruz spokesperson Macarena Martinez did not mince words:

"Once again, anonymous sources are putting words in Senator Cruz's mouth to further their own agendas. These are obvious lies, but the media once again shows that they are ready and eager to be spun up and used at every opportunity."

Ruddy, for his part, declined to address the endorsement question directly when first asked. After the story was published, his spokesperson issued a flat denial — Ruddy "denies the 'fake news' he ever promised Senator Cruz any endorsement and neither he nor Newsmax have made any pledge of support for any candidate in 2028."

So: one anonymous claim, two categorical denials. The sourcing here is thin enough to read through. The donor even tipped his hand when, after Martinez's denial, he fired back with a recycled insult from 2016 rather than producing any corroboration.

The real story: media consolidation and who fights it

Strip away the 2028 palace intrigue, and there's a substantive policy fight underneath that deserves more attention than it's getting.

Ruddy is scheduled to testify Tuesday before Cruz's Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation at a hearing titled "We Interrupt This Program: Media Ownership and the Digital Age." The subject matter is the proposed merger between Nexstar — parent company of NewsNation — and Tegna, which owns 64 local television stations across 51 U.S. markets.

The numbers tell the story. The FCC currently caps broadcaster ownership at stations reaching no more than 39 percent of U.S. households. A combined Nexstar-Tegna would reach 54.5 percent. That's not close to the line — it obliterates it.

Ruddy has filed an FCC complaint arguing the deal violates national ownership caps, and he laid out the conservative case against the merger in a November op-ed:

"The answer to Big Tech consolidation is not to give left-wing TV broadcasters massive consolidation and power too. We don't need anti-Trump media controlling everything."

That's a sharper argument than most people in Washington are making right now. The instinct on the right is sometimes to cheer for deregulation reflexively — fewer rules, freer markets, let businesses do what businesses do. But consolidation in media isn't the same as consolidation in widget manufacturing. When a handful of corporations control the6+ local news landscape in more than half the country, the question stops being about free markets and starts being about who controls the information pipeline.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has signaled support for updating the ownership rules, though there's a legal question about whether that authority rests with the FCC or Congress. Cruz's hearing appears aimed at establishing the congressional role in that debate — which is exactly where a Commerce Committee chairman should be operating.

2028 and the Vance factor

The Daily Mail frames this as a "shock blow to JD Vance," positioning the Vice President as Cruz's presumptive opponent in a 2028 Republican primary. That framing does a lot of work without much evidence behind it. Cruz has made no public announcement about 2028. No filing exists. The "expected" primary challenge lives entirely in the anonymous donor's characterization and the Daily Mail's editorial framing.

Could Cruz run? Of course. He ran in 2016, came closer to the nomination than most of his critics remember, and chairs a powerful Senate committee. He has a national fundraising base and the kind of name recognition that doesn't expire. But there's a wide gap between "could" and "will," and an even wider gap between a single donor's claim about a fundraiser comment and a serious campaign infrastructure.

The media loves early 2028 speculation because it generates clicks and creates the impression of Republican fracture. Every anonymous quote about a potential primary becomes evidence of a party at war with itself. It's the same playbook every cycle — take normal political ambition, add an unnamed source, and manufacture a crisis narrative.

If Cruz does run, the conservative media landscape will matter enormously. But one anonymous donor's account of what a senator said at a fundraiser — denied by everyone on the record — is not the opening salvo of a primary war. It's a gossip item dressed up as a scoop.

What actually matters here

The media consolidation fight is real. The numbers are real. A broadcaster reaching 54.5 percent of American households when the legal cap is 39 percent — that's a policy question with consequences for every local news market in the country. Ruddy's argument that consolidation among left-leaning broadcasters doesn't solve the problem of Big Tech consolidation is one the right should take seriously.

Tuesday's hearing will produce actual testimony, actual policy debate, and actual legislative signals about where Congress stands on media ownership in the digital age. That's the substance.

Everything else is fundraiser chatter — the kind of thing donors repeat to reporters when they want to feel important, and reporters publish when they want to feel relevant.