Ted Cruz’s daughter’s reaction to hearing Donald Trump’s name goes viral

A video has gone viral showing Senator Ted Cruz’s 16-year-old daughter Caroline visibly grimacing when her father mentions President-elect Donald Trump.

During his victory speech Tuesday night after winning re-election in Texas, Cruz said, “I hope and pray that Donald Trump is re-elected president of the United States.” The crowd and Cruz’s wife Heidi Cruz applauded.

Caroline can be seen visibly grimacing, lowering her head, raising her eyebrows, looking from side to side, turning her head towards her mother Heidi and, according to viewers of the video, appearing to say: “Don’t clap for it.” Heidi Cruz then looks at Caroline and stops clapping.

The video was submitted on TikTok on election night by user @_beingmaddy, and had been viewed 9.7 million times by Friday morning.

Another version was submitted on X Thursday by @TheTNHoller, a frequent Trump-critical account that had been viewed 1.8 million times by Friday morning.

Newsweek has reached out to Cruz’s office by email for comment.

Most of the comments on the video praised Caroline, writing, “Caroline Cruz is that girl,” “Omg she has issues love this for him,” and “That ‘don’t clap for it’ is so valid.”

When he first ran for president in 2016, Trump publicly insulted Heidi Cruz several times while he and Ted Cruz were competing for the Republican nomination.

During the campaign, National Enquirer published an unsubstantiated article accusing Cruz of multiple affairs while married to Heidi. At the time, Cruz accused Trump of planting the article and denied the allegations.

In response, Trump posted a meme on Twitter, showing an unflattering photo of Heidi Cruz alongside a flattering photo of his wife Melania Trump. Trump wrote: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

In 2024, during Trump’s hush money trial in New York, the then publisher of Asking David Pecker testified that he had an agreement with the Trump campaign to plant false, damaging articles about Cruz. The Asking also published a story falsely linking Ted Cruz’s father to the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Cruz continued to support Trump and became one of his most loyal supporters in the Senate. He was one of 11 Republican senators who announced plans to try to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election, days before the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.

Later in 2021, the then 13-year-old Caroline made a TikTok saying she disagreed with most of her father’s views. Her TikTok account was then set to private.