Did Ted Cruz really stoop to a “new low”?
By Easton Martin | February 18, 2026
An exchange on social media between Texas Senator Ted Cruz and California Governor Gavin Newsom has drawn attention after a linguistic misunderstanding. The dispute centered around Senator Cruz criticizing Governor Newsom’s grasp of American history, specifically regarding the federalization of the National Guard.
Senator Cruz labeled the California Governor “historically illiterate” while referencing President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1957 decision to issue Executive Order 10730. This historical move federalized the Arkansas National Guard to ensure the desegregation of Central High School by the Little Rock Nine. Cruz argued that Newsom lacked the historical perspective to understand how federal power has been used to counter state defiance of the law.
Governor Newsom quickly countered by accusing the Senator of a “new low”, claiming that Cruz was mocking his well-documented struggle with dyslexia by calling him illiterate.
However, the Governor’s response appeared to overlook the qualifier “historically” in the original critique. Many were quick to clarify that the term “historically illiterate” refers to a lack of historical knowledge rather than a fundamental inability to read text.
Unfortunately for Governor Newsom, his defensive reaction inadvertently reinforced the Senator’s original point. By focusing on his personal reading disability instead of the historical precedents of the Eisenhower administration, Newsom bypassed the policy debate entirely and managed to distract people from the issue at hand.
