Ted Cruz may be running for President of the United States of America, but he won’t be doing it with any help from rock and roll.
The presidential hopeful and Texas senator announced on CBS This Morning that he turned his back on rock and roll after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 — and right into the open arms of country music. Cruz says he “grew up listening to classic rock,” but that genre was not there for him as our nation mourned.
“My music taste changed on 9/11,” Cruz says in the interview, which you can watch below. “I actually intellectually find this very curious, but on 9/11, I didn’t like how rock music responded. And country music, collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me.”
As Politico notes, “Cruz’s comments came during a lightning round of interviews the morning after he announced his candidacy for president in 2016 in a John Lennon-inspired, ‘Imagine’-themed speech.”
No bands or artists were mentioned by name. Not even Ted Nugent.
But where rock had failed, country came correct and showed him the way to proper patriotism. “I had an emotional reaction that said, ‘These are my people,’” he adds. “So ever since 2001 I listen to country music.”