Photo: PETE MAROVICH, STR / NYT Photo: Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: PETE MAROVICH, STR / NYT Photo: PETE MAROVICH, STR / NYT

As Democrats in Congress steamed toward impeaching President Donald Trump, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz aggressively upped his profile as one of Trump’s most vocal defenders over the last two weeks, further allying himself with the man he bitterly campaigned against just over three years ago.

In less than two weeks, Cruz appeared in a dozen national television and radio interviews and delivered a blistering speech before the conservative-faithful at the Heritage Foundation, forcefully defending Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainians and dismissing the Democratic impeachment proceedings as unconstitutional.

“We’ve seen their case collapse,” Cruz said in his latest appearance on Fox Business on Wednesday just as Democrats started the impeachment debate in the House. “This is a political gesture of anger. Their base hates Donald Trump, and they’re voting to impeach him because they hate him. That really is telling the voters that Washington politicians think they know better than the people who cast their ballots.”

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Political expert Mark P. Jones of Rice University says Cruz is giving the Trump faithful exactly what they want.

“They want to see a full-throated defense of the President, and that is what Cruz is giving them,” Jones said.

Jones said Cruz’s spirited defense of Trump makes him think about how it could play into a 2024 presidential primary election. “With an eye to 2024, the Trump legacy will be up for grabs in a Republican Primary,” Jones said. “You don’t want to be someone seen as anti-Trump.”

That was Cruz just over three years ago in Cleveland when he drew boos at the Republican National Convention for refusing to endorse Trump. Cruz and Trump were bitter rivals during the presidential contest, with Trump labeling Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and Cruz calling Trump a “pathological liar.”

But since Trump’s election, Cruz has become a supporter of the president, frequently lauding the substance of what he’s accomplished even while offering critiques of Trump’s method. In 2018, as Cruz was battling for re-election in Texas against Democrat Beto O’Rourke, Trump flew to Houston to campaign for Cruz who he then re-labeled “Beautiful Ted.”

“You know, we had our little difficulties,” Trump told the crowd at the Toyota Center in Houston. “It got ugly. ... But nobody has helped me more.”

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Over the last two weeks, Cruz has few rivals among members of the Senate in his aggressive defense of Trump. And it hasn’t just been on conservative media outlets either.

Cruz has hit the Sunday morning talk show circuit, getting into an intense back-and-forth with NBC’s Chuck Todd on Meet the Press on Dec. 8 after Cruz asserted that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 presidential elections. After Todd directly asked Cruz if he believes Ukraine meddled in the U.S. elections in 2016, Cruz responded: “I do, and I think there is considerable evidence of that.”

But Todd fired back that the U.S. intelligence community has told the Senate that Russian officials want Americans to believe it was Ukraine interfering in U.S. elections in 2016 and not Russia, which was indisputably meddling. Cruz responded that “because Russia interfered, the media pretends nobody else did.”

Then this past Sunday, Cruz ventured onto ABC’s ‘This Week’ with George Stephanopoulos where he doubled down on his Ukraine claim and repeatedly turned the interview toward Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden who was on the board of directors at a state-run natural gas company in Ukraine.

Cruz said Trump was well within his authority to want to investigate corruption in Ukraine and said if he wants Hunter Biden called to testify before the U.S. Senate, the Senate should allow it.

“I think that the president was perfectly within his authority to say ‘you need to investigate that,’” Cruz said.

Stephanopoulos interjected that there has been no credible evidence of wrong doing related to Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma.

That exchange wasn’t missed by Joe Biden and his campaign, which is using Cruz’s comments in a fundraising email to supporters.

“Ted Cruz went on TV this weekend and continued to spread vicious lies about Joe Biden,” the email said.

Jones said he’d be hard-pressed to think of a Republican in the Senate better able to take the case to the Democrats on impeachment.

“Cruz is very well suited for this because of his debate skills and his reputation of being a constitutional scholar,” Jones said.

Cruz was a national debate champion at Princeton University and has argued constitutional law cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. He was also a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the mid-1990s. Currently he is on the Senate Judiciary Committee and is chairman of the subcommittee on the Constitution.

Cruz used that background on Tuesday during his speech to the Heritage Foundation and on Wednesday in the Fox Business interview to make the case that the Democrats have produced Articles of Impeachment that do not follow the Constitution.

Cruz said he expects the Senate to start the impeachment trial in early January. He said past impeachments suggest it could take from two to six weeks to complete. Cruz said Senate rules won’t allow Senators to speak in open session with cameras rolling. He said instead, Senators are forced to sit and listen.

“You’re not going to see [U.S. Sen.] Elizabeth Warren and me going 15 rounds on C-SPAN because the Senate rules don’t allow it,” Cruz said.