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Heidi Cruz does not consider herself a television critic. A Goldman Sachs executive, wife of Senator Ted Cruz and mother of two, she says she has little time to keep up with the small screen.

But years ago, one show earned her praise: “The Apprentice,” starring Donald J. Trump.

“Did you watch the TV reality show ‘The Apprentice,’ where 16 people competed for a job with Donald Trump?” Mrs. Cruz asked graduates during her commencement speech in May 2004 at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee.

“I love that show,” she said, “because those people risked failure in front of 28 million viewers to go for something that they really wanted. This wasn’t just any failure. This was banishment from the Park Avenue board room on television.”

She added, “To me, that takes guts.”

It was “The Apprentice,” of course, that helped further burnish the status of Mr. Trump, already a well-known real estate developer, as a celebrity and media icon, before his presidential bid.

Even as relations between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cruz have become strained — Mr. Trump has repeatedly questioned Mr. Cruz’s eligibility for the top job, citing his Canadian birth — Mrs. Cruz has not backed down from her long-ago review.

“I’m not great at TV references, but I did like ‘The Apprentice’ because it was a show that gave people a chance to have a start,” she said in an interview, adding: “There was a measurable result and decision. That’s a thing I like about the private sector.”

“So I’d probably stand behind that reference,” she said.