Ted Cruz’s chief of staff reflects on his Duke experience

Paul Teller, Trinity ‘93, is the chief of staff for U.S. Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz. Teller is the former Executive Director of the House of Representatives Republican Study Committee and has been cited as one of the most influential conservative aides in Washington. The Chronicle’s Ajay Desai recently spoke with Teller about the GOP primary, Cruz’s presidential run and Duke’s influence on Teller’s career:

The Chronicle: What is your role in Senator Cruz’s office? What type of input do you have on legislation?

Paul Teller: I essentially run the Senate operation. Everything from developing policy and legislation, to strategizing and overseeing the building of tension across the Hill and across the country. I meet with interest groups and I do a lot of administrative stuff related to personnel. I pretty much oversee directing everything on Senator Cruz’s Senate operation. One sort of unique function I have as a Chief of Staff is being involved with policy. There are a lot of Chiefs of Staff who don’t actually get involved with policy at all, they let other people do that. I am a part of brainstorming ideas, sending letters and drafting amendments. I would say that I am much more involved with policy than the average chief of staff.

TC: Is there any particular legislation that you think is especially important to the Republican agenda?

PT: One recent thing that is coming up, this week actually, is that both houses are considering a resolution to disapprove of the President’s nuclear deal with Iran. It is central to some of the efforts that the Republican side has been pushing, in terms of being closer to our friends and harsher to our enemies. The nuclear deal seems to be the exact opposite, where it’s rewarding enemies for funding terrorism, threatening Israel and causing murders around the world. That should be one of our leading issues this month and probably throughout the year. Both parties and both houses will be considering the resolution.

TC: What strategy do you think the GOP needs to take moving forward in order to win the 2016 general election? Going into the next debate, what is Senator Cruz’s plan to differentiate himself from the unusually large field of candidates?

PT: I am not a campaign guy, but I do help on the side. In that capacity, Senator Cruz would say that the Washington cartel, which is his phrase for the Washington leadership, is too involved with the party interest, insurance interests and corporate interests around town. I think you can see some of that in the Republican primary where some of the folks doing the best in the polls in money and grassroots excitement are the folks who are from outside of Washington...or are critical of Washington leadership. Trump, Cruz, and Carson are the [outsiders] getting the most attention.

His point of difference that he would argue is that he has been a consistent conservative; he has felt this way all along and didn’t just come to it this year. He has a record of fighting for conservatism on just about everything you could think of: foreign policy, healthcare, education, immigration, the second amendment, religious liberty. Pretty much all down the line there really isn’t any issue you could think of where he doesn’t have some existing record of either a direct or defiant battling for conservatism. So that’s where he fits in to that Republican plan.

TC: Why do you think Donald Trump’s campaign has captured so much attention this summer?

PT: Trump is tapping into the voters’ and activists’ frustration with Washington. There was a promise made last year by Republicans that said if the House were to be kept Republican and we were also to be given the Senate, we could do major things to stop Barack Obama’s agenda. Instead, we have done so much in a Republican Senate that has been identical to what a Democratic Senate would have done. We really think that Donald Trump is just tapping into that frustration. He’s from outside of Washington. He speaks boldly and forthrightly. He’s tapping into that anger with Republican leaders. Senator Cruz is not only trying to show that we have that same frustration and same anger, but also that he’s been a consistent conservative and has a record to back it up.

TC: Did you come to Duke knowing you wanted a career in politics?

PT: It was a developing thing. In high school I was much more of a math-science guy. I was interested in politics in high school and followed it, but I continued most of the math and science things I did in high school when I started college. I was right around...mid-freshman year when I found that political science was speaking more to my interest.

TC: What lessons from Duke did you transfer to your career in Washington?

PT: Majoring in political science was very cool. It put me in touch with great professors and other kids who were into political things—government, current events— the whole deal. Being a part of something of that nature definitely helped to sharpen my interest in policy. My favorite political things on campus were student-to-student discussions and debates with professors in the classroom. I didn’t do too much organizational stuff. I remember being a part of College Republicans, but never really doing much with them.

I considered myself to be more of a conservative activist at Duke because I loved to argue with students and professors—just poking at people a little and bringing in a conservative perspective. Duke is a fairly liberal place so bringing another side to the conversation was fun and I liked being a one-man walking diversity factory. I attribute being able to communicate your ideas, articulate a position and convey an argument in a clear and reasonable way in a way that brings other people in rather than shoots them off to Duke. I attribute a lot of those skills to the Duke education and the Duke experience. I think that’s helped me tremendously.