--- title: The Onion Predicted TIME's Ted Cruz Cover description: On March 23, 2015, The Onion published an article warning TIME subscribers to prepare for an issue featuring a close-up of Ted Cruz. canonical: https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-04-07T11:17:13.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:46:40.335Z og:title: Yes, The Onion Called It: Here's Ted Cruz on the Cover of TIME og:description: It's time for the Republican's close-up og:url: https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5a32c0d3f92501f2/69888e082dce0125849e886b/final-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Ted Cruz Time Magazine Cover 160418 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Yes, The Onion Called It: Here's Ted Cruz on the Cover of TIME twitter:description: It's time for the Republican's close-up twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5a32c0d3f92501f2/69888e082dce0125849e886b/final-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Yes, the Onion Called It: Here's Ted Cruz on the Cover of TIME  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Apr 7, 2016 11:17 AM UTC  Photograph by Marco Grob for TIME  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Apr 7, 2016 11:17 AM UTC Back in March 2015, when Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was just a twinkle in the real estate tycoon’s eye, Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first major Republican to announce his candidacy for President of the United States. Our friends at [the Onion](http://theonion.com) knew what would happen next. On the day of Cruz’s announcement, the satirical site [published an article](http://www.theonion.com/article/time-magazine-subscribers-brace-for-inevitable-iss-38281) warning TIME subscribers to prepare for the inevitable: the day when we featured a close-up photograph of the Senator on the cover. Well, Onion editors, today is that day. The prophetic publication did get one thing wrong. While the Onion claimed that TIME would call Cruz “The Firebrand” or “The Game Changer,” this week’s cover takes a different route.  Photograph by Marco Grob for TIME **Read More:** [Ted Cruz Embraces Economic Populism in Interview](http://time.com/4283539/ted-cruz-interview-economic-populism-working-class/?xid=homepage) “The customarily precise reporting in this article once again proved why The Onion is the most accurate, most trusted, and most infallible publication humankind has ever known,” the publication said in a statement to TIME. “We are committed to providing our 12 billion readers in over 500 countries with disturbingly comprehensive news coverage and upholding the very highest standards of journalistic excellence that all other lesser publications—such as your own—have long since abandoned. We look forward in the weeks and months ahead to subsuming your publication’s market share and draining whatever relevance it may still possess.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/"},"headline":"Yes, the Onion Called It: Here's Ted Cruz on the Cover of TIME","datePublished":"2016-04-07T11:17:13.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:46:40.335Z","description":"It's time for the Republican's close-up","url":"https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/","keywords":["Newsfeed","politics","ted cruz","Time cover","2016 presidential race","presidential candidates"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5a32c0d3f92501f2/69888e082dce0125849e886b/final-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5a32c0d3f92501f2/69888e082dce0125849e886b/final-trump.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Ted Cruz Time Magazine Cover 160418","caption":"Ted Cruz Time Magazine Cover","creditText":"Photograph by Marco Grob for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4284028/ted-cruz-cover-prediction-the-onion/","name":"Yes, the Onion Called It: Here's Ted Cruz on the Cover of TIME"}}]}] ```