Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has faced sharp criticism on social media this week after a clip of him inexplicably taking a dig at Billie Eilish during a Senate hearing made the rounds online. And experts in political science believe the moment was really about culture wars. On Tuesday, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner Bros. Discovery chief revenue officer Bruce Campbell testified before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, in regards to the streamer’s bid to acquire parts of Warner Bros. Discovery.Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle pressed the executives over concerns about the merger, with several senate Republicans lobbing accusations — and typical right-wing talking points — that Netflix has a history of promoting DEI, “wokeness” and “transgender ideology.”Cruz similarly complained about Netflix, calling it a “left-wing company,” but he also used his time to press Sarandos and Campbell about another issue that was on his mind: Eilish’s acceptance speech at the Grammys last Sunday. The Texas senator was discussing his concerns about propaganda and censorship in Hollywood when he asked Sarandos and Campbell if they had watched the Grammys that aired days prior. (The Grammys aired on CBS, which is owned by rival media conglomerate Paramount Skydance.) Campbell said he hadn’t and Sarandos said he caught the “tail end,” when Cruz asked: “One simple question: are we right now on stolen land?”“I have no idea of the history of this land where we’re sitting today,” Sarandos responded.“Nor do I, senator,” Campbell added. “So that speaks volumes that neither of you are willing to say, ‘Hell no, we are not on stolen land,’ and I will say at the Grammys when you see an entertainer say, ‘Nobody is illegal while we’re on stolen land,’ and then you see entertainers leap to their feet clapping so excitedly at the notion that America’s fundamentally illegitimate, it starts to convey the entertainment world is deeply corrupt,” Cruz responded. “And I will point out that same singer who says ‘no one is illegal on stolen land,’ promptly went back to her $14 million mansion, and somehow that stolen land she wasn’t concerned about — just the United States of America,” the senator continued. Eilish was among a number of musicians at the 2026 Grammys on Feb. 1 who denounced the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown and the deadly actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “No one is illegal on stolen land,” she said onstage while accepting the award for Song of the Year. “And, it’s really hard to know what to say and what to do right now, and I just feel really hopeful in this room, and I feel like we just need to keep fighting and speaking up and protesting.”“Our voices really do matter, and the people matter, and fuck ICE is all I want to say, sorry,” she continued. But many people on X, formerly Twitter, slammed Cruz for invoking Eilish in a Senate hearing about Netflix’s acquisition of Warner Bros., with many struggling to find the relevancy.A Senate hearing on whether Netflix acquiring Warner Bros. would violate antitrust law somehow became Ted Cruz demanding that Sarandos answer for Billie Eilish’s Grammys speech.That’s not oversight. That’s culture war cosplay in a room meant for governance.— Lori Shindle (@Capisha55) February 5, 2026Todd Belt, professor and political management program director at the Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University, believes that Cruz invoked Eilish during the Senate hearing to stir up a culture war debate. “This is definitely culture war stuff,” he told HuffPost. “Republicans love to poke at Hollywood liberals for being hypocrites that don’t live up to their own ideological purity. Cruz is tapping into the Heartland vs. Hollywood sentiment of people in middle America thinking that the coastal elites self-righteously look down at them.”Belt thinks Eilish’s “stolen land” remarks infuriated those on the right because her argument “undercuts the idea that the United States is the rightful property of its current, majority inhabitants.”“It also undercuts the notion that our nation’s borders are rightful, proper, and immigration should be strictly enforced,” he said. Ultimately, Belt thinks Cruz is focused on “setting himself up to be a player in the Republican party post-Trump.”Conor M. Dowling, professor of political science at University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, said that Republicans have long “railed against ‘Hollywood elites’ when they believe it serves their purposes to do so.”“In that vein, the opportunity to question Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos during a congressional hearing so soon after the Grammys gave Sen. Cruz an opportunity to speak to the Republican base, knowing that certain aspects of the exchange would be highlighted — resulting in sound bites that are circulating through the news and social media,” he told HuffPost. Overall, Dowling thinks that by highlighting Eilish’s “stolen land” remarks, conservatives are shifting the conversation away from the substance of the singer’s speech: the current administration’s immigration crackdowns. “By latching onto the ‘stolen land’ comment itself — and more generally railing against ‘Hollywood elites’ — Sen. Cruz and other prominent Republicans have shifted the commentary to be a little less focused on the actual issue of the immigration crackdowns,” he said.