'Robotic and sad': Joe and Mika question Ted Cruz's manhood for sucking up to Trump despite insults

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough questioned Sen. Ted Cruz's manhood for backing President Donald Trump despite slurring the Texas Republican's family -- and the rest of the "Morning Joe" panel piled on.

They played a clip of Cruz commenting on the trove of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which Trump claimed during the campaign the senator's Cuban-born father had involvement.

"I would never forgive him," Scarborough said.

Panelist Donny Deutsch asked how Cruz could "cozy up" to the president after defaming his father -- which he said was "indicative of cowardice, spinelessness of all these characters that will not stand up to Trump."

"If you said something about my family, I never forgot it," Scarborough said, recalling his tenure as a congressman. "There was a case where somebody said something about one of my friends who had passed away, very powerful person in Washington. I never forgave him and I never will forgive him, for making that family suffer even more."

Scarborough reminded viewers that Trump had also personally insulted Cruz's wife, as well, several times while campaigning.

USA Today senior political correspondent Heidi Przybyla said Cruz probably hadn't forgiven the president, but she said his pretense was one of the reasons people hated politics.

"That's the point, what kind of a man are you that you can show one face -- and, to me, that's it," Deutsch said. "As a man, to your point, you mess with my family -- I don't move on from that."

Scarborough ripped Cruz for defending the president against attacks from two senators from his own party.

"As a man, as a woman, if you in insult a spouse, a loved one, I think everybody, a man, a woman, and the fact that Ted Cruz is telling people in an interview (that) Bob Corker and Jeff Flake need to shut up and fall in line with Donald Trump, which is basically what he was saying, is staggering," Scarborough said.

"Ted Cruz should act like a human being and stop acting like a robot, a political robot," Scarborough added. "His dad was attacked, his wife was attacked, his family was attacked. He was attacked, women that worked for him were attacked."

Jonathan Lemire, White House reporter for the Associated Press, pointed out that Trump's poll numbers were strong in Texas, where Cruz will face re-election next year.

"Are you saying poll numbers are more important to him than his wife and father?" co-host Mika Brezinski said. "That would be robotic and sad."