Former President Donald Trump is angry that his top rival from the 2016 Republican primary, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), hasn't yet endorsed him, the New York Times reported Thursday.
Trump has been "privately ranting" that Cruz isn't yet backing his 2024 bid for the White House, and has been "workshopping nicknames" for him with the intent of bullying the Texas senator into getting off the sidelines, according to the Times' sources.
"Ted — he shouldn’t even exist,” Trump recently said, according to the Times' sources. “I could’ve destroyed him. I kind of did destroy him in 2016, if you think about it. But then I let him live.”
Trump waged an infamously personal and cruel campaign against Cruz in 2016 that included insulting the appearance of his wife, Heidi Cruz, and insinuating that Cruz's father was involved in the assassination of the late President John F. Kennedy.
Cruz nonetheless came around to endorsing Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections.
The Times also reports that Trump has been gloating about getting the endorsement of Rep. Tom Emmer (R-MN) this week despite the role the former president played in torpedoing Emmer's bid for the speakership.
"They always bend the knee," Trump reportedly said of Emmer.