Sen. Ted Cruz: Republicans don’t criticize Trump because he’ll ‘punch them in the face’ if they do

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said that many of his colleagues are reluctant to criticize former President Donald Trump out of fear that Trump “turns around and punches them in the face.”

Cruz was speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin on Saturday when he made these remarks to The Washington Examiner’s David Drucker.

“Why are people reluctant on the Republican side to criticize Donald Trump? It’s a number of things. Unlike many people in politics, if someone criticizes him, he turns around and punches them in the face,” Cruz said, Insider reported.

Cruz said he saw first-hand in meetings situations where “different Republican senators would criticize” Trump, who would then “spend the whole meeting just slamming them with a stick.”

“I like what we accomplished under Trump. I think there’s an incredible record of policy victories,” Cruz stated. “I disagree with a lot of the things Donald Trump says. And I made a decision that I wasn’t going to be giving color commentary on MSNBC for every tweet or every statement that was obviously indefensible.”

“I think that’s the right balance, and I’ll tell you for any Republican, that was a complicated decision: How do you deal with Trump?” Cruz added. “When he does things that are good and praise-worthy, I will praise him, and when he says things, I disagree with, I’m just not going to engage in the day-to-day color commentary.”

Trump has previously made several disparaging comments about both Cruz himself, and his family.

“He’ll say whatever he wants to say. I actually think he’s a very unstable person. I really believe that. I think he’s a very unstable person. But I’ve never had somebody take something that you believe in and just say the exact opposite,” Trump said in 2016.

Trump also called Cruz’s wife “ugly” – and later apologized.