"Donald, you’re a sniveling coward," Ted Cruz said in March. | Getty 9 times Ted Cruz insulted Donald Trump before endorsing him

Two months after he was booed off the stage at the Republican National Convention for snubbing his party’s presidential nominee, Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Donald Trump on Friday.

That declaration to vote for him, though, comes after the Texas senator openly disparaged his primary opponent repeatedly — in part responding to Trump’s attacks on his wife and father.

Story Continued Below

1. Early on, Cruz speculated that Trump’s tax returns could show a mob connection

In February, Cruz offered his take on why Trump hadn’t released his tax returns in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” suggesting that they might show “Donald's business dealings with the mob, with the mafia.”

“The fact that Donald seems terrified to release his taxes suggests that there’s a bombshell there,” Cruz said. “It’s natural to wonder, ‘Well, what is it that he's hiding in his taxes?’”

2. In March, Cruz called him a “sniveling coward”

Speaking to a group of reporters in Dane, Wisconsin, after Trump made a comment promising to “spill the beans” on the senator’s wife, Cruz pointed his finger and said, “Donald, you’re a sniveling coward. Leave Heidi the hell alone.”

“It’s not easy to tick me off. I don’t get angry often, but you mess with my wife, you mess with my kids, that’ll do it every time,” Cruz said.

3. He also called Trump a “big, loud New York bully”

“Let me be absolutely clear: Our spouses and our children are off bounds,” Cruz said . “It is not acceptable for a big, loud New York bully to attack my wife.”

4. Also, “a small and petty man who is intimidated by strong women”

Trump’s attacks, Cruz suggested , were actions of “a small and petty man who is intimidated by strong women.”

5. Cruz called one of Trump’s theories “nuts” and “just kooky”

In May, after Trump cited a National Enquirer report that alleged Cruz’s father may have had some involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Cruz addressed reporters in Evansville, Indiana: “This morning, Donald Trump went on national television and attacked my father. Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK. Now, let’s be clear, this is nuts. This is not a reasonable position. This is just kooky.”

6. He also called him a “pathological liar” who “lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth”

Also in Indiana, on the same day the state's voters would deliver a decisive victory to Trump, Cruz added : “I’m gonna tell you what I really think of Donald Trump: This man is a pathological liar. He doesn’t know the difference between truth and lies. He lies practically every word that comes out of his mouth, and in a pattern that I think is straight out of a psychology textbook, his response is to accuse everybody else of lying.”

7. And Cruz was specific with the term “pathological”: Trump is “utterly amoral,” he said

“I say pathological because I actually think Donald, if you hooked him up to a lie detector test, he could say one thing in the morning, one thing at noon and one thing in the evening, all contradictory and he’d pass the lie detector test each time. Whatever lie he’s telling, at that minute he believes it, but the man is utterly amoral,” Cruz said .

8. And, while he was at it, Cruz accused him of narcissism and being a “serial philanderer”

Continuing to unload in Indiana, Cruz offered : “He combines [dishonesty] with being a narcissist, a narcissist at a level I don’t think this country’s ever seen. Donald Trump is such a narcissist that Barack Obama looks at him and says, ‘Dude, what’s your problem?’’’

And: “Donald Trump is a serial philanderer, and he boasts about it. This is not a secret. He’s proud of being a serial philanderer.”

9. In July, Cruz still hadn’t forgiven Trump for the attacks on his family

“I am not in the habit of supporting people who attack my wife and attack my father,” Cruz said, answering questions at a Texas delegation breakfast at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and facing backlash for not yet endorsing Trump.

Referring to his pledge to support his party’s nominee, Cruz said that statement “was not a blanket commitment that if you slander and attack Heidi I'm going to nonetheless go like a servile puppy dog" and support him.

Authors: