--- title: Donald Trump: Ted Cruz Will Have to Attack Me description: Donald Trump said that Ted Cruz will have to stop being nice to him to have a chance at winning the primary canonical: https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/ author: Tessa Berenson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-03T01:56:51.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:46:51.264Z article:section: Politics og:title: Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Will Have to Start Attacking Him og:description: "I love it when they attack." og:url: https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24ddcda2c6b73210/698862cdcd1bba08ab6fd15b/trump-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: Trump-Cruz og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Will Have to Start Attacking Him twitter:description: "I love it when they attack." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24ddcda2c6b73210/698862cdcd1bba08ab6fd15b/trump-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Will Have to Start Attacking Him > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 3, 2015 1:56 AM UTC  Left: Donald Trump attends the 2015 US Open on Sept. 8, 2015 in New York City; Right: Ted Cruz speaks to supporters at his Religious Liberty Rally on Aug. 21, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. Left: Donald Trump attends the 2015 US Open on Sept. 8, 2015 in New York City; Right: Ted Cruz speaks to supporters at his Religious Liberty Rally on Aug. 21, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. Al Bello—Getty Images; Scott Olson—Getty Images  by [Tessa Berenson](https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/)  ## Tessa Berenson Dec 3, 2015 1:56 AM UTC Donald Trump said that Ted Cruz will have to stop being nice to him to have a chance at winning the primary. Speaking at a rally in Manassas, Va., on Wednesday night, Trump said the Texas Senator has been easy on him so far during the race. “Cruz has been great to me,” Trump said. Cruz has been careful not to attack Trump, likely because he hopes to pick up Trump’s support if he drops out of the race. But then Trump continued, “At some point he’s going to have to say, I gotta attack him or else I’m going to come in second place or third place or something. So they’ve all got to attack. And I love it when they attack because so far everyone that has attacked me … they’ve gone down.” Cruz has yet to take a swipe at Trump. He recently broke with the business mogul on whether he would be in favor of [registering American Muslims in a database](http://time.com/4122370/ted-cruz-donald-trump-muslim-database/), but couched his dissent by saying, “I’m a big fan of Donald Trump’s.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/"},"headline":"Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Will Have to Start Attacking Him","datePublished":"2015-12-03T01:56:51.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:46:51.264Z","description":"\"I love it when they attack\"","url":"https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/","keywords":["Donald Trump","republicans","2016 Election","ted cruz"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24ddcda2c6b73210/698862cdcd1bba08ab6fd15b/trump-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Tessa Berenson","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/tessa-berenson/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt24ddcda2c6b73210/698862cdcd1bba08ab6fd15b/trump-cruz.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Trump-Cruz","caption":"Left: Donald Trump attends the 2015 US Open on Sept. 8, 2015 in New York City; Right: Ted Cruz speaks to supporters at his Religious Liberty Rally on Aug. 21, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa.","creditText":"Al Bello—Getty Images; Scott Olson—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4134108/donald-trump-ted-cruz-attacks/","name":"Donald Trump Says Ted Cruz Will Have to Start Attacking Him"}}]}] ```