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, but couched his dissent by saying, “I’m a big fan of Donald Trump’s.”
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Write to Tessa Berenson Rogers at tessa.Rogers@time.com