This is silly. Of course Cruz isn’t going to say his opponent will beat him. All you Cruz bashers, what did you expect him to say.
Cruz: "I'm not going to comment on hypotheticals."
"I want to talk about how I'm the one true conservative and the issues.."
"My campaign is exploding with tiny grass roots people who don't poll."
Cruz blinked. He usually sticks robotically to his talking points, but this shows a chink in his armor.
Possibilities:
A. His Club for Growth/Goldman-Sachs/Koch backers want him to attack Trump and he’s doing his good little puppet work.
B. The “deal” whatever it was, between Cruz and Trump has evaporated.
Neither possibility is good for him. And thinking that he’ll get all the Trump supporters is the dumbest thing to come out of his mouth since he compared himself to Jesus on the Senate floor.
Not the only other possible answer. Ted could have stuck with the theme he's had regarding Trump from the first:
I'm glad Donald is in the race, and I have make my case to the voters, including making my case to the supporters of any candidates who drop out.
Many ways to respond without getting into negative meme about Trump. How did that work for Perry, Graham, Jindal, Paul, Bush and others?
Ted made a mistake predicting Trump will not be the nominee, a pointless thing to say and bound to offend some Trump supporters.