Trump expecting shots from ‘maniac’ Cruz

Donald Trump predicted in an interview on Sunday that his cordial relationship with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a fellow GOP presidential candidate, would likely soon come to an end.

“He’s been so nice to me,” Trump said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I mean, I can say anything, and he said, ‘I agree, I agree.’ But I think the time will come to an end pretty soon, it sounds like.”

Trump’s language was harsher on “Fox News Sunday,” where he called Cruz a “maniac.”

“I don’t think he’s got the right temperament. I don’t think he’s got the right judgment,” Trump told host Chris Wallace. “You look at the way that he’s dealt with the Senate, where he goes in there, frankly like a little bit of a maniac. You’re never going to get things done that way.”

{mosads}The relationship between the two anti-establishment contenders has fractured amid Cruz’s rise in the polls.

The Texas senator surged into second place nationally, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll announced early Sunday.

After Cruz questioned whether Trump has the judgment to be commander in chief, the billionaire businessman said Sunday on CNN that he has “far better judgment than Ted.”

“I was against going into Iraq,” Trump said.

“That’s good judgment. I was for bombing [the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’s] oil long before anyone else was talking about it. That’s good judgment.

“I have great judgment,” he added. “I would say I have far better judgment than Ted.”

Cruz said last week at a closed-door fundraiser that Trump and fellow Republican presidential hopeful Ben Carson lacked the judgment to be commander in chief.

“You look at Paris, you look at San Bernardino, it’s given a seriousness to this race,” Cruz said, referring to the recent terrorist attacks. “People are looking for who is prepared to be a commander in chief. Who understands the threats we face.

“Now that’s a question of strength, but it’s also a question of judgment. And I think that is a question that is a challenging question for both of them,” he added, speaking of Trump and Carson.

–This report was updated at 6:20 a.m. on Dec. 14.