Ted Cruz called into one-time supporter Glenn Beck's radio show. It didn't go well.

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last updated 26 September 2016

Not even Glenn Beck — the conservative radio host who reportedly spent $500,000 on travel stumping for Ted Cruz during the Republican primaries — is ready to let the Texas senator off the hook for endorsing Donald Trump. In an interview on Beck's radio show Monday, Beck repeatedly tried to get Cruz to explain his decision to vote for Trump — despite the fact that during the Republican National Convention, Cruz used his speech to advise Americans to "vote your conscience" rather than to endorse the GOP nominee.

At first Cruz tried to paint his convention speech as a way to "lay out a path to uniting Republicans," explaining that this election is "a binary choice" and Hillary Clinton isn't the choice to make. But Beck wasn't ready to let Cruz get away with once again refusing to say whether Trump is fit to be president. "So a man, who you cannot come on [the show] and say, 'Yes, Glenn, he is fit to be president of the United States,' I still am encouraged by you to abandon my principles and vote [for him] because it's a binary choice?" Beck asked.

By the end of the nearly 20-minute conversation, Beck had to admit he "strongly" disagreed with Cruz — and he was reportedly even more candid after he hung up the phone. "I think I have to apologize, and say, maybe, perhaps, those of you who said Ted Cruz is calculating and a smarmy politician, I think I may have to slightly agree with you and apologize for saying, 'No, he wasn't,'" Beck said, as reported by The Daily Beast. Then, Beck apparently twisted the knife, reportedly admitting that maybe, just maybe, he should've supported Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in the primary instead.