Texas Sen. Ted Cruz praised former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on Thursday and said calls for him to drop are “very unfair.”

“I think those calls are very unfair,” the Texas senator told The Mike Gallagher Show. “I like Jeb Bush, I respect him. I’ve always thought well of him. I think he did a good job as governor of Florida. And the entire Bush family I’ve respected for a long time. Jeb’s son George P. Bush is a good friend of mine, he was one of my first supporters when I ran for the Senate. And I supported George P. when he ran statewide in Texas.

“You know, I think Jeb has faced a lot of criticism, and much of it has been less than fair, and some of it is just the nature of the media process, that it all becomes a horse race, where somebody’s gotta be up, somebody’s gotta be down,” said Cruz. “You look in the debate, at the question that was asked of Jeb — I think it was the first or one of the first first questions of Jeb — ‘ya know, gosh your poll numbers have really slumped, why are your poll numbers falling so far?’”