Admitting that Trump’s rise seemed like a “stretch” to him when he was running against the candidate last year, Perry touted his credentials as one of the original anti-Trump voices on the Republican side. When he dropped out of the race last September, he did so with a powerful rebuke of the current frontrunner.

“When you look back four years ago,” Perry said on Wednesday, “had Mitt Romney said some of the things that [Trump] said, we would have written him off and it would have probably been the end of his nomination.”

But despite Trump’s enormous political success, Perry was not yet ready to hand him the nomination. Or, as he put it, “When the football game’s ain’t over, you keep playing.” Ultimately, Perry said he believes that if Trump doesn’t reach 1,237 delegates before the convention, then there is still chance for his candidate, Ted Cruz, to get the nod. “We can’t just change the rules every time somebody doesn’t like them,” he said.