Ted Cruz is “beautiful.”

Don’t take it from me — that’s the President’s own description of a man he once said “has accomplished absolutely nothing for [Texas]. He is another all talk, no action pol!”

That Cruz finds himself in a closer-than-comfortable Senate race against Beta O’Rourke and needing the man who once called his wife ugly, suggested his father had something to do with the Kennedy assassination, and referred to as “Lyin’ Ted” ad nauseam in 2016, is in some ways the final humiliation for one of Trump’s many enemy-turned-devotees.

In exchange for two years of near-unconditional support for Trump and his agenda, Trump indulged in one of his favorite and least presidential pastimes — awarding Cruz a new nickname, “Beautiful Ted.” It’s neither clever nor particularly catchy. But it’s just emasculating enough to remind Cruz and anyone else, “you need me, not the other way around.”