Presidential candidate and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hasn’t abandoned his take-no-prisoners approach to politics after all.

Cruz — who called former presidential candidate Mitt Romney “honorable” and “experienced” in his New York Times-best selling book — privately described Romney as the worst possible candidate during an event earlier this year, according to the National Journal on Friday.

While giving a speech in May for the Council for National Policy, a secretive group of top conservative donors and activists, Cruz said Romney was the worst candidate the GOP could have nominated in 2012 because of his record on healthcare reform.

“We have had three elections since President Obama was elected. Two of them – 2010 and 2014 – were national referenda on Obamacare. It was the number one issue, twice. Both elections were tsunami, tidal-waves for Republicans — historic victories,” Cruz said in the audio recording obtained by National Journal.

The “tidal-wave” victories still didn’t end Obamacare, which was upheld by the Supreme Court again in June.

“Now, in between the two tidal waves, the Republican Party, in its infinite wisdom, sought out and found the one human being on the face of the planet who had designed and implemented a program just like Obamacare. Literally – there are 7 billion people on earth. You could have grabbed any other person and asked them, ‘Excuse me, sir, have you designed and implemented Obamacare? No? You’re a better candidate!'” Cruz said in the audio recording.

Romney recently criticized Cruz’s position on the Iran nuclear deal. Cruz said, with the Iran deal, the Obama administration became “the world’s leading financier of radical Islamic terrorism.”