Josh Hafner

USA TODAY

Bob Dole said Wednesday that Ted Cruz at the top of the GOP ticket would mean "wholesale losses" for the party in Washington and across the country.

“I don’t know how he’s going to deal with Congress,” Dole said in an interview with The New York Times. “Nobody likes him.”

Dole, a former Kansas senator, was the Republican Party's presidential nominee in 1996.

Donald Trump would "probably work with Congress," though, Dole mused, because he's "kind of a deal maker."

Dole characterized Cruz as an "extremist" unwilling to work with his own party. The Times' Maggie Haberman notes that Dole's comments reflect a larger tension that establishment Republicans feel with Cruz, who portrays himself on the campaign trail as their antithesis.

Last month, Dole told MSNBC that he might oversleep and not vote next November were Cruz the Republican nominee.

Dole also lamented Wednesday that Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor he supports for president, still "needs to break out," and that moderate Republicans seem to have had a tougher time reaching voters this cycle.

Should Hillary Clinton take on Cruz in a general election, she'd win easily, he said.

So who could stop Cruz from getting the nomination?

"I think it's Trump," Dole told the Times.

A Cruz aide sought to capitalize on Dole's take on the race by branding him as an "establishment icon" who favored Trump over the Texas senator — an effort to cast Cruz as the true outsider candidate in the field.