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On Friday afternoon Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio continued their offensive on Donald Trump. | Getty Cruz: Trump 'takes advantage of the little guy'

Ted Cruz jumped in on the fight against Donald Trump on Friday afternoon, blasting the businessman's record on immigration and health care to make the case that he is the only qualified conservative left in the race.

Remarking upon Trump's explanation for using low-wage workers at his Palm Beach resort, Cruz called it "astonishing" for Trump to make such a statement, given "the millions of Americans who have worked as waiters."

Trump had explained during Thursday night's debate that people he hired were for seasonal positions, and "you could not get help."

"And by the way, this isn’t just a waiter anywhere, this is a waiter at a really chi-chi hotel in Palm Beach," he told reporters in Nashville, Tennessee. "Donald Trump is really maintaining there are no Americans he can find willing to be waiters and waitresses? At a fancy hotel in Palm Beach. What he’s really saying is from his perspective, he’d rather have foreign workers who can’t quit, who are captive, who he can pay a lot lower wages. And a man who has a multi-decade history of exploiting the immigration laws to take advantage of the little guy is not someone we can trust to stand with the working men and women of this country.”

Cruz again attacked Trump for his donations to lawmakers who were part of the 2013 comprehensive immigration reform bill known as the Gang of Eight talks.

“Donald funded the Gang of Eight. Donald gave over $50,000 to the members of the Gang of Eight, five of the eight members, three Democrats and two Republicans, Donald Trump gave over $50,000 to. Now, how can a candidate possibly hold himself out as opposed to illegal immigration, opposed to amnesty, when he financed the politicians that led the epic effort to push for amnesty?” Cruz asked.

Noting that Trump often explains his past donations to politicians in the context of his own financial and business well-being, Cruz blasted Trump for that as well.

“Well, that says something if Donald puts his own financial interests above the national security of this country, above the interests of the working men and women of this country, above the interests of all the people who are losing their jobs," he said.

Asked if he was worried that the two-man race emerging after Super Tuesday might not include him, Cruz demurred.

“You know, I don’t doubt that the media will do everything they can to frame the race as anybody but the proven conservative with a conservative record. But you know, to win the nomination, you actually have to win states and win delegates," he said, taking an implicit dig at Marco Rubio. And there are only two candidates who have won states. And that is Donald Trump and me. And I’ll tell you, on Tuesday, we’re going to have a very good night.”

Touting his double-digit lead in a recent poll of likely Texas GOP voters, Cruz said that "there are a good 65 percent of primary voters nationwide who don’t believe Donald Trump is the best candidate to go head-to-head with Hillary."

"We saw why last night," he said, remarking that Trump's positions are virtually "indistinguishable” from those of Clinton.

The verbal assaults came on the same day Rubio ramped up rhetoric on Trump, hammering him for typos in several tweets Friday morning and suggesting the real-estate mogul wet his pants during the Thursday night debate.

As far as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's endorsement of Trump on Friday, Cruz said the development doesn't bode well for the Florida senator. "I think the endorsement was no doubt troubling news for the Rubio campaign," he said.