Josh Hafner

USA TODAY

If Ted Cruz wants the Republican establishment’s support in his efforts to upend Donald Trump, he’s going to have to make nice.

As Cruz continues to pitch himself as the only viable answer to Trump, the GOP front-runner, he’s been asked to apologize to those he’s offended within his own party in the Senate — namely Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, according to CNN.

Cruz rode into office on a wave of anti-establishment angst, and often touts his own willingness to clash with the Republican establishment and/or the “Washington cartel.”

The process hasn’t always made him friends in the GOP, as party elder Bob Dole remarked in January: “Nobody likes him.”

Last year, Cruz stood on the Senate floor and accused McConnell, the chamber's top Republican, of telling a “flat-out lie” on negotiations around a trade bill.

After Cruz won the primary in his home state of Texas earlier this month, John Cornyn — McConnell’s chief deputy and Cruz’s fellow Texas senator — said he told Cruz to make amends with his colleagues over the remarks.

"I actually made that suggestion to him when I talked to him last,” Cornyn told CNN.

Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana said,"If he's asking someone for an endorsement from the United States Senate, I think he needs to go to that individual and explain what has changed since we were thrown under the bus.”

And Sen. John Thune, the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, told CNN that if Cruz “thinks he is going to be the guy or wants to be the guy” then it would help for him to “mend some of those fences that he tore down when he was here.”

It remains unclear, however, how much of an appetite Cruz has for apologies.

"We never built our campaign that way,” Jeff Roe, his campaign manager, told CNN.

Cruz's only Senate endorsement, from Mike Lee of Utah, came just last week.

Meanwhile, one prominent Cruz backer isn't exactly extending the olive branch to John Kasich, who remains the only other GOP candidate in the race other than Trump and Cruz.

Conservative pundit and Cruz-backer Glenn Beck on Wednesday accused the Ohio governor of siphoning potential votes from the Texas senator that could make way for Trump’s nomination.

“You son of a b----, the Republic is at stake,” Beck said on his radio program.

[h/t CNN]