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“Cruz hasn’t been able to change anything in his message,” Mike Huckabee said. | Getty Huckabee dings Cruz: 'He sounds robotic'

Donald Trump may be a reality TV star, but it’s Ted Cruz who is coming off as the over-rehearsed candidate.

Appearing on Fox Business on Tuesday, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee suggested that Cruz’s performance is becoming detrimental to his campaign.

“Cruz hasn’t been able to change anything in his message,” Huckabee said. “He sounds robotic.”

Pointing to a news conference the Texas senator held Monday explaining his new alliance with John Kasich, Huckabee argued that Cruz failed to answer what was asked, instead turning to his campaign’s talking points.

“He gave very stock, very well-rehearsed, oft-repeated phrases, and he talked about how conservatives are coalescing around his campaign,” Huckabee recalled. “You’re scratching your head, saying: ‘Well, not really. You’re losing states right now.’ Or that I’m the only one that can beat Hillary, and you’re thinking, ‘Not really.’”

“And I think that if Cruz wants to continue to be a player in this,” he added, “he’s gonna have to show some spontaneity. He’s gonna have to show he’s not so theatrical, so very programmed, and I think that’s hurting him more than Donald Trump is right now.”

Huckabee also criticized the pact Cruz and Kasich agreed to late Sunday, in which Kasich will cede Indiana to Cruz while in turn the senator will clear the way for Kasich’s campaign in New Mexico and Oregon in a last-ditch effort to deny Trump from securing the GOP nomination outright.

“Well, it’s not much of a deal that’s helping either one of them. Look, there’s nothing illegal about it,” Huckabee said. “There’s nothing really even unethical, for that matter. And I know Trump has sort of tried to make it as if this was scandalous. It’s just the rawest form of politics, and in politics you do what you can to win. But in this case, it really isn’t going to help Cruz.”