Mike Huckabee Friday ripped Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's "tepid" endorsement of Ted Cruz just four day before the state's presidential primary and likened it to a gambler acting to cover "all his bets."
"It was like he put $5 on Cruz, $4 on [Donald] Trump and $3 on [John] Kasich just to make sure that he covered all his bets," the former Arkansas governor told
Megyn Kelly on Fox News.
Huckabee dropped out of the 2016 race in February.
"His endorsement is a big thing for Ted Cruz," he added. "I don't want to do anything to take that away from Cruz, because to get the sitting governor of Indiana just before the election is a big deal.
"But it was a very tepid endorsement," Huckabee said. "About as tepid as you can get."
In a radio interview Friday,
Pence praised the Texas senator as a strong conservative after lauding Trump for giving "voice to the frustration of millions."
Pence also said that he was grateful for the developer's strong stand for jobs in the Hoosier State.
"I'm pretty sure that Ted was squirming in his chair as he listened to the first part of that and even wondering, 'Is he about to maybe turn around and endorse Trump instead?'" Huckabee told Kelly.
Pence, who is up for re-election this fall, "was protecting himself politically," he said.
The endorsement "will play well" with voters, Huckabee told Kelly, "but Donald Trump gets to go out and say, 'I got Bobby Knight.'
"You can be a governor of a state, but whoever is your sports icon, that's the person who actually sometimes carries a whole lot more weight.
"So, it's not going to be that significant," he said of Pence's blessing on Cruz, "because the Bobby knight endorsement was, as Donald Trump would say, was huge."
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