Donald Trump and Ted Cruz's bromance has officially come to an end

It seems like only yesterday that Donald Trump was praising Ted Cruz for being a candidate who wasn’t afraid to praise Donald Trump. (“I like him. He likes me. He’s backed me 100%,” the reality television personality turned current Republican presidential frontrunner said back in September.)  Or who could forget when Cruz said he wouldn’t get into a “cage match” with Trump, instead calling him “terrific.”

But the love between the two top-polling candidates in the Republican field has been lost, it seems.

“There are many people that are observing this race nationally [who say it] is coming more and more down to a two-man race between me and Donald Trump,” the Texas senator said on Monday during a New Hampshire campaign stop. “And we’re at the phase in the race where the voters are beginning to look very, very carefully at the records of the candidates.”

For his part, Cruz does not think Trump has such a terrific record on immigration.

“We were on the verge of losing this fight [over comprehensive immigration reform in 2013] and 12 million people here illegally being granted amnesty,” Cruz said. “And yet, when that fight was being fought, Donald was nowhere to be found.”

And Trump doesn’t think Cruz has such a terrific record when it comes to reporting major loans made to his 2012 campaign for the Senate.

“You give a campaign contribution to Ted Cruz, you get whatever the hell you want,” Trump said Saturday at a Tea Party convention in South Carolina.

The crowd erupted into boos, but Trump pressed on. “Say whatever you want, it’s okay, he didn’t report his bank loans. He’s got bank loans from Goldman Sachs, he’s got bank loans from Citibank, folks, and then he acts like Robin Hood?”

The disintegration of this beautiful friendship between two men committed to shared goals—like, say, sweeping deportations, the dismantling of a healthcare law that extended insurance to 18 million people, and defunding one of the largest family planning providers in the country—is heartbreaking to witness.

I just really hope this doesn’t have anything to do with their polling deadlock in Iowa just two weeks before the caucuses, which would maybe mean that this entire relationship, rather than genuine love shared between friends, was actually just political posturing to appeal to the far right wing of the Republican Party. I mean, is nothing sacred?