Sen. Ted Cruz said next week’s rally outside the Capitol with Donald Trump will get more eyeballs and TV cameras with the fellow Republican presidential candidate in attendance.  

“An awful lot of the Republican candidates for president have basically taken out a two-by-four and tried to smack Donald Trump and I have very consciously avoided doing that, and I’ve regularly sung his praises,” the Texas Republican said. “It’s a rally that I’m helping organize to oppose this catastrophic nuclear deal, which I think is the single biggest national security threat facing America.”  

“I think his being there will help attract a lot more media attention, will attract more people to come out and join us, and we need to do everything we can to highlight the real problems, the challenges facing this country,” Cruz said, speaking with Boston talk radio host Howie Carr.  

The White House went so far as to term the event with Trump and Cruz a “pro-war” rally . Conservative media personality Glenn Beck is also expected to attend, organizers said Monday.  

Carr said listeners had been asking if the Senate could filibuster the international agreement about Iran’s nuclear development itself, and Cruz outlined the procedural situation. The potential blockade would come from Democrats in favor of the deal since the review legislation enacted into law set up a disapproval process.  

“The way it’s been done, we have to pass a resolution of disapproval. The Democrats are trying to filibuster it, but a filibuster wouldn’t stop the deal,” Cruz said. “The president has the power to lift the sanctions unless Congress acts. That’s a mistake. The Senate shouldn’t have given away its constitutional power, but that’s what it did.”  

The disapproval measure is the first item on the Senate’s agenda when lawmakers return next week, but the prospects the resolution would be unable to get 60 votes to get past procedural hurdles to even pass the Senate seemed to be growing.  

In the same interview with Carr, Cruz responded to the report from the Daily Caller that Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, called him a “jackass” at a fundraiser by saying that the establishment in general thinks conservatives are “jackasses.”  

“Well look, John Boehner’s welcome to say what he likes, and I have no intention of reciprocating,” said the GOP presidential candidate from Texas.  

Cruz highlighted his recent book and his campaign against what he has taken to calling the “Washington cartel.” That has become Cruz’s term for Democratic and Republican politicians alike who he views as too beholden to special interests in and around the Capitol building.  

“What happens is the cartel gets very angry. Frankly, they look at you and me and all of the courageous conservatives across this country and they think all of us are, with all due respect, jackasses. They’re not listening to the people who elected them,” Cruz said.

Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call in your inbox or on your iPhone.