If there were any doubts in anyone's mind of lingering animosity between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Trump laid those fears to rest last night as he and the Texas senator appeared on the same stage in Houston.

The bruising, nasty primary fight in the 2016 presidential race forgotten, Trump effusively praised Cruz, calling him "a man who has become a really good friend."

ABCNews:

"Nobody has helped me more" than Cruz, Trump proclaimed, heaping praise on the Republican senator as he embarks on the home stretch of his unexpectedly competitive reelection race against upstart Democratic Congressman Beto O'Rourke.

The once icy relationship between Senator Cruz and the president has thawed considerably since the tumult of the 2016 election, when the two battled it out for the Republican nomination.  Since conceding to Trump and dropping out of the race, Cruz has aligned himself firmly behind the president as a reliable vote in the Senate.

President Trump responded in kind, thanking Cruz for his legislative support.

"Thanks to Ted, we now have a brand new member of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh," Trump said.

Despite his best efforts on Monday, Trump's chummy relationship with Cruz may not be as iron-clad as the president suggests.  Asked by ABC News over the weekend whether he considers Trump a friend or a foe, Cruz refrained from hanging his hat on the former.

"He's the president," Cruz told ABC News' Paula Faris in an interview that aired on "This Week" Sunday.  "I work with the president in delivering on our promises."

The president made his presence felt in this heated race long before Air Force One touched down in the Lone Star State Monday evening, bashing O'Rourke on Twitter last week as a "total lightweight" and a "flake."

On Monday, Trump targeted O'Rourke again, calling him "a stone-cold phony."

O'Rourke is all of that, and more.  But the symbolic embrace the two former rivals shared on the stage in Houston means for more to Cruz's chances of victory than Trump's name-calling. 

O'Rourke may have raised a ton of money, and national Democrats might be in love with him, but facts are facts: Texas is still a heavily Republican state, and O'Rourke needs a divided GOP to win.

That's not going to happen now.  With Republicans surging across the country, Cruz is looking more and more like a big winner.  While there hasn't been a new poll in almost two weeks, the RealClear average margin for the incumbent is 7 points.  Trump's visit did nothing to hurt that margin.