Tonight Show Audience Roars with Approval After Cruz Bashes Obamacare, DC's Permanent Political Class

On Friday, Sen.Ted Cruz (R-TX) appeared for the first time on The Tonight Show. Cruz said the greatest divide in the country now is between Washington’s permanent political class and the rest of America, and he railed against Obamacare as the “the biggest job-killer in this country.” 

Jay Leno’s studio audience roared with approval.

Cruz said there are “too many career politicians in Washington that want to just keep going down this road of more and more spending and taxes and regulation” while the people who are getting hurt are “young people. They’re Hispanic. They’re African-Americans. They’re single moms.” Cruz called them the “lost generation” who are “struggling without jobs and without growth.”

He emphasized that the “rich do great with big government. Big business does great with big government.”

“The people who get hammered are the small businesses,” Cruz said.  

Cruz then emphasized Texans do not want ObamaCare because it will ultimately take away their preferred insurance plans and said he thought America’s health care system needed to be reformed so that “it’s portable, it’s affordable.”

“We ought to empower patients, rather than government bureaucrats getting between you and your doctor,” Cruz said to more applause. 

At the beginning of the interview, Cruz mentioned that the Washington establishment may find him “abrasive” because, “what I’m trying to do is do my job.” These are remarks that Cruz has made since he got to Washington–that he will stick by his campaign promises instead of being co-opted by the Washington establishment. 

“And occasionally people don’t like that,” Cruz said.

But the Tonight Show‘s audience–far from the Washington establishment that loathes Cruz and near the heart of liberal Hollywood–did like his message.