On Wednesday night’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! on ABC, the usually-friendly talk-show host had Ted Cruz on as his guest and while the interview started out friendly, Kimmel soon made jabs at Cruz for being unlikeable and attacked Cruz’s claims about ObamaCare and radical Islam. When Cruz referred to ObamaCare as a "disaster," Kimmel countered he hadn’t heard “one” negative story about ObamaCare.
Towards the beginning of the interview, Kimmel asked why Cruz was so apparently unlikeable in the Senate, in a mean-spirited exchange:
KIMMEL: Something we hear about all the time, and I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes at congress. We hear that your colleagues-- you’re, not popular with your colleagues. In fact, Lindsey Graham, who by the way endorsed you---
CRUZ: He did.
KIMMEL: Said if you kill Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate no one would convict you. The other day John Boehner --
CRUZ: Was that a mean tweet?
KIMMEL: I don't know. But John Boehner, He called you Lucifer. What are you doing?
After Cruz made a joke about Graham now endorsing him, Kimmel responded:
KIMMEL: That is interesting. Hey, you did, you kind’ve held out until they found someone they liked less than you.
After this bit, Kimmel went for the more meatier issues, challenging Cruz for his positions on ObamaCare and patrolling Muslim neighborhoods. You couldn’t help but wonder why Kimmel didn’t come at Hillary Clinton with this same abrasive approach when he had her on his show last week and spent the whole show defending her from her critics.
CRUZ: [I]n my time in the Senate what I’ve tried to do is actually try to do do what I said I would do. I promised the people of Texas, if you elect me, I'll fight with every breath in my body to stop the disaster that is ObamaCare, that is killing jobs all across this country --
KIMMEL: But is that really a disaster? It just doesn’t feel like it is.
[audience cheers]
I’ve not heard one story from a person I’ve heard-- the word disaster is a strong word to use.
CRUZ: It is. And I agree, it is probably not a disaster with millionaire Hollywood movie stars and rock stars. So in the circles that--- coming here, it hasn't been a disaster. I'll tell you though the last days --
KIMMEL: You think these are the only people I hang around with? [ Laughter ]
CRUZ: It's Hollywood.
KIMMEL: That's not- I'll explain it to you at some point, Ted. [pats him condescendingly] It all pretend!
Kimmel immediately went into grilling Cruz about his Muslim neighborhoods comments, asking “Isn’t this in direct competition with the Bill of Rights?”
After explaining how it was his job as Commander-in-Chief to keep America safe and work with law enforcement to prevent radicalization here at home, Kimmel responded with a typical, nonsensical liberal argument, that somehow looking for radicalization will help it grow:
KIMMEL: Don’t you feel though, and I don’t disagree with you on any of that stuff, but don’t you feel that human nature is such that, if people were Americans in a Muslim community, who you might make an argument are more upset about what their brothers in religion are doing, if they feel like they’re being singled out and they feel like the police are keeping a special eye on them, that that’s going to make them anti-American and then we’ll have an even bigger problem because we won’t have to import terrorists---
[audience cheers]
We’ll have created them.
