Ted Cruz Asks Republicans to Embrace the Fictional '47% Dependent on Government'
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is calling on Republicans to court "the 47 percent who are dependant on government," a false statistic that may have been one of the reasons former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election.
Speaking to The Shark Tank's Javier Manjarres at the Cuba-Democracy PAC luncheon on Saturday, Cruz seemed to take the wrong lesson from secretly recorded video of Romney telling wealthy donors that he wasn't worry about the "47 percent who are with him [President Barack Obama], who are dependent upon government."
"I think the reason why Republicans did so poorly in this last election was actually not primarily immigration," Cruz explained in video posted on Sunday. "I think it was two words: 47 percent. And by that I don't mean that unfortunate comment. I think Mitt Romney is a good man and a decent man who ran a very hard campaign."
"What I mean is the narrative of the last election," he continued. "The 47 percent who are dependant on government, we don't have to worry about them."
