Trevor Noah: Cruz ‘an a–hole’ for shooting response

Comedian Trevor Noah said late Thursday that Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is an “a–hole” for his response to a mass shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., earlier this week.

“Fourteen people just lost their lives in a shooting, and Ted Cruz’s first thought is, ‘oh, that reminds me, I’ve got to send out my invites to my gun party,’” Noah said on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” citing the lawmaker’s event at a shooting range in Iowa on Friday.

“That seems like something you’d only do if you were an a–hole, which it turns out is exactly what voters are looking for,” he continued of the 2016 GOP presidential candidate. “Maybe Ted Cruz is the leader that America needs.

“He is the first person in recent memory to unite people from both parties in their hatred of him. Maybe for that reason, we’ll grow to love him, but probably not.”

Cruz is defending gun rights on Friday at CrossRoads Shooting Sports in Johnson, Iowa, at an event that was scheduled before Wednesday’s shooting in San Bernardino that killed 14 people and wounded 21 others.

Noah fiercely criticized Cruz and other lawmakers in Congress for opposing gun control legislation in the wake of similar incidents.

“Congress has discovered the fountain of youth — pure, distilled inaction applied liberally to the face and then sticking your face up your own a– for six years,” he said, referencing President Obama’s tenure in office.

“Like, for instance, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,” Noah said of the Kentucky Republican. “He’s barely aged in the past six years. All he’s had to do about mass shootings is do nothing whatsoever.”

Noah expressed support for Obama’s repeated calls for stricter firearms regulations.

“I’ve got to say I feel bad for Barack Obama,” he said. “You can really see the toll it’s taken on him.

“He’s been begging for gun control for six years and the only major change in the gun debate since is to his face,” Noah said, citing the president’s graying hair and wrinkles. “At least we’ve found the amount of pressure under which black does crack.”

Police officers killed two suspects — later identified as Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, 27 — during an officer-involved shootout late Wednesday following the attack.

Federal authorities are now investigating whether the incident has any links with radical Islamic terrorism. The couple were devout Muslims, and Farook reportedly met his wife in Saudi Arabia.

Reports emerged Friday morning that Malik had pledged support for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in a Facebook post.