Cruz insists that he has 'not remotely' hurt the Republican Party brand

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday asserted that his crusade to kill President Barack Obama's health care law by shutting down the U.S. government had not damaged the Republican Party in any way.

During an interview on CNN, host Candy Crowley asked Cruz if he had hurt the GOP brand.

"Not remotely," Cruz laughed. "But I also think far too many people are worried about politics."

"Listen, if we worry about what's impacting the American people, the politics will take care of itself," he continued. "The politicians that are gazing at polls -- there is a reason why the most common sentiment across this country is that politicians aren't listening to us, there's a reason why Congress has a 10 to 15 percent approval rating."

Candy Crowley pointed out that while polls showed that most people did not like the Affordable Care Act, a significant portion of those people thought the law didn't go far enough. And a vast majority of Americans disapproved of shutting down the government to stop Obamacare.

"Why not just get out there and win elections and overturn it with a Republican Senate and a Republican House and a Republican in the White House instead of shutting down the government, which I think you would concede hurts people who had nothing to do with Obamacare?" Crowley wondered.

But instead of answering that question directly, Cruz told a story about how Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) "lectured" and "insulted" CNN reporter Dana Bash after she suggested that Democrats were killing children with cancer by not funding the National Institute of Health as part of a Republican plan for piecemeal funding of the government, which did not include the health care reform law.

"The response from the Democrats was, 'How dare you question us, we're going to shut down everything and we don't intend to budge,'" the Texas Republican opined. "That's not a reasonable position."

According to a Fox News poll released last week, disapproval of the Republican Party has jumped from 46 percent in September of 2012 to 59 percent in October of this year.

Watch the video below from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast Oct. 6, 2013.