In an interview with conservative radio host Dana Loesch on Tuesday, Rafael Cruz, father and campaign surrogate of Sen. Ted Cruz, declared that his son will save America after Obama “practically destroyed” it and that the harsh criticism that his son has faced on the campaign trail is just because people don’t want to hear the truth.

When Loesch asked if it was “difficult to see people go at” his son in the campaign, the elder Cruz replied that Jesus had prepared his followers for just such persecution.

“It is, Dana, but at the same time, you know, if you are not making a difference, if you are not having an impact, nobody’s going to attack you,” he said. “Jesus said, ‘They persecuted me, they will persecute you.’ When you are having an impact on America, those who disagree with you are going to come out lashing at you with everything they’ve got. But you know what, we get encouraged for seeing that we are making a difference, Ted is making a difference, that truth sets people free. And he’s speaking the truth and those who don’t want to hear it are going to lash out.”

Cruz traced the beginning of the nation’s troubles to “the beginning of progressivism at the beginning of the last century,” the Humanist Manifesto, and when “Marxism began to be immersed into a lot of our universities” and faulted churches for allowing “this misconstrued idea of separation of church and state, which is neither in the Constitution or in the Declaration.”

Loesch, who has endorsed the Texas Republican’s campaign bid, told Rafael Cruz that with the 2016 election, “we’re either on the cusp of another great awakening, or we are on the cusp of America as we know it ending entirely,” which of course Cruz agreed was true.

“It is a time of choosing,” he said, “but I’ll tell you what, I am very encouraged. Because just like it happened in 1980, because of all the horrible things that we had in the Carter administration, millions and millions of constitutional conservatives, of people of faith, united to give us the Reagan revolution. And Reagan didn’t just win, he won by a landslide, because he had a vision for America of restoring America to those principles that have made America the most exceptional country on the face of the earth. Well, we have the same thing today. Barack Obama has practically destroyed this country in the past seven years, but because of that, more and more and more people are waking up.”