Rep. Peter King (R-NY), who is no fan of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), said Friday that supporters of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law should be thankful for the Texas Republican’s efforts to defund it.

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell asked King to react to Cruz’s speech at the conservative Values Voter Summit, where he encouraged House Republicans to keep “standing strong” in the campaign against the Affordable Care Act.

“No one has done more to strengthen Obamacare than Ted Cruz,” King told Mitchell. “Because since he started this maniacal crusade of his, the fact is over the last 10 days support for Obamacare has gone up 7 percent in the country. Not because Obamacare is working, not because it’s played out well at all, but because he’s given such a bad image to the anti-Obamacare forces. So President Obama and the supporters of Obamacare should thank Ted Cruz, because he’s their biggest ally right now.”

GOP leadership seems to have largely abandoned demands to delay or defund Obamacare in an effort to resolve the government shutdown and looming debt crisis in negotiations with Obama.