Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz received a wave of boos as he spoke with Late Show host, Stephen Colbert this week. According to a report from Chron.com, Colbert pushed Cruz to disagree with Ronald Reagan before swooping in to rescue the floundering Texas Senator and 2016 presidential hopeful from an audience prepared to humiliate him.

Stephen Colbert recently took over as the host of the Late Show for David Letterman, who had been with the CBS program for decades. Stephen Colbert earned widespread success as the host of his own cable news series on Comedy Central, “The Colbert Report.” He left his post as host in December of 2014, much to the dismay of fans across the country.

But Colbert is now back, as network executives struggle to bring viewership back to late night talk shows. The programs have followed the unfortunate trend of recycling viral content over the past few years, and Colbert’s hard-hitting journalistic integrity pairs with his likeable demeanor and witty interview style to pump new life back into the late night TV format.

Colbert has spared no time interviewing presidential candidates for the 2016 election on his new show. He interviewed Bernie Sanders last week, where he had the Vermont Senator explain how he is different than the role Ralph Nader has played in elections over the past few decades, distracting a base by arguing over finer points of various issues.

On Monday, Colbert sat down with Texas Senator Ted Cruz to pick his brain and potentially even crack a few jokes. Colbert asked the Senator how he planned to emulate Ronald Reagan when the former Republican President and poster child for conservative economic and political viewpoints in the latter half of the 20^th century raised taxes and created an amnesty program for illegal immigrants. Ronald Reagan’s name rings out among Republican politicians as a beacon of conservatism and tough stances, though he still carried out many common sense policies that seem to escape the current political landscape.

After Cruz uncomfortably disagreed with the policies Reagan definitely carried out in the 1980’s, he was putty in the hands of Colbert. “Could you agree with Reagan on these two things?” the host asked. “No, of course not,” replied the Senator.

Colbert then switched topics to speak about same-sex marriage, which was recently legalized across the entire country. He segwayed into his question by questioning Cruz’s sense of right and wrong in a political and religious sense, asking the Senator if he could “work with the other side without feeling like he had been capitulating with the devil.”

Ted Cruz revealed that he feels the country should live by three simple principles; “live within our means, stop bankrupting our kids and grandkids, and follow the Constitution.” Colbert quickly tacked onto the Senator’s list, “And no gay marriage.”

Cruz began to defend his viewpoint as one that is meant to protect the sanctity of the Constitution, but the audience wasn’t having any of it. Colbert asked the booing crowd members to stop, however. “Guys, however, you feel, he’s my guest so please don’t boo him,” the host said in Cruz’s defense.