Sleepy Joe’s Soporific Speech

I have often been called boring but radical, and Senator I guess you've been getting a lot of that these days. You had the finest moment of the night. I'm sort of damning with faint praise because that State of the Union address was unbearable to watch, and I could I really empathized with you in the room because the TV cameras caught you front and center dozing off during the speech. Well, look, the whole thing was sixty three minutes. I'm amazed that

I didn't sleep more during the speech. I mean, I mean it was so. It was actually on this podcast about a month two months ago, that we actually coined the three word summary for the Biden administration of boring but radical. It was on Verdict, and that prediction had proven right, and in fact, going into the State of the Union, I did a bunch of preview interviews where reporters say, okay, well, what's tonight going to be? And

I said, it's going to be boring but radical. I didn't realize just how true that was, so like in both directions, in both the boring side and the radicals. The radical didn't surprise me. It was I was trying to stay awake and it you know, actually one of the reasons why it was so boring. So there's a weird aspect of State of the Unions. And actually you and I talked about this last Date of the Union, which is there's kind of a game Republicans Democrats play.

If it's your party, you're pop it up like pop goes the weasel on every sentence, like yeay, yeay, yeay. And what's interesting is if you're in the out of power party, So if you're a Democrat when Trump's president, if you're a Republican, what Obama Biden's president. A State of the Union is often kind of a complicated thing because you're listening to each sentence and try to evaluate do I clap, do I not clap? Do I stand do I not stand? And you know, look, the Supreme

Court justice is the generals. They kind of clap and stand for nothing other than the beginning of the speech, and occasionally America is good, and then there's sort of statements in between. This was bizarre. It is the only this is the now the ninth State of the Union, or that kind of speech that I've been to. There was virtually nothing for any Republican to clap at. I mean,

it was strange. There were whole swaths of I don't know, seem like ten fifteen minutes where we're just sitting there and every word out of Biden's mouth is directed only to Democrats, and it's only Democrats clapping, and he wasn't even throwing like a tiny fig leaf trying to trying to bring anyone together, trying And that's part of why I nodded off and and and you know, helped the

Internet go crazy last night. So in terms of the big takeaways for people who like you, were nodding off, not not in the Capitol but in their own homes, what are we supposed to make of this? Because I almost wish that Biden were more overtly radical, that he were more exciting because he would be calling more people's attention to what he's trying to do. So what is he trying to do? What is going to get done?

And do Republicans have any hope? Well, Michael, your point is really important that that the boring is by design. It's a mask, it's a facade. It's designed to hide just how extreme the policies are that are being implemented by the way. Interestingly enough, I also saw screenshots of at different points Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi both nodding off, and I guess Met Romney was also filmed nodding off.

And so I I saw Met on the floor today and I said, mett Man, you and I apparently need to get more sleep, and and he laughed and said, I wasn't sleeping. I was looking at my phone. It's like, oh, yeah, me, I was sleeping. Yeah, I was genuinely like I was nodding off. And you know, but look, if you look at what this administration has done, the hard partisan nature of it is remarkable. They start with a so called COVID relief bill, get zero Republican votes in the House,

zero Republicans in the Senate. That's actually hard to do. I mean, last year we did five COVID relief bills that were overwhelmingly bipartisan. I mean, they made the decision they didn't want any Republicans. They wanted a hard partisan bill. Infrastructure, they're they're two point six trillion dollar infrastructure bill as written will get zero Republicans. And again, which is hard to do because there are a lot of Republicans that

care about infrastructure. But Biden's bill, five percent of the bill is Rosen Bridges. I mean, it really is absurd. And you know, everything on Earth they're going to tax. Every tax is going up. I mean, that's there. We're looking at trillions and trillions and trillions in new taxes. The brazenness of it. You know, you think about the speech last night, not a word about the crisis of the border that his policies have created. By the way, in the midst of the speech, I don't I don't

know how much of this made it on TV. But Lauren Boebert, who's, you know, a new freshman House member and someone I like and helped get elected and support and she's a fireball. But but midway through the speech, she pulled out of her bag a a reflective emergency blanket. Uh like, like the children are wrapped in in in the cages on the border, and she wrapped herself up in the reflective emergency blanket. I gotta tell you, Kevin McCarthy is sitting in front of her and turns and

just glares with dagger eyes. I was doubled over laughing. But but it was an interesting sort of quiet protest of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that that Biden is ignoring and the crisis that he's created, that that he's ignoring, you know, not a word about the massive debt, not a word about you know, not a word of graciousness to President Trump and Operation Warped Speed.

I mean, he just crowed about the vaccines without acknowledging that he laughed at Trump when when he said that we would have a vaccine by the end of the year. And that's of course exactly what they did. So I thought the substance and so of it. If you actually hired an actor to give the identical speech but in an angry partisan tone, yeah, people would have been shocked. I mean, it really is. It's almost a theatrical thing of having these you know, soporific tones, which which as

you know, being being a yalily. Soporific is an underused term, but but it literally means putting people to sleep, and last night that was a literal use of the word. Yeah. You know, this has been Biden's great advantage, certainly in the last several years, which is, if you just read the text of the speech last night, that would have, I think put a lot of Republicans on their guard.

If Kamala Harris, for instance, gave that speech, I think it would have put a lot a lot of people in defensive But because it's it's Biden, it lulls everyone into this false sense of security. There was, however, one moment I noticed of quasi almost bipartisanship, and it was the moment when Joe Biden began to take ownership of a major Trump policy, or at least a presumptive Trump policy,

which was getting out of Afghanistan. And was very curious was in that room the Democrats applauded, the Republicans weren't applauding. With a couple of exceptions, Yeah, when President Biden said We're going to pull out of Afghanistan. There were that I saw only two Republicans who applauded. I applauded, and Mike Lely applauded, and the rest of our side of the aisle sat there, stone faced, just looking at him.

And I think that's unfortunate, because I think this is an area where President Trump was right and he was leaning in to end the endless wars that we've been in Afghanistan. It's been twenty years, and it's time to bring our sons and daughters home. That doesn't mean we stop killing terrorists and defending our nation, but we don't need to be on the front lines of a battle

front for generations. And you're now literally having having soldiers serving on a front that their parents served on, and and that that that's a pretty strong sign that we've been there too long. Yeah, this issue is one that I think shows the way that the GOP, you know, is kind of transforming from the way that it once was and the way that Biden is transforming. Let's not forget the decision to restart the war in Afghanistan to really surged the troops there. That was an Obama Biden

decision back when when President Obama came into office. But but other than that one brief moment, it did seem extraordinarily divisive. And then there was the visual fact that you had the masks in the room, you had Joe Biden, who was very much pushing this idea of public health crisis and we're not allowed to go back to normal, and everything about it just felt so eerie. When when are we going to be able to get back to normal?

How are we going to be able to push this unified government to get us back to Look, I thought there was an enormous amount of political theater now and listen State of the Union. There's always political theater. But when it comes to COVID and masks, every person in that room has been vaccinated, and we're also spread out, so we were far away from each other. I actually think it's idiotic that anyone was wearing a mask. And there was a little moment at the beginning of the speech.

I don't know if you saw when Biden goes up there, he walks up at his mask, because of course he does, and then he turns and looks to Nancy Pelosi and ask permission before he removes his mask. It may have been the most beta moment for a US president in history, and it was just pitiful. And look, I gotta tell you, I was conflicted on what to do. So for I think three weeks now, I have not been wearing a mask on the Senate floor. And you've made a big

point about this. There have been reporters who have said, please put a mask, and you've said, you're more than welcome to walk away from me. But I've been inoculated. Hey, you know, and listen, I'm not a zealot on mask issues. I wore a mask for a year on the Senate floor. This is a dangerous disease. I thought, take reasonable precautions makes sense. But in the Senate it's every person or virtually every person has been vaccinated, and it doesn't make it.

I believe in vaccines, and so it's interesting. I just so Rand Paul has not worn a mask throughout. He was kind of the loan in the heat of the pandemic. Now he got the disease. So he said, look, I got the disease. I have have antibodies, which is reasonable.

But Rand was the only one of a hundred that wasn't wearing a mask for months and months and months, and then after everyone got vaccinated, and you know, Michael, you'll remember I actually delayed getting vaccinated, so they offered us the vaccines I think early January, and I didn't think it was right for members of cong to cutting line. I mean, I'm relatively young, relatively healthy. I get that. A whipper snapper like you doesn't think I'm that young.

But but you know, you know, compared to my colleagues in the Senate, I'm still in short shorts and wearing a beanie. It's true. And you remember when the polio vaccine came out, so you're you know, you're well acquainted with all these vaccines, and so you know, I said, all right, I'm gonna wait and let seniors get the vaccine. I'm gonna let first responders get the vaccine. It's not right for me to cutting line. And I did that until about March. And at March there had been tens

of millions of vaccines. The people who were at highest risk had had the opportunity to get the vaccine. And then I said, okay, I'll get it. So I've gotten it now. And so a couple of weeks ago, I just stopped wearing the mask, So what's funny? Two three days I stopped wearing the mask walk on the Senate floor, and nobody notices, Like I was doing it for two

three days, and it was just a nothing burger. And then finally one reporter for CNN like sticks a camera in my face and it's like, wait, wait, you're not wearing a mask. Where are you not wearing a mask? And I said, because we're all vaccinated, And actually this

reporter says, well, I'm not vaccinated. I'm like, well, that's your choice, Like and the elevation, the elevator closed, and I remember thinking like, Okay, if you're choosing not to get a vaccine, you can do that, But what right do you have to insist that the rest of us must wear masks because you've chosen not to get a vaccine. You don't have a right like it is available to you. And and so I have not been wearing it for two three weeks. I did wear my mask last night,

and I sort of struggled with the question. But Pelosi is running this, you know, military installation. Do you know that she is finding house members, finding them if they don't wear a mask on the floor, and she is insisting that House members go through metal detectors, and as idiotic as it is, is because she's afraid some Republican is going to be packing heat. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And thankfully the Senate is not that idiotic.

And they actually they took down metal detectors or whatever, because like when I walked in, we didn't go through metal detectors, but I went ahead and wore the mask on the house floor because that's sort of what they're doing there. But but but I felt pretty sheepish for doing so because it was all theatrics. There is something deferential and conservative about saying, well, I'm in this chamber now it's being run by this crazy lady, so I guess I'll follow the rules. But that's exactly what I

was doing. Yeah, and it is really nice to see that you've taken this very sensible approach, I think from the beginning. And I don't think that people on either side can call you reckless about the masks or particularly zealousy. They can, but well they certainly will regardless. The only question is now there are so many layers to this question, and I think and a lot of conservatives are very confused.

What do we do here? It's not just I recognize the pun of many layers to the masks, but you do You have some people who say we need to wear three masks. There's some people who say just where one mask is fine. Some people are saying you don't need to wear a mask. Some people are saying everyone needs to get vaccinated. Some people are saying you need a vaccine passport. Some people are saying, ban it at the government level, ban it at the private level. What

is the conservative, sensible American way to approach this issue? So, I think a vaccine passport is a terrible idea, and I have been vocal and outspoken saying the government shouldn't require it. It It would be horrific if the government did it. And I don't think private businesses should. So I don't think airlines should. I don't think I don't think private businesses should. I'm someone who believes in vaccines. I think

vaccines are a good thing. I've gotten the COVID vaccine, Heide's gotten the vaccine, My parents have both gotten at Heide's parents have gotten it, and I'm encouraging people to get it. I'd like to see as many people as possible get it. But I also believe in individual liberty, and if you don't want to get it, that's your choice. And there are some people who've got health issues for whom it may not make sense to get it, and so I think each person should evaluate whether it makes

sense in your circumstances. But you know, I think the CDC is actually doing real damage with the arbitrariness of their their rules. So for example, even after people get vaccinated, they're still idiotically saying, oh, well, we're wear masks here and there and everywhere, and it's like, well, wait a second. If we want people to get vaccinated, one of the best ways to do so is make clear once you get vaccinating and take the damn mask off. I mean,

I mean that. I think CDC's dragging their feet on that is very possibly disincentivizing millions of people from getting vaccines. And you know, this week they put out the guidance of Okay, now you don't need to wear a mask when you're outside if you've been vaccinated. It's like, well, okay, only morons we're doing that, Like like that, thank you, and like do I need a mask when I'm taking

a shower, like like you haven't clarified that point. Although did you see Michael, a track coach in Massachusetts, was fired because he wouldn't make his kids wear masks while running cross country track outside. He didn't want his students to collapse in the woods and fall fall down on a rock. It. You know, there's so much of this mass stuff that is just petty totalitarianism. It is we can control you, and we want to control you, and that's what we're doing. Well, the rules keep changing, but

it's not really about the rules themselves. I find it's about, as you say here, the imposition of the rule. Who gets to impose their will on others? I want to go back to something you said though, that I think is extraordinarily important. On the question of the vaccine passport. A number of governors have been divided on this because a lot of it's taking place at the state level. Some are saying we will not have any mandates from

the government on the vaccine passport. Others are saying, we will not permit private businesses to force you to show your medical history when you come into the bar, or when you try to go on an airline or something to that effect well, and you're seeing employers that are firing employees for not getting the vaccines, which I think is terrible. I think that that is deeply, deeply troubling

and shouldn't be allowed. This ties in with something that you published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, and you did not tell me that this was coming out. It's not like I got advanced notice. I just saw the alert in the journal, and I basically stood up and cheered when I saw this op ed because it's something that conservatives just don't get except for very few who

are pretty rock ribbed. You said that the era of conservatives shilling for private companies corporations that hate our values and are opposing our country and are opposing even voter integrity measures. Ye, that time is over. And you said that you will not accept corporate pack money in your campaigns.

So that's right. I mean, look, we've we've all been watching the rise of the woke corporations and these big businesses, these Fortune five hundred companies where the CEOs have essentially decided they're going to be the political enforcers for the radical left. They're going to be the muscle for the Democratic Party and we've seen, whether it's Coca Cola or Delta Airlines demogoguing on the Georgia voter integrity law, or

companies demagoguing on the Texas voter integrity law. And obviously Major League Baseball yanking the All Star Game out of Atlanta and moving to lilywhite Denver instead, which which which just totally beclowns at Atlanta's fifty one percent black, Denver is nine percent black. So they are so racially woke that they're going to take one hundred million dollars out of the pockets of a bunch of African American small business owners and move it to a bunch of wealthy

white people in Denver, like it's weird. Also worth pointing out that Georgia they left because of the voter integrity law. Colorado has relatively strict voter laws. It's it's not a clear cut issue over which has the more lenient voter laws. So the dynamic that's playing out in the Fortune five hundred big business is not conservative. They are not our friends. Many of them are just risk averse and scared, and the liberal mob comes after them and they mobilize their employees.

They mobilize their shareholders, they mobilize the press, and these CEOs are more than willing to just cave in and give the mob whatever they want. And it's really dangerous. And so what I announced this week is is that I am no longer going to accept any corporate pack checks, that corporate packs, I won't take their money. And to give a sense of the magnitude of that, so I've been in the Senate nine years. Over those nine years, I've gotten about two point six million dollars in campaign

contributions from corporate packs. Now I've raised well over one hundred million dollars during that time, and so that's not it's not the lion's share of the money that I've raised, but it is you know, two point seven million dollars ain't nothing. And I just decided enough is enough. If you guys are going to be actively fighting the American people, tearing down America, tearing down freedom, I don't want you're

stinking money. And I've called on other other Republicans to do the same, and I think it's a powerful thing. And listen, you and I have talked about before. Corporate welfare has always been garbage and Republicans have been too willing to engage in that where big companies come and say, give us a subsidy of US corporate welfare, give us a band date. And I've been fighting against that from day one. A lot of other Republicans get sucked in.

So the Export Import Bank, which which serves as essentially a giant subsidy for Boeing, a massive corporate welfare scam. I've fought against the XM Bank for the entire time I've been in the Senate, but a whole lot of Republicans are eager to carry Boeing's water on that. Major League Baseball, major League Baseball has a unique exemption from the antitrust laws that no other sports league has, and so in response to moving the All Star Game, I

joined with Mike Lee. We introduced legislation to revoke Major League Baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws. And I think these two should be tied together, which is no corporate welfare and no more money from big companies. And I think that if other Republicans follow suit, that will be a real improvement. I hear this all the time from conservatives writing in I'm not talking about elected people. I'm not talking about Beltway staffers or anything, but just conservatives

around the country. They say these Republicans are such shills. Even the ones who will call out the woke corporations, they're totally in their pockets. They'll still accept a lot of money. I think it is such a great move. It said in such a strong message, and it shows what we all know to be true that there is nothing conservative about letting these giant, woke corporations totally undermine the American way of life, and that you're not going to accept their money to do it. Well, big business

gets in bed with big government. Big business likes big government. Big business uses government regulations to crush their enemies, to crush their competition. I think we should be the party of the little guy. I think we should be the party of the entrepreneurs, of the disruptors. The giant companies don't need our help, and frankly, the policies they pushed

for are almost uniformly terrible. You know, I was encouraged, so I put this op ed out Thursday morning, and within a few hours one of my colleagues, Josh Holley, had already put out on Twitter that he was gonna follow follow my lead and likewise turned down corporate packs. I think that's going to increase the pressure on a lot of other Republicans to go down the same road. And if that happens, that's a good thing. I love that.

You know. There was a line in Joe Biden's speech which was it was totally regurgitated left wing talking points where he said, you know, the ninety nine percent and the one percent, and we've got to make the rich pay their fair share, even though they already pay virtually all of the taxes. And it was this classic class warfare sort of stuff. But then I remembered the rich

and especially corporations voted for Biden, donated to Biden. That is this I idea that the Democrats are the party of the working man, and the Republicans are these plutocrats with their fancy cigars. I mean, I might have the fancy cigars, but the idea that we're all rich uncle pennybags, it's just not what's going on in the parties. And I can say this, I've spoken multiple cigars with you. I've never once seen you use one hundred dollar bill to light it. And I think you're too chio not

to do that, which is good. I would advise against that fiscal conservative. It'll look you look at the Fortune one hundred. There are only a handful of CEOs and the Fortune one hundred who could be remotely characterized as right of center. They're almost all Democrats. And that is the ethos a big business. Because big business does great under the Democrats. They're quite happy with this massive expansion

of spending and regulations and even taxes. The giant companies think if you tax everyone, you'll drive the little guys out of business, and the big guys will be just fine. And that's that's bad, right of course. Barry Goldwater put it very well in Conscience of a Conservative. He said, conservatives need to make war on all monopolies. We need to make war on all unlimited power, all of this

unchecked power. And anyway, I don't mean to lay it on too thick here, but I was just so pleased to see that up ed. I hope that all the other Republicans feel the pressure. It's absolutely the right direction for the party. And you know, we've got a lot of questions in from our wonderful listeners, all of whom are they're so great they subscribe, they leave a five star review on the Apple podcasts, they go to all

the different platforms, So we really really appreciate that. And we are not going to get to a single one of those mail bag questions right now because I want to spend most, if not all, of our next episode on Verdict getting to our listeners in the mail bag. So please be sure to send those questions in and while you're at it, maybe you subscribe, maybe you'll leave a five star off you, maybe you sent it around to your friends, and we will get into all of

those questions asap. Senator, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.