Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 02, 2022


The State of Our Union ｜ SPECIAL UPDATE


Episode Stats


Length

25 minutes

Words per minute

174.59134

Word count

4,372

Sentence count

319

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Jake Tapper Ben Shapiro react to the most out of touch State of the Union address they've ever seen. They discuss the lack of substance in Joe Biden's speech, and the hypocrisy of the Democratic response to it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.500 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.060 In true verdict fashion, it is now midnight on the East Coast.
00:00:09.620 Senator Ted Cruz has just come back from the Capitol
00:00:12.800 after what I hope was a very edifying hour and a half long nap
00:00:17.960 during the worst State of the Union address that I have ever seen in my lifetime.
00:00:24.020 It's not just a partisan bomb.
00:00:26.180 I am not being hyperbolic.
00:00:27.960 I've watched a lot of them.
00:00:28.940 It was very difficult, and I at least was able to sit on a nice cushy chair and drink scotch.
00:00:34.140 Senator, you have truly impressed me tonight.
00:00:37.100 You are still going.
00:00:38.780 You may still be sleeping for all I know.
00:00:41.480 What did you see at the Capitol?
00:00:43.740 Well, you're right that I just left the Capitol, and it was a long speech.
00:00:48.680 This is the 10th State of the Union that I have sat on the floor of the House of Representatives and listened to.
00:00:55.240 The third president from whom I've heard of State of the Union,
00:00:57.940 and I agree with your assessment, that this was the most out-of-touch State of the Union I've ever seen.
00:01:05.560 For one thing, Joe Biden was reading the teleprompter and was unsteady.
00:01:11.600 He was unsure.
00:01:12.760 His hands were shaking.
00:01:14.020 You could really see his age.
00:01:16.580 And the speech, it made brief acknowledgments of the challenges that are facing the country,
00:01:25.400 but it totally ignored Biden's responsibility for those challenges.
00:01:30.900 So he mentioned inflation.
00:01:32.760 Didn't say a word about the trillions in spending and trillions in debt that is causing the inflation.
00:01:36.980 He mentioned gas prices going through the roof.
00:01:40.100 Didn't say a word about the policies of the administration making domestic exploration so much harder,
00:01:47.240 driving gas prices through the roof.
00:01:48.800 He talked about the need to secure the southern border.
00:01:51.180 Didn't say a word about his administration's policies refusing to enforce the border.
00:01:55.480 He talked about Russia invading Ukraine.
00:01:57.660 Didn't say a word about his waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2, his weakness towards Putin.
00:02:03.760 Before we get into the state of the Putin, as I was calling it, which was the first 10 or 15 minutes of the speech,
00:02:10.520 on the point that you just brought up on securing the border, I thought that was genuinely sort of surprising
00:02:16.180 because the Democrats have been quite explicitly for almost entirely open borders in recent years,
00:02:24.300 no enforcement, catch and release, path to citizenship, amnesty, no human is illegal.
00:02:29.900 They've been using all that kind of language.
00:02:31.520 Was that unexpected tonight in the room for Joe Biden to sound like a sort of 90s Democrat
00:02:37.520 and say, no, we actually do need to secure the border?
00:02:40.180 So a little bit.
00:02:41.360 I mean, look, he had a couple of rhetorical flourishes that went somewhat to the right.
00:02:48.060 So when he said we need to secure the border, all the Republicans stood up and applauded.
00:02:52.860 We all applauded that.
00:02:54.000 And it was, you're right, it's different rhetoric than the AOCs of the world are using. 0.99
00:02:58.760 Um, I think he decided to say that, but I think he thinks the American people are dumb. 0.99
00:03:04.540 And well, wait a second. 0.98
00:03:05.260 If you want to secure the border, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary,
00:03:09.540 who is preventing Border Patrol from securing the border, he was sitting right in front of me.
00:03:13.840 He stood and applauded on we need to secure the border.
00:03:16.520 He also, when he testifies before Congress, tells us the border is secure.
00:03:19.900 Right, right.
00:03:20.740 So, so it, it, um, you know, Biden also said, um, we shouldn't abolish the police.
00:03:27.680 We should, we should fund the police.
00:03:29.500 Again, Republicans stood and applauded to that.
00:03:31.800 Now that was to make a point.
00:03:33.860 Um, the Democrats also stood and applauded on, on both of those lines.
00:03:38.680 So they at least rhetorically are trying to back away from their extremes.
00:03:42.400 But he doesn't acknowledge that he keeps appointing people to the Justice Department that are leading advocates of abolishing the police.
00:03:49.380 He doesn't acknowledge that he appoints as federal prosecutors people who are Soros-backed DAs and releasing violent criminals.
00:03:57.440 So, so it really is a gaslighting, like I'll give you a tiny bit of rhetoric, but with no willingness to change the policy.
00:04:06.560 Right, hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, they say.
00:04:10.500 And so I think you certainly saw a lot of that.
00:04:12.300 Even there was a moment, it was so bizarre, where the Democrats stood up and they chanted USA as if they were, I don't, it seemed as though they were doing an impression of a Republican or something in that.
00:04:25.700 These are people who have been denigrating the country, protesting the flags, saying America's a racist, awful place.
00:04:30.740 I'd never heard them do that before.
00:04:32.340 You know, it was an odd, so the Democratic pollsters clearly told Biden, number one on Russia and Ukraine, pitch that the world is united and you've united the world.
00:04:45.040 That is the Democratic narrative, it's what the corporate media is echoing.
00:04:49.020 Yeah.
00:04:49.380 Number two on COVID, clearly lockdown policies are a disaster, mask policies are a disaster, and they've gotten the polling.
00:05:00.000 Now, what's changed has not been the science.
00:05:02.540 The science hasn't changed at all, but the polling has changed dramatically.
00:05:05.780 And so Biden's message was, I solved COVID.
00:05:09.080 Thanks to all of the mandates and illegal things I did, COVID is solved.
00:05:13.500 Isn't it wonderful?
00:05:14.820 So at another point, he said, we shouldn't shut down schools.
00:05:17.820 Again, Republicans all stood and applauded.
00:05:19.720 Now, mind you, when last year I introduced an amendment to say no federal funds, no new federal funds for schools that are shut down, every single Senate Democrat voted against it.
00:05:31.200 So the people who are standing saying don't shut down schools aren't actually willing to support policies that do that.
00:05:37.160 But I think they've decided, let's give a tiny rhetorical nod to the other side, but not even an inch on policy.
00:05:46.860 So this did strike me, and I couldn't tell if this was just my inner partisan coming out.
00:05:54.340 The divide here between what the Democrats have done in the last 12 months and even before that and what they were saying they supported, the clearest example being defund the police.
00:06:03.960 They did defund the police.
00:06:05.920 Not all of them, but a great number of them in leadership called for defunding the police, and then they did a complete 180.
00:06:13.960 You saw it on a whole lot of other issues as well.
00:06:16.720 Is that typical?
00:06:18.300 You know, politicians, they say one thing, they do another.
00:06:20.840 Or is that unique to this administration, to this year, to this state of the union?
00:06:26.340 I think there's a degree of mendacity that we're seeing from Democrats that is brazen even among politicians.
00:06:33.100 Right after saying don't defund the police, Biden used their talking point, which is in their massive spending, trillion-dollar spend-a-palooza, they had a little bit of money for police.
00:06:44.500 Republicans voted against it, so they're saying, aha, it's Republicans who want to defund the police. 0.94
00:06:49.340 And it's asinine, but they stand there and say it with a straight face. 0.88
00:06:55.000 And they realize this polls badly, so let's do it and then blame the other side for it. 0.95
00:07:01.620 I don't think anyone really buys it, but it is – they're scared of the rhetorics.
00:07:07.960 Let's take something like masks.
00:07:09.260 So last week, Pelosi had put out that everyone attending the speech had to wear a mask, had to wear an N95 mask, and be tested to come.
00:07:20.980 And if they'd kept that policy in place, I think you would have had half the people in attendance. 0.98
00:07:26.940 I can tell you from my end, I wasn't wearing a damn mask to the speech. 0.89
00:07:30.440 And it was interesting. 0.94
00:07:32.240 I was talking to some of the House members afterwards, and they said they were asking Pelosi, well, what are you going to do with senators?
00:07:37.880 Because she can find House members. 0.84
00:07:39.580 She can't find senators. 0.97
00:07:41.200 And she said, well, I'll find them or I'll have them removed.
00:07:44.520 And I had one of the House Republicans who were like, Cruz, I really wanted you to show up without a mask and to see Pelosi try to have you removed.
00:07:52.280 And I got to admit, I considered it.
00:07:56.820 Because I'm not sure what I would have done if I would have gone to the State of the Union and not worn a mask or if I would have just not attended.
00:08:05.380 But then I think their pollsters realized, oh, my goodness, if people turn on the TV and they see all these Democrats wearing N95 masks, it's going to make clear what a disaster that it is. 0.92
00:08:17.420 So in the last couple of days, California rescinded their mask mandate.
00:08:20.980 All these blue states are rescinding their mask mandates.
00:08:23.560 It's amazing.
00:08:24.680 The science is incredibly calibrated to political dates like the State of the Union.
00:08:30.540 It is a State of the Union miracle that suddenly blue states realized we don't need mask mandates anymore.
00:08:36.160 And Biden said in schools, suddenly we don't need masks anymore.
00:08:41.120 Who knew?
00:08:41.680 What an incredible revelation that the pollsters told him.
00:08:45.480 Right. And so in a way, I'm glad that the Democrats are admitting, at least tacitly, that their views were completely nuts. 0.92
00:08:55.080 Our views were right. 0.66
00:08:55.960 They play a lot better in Peoria.
00:08:57.280 Now, as you have implied, they're probably not going to follow this up with real policy.
00:09:03.120 So that that's pretty spooky.
00:09:06.080 One thing I noticed about the State of the Union compared to others that I've watched is and especially including the Trump States of the Union were.
00:09:16.120 So we're State of the Union addresses, rather.
00:09:18.000 It's not like attorneys general.
00:09:19.320 You know, it's that's not where you put the plural.
00:09:21.740 But but in those State of the unions, States of the Union, I don't know.
00:09:25.780 State of's.
00:09:26.720 I don't know.
00:09:27.220 You know, it's very late.
00:09:28.060 These things get speeches.
00:09:29.200 Now I'm starting to sound like Joe Biden himself.
00:09:31.580 You do.
00:09:32.740 Next thing you know, you're going to say that the Iranians were surrounded by the Russians in the Iranians.
00:09:38.620 And we do have to get to Putin.
00:09:40.620 But the question that I had was, unlike previous addresses that we've heard in this one, Biden wasn't able to really point to any accomplishments.
00:09:52.020 And so when he said the State of the Union is strong, he would he would point to things that he's going to do next year or in five years or into the future.
00:10:00.700 At the very end of the speech, he said the State of the Union is strong and it'll be stronger next year.
00:10:05.720 And I thought, is that not an indictment of your first year in office that everything has to be in the future because nothing's happening now?
00:10:12.600 Well, look, I think you're right.
00:10:13.760 Normally in a State of the Union, you have a president that says, look at all we accomplished.
00:10:17.320 And Biden pointed to two things.
00:10:19.060 He pointed to, number one, the massive COVID $1.9 trillion spending Palooza bill that he said solved everything.
00:10:26.040 But I don't think anyone listening actually believed that.
00:10:29.100 And then he pointed secondly to the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill.
00:10:32.700 And those are two bills that passed.
00:10:35.460 It's accurate.
00:10:36.100 They were signed into law.
00:10:37.120 But when you look at major accomplishments for the American people, I don't think there are a whole lot of folks that consider it that.
00:10:44.420 You know, one of the things that's strange.
00:10:47.540 So, look, anyone fairly assessing where Biden is, his poll numbers nationally are below 40 percent.
00:10:56.580 I mean, the wheels have come off and policy area after policy area is going really badly.
00:11:01.780 A State of the Union, this is the last major opportunity Biden had to try to change course, to try to recalibrate going into the midterms.
00:11:10.120 And Democrats now all but accept that the midterms are going to be a train wreck for them.
00:11:15.520 They all acknowledge they're going to lose the House and more and more they're getting worried they're going to lose the Senate as well.
00:11:20.780 I think they have reason to be worried.
00:11:22.940 What I found amazing is that Biden didn't try to pivot to the center in any meaningful way, that he didn't try.
00:11:28.540 You know, in 2020, when he was running in the Democratic primary, he stood up to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and he said, I'm a reasonable moderate Democrat.
00:11:37.520 And there was no moment where he took on his left.
00:11:41.160 There was no moment where he changed his policy one iota.
00:11:44.520 Everything he said he wanted to do were all elements of his so-called big Build Back Better bill, which the rest of us call Build Back Broke.
00:11:52.880 And I got to say, look, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema made clear that isn't going to pass.
00:11:57.700 And it was striking.
00:11:58.500 Manchin was sitting with the Republicans on our side of the floor.
00:12:02.720 He was the only Democrat sitting on our side.
00:12:04.440 I thought that was just weird to not even acknowledge, OK, their big signature legislation that got voted down and has no prospects for passing.
00:12:17.720 That's what he's going to talk about as his major accomplishment and do nothing to try to pivot in the direction of reasonableness headed to the election in November.
00:12:29.500 I think this White House has decided they're doubling down hard left and see what happens on Election Day.
00:12:36.120 Now, what was your take if you had the opportunity to speak to many of your colleagues, you know, actually at the Capitol tonight?
00:12:45.120 What was what was the temperature in the room after the speech?
00:12:48.500 Oh, I think there was a pretty partisan divide.
00:12:51.660 You know, Schumer was positively giddy, eager to jump up and down and jump up and down.
00:12:56.400 And one of my favorite games that I play at every state of the union is is watching the Democrats try to figure out when to stand and when not to.
00:13:04.040 Schumer seemed to get it wrong a little bit tonight.
00:13:06.460 He sort of went halfway up.
00:13:07.660 He popped up a couple of times all alone.
00:13:09.620 And it was kind of it was it was like, wow, for a majority leader, typically a leader is leading someone.
00:13:15.300 And there was one moment where where Biden said the CDC has said we don't need masks anymore.
00:13:22.300 And I clapped loudly.
00:13:24.300 And it was I don't know if you could pick it up on the TV broadcast, but at least the folks around were brought were cracking up laughing because it was there's always the sort of with the applause.
00:13:34.540 Because the the other party has a chance to highlight things the president says that inadvertently the other side agrees with.
00:13:43.380 Right. Right.
00:13:44.680 Now, the I don't want to end.
00:13:47.140 I mean, we're not going to keep you here all night, but I don't want to end without going back to the first part of the speech for the first 10, maybe 20 minutes of the speech.
00:13:56.680 I was wondering if he was ever going to mention America because he was focused entirely on the war in Ukraine.
00:14:04.960 We know I mean, we've talked about the war in Ukraine quite a lot.
00:14:07.880 I'm sure we will on future episodes.
00:14:09.640 What was the political calculation for opening the speech and spending so much time on Ukraine?
00:14:14.860 Well, I think the Democrats have two narratives of success that they want to pitch.
00:14:20.380 One, which he also had, was the pitch of we've created a bunch of jobs.
00:14:25.140 Now, he ignored the fact that that Democratic politicians shut millions of small businesses down, destroyed millions of jobs.
00:14:32.840 And then when they allowed them to open up again, they said people going back to work was creating jobs.
00:14:37.320 I don't think anyone buys that.
00:14:38.900 We have fewer jobs today than we had before covid.
00:14:41.580 And that's that's sort of an inconvenient fact on the way to the Democratic narrative.
00:14:46.500 The other Democratic narrative, and it really is amazing.
00:14:49.600 Secondly, we're facing the first major land war in Europe since World War Two.
00:14:57.980 By any measure, that is a monumentally bad screw up.
00:15:02.820 And yet the Democrats have convinced themselves of this narrative that Biden has unified NATO and the world like no president before, that he's forged together. 0.99
00:15:15.880 This is his moment of presidential leadership that all of Europe is holy crap, Putin's really bad. 0.99
00:15:22.080 Yeah. And it's a weird you're seeing Democrats really leaning in and invested in this and you're seeing the corporate media trying to spin it like crazy like this is they're already awarding Biden the Nobel Prize for losing Ukraine and surrendering to Putin. 0.87
00:15:40.720 I mean, it's the most bizarre, you know, on that reasoning, Neville Chamberlain was an incredible leader by appeasing Hitler and letting the Nazis invade. 0.56
00:15:51.240 He ended up creating the allies.
00:15:53.080 So look at what a great unifier Neville Chamberlain was.
00:15:56.640 That's their reasoning here.
00:15:58.440 It.
00:16:00.720 I think it's an it is a very beltway narrative.
00:16:04.980 It's a narrative that elites in Washington who go to the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings and and and, you know, we we refer sort of jokingly to the pocket square coalition, which are the folks in D.C. that all are wearing little pocket squares.
00:16:23.560 Right.
00:16:25.680 In that crowd, that argument makes sense.
00:16:31.380 It doesn't make sense a whole lot of other places.
00:16:33.560 So maybe we can end on this note.
00:16:38.160 There were a lot of people that Biden was talking to tonight.
00:16:40.940 He was talking directly to the Congress, but really he was talking beyond the Congress.
00:16:44.900 He was talking to those voters who were going to be going to the polls in November and deciding the midterm elections.
00:16:51.260 He was talking to the pocket square crowd.
00:16:53.820 He was talking to perhaps he was talking to our allies around the world.
00:16:59.020 How did he do?
00:17:00.180 Did he did he move his ball down the field with any of those groups?
00:17:06.060 Did he have any wins or was it a total flop?
00:17:08.900 So I don't think he persuaded any persuadables.
00:17:12.880 If you came in undecided tonight, I don't think you shifted to I'm team Biden.
00:17:18.580 Yeah.
00:17:18.680 I think maybe look, his numbers are so underwater that maybe their plan was let's try to shore up their base a little bit because they're Democrats who are demoralized by what they're doing.
00:17:33.540 And so he hit lots of Democrat hot buttons.
00:17:36.320 You know, he went an entire speech and he didn't talk about China.
00:17:40.640 He went an entire speech.
00:17:41.820 He didn't talk about Afghanistan.
00:17:43.260 Right.
00:17:43.540 The biggest military disaster of the last generation.
00:17:47.600 And he didn't even say so much as a word about Afghanistan.
00:17:51.840 He didn't talk about crime.
00:17:52.940 We've got skyrocketing murder rates, carjacking rates in Democratic cities all over the country.
00:17:58.380 He didn't say a word about that.
00:18:01.500 He didn't talk about Israel.
00:18:03.380 That's the first foreign policy, first day of the union address I can think of where the president didn't mention Israel in any way, shape or form.
00:18:11.480 All of that was curious.
00:18:13.080 And I think they were speaking to Democrats and trying to put out their talking points for we're not all screwed up.
00:18:25.520 And and there were not all screwed up talking points.
00:18:29.740 Our Europe is all unified against Russia after we screwed up Russia and Ukraine. 0.68
00:18:34.200 Right.
00:18:34.800 And we have lots of jobs after Democrats destroyed those jobs.
00:18:39.440 Some of them have come back.
00:18:43.200 And that's about it.
00:18:45.240 I mean, I mean, that's their their their talking points.
00:18:48.520 You know, I think there was an element of him that was kind of a little pissed off that things aren't going well.
00:18:53.500 You know, he didn't say it, but there was an implied.
00:18:56.820 Come on, man.
00:18:58.000 Right.
00:18:58.340 That was sort of screaming off the podium.
00:19:04.160 But it was.
00:19:08.000 I don't think there was any self-awareness in the speech.
00:19:13.740 There was no acknowledgement of any mistake, no acknowledgement of any policy that might have been even slightly off and no course correction.
00:19:23.400 That's the most curious thing is is particularly when a presidency is in trouble.
00:19:29.500 And by the way, Bill Clinton did this masterfully when he was in trouble.
00:19:32.760 He'd get up in the State of the Union and wow, everybody. 0.96
00:19:36.640 And listen, I was not a fan of Clinton, but damn, he was he was an effective politician. 0.84
00:19:42.340 He he could he could give a speech that even if you disagreed with him, you found yourself agreeing with a lot of the stuff he said. 0.95
00:19:49.440 And. And. Biden was not, I suspect you, neither you nor I were nodding along in agreement with very much and what little we nodded, we're sitting there going, you've got to be frigging kidding me when he says we should secure the border.
00:20:06.080 OK, yeah, I agree with that. 0.99
00:20:07.440 But this clown isn't doing it. 0.96
00:20:09.240 I mean, the problem was the few things he said that you agreed with. 0.97
00:20:13.700 Weren't remotely credible because he wasn't actually proposing any substance to it, he was just giving empty rhetorical nods.
00:20:20.940 Right. You were waiting for that moment of Bill Clinton getting up there saying the era of big government is over.
00:20:27.200 I have heard you. Right. Things have gone wrong.
00:20:29.820 I'm actually going to make a course correction.
00:20:31.740 And there was no grappling with reality.
00:20:34.260 The things that really, really, really went wrong under under Biden's reign so far, he just completely ignored, as you mentioned, the things that have sort of gone wrong.
00:20:45.000 He tried to twist and make it seem like a net positive.
00:20:47.800 And then he said, don't worry, we're going to turn everything around in the future.
00:20:50.860 See you next year. He ended the speech and said, go get him.
00:20:53.900 I've never heard a State of the Union end on the phrase, go get him.
00:20:56.540 I will say one other dynamic that may not have been as clear watching it on TV.
00:21:01.220 It was really hard to hear him like he mumbled.
00:21:04.960 And like a bunch of us where he was police and you're like, what it's so a lot of times the Republicans are like, we can't even tell what he's saying.
00:21:15.120 And it was it was a a bunch of us had that reaction that it was just he was not enunciating clearly.
00:21:22.620 And and it was really difficult to understand what he was saying.
00:21:26.280 That that is true. Even when he's on the microphone on TV, I suspect we could hear it much more clearly than you could in the room.
00:21:32.640 Well, I'm glad that at least everyone there was was as confused as the president was.
00:21:38.860 And perhaps that could help you stay awake. You were on your toes.
00:21:41.880 Now, what was that word? What was that syllable?
00:21:43.500 So overall, Senator, you're saying an unremarkable State of the Union for an unremarkable presidency.
00:21:51.240 The State of the Union, not as strong as it could be.
00:21:54.120 Well, I think the country is strong, but I think the State of the Union is in real trouble under failed Biden policies.
00:22:01.720 But I will say the 13 year old kid was cute. Yeah, I was glad he was there.
00:22:08.240 I kind of wish we'd all sung him happy birthday.
00:22:10.560 Yeah, that that that was sort of a moment, you know, a moment.
00:22:16.040 And and the woman who's who's the widow of the soldier who died.
00:22:21.360 And that was also those were both nice moments where you saw some bipartisan.
00:22:25.480 All right. We support you. And the Pittsburgh steelworker, he didn't say enough for us to know.
00:22:31.460 I think we all wanted to support him, too.
00:22:33.240 But we're trying to hear like, all right, what's who who is he and what's he here for?
00:22:36.800 What are we applauding? Right. You know, there is an element.
00:22:41.420 If it's your party's president.
00:22:43.080 You pretty much applaud it, whatever he says.
00:22:46.480 I mean, it's it's and that's true on both sides.
00:22:49.000 When it's the D's, all the D's applaud it, whatever he says.
00:22:51.260 Yeah. And when it's the R's, all the R's applaud it, whatever he says. 0.96
00:22:55.080 When it's the other side, you're sitting there thinking, OK, what? 0.98
00:22:58.260 Well, you know, because you don't want to be caught on video applauding some dumbass policy that's terrible. 0.86
00:23:05.380 And if you are concerned that what he's trying to say is that you're trying to listen carefully to determine, OK, what? 0.97
00:23:15.960 All right. If it's we like 13 year old kids. All right.
00:23:18.680 That I'll applaud. America's good. Team USA.
00:23:22.640 Go military. All of those are good. Russia bad. 0.56
00:23:27.040 But more broadly, there's a lot of what is that? What are you saying?
00:23:32.240 Yeah. Yeah. That's that's been true, not just of this speech, but of the entire Biden presidency.
00:23:38.260 I will tell you this. More than once, Republican senators quietly suggested chanting, let's go, Brandon.
00:23:44.820 But thankfully, civility took the better of our measures.
00:23:47.760 So we did not, in fact, do that.
00:23:50.320 I will say one of the Republican senators, when Nancy Pelosi was announcing the Supreme Court of the United States,
00:23:57.120 the cabinet of the United States, one of the Republican senators behind me,
00:24:02.240 called out fairly loudly, the 30 retiring Democrats of the House of Representatives,
00:24:07.140 which I told him I'd give him 20 bucks if he yelled that just a little louder. 0.98
00:24:11.160 But but he didn't do it.
00:24:13.060 That would have been even better, I think, than let's go, Brandon.
00:24:16.380 Well, it's all right. We'll have we'll have the last laugh come November.
00:24:19.880 Until then, Senator, get some sleep.
00:24:22.160 Yeah, I'm sure you'll be up early at it again tomorrow.
00:24:24.620 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
00:24:26.420 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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