Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 08, 2023


View From The Floor Of The Houseļ¼š Biden's Angry & Dishonest State Of The Union


Episode Stats


Length

41 minutes

Words per minute

170.12384

Word count

7,056

Sentence count

561

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

8

sentences flagged

Hate speech

13

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz reacts to Joe Biden's State of the Union speech and Sean Hannity's reaction to it. Ted also takes a look at Biden's handling of the fentanyl crisis and why he's the worst president in modern history.

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.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.560 Welcome.
00:00:05.380 It is a special fun edition of Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.
00:00:08.940 It is midnight after the State of the Union.
00:00:11.320 Senator, what a speech it was and a rewrite of history from the president.
00:00:16.620 Everything's great in the country.
00:00:18.100 The union is strong.
00:00:19.720 Inflation really doesn't matter.
00:00:21.280 We've got a secure border and we don't even have to talk about the balloon or China.
00:00:25.840 It was an interesting speech.
00:00:27.220 Well, interesting is one word for it.
00:00:30.640 I just came from the House floor, went over to the Fox studio, sat down with Sean Hannity,
00:00:37.100 talked with him about the speech, and I'm now back in our studio recording this podcast for tomorrow morning.
00:00:44.500 And I'll tell you, my reactions to the speech, I thought it was divisive.
00:00:49.460 I thought it was angry.
00:00:51.260 I thought it was out of touch.
00:00:54.660 And I thought it was profoundly dishonest.
00:00:58.020 There were portions of it where he was mumbling.
00:01:02.280 It was very difficult to understand what he was saying.
00:01:04.340 There were other portions where he just yelled randomly out of nowhere.
00:01:09.020 At times, he reminded me like a crotchety old man on his porch screaming at the kids,
00:01:14.360 get off my lawn! 0.97
00:01:15.600 It was remarkable.
00:01:22.160 Look, more than two-thirds of Americans believe we're on the wrong track.
00:01:26.400 We just had an election in November where the American people elected a Republican majority in the House.
00:01:31.360 There have been enormous problems with the Biden policy agenda.
00:01:37.940 He could have given a speech trying to recognize that.
00:01:41.680 Remember Bill Clinton?
00:01:42.820 Sure.
00:01:43.180 After Congress flipped where he gave a speech and he said, the era of big government is over.
00:01:48.120 And he tried to pivot to the center.
00:01:49.880 This speech was not that.
00:01:52.420 This speech was doubling down on the same failed left-wing agenda.
00:01:58.300 And, you know, I talked about the speech being dishonest.
00:02:02.020 There were lots of portions of it that I thought were dishonest, but three really stood out.
00:02:07.620 Number one, when Biden had a portion of the speech talking about fentanyl,
00:02:12.580 and he said, pass my plan to secure the border.
00:02:18.100 And literally half the chamber broke out in laughter because it was so profoundly dishonest.
00:02:28.960 Joe Biden and the Democrats made political decisions at the beginning of his presidency to open up the border.
00:02:35.540 It was a conscious political decision.
00:02:38.140 And as a consequence of that, we have had the highest rate of illegal immigration in the history of our country.
00:02:46.340 Over 5.4 million people have crossed illegally under Joe Biden.
00:02:50.600 Last year we had over 100,000 deaths from overdoses, most of those from Chinese fentanyl, flooding across Biden's open border.
00:03:00.280 And yet he accepted no responsibility for it.
00:03:03.920 He instead claims he has a plan to secure the border, which is not, in fact, a plan to secure the border, as we've talked about on prior pods.
00:03:13.580 It's a plan to actually expedite, to speed up illegal aliens and coyotes crossing the border.
00:03:20.920 And that, I thought, in the chamber was side-splittingly funny.
00:03:26.920 But to the American people, anyone paying attention, that was clearly not true.
00:03:34.320 You've got to go back to his first day in office.
00:03:36.620 And let's just remind people of what Joe Biden did to create the onslaught of not just illegal immigrants coming across the border, but the fentanyl coming across the border.
00:03:45.960 He halted the border wall construction.
00:03:48.720 Yep.
00:03:48.940 He paused deportations.
00:03:50.620 This is the first day in office.
00:03:51.860 He suspended the Remain in Mexico, basically, rule.
00:03:55.320 He proposed amnesty for millions on that first day in office.
00:03:59.240 And he ordered ICE to limit arrests and deportations.
00:04:03.080 And then he comes out today and is like, oh, we're going to fight fentanyl.
00:04:07.820 He's the biggest drug dealer in America right now because he's the one that's opened the border, which has allowed the drugs to come in.
00:04:14.140 No, that's exactly right.
00:04:15.520 And Joe Biden is also personally responsible for flooding billions of dollars to the Mexican drug cartels.
00:04:22.740 They are making massive amounts of money.
00:04:25.360 Roughly half their revenue comes from drug trafficking.
00:04:28.380 Roughly half their revenue comes from human trafficking.
00:04:31.160 And if you are a narco-terrorist, Joe Biden becoming president is the best thing that ever happened to your bottom line because business is booming. 0.74
00:04:40.320 And again, he didn't accept any of that.
00:04:42.920 He didn't even accept that there was a crisis.
00:04:44.820 He just flat out lied.
00:04:46.860 Another example, when he talked late in his speech, and it took nearly an hour for him to get to it.
00:04:51.880 But when he finally got to China and he said, we're standing up for China and America's stronger than ever before and our enemies are weaker.
00:05:01.380 It was utterly absurd.
00:05:03.380 I mean, we just finished last week the world watching as a Chinese spy balloon for over a week, hovered over U.S.
00:05:15.540 Army bases, secure installation, committing espionage, and Biden weakly and impotently wrung his hands.
00:05:22.920 He did nothing.
00:05:23.920 And then finally, after it had completed its mission, he shot it down once the mission was over, once our security had been compromised.
00:05:33.200 And the result of that is Xi and every other enemy of the world took the measure of the commander-in-chief and they concluded he was weak.
00:05:42.600 He was not willing to defend U.S. airspace.
00:05:46.180 I think that was actually one of the major objectives of the incursion.
00:05:50.580 I think the Chinese knew the balloon would be spotted.
00:05:53.460 It was visible to the naked eye.
00:05:54.780 They knew it would be spotted.
00:05:55.800 And yet, they also knew Biden would be so weak he wouldn't do anything about it or they suspected it.
00:06:04.600 And he confirmed that.
00:06:05.880 And so for him to say, we've shown the world we're tough on China. 0.98
00:06:09.560 Mind you, Joe Biden is also one of the largest customers for Chinese slave labor, buying electric vehicles and parts.
00:06:18.140 In the last Congress, when I forced a vote on the floor of the Senate to ban the federal government from purchasing electric vehicles or batteries made with slave labor in Chinese concentration camps, every Democrat but Joe Manchin voted no. 1.00
00:06:33.920 So that was another profoundly dishonest point.
00:06:36.240 And I'll tell you a third one that struck me as incredibly dishonest is when he leaned forward and says, Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare.
00:06:48.140 Yeah, that was one of the most awkward moments of the entire State of the Union.
00:06:51.240 And I want to dive into that.
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00:08:11.960 Senator, you just mentioned one of the weirdest moments of the night from the president.
00:08:17.920 And it was one of those moments where I think everybody's sitting there going, are you kidding me?
00:08:22.120 Go into detail of what it was like being on the floor of the House when he said it.
00:08:26.200 Well, so I was sitting in the second row behind the cabinet, just to the left of the president from his view.
00:08:36.620 And he leans forward and when he says that Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare, again, the result was spontaneous laughter.
00:08:47.720 It was half the chamber literally laughing.
00:08:50.140 Now, look, at some level, this is not new.
00:08:52.760 Every election cycle, Democrats demagogue on Social Security and Medicare.
00:08:58.540 And they always say Republicans want to throw granny off the cliff.
00:09:02.740 And the hook for this, by the way, his predicate for what was a brazen lie was one proposal that came out from one single senator.
00:09:12.920 So in the last cycle, Rick Scott put out an 11-point plan for what he wanted to do with a Republican majority.
00:09:20.020 Now, Rick Scott is a freshman senator.
00:09:21.620 He's entitled to have his views.
00:09:22.600 He's a good friend.
00:09:23.240 He's a good man.
00:09:24.380 Of those 11 points, I agreed with most of them.
00:09:28.580 There were two in particular that I think were a mistake and that I disagree with.
00:09:32.380 And I think most Republicans disagree with.
00:09:34.320 And my guess is even Rick disagrees with it on further contemplation.
00:09:38.220 One of the 11 that he had is he said every American should pay some taxes.
00:09:43.160 Now, that might be right in the most abstract of senses.
00:09:46.540 But right now, more than 50% of Americans don't pay income taxes.
00:09:51.980 And so what that was quickly characterized as is saying that Rick Scott wants to raise taxes on 50% of Americans.
00:09:59.300 I believe emphatically that Republicans should never, ever, ever be in the business of raising taxes.
00:10:04.760 We should cut people's taxes.
00:10:06.040 So I think that was a mistake for him to propose that.
00:10:09.100 The second thing that he included in his list of 11 is he said every federal program should be sunset.
00:10:14.540 And, listen, he's approaching this like the former governor of Florida, which he is, where there are lots of state programs, where you have a sunset review.
00:10:22.800 And in the sunset review, you examine the programs and you make them better.
00:10:26.120 And I understand why, from a state governor's perspective, that can make sense.
00:10:30.420 The reality is that Social Security and Medicare are different.
00:10:35.240 And they are, I think they are vital bulwarks of our country.
00:10:38.920 I think we've made solemn promises to seniors that we need to honor.
00:10:42.740 And Republicans are committed, all of us, including Rick Scott, to saving, preserving, strengthening, making sure that Social Security and Medicare are there for seniors going forward.
00:10:57.880 All of this Biden knows.
00:10:59.480 So he's literally taking one bullet point in one policy paper put out by a single senator, a freshman senator, and he's claiming that is the position of Republicans in the entire Congress.
00:11:13.340 It's absurd.
00:11:14.260 But, by the way, Biden did this all over the country.
00:11:16.080 He campaigned using this bullet point to lie and deceive people.
00:11:20.660 And then he went on and said, listen, we need to stand with seniors.
00:11:26.460 And I'll tell you, when he said that, I think he thought he was giving a Democrat talking point, I stood up and applauded. 0.55
00:11:32.540 Yes, we need to stand with seniors.
00:11:34.200 And I've got to tell you, there is literally no group in America who has been hurt more in the past two years than seniors.
00:11:43.040 You look at seniors facing skyrocketing inflation, you know, you're a senior, you're retired, you're on a fixed income, the cost of rent has gone up, the cost of food has gone up, the cost of everything has gone up.
00:11:58.740 And at the same time, you've seen your retirement drop 20 to 30 percent.
00:12:04.180 That is a double whammy where I do not believe it is hyperbole to say no president has inflicted more damage on seniors in two years than Joe Biden.
00:12:16.120 So it is remarkable chutzpah for him to falsely claim Republicans want to sunset Social Security and Medicare.
00:12:24.540 And you and I both know that seniors don't have 10 percent for the big guy 401ks like he does.
00:12:30.660 So it's a lot harder for them to recover when they lose money compared to Joe Biden.
00:12:36.100 Look, you know, my mom right now is living on Social Security and she's retired.
00:12:40.660 She's 88 years old and she pays her expenses.
00:12:43.840 And, you know, she doesn't get cable because cable is too expensive. 1.00
00:12:47.080 And it's you know, it's tough.
00:12:48.680 It's tough being a senior citizen as their son.
00:12:51.440 I help support her as, you know, a good son.
00:12:54.740 If you're able to do that, you ought to do that.
00:12:57.460 But but it is tough being a senior.
00:13:00.020 And particularly when you have a budget.
00:13:02.800 I mean, she is meticulous in her budget because she wants to make ends meet and she has limited means to do it. 1.00
00:13:09.420 And when the price of everything goes through the roof and your income doesn't match it, that really, really hurts seniors.
00:13:17.460 And this was a speech designed not to be honest, not to be candid, not to be direct about what's happening.
00:13:25.560 But instead, it was a in your face partisan speech.
00:13:31.860 It was a screw you to everyone on the other side, everyone that voted on the other side.
00:13:38.220 By the way, one particularly nasty thing was in the course of the speech when Biden recognized Paul Pelosi.
00:13:47.060 And that was a gracious thing to do.
00:13:49.340 You know, Paul was violently assaulted in his home.
00:13:51.640 That was horrific.
00:13:52.320 Like, no one should face political violence, somebody hitting you in the head with a hammer.
00:13:56.820 But then you look at the language that Biden used.
00:14:00.300 He blamed that.
00:14:02.180 He said on the big lie on on on 2020.
00:14:06.260 He wanted to blame that.
00:14:08.140 Take that act of physical violence and blame it on every Trump voter in America.
00:14:12.960 And there was no connection to that.
00:14:15.100 We know from the guy they caught.
00:14:16.920 Look, he was a hippie nudist in northern California. 0.98
00:14:21.340 And the guy's a nut. 1.00
00:14:22.280 He's a lunatic. 1.00
00:14:24.280 But Biden couldn't resist using it as a political knife to try to attack and not just attack. 0.99
00:14:31.860 Listen, if he wants to attack Republicans, that's fine.
00:14:34.900 But when he was doing that, he wasn't attacking Republicans.
00:14:37.560 He was attacking the voters.
00:14:38.720 He was going after the people and he was trying to use that to attack all of the voters who disagree with him.
00:14:45.900 And that's just a strange strategy for a state of the union to tell half the country, go jump in a lake.
00:14:54.440 Yeah.
00:14:54.620 And it was certainly a moment for him that he wanted to make there.
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00:15:28.700 He also said something else that was weird, trying, I think, to relate to the American people.
00:15:35.500 And a lot of people have called this out as basically another big lie where he gets away with it.
00:15:41.300 He said this about his wife, implying that she teaches full time.
00:15:46.400 We made the best educated, best paid.
00:15:48.640 We became the best educated, best paid nation in the world.
00:15:52.120 The rest of the world is caught up.
00:15:54.000 It's caught up.
00:15:55.680 Jill, my wife, who teaches full time, has an expression.
00:15:59.920 I hope I get it right, kid.
00:16:01.800 Any nation that out educates us is going to outcompete us.
00:16:06.080 Any nation that out educates is going to outcompete us.
00:16:08.500 Now, that may be a fair point, right?
00:16:11.040 That any nation that out educates us is going to outpace us.
00:16:15.080 But the Internet exploded, Senator.
00:16:17.580 You were obviously in the floor of the House then.
00:16:19.680 They're going, wait, when did she become a full time teacher?
00:16:21.960 How can you just make up things like this when she's the first lady?
00:16:25.180 You can see her schedule.
00:16:26.780 It's clear the schedule that she keeps.
00:16:28.460 She's not a full time teacher.
00:16:30.440 And there were even teachers that were outraged by this idea that you can just make stuff up as you go.
00:16:36.600 Well, look, I'm going to leave Jill Biden out of it.
00:16:40.140 But I will say I agree with the principle that any nation that out educates us will outcompete us.
00:16:46.760 And you want to talk about the failures of the Biden administration?
00:16:50.400 Joe Biden and the Democrats are responsible for shutting schools down all over this country in many places for more than a year.
00:16:57.200 And the result has hurt kids more than anything in our lifetime.
00:17:02.240 And in particular, it has hurt low-income kids, African-American kids, Hispanic kids.
00:17:08.760 We've seen the greatest learning losses ever recorded.
00:17:13.320 And this was done at the behest of the teacher union bosses who had schools shut down.
00:17:20.720 For tens of millions of kids for more than a year, schools were shut down.
00:17:25.560 And I'll point out this is also an administration that viciously, passionately opposes school choice, opposes charter schools,
00:17:34.260 does everything they can to leave kids trapped in failing schools.
00:17:38.500 So when he stands up and talks about education, I agree.
00:17:42.500 He and his policies are hurting education.
00:17:46.320 There's another portion where he was talking about the tax code.
00:17:49.060 And he said the tax code is fundamentally unfair.
00:17:52.220 And I began applauding heartily.
00:17:55.440 I was one of the few from the Republican side applauding at that.
00:17:58.380 But I think the tax code is terrible.
00:18:00.400 It's why I think we should abolish the IRS and pass a simple flat tax.
00:18:05.120 And he had all of this rhetoric, demagoguing big business, big companies.
00:18:13.100 Here's one of the interesting ironies.
00:18:14.720 And all the Democrats are standing up and hooting and hollering and cheering.
00:18:18.480 You know, all those big corporations, they are overwhelmingly supporting Democrats.
00:18:24.740 You know, he was demagoguing big pharma.
00:18:27.160 Big pharma is so much in bed with the Democrats that they snuggle and nibble on Joe Biden's ear at night.
00:18:35.480 Yeah.
00:18:35.640 And he knows it.
00:18:37.180 But it was one of those moments where he probably winked and nodded him.
00:18:39.560 Hey, guys, I'm going to I'm going to slap you around a little bit in the State of the Union.
00:18:42.700 But don't worry.
00:18:43.720 I'm the guy that's going to keep getting you paid through vaccine mandates and things like that.
00:18:47.720 Yeah.
00:18:47.880 I'm going to make it illegal not to buy your product.
00:18:50.180 And in fact, I'm going to try to fire people who don't buy your product.
00:18:53.520 And all right, we got it taken aside because you and I have not done a podcast since the ridiculous Grammys. 0.65
00:19:00.220 Yes.
00:19:00.800 Did you see the horrific Satan worshiping bizarre like it is, to my knowledge, the first time there's been a full on Satan celebrating ritual on network TV?
00:19:18.560 And not only that, but you actually had CBS tweeting out, we can't wait to worship.
00:19:22.900 They've now taken that tweet down because the backlash as they were getting ready for a moment that clearly they knew was coming with a Satan worshiping.
00:19:30.860 And then at the very end, it was amazing because it couldn't have been it couldn't have better illustrated the world that we live in right now, Senator, because it said brought to you by Pfizer when they went to the break.
00:19:42.160 So, Ben, you and I have been doing this too long together because you knew where I was going.
00:19:46.240 That was the connection.
00:19:47.680 So they have a transgender biological male who's a transgender female gyrating half naked in a cage with male and female strippers outside the cage. 0.99
00:20:01.460 That they have a man who identifies as non-binary, gyrating with red devil horns on while demons pull him down with fire in the air as this full on Lucifer celebrating event. 0.99
00:20:19.660 And by the way, you and I didn't watch the Grammys.
00:20:22.780 I'm assuming you didn't.
00:20:23.780 No, I did not.
00:20:24.580 I did not.
00:20:25.100 Full disclosure, I did not watch that.
00:20:27.560 But you know what? 1.00
00:20:29.820 Our kids listen to the garbage that's being produced by these people. 1.00
00:20:34.080 And these are the glitterati. 1.00
00:20:36.120 These are the entertainers.
00:20:37.540 It was an illustration of how corrupt, how fundamentally evil.
00:20:43.300 I tweeted out just watching this video.
00:20:45.860 This is evil.
00:20:46.780 But then to end with, sponsored by Pfizer.
00:20:51.080 Yeah.
00:20:51.300 You know, I couldn't help but tweeting.
00:20:53.460 Well, you know, Pfizer really is taking truth in advertising a little bit far on this.
00:20:58.020 It was so accurate of the culture at war that is happening right now in America. 0.65
00:21:05.020 And I want to ask you a question, Ben.
00:21:06.700 So I was there in the chamber.
00:21:09.060 I didn't watch the speech on TV.
00:21:11.040 When Biden finished his rhetoric attacking Big Pharma, did they break in and say, this speech brought to you by Pfizer?
00:21:18.600 Because they really should have.
00:21:20.560 They should have had the naked devil guy dancing in front of Biden and then say, brought to you by Pfizer. 0.97
00:21:26.500 And all the Democrats hooting and hollering, if they hate big business so much, ask yourself, why does almost every big business player support the Democrats, contribute to the Democrats?
00:21:39.960 Why are almost all of their boards of directors consisting of Democrats?
00:21:43.560 Why are almost all their CEOs Democrats?
00:21:45.660 It is this speech tonight was all about smoke and mirrors and deception.
00:21:52.320 We're going to use rhetoric that say we believe in one thing while our policies and actions are the opposite.
00:21:58.620 Yeah, the one thing about the Grammys, I've got to go back to that for a moment because, you know, they had this cameo from Fat Satan.
00:22:05.260 It was a catastrophe in the ratings.
00:22:07.460 This is the only good news.
00:22:09.180 It was a just 12.4 million viewers watch the Grammys.
00:22:15.140 So I do think that's a good a good point to point out here that the more extreme they go, the more America seems to be waking up to just how far gone we are and how extreme the left has become.
00:22:27.760 And that may be the only good news that comes out of these moments here.
00:22:31.580 But by the way, I will confess.
00:22:33.960 So I don't know if you happen to see it.
00:22:36.000 But, you know, James Corden, you know, the late night comedy host.
00:22:40.360 Oh, yeah.
00:22:40.960 So he did a whole riff on the Grammys.
00:22:44.600 And in particular, he had about three minutes of pounding the hell out of me because I tweeted this is evil about that.
00:22:53.040 And and it was.
00:22:55.420 So so I like my team in the office saw it and I was like, OK, of course, late night comedy is defending the like devil worship on mainstream TV.
00:23:05.980 And then every single person on my staff was falling on the ground, holding their ribs, laughing, saying this is the funniest damn thing I've ever heard, because it has me sitting on my on on my couch going, OK, I must tweet on this.
00:23:21.620 And in it.
00:23:22.400 And so I ended up, of course, embodying what they were mocking me for tweeting on it and saying, OK, late night comedy is finally funny.
00:23:31.560 But I've told all my staff.
00:23:32.980 All right.
00:23:33.540 I'm pissed off that y'all think this is so damn funny.
00:23:36.000 I don't understand why, but OK, I'll own it.
00:23:39.120 That's hilarious.
00:23:39.840 Hey, you know what?
00:23:40.560 Sometimes, like you said, you just got to own that moment.
00:23:42.960 I want to go back to something you said earlier.
00:23:44.760 And you said that tonight's speech was an extremely partisan kind of bitter and angry speech.
00:23:50.420 And we're also talking about just some of the kind of anger and the screaming.
00:23:54.600 I want to play.
00:23:55.860 This was an eight second moment.
00:23:57.400 And it and it and I think totally encompasses this speech of basically what it was.
00:24:03.520 Name me a world leader who changed places with Xi Jinping.
00:24:08.160 Name me one.
00:24:09.780 Name me one.
00:24:11.400 I mean, he was angry.
00:24:12.440 Now, the reason why I play that is forget what he was saying for a moment.
00:24:15.540 I was watching this and about 15 minutes in, I literally said out loud, well, it's official.
00:24:22.580 He is definitely running for reelection because it was a campaign speech that I watched tonight
00:24:28.180 with a campaign theme that you kept noticing was coming up of let's finish what we started.
00:24:34.320 Let's get the job done.
00:24:36.160 They were test marketing the campaign theme of Joe Biden.
00:24:40.320 This was, I think, the soft launch of officially his presidential campaign 2.0.
00:24:45.520 Well, it could be.
00:24:46.560 I'll say a couple of things.
00:24:47.600 Number one, that little portion of name someone who would change places was Xi Jinping.
00:24:52.120 I'll tell you, we were all looking at each other and scratching our heads because he was yelling,
00:24:56.920 name one, name one.
00:24:57.920 And he was like he was a deranged man yelling.
00:25:00.020 He was yelling loud.
00:25:02.080 And it's a weird point.
00:25:04.280 It's like, well, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas Maduro, like every tin pot dictator
00:25:14.740 in the world would love to be Xi Jinping.
00:25:17.660 Like it's a weird, I don't understand what his point was, that that was actually, I don't
00:25:23.460 know if he read it wrong or if it's a bizarrely inconceived.
00:25:28.160 If you're an oppressive dictator, name someone who would like to be the world's most oppressive
00:25:35.100 dictator with 1.3 billion people and a massive economy and a military that is challenging and
00:25:41.260 the greatest geopolitical threat to the United States of America for the next hundred years.
00:25:45.740 It's like, Joe, there are lots of people who would like to be that.
00:25:50.200 And you are hopelessly naive if you think.
00:25:53.900 And by the way, Joe, you have said for years, China is our friend.
00:26:00.000 No, they're not our friend.
00:26:02.440 So so it was a.
00:26:04.960 That was one of the stranger moments, because we were looking at each other saying, what is
00:26:11.620 this point?
00:26:12.180 We don't get this.
00:26:14.120 You mentioned you mentioned his obsession with China and saying that they are not somebody
00:26:18.580 that we should have worried about.
00:26:20.320 And let's just go back to 2001.
00:26:22.940 Listen to Joe Biden from 2001 to present obsessing over China.
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00:27:48.920 Senator, here is Biden who spent literally decades, this goes back to 2001, knowing and
00:27:56.440 bowing to China.
00:27:58.080 In fact, he even said he hoped for their expansion saying it was good for America.
00:28:03.040 China is not our enemy.
00:28:04.860 I believe then and I'm even more convinced now that a rising China is an incredibly positive
00:28:10.200 development for not only China, but the United States and the rest of the world.
00:28:15.400 It is in our self-interest that China continue to prosper.
00:28:19.560 China is a great nation and we should hope for the continued expansion.
00:28:23.080 We want to see China rise.
00:28:24.780 A rising China can be a significant asset for the region and the world.
00:28:28.920 China is going to eat our lunch? 1.00
00:28:31.340 Come on, man.
00:28:33.160 They're not bad folks, folks.
00:28:34.600 But guess what?
00:28:36.000 They're not a competition for us.
00:28:38.820 China is not our problem.
00:28:39.840 We can help them with some of their problems.
00:28:41.680 China is not a problem.
00:28:43.240 The idea that China is going to eat our lunch is bizarre.
00:28:47.720 And so what are we worried about?
00:28:50.580 We talk about China as our competitor.
00:28:54.840 We should be helping.
00:28:55.900 Do you think in retrospect that you were naive about China?
00:28:58.120 No.
00:28:59.360 Do you think in retrospect you were naive about China?
00:29:02.500 May have been the best question ever asked by CNN.
00:29:05.320 And of course he says no.
00:29:06.840 Look, he wasn't naive.
00:29:09.940 Those quotes read like someone who's been paid millions of dollars from the Chinese communist 0.65
00:29:15.880 government.
00:29:16.680 And we know that Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars.
00:29:19.560 We know that the Penn Biden Center was paid millions of dollars.
00:29:23.000 We know that Joe Biden has made a career of crawling in bed with the Chinese communist 0.59
00:29:28.000 government.
00:29:28.660 And so it's not naive.
00:29:31.080 Naive doesn't begin to capture it.
00:29:33.380 It's more fundamentally corrupt than that.
00:29:36.460 It is the Democrat Party today is structurally pro-China.
00:29:41.480 We've talked about this before.
00:29:42.760 All of their major stakeholders are pro-China.
00:29:47.760 Big business, big tech, big Hollywood, big universities.
00:29:52.220 All of them are in bed with China. 0.99
00:29:53.960 And so the Democrat Party is in bed with China too. 0.75
00:29:56.540 All right.
00:29:56.720 I want to make two final points before we wrap up.
00:30:00.680 Number one, we talked about this on the last pod.
00:30:04.920 Every senator is entitled to bring one guest to the State of the Union.
00:30:08.760 As I mentioned in Monday's pod, I brought Lieutenant Levi Beard as my guest.
00:30:17.120 Now, Lieutenant Beard has been in the Navy for 10 years.
00:30:20.860 Great guys from Fort Worth originally.
00:30:23.580 I had dinner with him, invited him to the Senate dining room, and he had dinner with the other
00:30:28.760 senators and me.
00:30:30.780 And Levi, the Biden administration is trying to fire him because he's declined to take the COVID vaccine.
00:30:42.660 And Levi brought litigation to stop that, and a federal court issued an injunction preventing the
00:30:48.400 Biden administration from firing him.
00:30:50.600 But they're not done.
00:30:51.860 The Biden Department of Defense is litigating against Levi, trying to collect about $200,000 from him.
00:31:00.960 They're trying to collect about $75,000 of a bonus they paid for him because he had accepted and was in
00:31:07.380 training to be a division head in the Navy.
00:31:10.700 And then they're also trying to force him to repay the cost of postgraduate school at the Naval War College.
00:31:18.320 The reason they're going after him for both of those is the Navy will not let him be a division head.
00:31:25.340 Why?
00:31:25.940 Because he hasn't gotten the COVID vaccine.
00:31:28.200 So even though Congress has repealed the mandate, the Biden Department of Defense doesn't care.
00:31:33.640 They are still enforcing it and severely restricting servicemen and women that make the decision.
00:31:39.720 In Levi's case, he put in an application for a sincere religious objection.
00:31:44.620 They denied him.
00:31:45.580 They don't care.
00:31:46.400 And you've literally got a 10-year sailor who they're trying in litigation to get $200,000 out of him to extort it from him.
00:31:57.660 And I will say, number one, at the dinner in the Senate dining room, I introduced him to a number of my fellow colleagues.
00:32:05.060 Now, some of them have been strong voices against the vaccine mandate in the military.
00:32:10.940 But other than others of them, I introduced him to several Democrats.
00:32:15.540 I introduced him to some of the Republicans who have not been willing to stand against the military vaccine mandate.
00:32:23.900 And it was striking the reactions.
00:32:25.940 Look, I enjoyed introducing him to people who agree with us.
00:32:29.140 But I have to admit, I enjoyed even more introducing him to senators who are on the other side, because I would introduce him, say he was in the Navy.
00:32:36.660 And they're like, oh, thank you for serving.
00:32:38.200 It's great.
00:32:38.680 And I'd tell that story.
00:32:40.140 And you would see it would vary.
00:32:43.100 Some of them, the blood would shoot out of their face and they'd like run away.
00:32:45.600 Others would look at him and listen and they'd hear his story.
00:32:53.120 And I'm hoping that at least a couple of them in that room, having met him, having met a real human being, you know, Levi and I were talking about how people think in terms of memories.
00:33:06.860 We think in terms of stories, the way our mind works, they can now put a face to the name, a face to the problem.
00:33:16.820 I hope it makes a difference.
00:33:18.440 And it was striking to me in the entire course of the speech, Biden did not say a word about the thousands or even tens of thousands of soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines and Coast Guardsmen that he fired because of his abusive vaccine mandate.
00:33:36.180 And so I hope others focus on Levi's story and the story of the other servicemen and women that have been screwed by this administration.
00:33:46.120 It was striking to me he wouldn't say a word about it.
00:33:48.780 It is shocking that he left that and many other issues just completely disappeared from him, including school choice, COVID learning losses, critical race theory.
00:33:59.100 The issue of Israel did not come up tonight at all.
00:34:01.920 Anti-Semitism did not come up at all tonight.
00:34:03.920 But Asian-Americans and anti-Asian hate crimes, which which was something they used to talk about, didn't come up.
00:34:10.340 And certainly nothing came up tonight about his mishandling of classified documents.
00:34:15.360 He did not mention Iran tonight.
00:34:17.600 He did not.
00:34:18.240 You know what also didn't happen either.
00:34:20.020 You know what also didn't happen?
00:34:22.540 Kevin McCarthy didn't ostentatiously rip the speech into pieces behind him because Kevin McCarthy actually demonstrated some class.
00:34:30.440 Unlike Nancy Pelosi, who demonstrated just complete contempt, not just for Donald Trump, but for the presidency.
00:34:37.240 And I thought that was a sharp contrast.
00:34:39.360 Now, I got to point out, there is one really important issue that I know that that our our loyal listeners will remember.
00:34:48.920 And it's a really significant issue, which is in Monday's pod, you and I both made predictions about how long the State of the Union address would be.
00:34:58.820 And in Monday's pod, I predicted that it would be one minute and one hour and 21 minutes.
00:35:05.400 And you came in, I think, with like, was it 42 minutes?
00:35:08.340 It was 40 something.
00:35:09.720 What was it, Diaz?
00:35:10.860 Can we go back?
00:35:11.680 I don't remember what I said.
00:35:14.440 But it was under you, like, not enough that I was prices riding you.
00:35:18.020 I want to be clear about that.
00:35:19.260 So I was an hour and 21 minutes, and you were down in the 40s.
00:35:23.000 Well, the official count, according to C-SPAN, was one hour, 12 minutes and 41 seconds, which means that I was eight minutes off.
00:35:32.820 You were eight minutes over.
00:35:34.080 That means you're automatically disqualified, right?
00:35:35.740 No, no, no, no.
00:35:36.360 This is not prices right.
00:35:37.640 This is who was closest.
00:35:39.760 And, you know, I'm just going to say, and it was 11 minutes longer than last year's speech.
00:35:47.480 And, you know, when you predicted that it would be in the 40-minute range, I have to admit, I laughed on Monday.
00:35:53.680 And I think I have sat on the House floor, I believe, for 10 of these now.
00:35:59.400 And so I think my reaction is just not my first rodeo.
00:36:03.560 But I am wondering what we wagered.
00:36:06.120 What do I win?
00:36:07.180 I guess we could go with, I don't know.
00:36:14.680 I'll have to think about this.
00:36:16.320 I haven't decided yet, but I will make sure it's a good one, and I'll come back to you on that.
00:36:20.640 Because I know if I let you decide, it's going to hurt.
00:36:22.780 All right, very good.
00:36:25.760 I'll just take the vindication of having predicted correctly.
00:36:29.980 You won.
00:36:30.640 I lost.
00:36:31.160 I'll take my lashing, Senator.
00:36:32.720 Thank you for that.
00:36:33.620 Thank you for reminding the audience of that one.
00:36:35.800 I have one last bonus question, 30 seconds or less, because this is just something everybody, I've always wanted to know, and I think others have.
00:36:44.300 How do you guys decide where the hell you're going to get seated at the State of the Union?
00:36:47.600 How does that work?
00:36:48.360 What's the protocol there?
00:36:49.380 So it's a great question.
00:36:51.000 It's actually, it's utterly random.
00:36:53.000 So when you come in, we gather in the Senate chamber.
00:36:57.520 Oh, like, I guess the speech begins at 9.
00:37:00.800 I think we gather about 8.20 and about 8.30 we walk over.
00:37:04.840 So we all, all the senators walk in a line across the Capitol.
00:37:09.520 The Senate chamber's on one side of the Capitol, the House chamber's on the other.
00:37:12.400 So we all walk in a line.
00:37:13.900 We walk kind of in between tons of reporters and press that are snapping pictures.
00:37:18.140 So it's formal.
00:37:20.340 Ish.
00:37:20.880 I mean, it's not like a parade, but it's, it's typically we're walking two by two.
00:37:27.280 Often, for whatever reason, often you try to talk with someone from the opposing party.
00:37:32.660 It's not always the case, but like walking over to this one, I was talking to Dick Blumenthal from Connecticut, and he and I have served on committees together.
00:37:39.580 And we actually get along pretty well, even though we disagree on a lot of issues, but we were, we were talking and walking along.
00:37:45.760 And then when you walk in, so one of the things the House does is it reserves pretty much all of the seats in the front.
00:37:53.320 So the front, front rows are the cabinet, and then also on the left side is the Supreme Court and the Joint Chiefs.
00:38:03.420 Behind the cabinet, the very next seats, they reserve for the Senate.
00:38:08.160 And I have to admit, I'm actually a little amazed that the House, given the tensions between the House and the Senate, I'm not sure why they're, they're so nice to give us the best seats in the House, but they always do.
00:38:17.960 And so the front seats are reserved for senators, and there are, I guess, a hundred of them that have little signs that say reserved for a senator.
00:38:27.980 But when you come in, it's literally first come, first serve.
00:38:30.760 So you just walk in, and they've got a couple of assistants that are pointing you, oh, there are a couple of seats there, a couple of seats there.
00:38:36.820 And you just go in randomly, the only senators that have assigned seats are the leaders in both parties, so Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer, sort of the top five leadership in both parties have the front center rows on both sides.
00:38:54.000 But beyond that, you sit wherever you want in the reserve seats for senators.
00:39:00.960 And so I was, I guess, two rows behind the cabinet just because that was the seat that was open, and so that's where I sat.
00:39:07.880 There you go. See, we learn something new every night.
00:39:10.020 Senator, always a pleasure. Don't forget everybody.
00:39:12.740 All right, all right. Hold on. I got to tell a story.
00:39:15.200 Yeah.
00:39:15.400 State of the Union, I think it's 2014.
00:39:21.240 So second one I've been to, Obama State of the Union, and I'm sitting next to Lindsey Graham.
00:39:28.340 And Louie Gohmert in the house comes up to me, and Louie's a dear friend.
00:39:32.580 And Louie's talking to me, and he's talking to me, and Lindsey and I are both sitting down, and Louie's standing there in the aisle.
00:39:38.380 He hasn't gotten a seat, but he's talking, he's talking, he's talking.
00:39:40.620 And they're getting ready to start, and Louie looks around, and he's like, oh, crap, I don't have a seat.
00:39:47.240 Where do I go sit?
00:39:48.600 And Lindsey says, Louie, Louie, there's a seat right up there next to the podium.
00:39:53.080 Go sit up there.
00:39:55.200 He said, you will be famous.
00:39:58.420 And I laughed. I said, Louie, you got to do it.
00:40:00.800 Go sit up there.
00:40:02.080 You will be immortal.
00:40:03.700 You'll be incarcerated, but you will be immortal.
00:40:07.780 It's like a fraternity dare right now.
00:40:09.720 And then, so this was 2014, because it was right after Nelson Mandela's funeral in December of 2013.
00:40:18.500 And I don't know if you remember, this was a while ago, but at Mandela's funeral, there was a bizarre instance of this guy that stood up there and pretended to be a deaf interpreter.
00:40:28.440 Yeah, and he wasn't.
00:40:29.300 He just figured his way in there.
00:40:31.340 And he wasn't doing sign language.
00:40:33.200 He was just making random gestures and got on global television pretending to be a deaf interpreter.
00:40:39.820 So I told Louie, I said, Louie, go up there, and when Obama begins his speech, just start faking sign language.
00:40:47.380 It will be, you will go down in the history books.
00:40:51.200 And God love Louie.
00:40:52.760 He had the sense not to take my advice, not to take Lindsey's advice.
00:40:56.360 And doesn't have a mug shot because of the evening.
00:41:00.120 There you go.
00:41:00.240 So everybody won.
00:41:01.380 That's awesome.
00:41:02.120 Senator, it's always a pleasure.
00:41:04.140 As we said, everybody, it's late at night, right after the State of the Union.
00:41:07.140 We will see you guys back here on Friday morning.
00:41:10.820 Don't forget, subscribe to the podcast so you get all three of them every week.
00:41:15.260 They are free.
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00:41:23.680 And we'll see you back here on Friday.
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