Michael Knowles (4:02)

Right. Hypocrisy is the tribute vice pays to virtue, they say. And so I think you certainly saw a lot of that even. There was a moment, it was so bizarre, where the Democrats stood up and they chanted USA as if they were. It seemed as though they were doing an impression of a Republican or something in that these are people who have been denigrating the country, protesting the flag, saying America's a racist, awful place. I'd never heard them do that before.

Ted Cruz (4:28)

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. That is the Democratic narrative. It's what the corporate media is echoing. Number two on Covid, clearly, lockdown policies are a disaster. Mask policies are a disaster. And they've gotten the polling. What's changed has not been the science. The science hasn't changed at all. But the polling has changed dramatically. And so Biden's message was, I solved Covid. Thanks to all of the mandates and illegal things I did, Covid is solved. Isn't it wonderful? So at another point, he said, we shouldn't shut down schools. Again, Republicans all stood and applauded. 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. So the people who are standing saying don't shut down schools aren't actually willing to support policies that do that. But I think they've decided, let's give a tiny rhetorical nod to the other side, but not even an inch on policy.

Michael Knowles (5:42)

So this did strike me, and I couldn't tell if this was just my inner partisan coming out. 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. They did defund the police. They not all of them, but great number of them in leadership called for defunding the police and then they did a complete 180. You saw it on a whole lot of other issues as well. Is that typical? You know, politicians, they say one thing, they do another. Or is that unique to this administration, to this year, to this state of the union?

Ted Cruz (6:22)

I think there's a degree of mendacity that we're seeing from Democrats that is brazen even among politicians. 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. Republicans voted against it. So they're saying, aha, it's Republicans who wanna defund the police. And it's asinine, but they stand there and say it with a straight face and they realize this polls badly, so let's do it and then blame the other side for it. I don't think anyone really buys it, but it is. They're scared of the rhetoric. Let's take something like masks. 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. And if they'd kept that policy in place, I think you would have had half the people in attendance. I can tell you from my end I wasn't wearing a damn mask to the speech. And it was interesting. I was talking to some of the House members afterwards and they said they were asking Pelosi, well, what are you gonna do with senators? Cuz she can find House members, she can't find senators. And she said, well, I'll find them or have them removed. 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. And I gotta admit, I considered it. I'm not sure what I would've done if I would've gone to the State of the Union and not worn a mask or if I would've just not attended. 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 gonna make clear what a disaster it is. So in the last couple of days, California rescinded their mask mandate. All these blue states are rescinding their mask mandates. It's amazing. The science is incredibly calibrated to political dates, like the State of the Union. It is a State of the Union miracle that suddenly blue states realized, we don't need mask mandates anymore. And Biden said, in schools, suddenly we don't need mask anymore. Who knew? What an incredible revelation that the pollsters told him. Right.

Michael Knowles (8:41)

And so in a way, I'm glad that the Democrats are admitting, at least tacitly, that their views were completely nuts. Our views were right. They play a lot better in Peoria now, as you have implied, they're probably not gonna follow this up with real policies. So that's pretty spooky. One thing I noticed about the State of the Union compared to others that I've watched is especially including the Trump. States of the Union were State of the Union addresses. Rather, it's not like attorneys general. That's not where you put the plural.

Ted Cruz (9:17)

But in those State of the Unions. States of the Union, I don't know.

Michael Knowles (9:21)

State of's, I don't know. You know, it's very late. These things get jarring. Speeches now I'm starting to sound like Joe Biden himself.

Ted Cruz (9:27)

You do. Next thing you know, you're gonna say that the Iranians were surrounded by the Russians in the geeks.

Michael Knowles (9:32)

Right, the Iranians. And we do have to get to Putin. 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. And so when he said the State of the Union is strong, he would point to things that he's going to do next year or in five years or into the future. At the very end of the speech, he said, the State of the Union is strong and it'll be stronger next year. 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?

Ted Cruz (10:08)

Well, look, I think you're right. Normally, in a State of the Union, you have a president that says, look at all we accomplished. And Biden pointed to two things. He pointed to, number one, the massive Covid $1.9 trillion spending palooza bill that he said solved everything, but I don't think anyone listening actually believe that. And then he pointed secondly to the so called bipartisan infrastructure bill. And those are two bills that passed. It's accurate, they were signed into law. 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, you know, one of the things that's strange. So look, anyone fairly assessing where Biden is, His poll numbers nationally are below 40%. I mean, the wheels have come off and policy area after policy area is going really badly. 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. And Democrats now all but accept that the midterms are going to be a train wreck for them. They all acknowledge they're gonna lose the House and more and more they're getting worried they're gonna lose the Senate as well. I think they have reason to be worried. What I found amazing is that Biden didn't try to pivot to the center in any meaningful way that he didn't try. 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. And there was no moment where he took on his left. There was no moment where he changed his policy one iota. Everything he said he wanted to do were all elements of his so called build back better bill, which the rest of us call build back broke. And I gotta say, look, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema made clear that isn't gonna pass. And it was striking. Manchin was sitting with the Republicans on our side of the floor. He was the only Democrat sitting on our side. I thought that was just weird to not even acknowledge, okay, their big signature legislation that got voted down and has no prospects for passing. That's what he's gonna talk about as his major accomplishment and do nothing to try to pivot in the direction of reasonableness headed to the election in November. I think this White House has decided they're doubling down hard left and see what happens on election day.

Michael Knowles (12:31)

Now, what was your take if you had the opportunity to speak to many of your colleagues actually at the Capitol tonight? What was the temperature in the room after the speech, Oh, I think there.

Ted Cruz (12:44)

Was a pretty partisan divide. Schumer was positively giddy, eager to jump up and down and jump up and down. And one of my favorite games that I play at every State of the Union is watching the Democrats try to figure out when to stand and when not to.

Michael Knowles (12:59)

Schumer seemed to get it wrong a little bit tonight. He sort of went halfway up.

Ted Cruz (13:03)

He popped up a couple of times all alone. And it was kind of. It was like, wow, for a majority leader. Typically a leader is leading someone. There was one moment where Biden said, the CDC has said, we don't need masks anymore. And I clapped loudly. And it was. I don't know if you could pick it up on the TV broadcast, but at least the folks around were cracking up laughing because it was. There's always the sort of. With the applause, the other party has a chance to highlight things the president says that inadvertently the other side agrees with. Right.

Michael Knowles (13:39)

Right. Now, I don't want to end. I mean, we're not gonna keep you here all night, but I don't wanna end without going back to the first part of the speech. For the first 10, maybe 20 minutes of the speech, I was wondering if he was ever going to mention America because he was focused entirely on the war in Ukraine. We know. I mean, we've talked about the war in Ukraine quite a lot. I'm sure we will on future episodes. What was the political calculation for opening the speech and spending so much time on Ukraine?

Ted Cruz (14:10)

Well, I think the Democrats have two narratives of success that they want to pitch. One, which he also had, was the pitch of, we've created a bunch of jobs. Now, he ignored the fact that Democratic politicians shut millions of small businesses down, destroyed millions of jobs, and then when they allowed them to open up again, they said people going back to work was creating jobs. I don't think anyone buys that we have fewer jobs today than we had before COVID And that's sort of an inconvenient fact on the way to the Democratic narrative, the other Democratic narrative, and it really is amazing. We're facing the first major land war in Europe since World War II. Bike any measure. That is a monumentally bad screw up. 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. This is his moment of presidential leadership, that all of Europe is, holy crap, Putin's really bad. 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. 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, he ended up creating the Allies. So look at what a great unifier Neville Chamberlain was. That's their reasoning here. I think it is a very beltway narrative. It's a narrative that elites in Washington who go to the Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings and we refer sort of jokingly to the pocket square coalition, which are the folks in D.C. that all are wearing little pocket squares right in that crowd. That argument makes sense. It doesn't make sense a whole lot of other places.

Michael Knowles (16:29)

So maybe we can end on this note. There were a lot of people that Biden was talking to tonight. He was talking directly to the Congress, but really he was talking beyond the Congress. He was talking to those voters who were going to be going to the polls in November and deciding the midterm elections. He was talking to the pocket square crowd. He was talking to, perhaps he was talking to our allies around the world. How did he do? Did he move his ball down the field with any of those groups? Did he have any wins or was it a total flop?

Ted Cruz (17:04)

So I don't think he persuaded any persuadables. If you came in undecided tonight, I don't think you shifted to I'm Team Biden. Yeah, 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. And so he hit lots of Democrat hot buttons. He went an entire speech and he didn't talk about China. He went an entire speech. He didn't talk about Afghanistan.

Michael Knowles (17:38)

Right.

Ted Cruz (17:39)

The biggest military disaster of the last generation. And he didn't even say so much as a word about Afghanistan. He didn't talk about crime. We've got skyrocketing murder rates, carjacking rates in Democratic cities all over the country. He didn't say a word about that. He didn't talk about Israel. That's the first foreign policy, first State of the Union address I can think of where the President didn't mention Israel in any way, shape or form. All of that was curious. And I think they were speaking to Democrats and trying to put out their talking points for we're not all screwed up. And there we're not all screwed up talking points. Europe is all unified against Russia after we screwed up Russia and Ukraine and we have lots of jobs. After Democrats destroyed those jobs, some of them have come back and that's about it. I mean, that's their talking points. I think there was an element of him that was kind of a little pissed off that things aren't going well. He didn't say it, but there was an implied, come on man, that was sort of screaming off the podium. But it was. I don't think there was any self awareness in the speech. There was no acknowledgement of any mistake, no acknowledgement of any policy that might have been even slightly off, and no course correction. That's the most curious thing is particularly when a presidency is in trouble. And by the way, Bill Clinton did this masterfully. When he was in trouble, he'd get up in the State of the Union and wow everybody and listen, I was not a fan of Clinton, but damn, he was an effective politician. He could give a speech that even if you disagreed with him, you found yourself agreeing with a lot of the stuff he said. And Biden was not. I suspect neither you nor I were nodding along in agreement with very much. And what little we nodded, we're sitting there going, you gotta be friggin kidding me when he says we should secure the border. Okay, yeah, I agree with that, but this clown isn't doing it. I mean, the problem was the few things he said that you agreed with weren't remotely credible because he wasn't actually proposing any substance to it. He was just giving empty rhetorical nods.

Michael Knowles (20:16)

Right? You were waiting for that moment of Bill Clinton getting up there saying, the era of big government is over. I have heard you things have gone wrong. I'm actually gonna make a course correction. And there was no grappling with reality. The things that really, really, really went wrong under Biden's reign so far, he just completely ignored, as you mentioned, the things that have sort of gone wrong. He tried to twist and make it seem like a net positive. And then he said, don't worry, we're gonna turn everything around in the future. See you next year. He ended the speech and said, go get him. I've never heard a State of the Union end on the phrase go get him.

Ted Cruz (20:52)

I will say one other dynamic that may not have been as clear. Watching it on tv, it was really hard to hear him. Like he mumbled and like a bunch of us police. And you're like, what? So a lot of times the Republicans are like, we can't even tell what he's saying. And it was a, A bunch of us had that reaction that it was just he was not enunciating clearly and it was really difficult to understand what he was saying.

Michael Knowles (21:22)

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. Well, I'm glad that at least everyone there was as confused as the president was. And perhaps that could help you stay awake. You were on your toes enough. What was that word? What was that syllable? So overall, Senator, you're saying an unremarkable State of the Union for an unremarkable presidency. The state of the union not as strong as it could be?

Ted Cruz (21:49)

Well, I think the country is strong, but I think the State of the Union is in real trouble under failed Biden policies. But I will say the 13 year old kid was cute. I was glad he was there. I kind of wish we'd all sung him happy birthday. That was sort of a moment, you know, A moment. And the woman who's the widow of the soldier who died, that was all. So those were both nice moments where you saw some bipartisan. All right, we support you. And the Pittsburgh steel worker, he didn't say enough for us to know. I think we all wanted to support him too, but we were trying to hear like, all right, who is he and what's he here for?

Michael Knowles (22:32)

What are we applauding?

Ted Cruz (22:33)

Right. You know, there is an element. Look, if it's your party's president, you pretty much applaud at whatever he says. I mean, it's. And that's true on both sides. When it's the Ds, all the Ds applaud it. Whatever he says, yay. And when it's the R's, all the R's applaud it. Whatever he says. When it's the other side, you're sitting there thinking, okay, what? You know, cuz you don't want to be caught on video applauding some dumbass policy. That's terrible. And if you are concerned that what he's trying to say is that you're trying to listen carefully to determine. Okay, all right, if it's we like 13 year old kids, all right, that I'll applaud. America's good. Team usa, go military. All of those are good. Russia bad. But more broadly, there's a lot of. What is that? What are you saying?

Michael Knowles (23:28)

Yeah, yeah, that's been true not just of this speech, but of the entire Biden presidency.

Ted Cruz (23:34)

I will tell you this. More than once, Republican senators quietly suggested chanting, let's go, Brandon. But thankfully, civility took the better of our measures, so we did not, in fact, do that. I will say one of the Republican senators, when Nancy Pelosi was announcing the Supreme Court of the United States, the Cabinet of the United States, one of the Republican senators behind me called out Fairly loudly the 30 retiring Democrats of the House of Representatives, which I told him I'd give him 20 bucks if he yelled that just a little louder, but he didn't do it.

Michael Knowles (24:08)

That would have been even better, I think, than let's go, Brandon. Well, it's all right. We'll have the last laugh come November. Until then, Senator, get some sleep. I'm sure you'll be up early at it again tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

Ted Cruz (24:32)

This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security pac, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country. In 2022, jobs, freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the it.