Speaker 1: One hundred days into his administration, President Biden has finally
Speaker 1: addressed a joint session of Congress sword of with a
Speaker 1: State of the Union address. Sword of the room was
Speaker 1: largely empty. There were lots of masks, people going in
Speaker 1: and out. We will cover all of that. Senator Cruz
Speaker 1: rather was there in the room, Senator any reports. Senator
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles.
Speaker 1: I have often been called boring but radical, and Senator
Speaker 1: I guess you've been getting a lot of that these days.
Speaker 1: You had the finest moment of the night. I'm sort
Speaker 1: of damning with faint praise because that State of the
Speaker 1: Union address was unbearable to watch, and I could I
Speaker 1: really empathized with you in the room because the TV
Speaker 1: cameras caught you front and center dozing off during the speech. Well, look,
Speaker 1: the whole thing was sixty three minutes. I'm amazed that
Speaker 1: I didn't sleep more during the speech. I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean it was so. It was actually on this podcast
Speaker 1: about a month two months ago, that we actually coined
Speaker 1: the three word summary for the Biden administration of boring
Speaker 1: but radical. It was on Verdict, and that prediction had
Speaker 1: proven right, and in fact, going into the State of
Speaker 1: the Union, I did a bunch of preview interviews where
Speaker 1: reporters say, okay, well, what's tonight going to be? And
Speaker 1: I said, it's going to be boring but radical. I
Speaker 1: didn't realize just how true that was, so like in
Speaker 1: both directions, in both the boring side and the radicals.
Speaker 1: The radical didn't surprise me. It was I was trying
Speaker 1: to stay awake and it you know, actually one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why it was so boring. So there's a
Speaker 1: weird aspect of State of the Unions. And actually you
Speaker 1: and I talked about this last Date of the Union,
Speaker 1: which is there's kind of a game Republicans Democrats play.
Speaker 1: If it's your party, you're pop it up like pop
Speaker 1: goes the weasel on every sentence, like yeay, yeay, yeay.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is if you're in the out of
Speaker 1: power party, So if you're a Democrat when Trump's president,
Speaker 1: if you're a Republican, what Obama Biden's president. A State
Speaker 1: of the Union is often kind of a complicated thing
Speaker 1: because you're listening to each sentence and try to evaluate
Speaker 1: do I clap, do I not clap? Do I stand
Speaker 1: do I not stand? And you know, look, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court justice is the generals. They kind of clap and
Speaker 1: stand for nothing other than the beginning of the speech,
Speaker 1: and occasionally America is good, and then there's sort of
Speaker 1: statements in between. This was bizarre. It is the only
Speaker 1: this is the now the ninth State of the Union,
Speaker 1: or that kind of speech that I've been to. There
Speaker 1: was virtually nothing for any Republican to clap at. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was strange. There were whole swaths of I don't know,
Speaker 1: seem like ten fifteen minutes where we're just sitting there
Speaker 1: and every word out of Biden's mouth is directed only
Speaker 1: to Democrats, and it's only Democrats clapping, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: even throwing like a tiny fig leaf trying to trying
Speaker 1: to bring anyone together, trying And that's part of why
Speaker 1: I nodded off and and and you know, helped the
Speaker 1: Internet go crazy last night. So in terms of the
Speaker 1: big takeaways for people who like you, were nodding off,
Speaker 1: not not in the Capitol but in their own homes,
Speaker 1: what are we supposed to make of this? Because I
Speaker 1: almost wish that Biden were more overtly radical, that he
Speaker 1: were more exciting because he would be calling more people's
Speaker 1: attention to what he's trying to do. So what is
Speaker 1: he trying to do? What is going to get done?
Speaker 1: And do Republicans have any hope? Well, Michael, your point
Speaker 1: is really important that that the boring is by design.
Speaker 1: It's a mask, it's a facade. It's designed to hide
Speaker 1: just how extreme the policies are that are being implemented
Speaker 1: by the way. Interestingly enough, I also saw screenshots of
Speaker 1: at different points Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi both nodding off,
Speaker 1: and I guess Met Romney was also filmed nodding off.
Speaker 1: And so I I saw Met on the floor today
Speaker 1: and I said, mett Man, you and I apparently need
Speaker 1: to get more sleep, and and he laughed and said,
Speaker 1: I wasn't sleeping. I was looking at my phone. It's like, oh, yeah, me,
Speaker 1: I was sleeping. Yeah, I was genuinely like I was
Speaker 1: nodding off. And you know, but look, if you look
Speaker 1: at what this administration has done, the hard partisan nature
Speaker 1: of it is remarkable. They start with a so called
Speaker 1: COVID relief bill, get zero Republican votes in the House,
Speaker 1: zero Republicans in the Senate. That's actually hard to do.
Speaker 1: I mean, last year we did five COVID relief bills
Speaker 1: that were overwhelmingly bipartisan. I mean, they made the decision
Speaker 1: they didn't want any Republicans. They wanted a hard partisan bill. Infrastructure,
Speaker 1: they're they're two point six trillion dollar infrastructure bill as
Speaker 1: written will get zero Republicans. And again, which is hard
Speaker 1: to do because there are a lot of Republicans that
Speaker 1: care about infrastructure. But Biden's bill, five percent of the
Speaker 1: bill is Rosen Bridges. I mean, it really is absurd.
Speaker 1: And you know, everything on Earth they're going to tax.
Speaker 1: Every tax is going up. I mean, that's there. We're
Speaker 1: looking at trillions and trillions and trillions in new taxes.
Speaker 1: The brazenness of it. You know, you think about the
Speaker 1: speech last night, not a word about the crisis of
Speaker 1: the border that his policies have created. By the way,
Speaker 1: in the midst of the speech, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: know how much of this made it on TV. But
Speaker 1: Lauren Boebert, who's, you know, a new freshman House member
Speaker 1: and someone I like and helped get elected and support
Speaker 1: and she's a fireball. But but midway through the speech,
Speaker 1: she pulled out of her bag a a reflective emergency blanket.
Speaker 1: Uh like, like the children are wrapped in in in
Speaker 1: the cages on the border, and she wrapped herself up
Speaker 1: in the reflective emergency blanket. I gotta tell you, Kevin
Speaker 1: McCarthy is sitting in front of her and turns and
Speaker 1: just glares with dagger eyes. I was doubled over laughing.
Speaker 1: But but it was an interesting sort of quiet protest
Speaker 1: of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that that
Speaker 1: Biden is ignoring and the crisis that he's created, that
Speaker 1: that he's ignoring, you know, not a word about the
Speaker 1: massive debt, not a word about you know, not a
Speaker 1: word of graciousness to President Trump and Operation Warped Speed.
Speaker 1: I mean, he just crowed about the vaccines without acknowledging
Speaker 1: that he laughed at Trump when when he said that
Speaker 1: we would have a vaccine by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: And that's of course exactly what they did. So I
Speaker 1: thought the substance and so of it. If you actually
Speaker 1: hired an actor to give the identical speech but in
Speaker 1: an angry partisan tone, yeah, people would have been shocked.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really is. It's almost a theatrical thing
Speaker 1: of having these you know, soporific tones, which which as
Speaker 1: you know, being being a yalily. Soporific is an underused term,
Speaker 1: but but it literally means putting people to sleep, and
Speaker 1: last night that was a literal use of the word. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, this has been Biden's great advantage, certainly in
Speaker 1: the last several years, which is, if you just read
Speaker 1: the text of the speech last night, that would have,
Speaker 1: I think put a lot of Republicans on their guard.
Speaker 1: If Kamala Harris, for instance, gave that speech, I think
Speaker 1: it would have put a lot a lot of people
Speaker 1: in defensive But because it's it's Biden, it lulls everyone
Speaker 1: into this false sense of security. There was, however, one
Speaker 1: moment I noticed of quasi almost bipartisanship, and it was
Speaker 1: the moment when Joe Biden began to take ownership of
Speaker 1: a major Trump policy, or at least a presumptive Trump policy,
Speaker 1: which was getting out of Afghanistan. And was very curious
Speaker 1: was in that room the Democrats applauded, the Republicans weren't applauding.
Speaker 1: With a couple of exceptions, Yeah, when President Biden said
Speaker 1: We're going to pull out of Afghanistan. There were that
Speaker 1: I saw only two Republicans who applauded. I applauded, and
Speaker 1: Mike Lely applauded, and the rest of our side of
Speaker 1: the aisle sat there, stone faced, just looking at him.
Speaker 1: And I think that's unfortunate, because I think this is
Speaker 1: an area where President Trump was right and he was
Speaker 1: leaning in to end the endless wars that we've been
Speaker 1: in Afghanistan. It's been twenty years, and it's time to
Speaker 1: bring our sons and daughters home. That doesn't mean we
Speaker 1: stop killing terrorists and defending our nation, but we don't
Speaker 1: need to be on the front lines of a battle
Speaker 1: front for generations. And you're now literally having having soldiers
Speaker 1: serving on a front that their parents served on, and
Speaker 1: and that that that's a pretty strong sign that we've
Speaker 1: been there too long. Yeah, this issue is one that
Speaker 1: I think shows the way that the GOP, you know,
Speaker 1: is kind of transforming from the way that it once
Speaker 1: was and the way that Biden is transforming. Let's not
Speaker 1: forget the decision to restart the war in Afghanistan to
Speaker 1: really surged the troops there. That was an Obama Biden
Speaker 1: decision back when when President Obama came into office. But
Speaker 1: but other than that one brief moment, it did seem
Speaker 1: extraordinarily divisive. And then there was the visual fact that
Speaker 1: you had the masks in the room, you had Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: who was very much pushing this idea of public health
Speaker 1: crisis and we're not allowed to go back to normal,
Speaker 1: and everything about it just felt so eerie. When when
Speaker 1: are we going to be able to get back to normal?
Speaker 1: How are we going to be able to push this
Speaker 1: unified government to get us back to Look, I thought
Speaker 1: there was an enormous amount of political theater now and
Speaker 1: listen State of the Union. There's always political theater. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to COVID and masks, every person in
Speaker 1: that room has been vaccinated, and we're also spread out,
Speaker 1: so we were far away from each other. I actually
Speaker 1: think it's idiotic that anyone was wearing a mask. And
Speaker 1: there was a little moment at the beginning of the speech.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you saw when Biden goes up there,
Speaker 1: he walks up at his mask, because of course he does,
Speaker 1: and then he turns and looks to Nancy Pelosi and
Speaker 1: ask permission before he removes his mask. It may have
Speaker 1: been the most beta moment for a US president in history,
Speaker 1: and it was just pitiful. And look, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I was conflicted on what to do. So for I
Speaker 1: think three weeks now, I have not been wearing a
Speaker 1: mask on the Senate floor. And you've made a big
Speaker 1: point about this. There have been reporters who have said,
Speaker 1: please put a mask, and you've said, you're more than
Speaker 1: welcome to walk away from me. But I've been inoculated. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, and listen, I'm not a zealot on mask issues.
Speaker 1: I wore a mask for a year on the Senate floor.
Speaker 1: This is a dangerous disease. I thought, take reasonable precautions
Speaker 1: makes sense. But in the Senate it's every person or
Speaker 1: virtually every person has been vaccinated, and it doesn't make it.
Speaker 1: I believe in vaccines, and so it's interesting. I just
Speaker 1: so Rand Paul has not worn a mask throughout. He
Speaker 1: was kind of the loan in the heat of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Now he got the disease. So he said, look, I
Speaker 1: got the disease. I have have antibodies, which is reasonable.
Speaker 1: But Rand was the only one of a hundred that
Speaker 1: wasn't wearing a mask for months and months and months,
Speaker 1: and then after everyone got vaccinated, and you know, Michael,
Speaker 1: you'll remember I actually delayed getting vaccinated, so they offered
Speaker 1: us the vaccines I think early January, and I didn't
Speaker 1: think it was right for members of cong to cutting line.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm relatively young, relatively healthy. I get that.
Speaker 1: A whipper snapper like you doesn't think I'm that young.
Speaker 1: But but you know, you know, compared to my colleagues
Speaker 1: in the Senate, I'm still in short shorts and wearing
Speaker 1: a beanie. It's true. And you remember when the polio
Speaker 1: vaccine came out, so you're you know, you're well acquainted
Speaker 1: with all these vaccines, and so you know, I said,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna wait and let seniors get the vaccine.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna let first responders get the vaccine. It's not
Speaker 1: right for me to cutting line. And I did that
Speaker 1: until about March. And at March there had been tens
Speaker 1: of millions of vaccines. The people who were at highest
Speaker 1: risk had had the opportunity to get the vaccine. And
Speaker 1: then I said, okay, I'll get it. So I've gotten
Speaker 1: it now. And so a couple of weeks ago, I
Speaker 1: just stopped wearing the mask, So what's funny? Two three
Speaker 1: days I stopped wearing the mask walk on the Senate floor,
Speaker 1: and nobody notices, Like I was doing it for two
Speaker 1: three days, and it was just a nothing burger. And
Speaker 1: then finally one reporter for CNN like sticks a camera
Speaker 1: in my face and it's like, wait, wait, you're not
Speaker 1: wearing a mask. Where are you not wearing a mask?
Speaker 1: And I said, because we're all vaccinated, And actually this
Speaker 1: reporter says, well, I'm not vaccinated. I'm like, well, that's
Speaker 1: your choice, Like and the elevation, the elevator closed, and
Speaker 1: I remember thinking like, Okay, if you're choosing not to
Speaker 1: get a vaccine, you can do that, But what right
Speaker 1: do you have to insist that the rest of us
Speaker 1: must wear masks because you've chosen not to get a vaccine.
Speaker 1: You don't have a right like it is available to you.
Speaker 1: And and so I have not been wearing it for
Speaker 1: two three weeks. I did wear my mask last night,
Speaker 1: and I sort of struggled with the question. But Pelosi
Speaker 1: is running this, you know, military installation. Do you know
Speaker 1: that she is finding house members, finding them if they
Speaker 1: don't wear a mask on the floor, and she is
Speaker 1: insisting that House members go through metal detectors, and as
Speaker 1: idiotic as it is, is because she's afraid some Republican
Speaker 1: is going to be packing heat. It's the dumbest thing
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. And thankfully the Senate is not that idiotic.
Speaker 1: And they actually they took down metal detectors or whatever,
Speaker 1: because like when I walked in, we didn't go through
Speaker 1: metal detectors, but I went ahead and wore the mask
Speaker 1: on the house floor because that's sort of what they're
Speaker 1: doing there. But but but I felt pretty sheepish for
Speaker 1: doing so because it was all theatrics. There is something
Speaker 1: deferential and conservative about saying, well, I'm in this chamber
Speaker 1: now it's being run by this crazy lady, so I
Speaker 1: guess I'll follow the rules. But that's exactly what I
Speaker 1: was doing. Yeah, and it is really nice to see
Speaker 1: that you've taken this very sensible approach, I think from
Speaker 1: the beginning. And I don't think that people on either
Speaker 1: side can call you reckless about the masks or particularly zealousy.
Speaker 1: They can, but well they certainly will regardless. The only
Speaker 1: question is now there are so many layers to this question,
Speaker 1: and I think and a lot of conservatives are very confused.
Speaker 1: What do we do here? It's not just I recognize
Speaker 1: the pun of many layers to the masks, but you
Speaker 1: do You have some people who say we need to
Speaker 1: wear three masks. There's some people who say just where
Speaker 1: one mask is fine. Some people are saying you don't
Speaker 1: need to wear a mask. Some people are saying everyone
Speaker 1: needs to get vaccinated. Some people are saying you need
Speaker 1: a vaccine passport. Some people are saying, ban it at
Speaker 1: the government level, ban it at the private level. What
Speaker 1: is the conservative, sensible American way to approach this issue? So,
Speaker 1: I think a vaccine passport is a terrible idea, and
Speaker 1: I have been vocal and outspoken saying the government shouldn't
Speaker 1: require it. It It would be horrific if the government did it.
Speaker 1: And I don't think private businesses should. So I don't
Speaker 1: think airlines should. I don't think I don't think private
Speaker 1: businesses should. I'm someone who believes in vaccines. I think
Speaker 1: vaccines are a good thing. I've gotten the COVID vaccine,
Speaker 1: Heide's gotten the vaccine, My parents have both gotten at
Speaker 1: Heide's parents have gotten it, and I'm encouraging people to
Speaker 1: get it. I'd like to see as many people as
Speaker 1: possible get it. But I also believe in individual liberty,
Speaker 1: and if you don't want to get it, that's your choice.
Speaker 1: And there are some people who've got health issues for
Speaker 1: whom it may not make sense to get it, and
Speaker 1: so I think each person should evaluate whether it makes
Speaker 1: sense in your circumstances. But you know, I think the
Speaker 1: CDC is actually doing real damage with the arbitrariness of
Speaker 1: their their rules. So for example, even after people get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: they're still idiotically saying, oh, well, we're wear masks here
Speaker 1: and there and everywhere, and it's like, well, wait a second.
Speaker 1: If we want people to get vaccinated, one of the
Speaker 1: best ways to do so is make clear once you
Speaker 1: get vaccinating and take the damn mask off. I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean that. I think CDC's dragging their feet on
Speaker 1: that is very possibly disincentivizing millions of people from getting vaccines.
Speaker 1: And you know, this week they put out the guidance
Speaker 1: of Okay, now you don't need to wear a mask
Speaker 1: when you're outside if you've been vaccinated. It's like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: only morons we're doing that, Like like that, thank you,
Speaker 1: and like do I need a mask when I'm taking
Speaker 1: a shower, like like you haven't clarified that point. Although
Speaker 1: did you see Michael, a track coach in Massachusetts, was
Speaker 1: fired because he wouldn't make his kids wear masks while
Speaker 1: running cross country track outside. He didn't want his students
Speaker 1: to collapse in the woods and fall fall down on
Speaker 1: a rock. It. You know, there's so much of this
Speaker 1: mass stuff that is just petty totalitarianism. It is we
Speaker 1: can control you, and we want to control you, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing. Well, the rules keep changing, but
Speaker 1: it's not really about the rules themselves. I find it's about,
Speaker 1: as you say here, the imposition of the rule. Who
Speaker 1: gets to impose their will on others? I want to
Speaker 1: go back to something you said though, that I think
Speaker 1: is extraordinarily important. On the question of the vaccine passport.
Speaker 1: A number of governors have been divided on this because
Speaker 1: a lot of it's taking place at the state level.
Speaker 1: Some are saying we will not have any mandates from
Speaker 1: the government on the vaccine passport. Others are saying, we
Speaker 1: will not permit private businesses to force you to show
Speaker 1: your medical history when you come into the bar, or
Speaker 1: when you try to go on an airline or something
Speaker 1: to that effect well, and you're seeing employers that are
Speaker 1: firing employees for not getting the vaccines, which I think
Speaker 1: is terrible. I think that that is deeply, deeply troubling
Speaker 1: and shouldn't be allowed. This ties in with something that
Speaker 1: you published yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, and you
Speaker 1: did not tell me that this was coming out. It's
Speaker 1: not like I got advanced notice. I just saw the
Speaker 1: alert in the journal, and I basically stood up and
Speaker 1: cheered when I saw this op ed because it's something
Speaker 1: that conservatives just don't get except for very few who
Speaker 1: are pretty rock ribbed. You said that the era of
Speaker 1: conservatives shilling for private companies corporations that hate our values
Speaker 1: and are opposing our country and are opposing even voter
Speaker 1: integrity measures. Ye, that time is over. And you said
Speaker 1: that you will not accept corporate pack money in your campaigns.
Speaker 1: So that's right. I mean, look, we've we've all been
Speaker 1: watching the rise of the woke corporations and these big businesses,
Speaker 1: these Fortune five hundred companies where the CEOs have essentially
Speaker 1: decided they're going to be the political enforcers for the
Speaker 1: radical left. They're going to be the muscle for the
Speaker 1: Democratic Party and we've seen, whether it's Coca Cola or
Speaker 1: Delta Airlines demogoguing on the Georgia voter integrity law, or
Speaker 1: companies demagoguing on the Texas voter integrity law. And obviously
Speaker 1: Major League Baseball yanking the All Star Game out of
Speaker 1: Atlanta and moving to lilywhite Denver instead, which which which
Speaker 1: just totally beclowns at Atlanta's fifty one percent black, Denver
Speaker 1: is nine percent black. So they are so racially woke
Speaker 1: that they're going to take one hundred million dollars out
Speaker 1: of the pockets of a bunch of African American small
Speaker 1: business owners and move it to a bunch of wealthy
Speaker 1: white people in Denver, like it's weird. Also worth pointing
Speaker 1: out that Georgia they left because of the voter integrity law.
Speaker 1: Colorado has relatively strict voter laws. It's it's not a
Speaker 1: clear cut issue over which has the more lenient voter laws.
Speaker 1: So the dynamic that's playing out in the Fortune five
Speaker 1: hundred big business is not conservative. They are not our friends.
Speaker 1: Many of them are just risk averse and scared, and
Speaker 1: the liberal mob comes after them and they mobilize their employees.
Speaker 1: They mobilize their shareholders, they mobilize the press, and these
Speaker 1: CEOs are more than willing to just cave in and
Speaker 1: give the mob whatever they want. And it's really dangerous.
Speaker 1: And so what I announced this week is is that
Speaker 1: I am no longer going to accept any corporate pack checks,
Speaker 1: that corporate packs, I won't take their money. And to
Speaker 1: give a sense of the magnitude of that, so I've
Speaker 1: been in the Senate nine years. Over those nine years,
Speaker 1: I've gotten about two point six million dollars in campaign
Speaker 1: contributions from corporate packs. Now I've raised well over one
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars during that time, and so that's not
Speaker 1: it's not the lion's share of the money that I've raised,
Speaker 1: but it is you know, two point seven million dollars
Speaker 1: ain't nothing. And I just decided enough is enough. If
Speaker 1: you guys are going to be actively fighting the American people,
Speaker 1: tearing down America, tearing down freedom, I don't want you're
Speaker 1: stinking money. And I've called on other other Republicans to
Speaker 1: do the same, and I think it's a powerful thing.
Speaker 1: And listen, you and I have talked about before. Corporate
Speaker 1: welfare has always been garbage and Republicans have been too
Speaker 1: willing to engage in that where big companies come and say,
Speaker 1: give us a subsidy of US corporate welfare, give us
Speaker 1: a band date. And I've been fighting against that from
Speaker 1: day one. A lot of other Republicans get sucked in.
Speaker 1: So the Export Import Bank, which which serves as essentially
Speaker 1: a giant subsidy for Boeing, a massive corporate welfare scam.
Speaker 1: I've fought against the XM Bank for the entire time
Speaker 1: I've been in the Senate, but a whole lot of
Speaker 1: Republicans are eager to carry Boeing's water on that. Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball, major League Baseball has a unique exemption from
Speaker 1: the antitrust laws that no other sports league has, and
Speaker 1: so in response to moving the All Star Game, I
Speaker 1: joined with Mike Lee. We introduced legislation to revoke Major
Speaker 1: League Baseball's exemption from the antitrust laws. And I think
Speaker 1: these two should be tied together, which is no corporate
Speaker 1: welfare and no more money from big companies. And I
Speaker 1: think that if other Republicans follow suit, that will be
Speaker 1: a real improvement. I hear this all the time from
Speaker 1: conservatives writing in I'm not talking about elected people. I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about Beltway staffers or anything, but just conservatives
Speaker 1: around the country. They say these Republicans are such shills.
Speaker 1: Even the ones who will call out the woke corporations,
Speaker 1: they're totally in their pockets. They'll still accept a lot
Speaker 1: of money. I think it is such a great move.
Speaker 1: It said in such a strong message, and it shows
Speaker 1: what we all know to be true that there is
Speaker 1: nothing conservative about letting these giant, woke corporations totally undermine
Speaker 1: the American way of life, and that you're not going
Speaker 1: to accept their money to do it. Well, big business
Speaker 1: gets in bed with big government. Big business likes big government.
Speaker 1: Big business uses government regulations to crush their enemies, to
Speaker 1: crush their competition. I think we should be the party
Speaker 1: of the little guy. I think we should be the
Speaker 1: party of the entrepreneurs, of the disruptors. The giant companies
Speaker 1: don't need our help, and frankly, the policies they pushed
Speaker 1: for are almost uniformly terrible. You know, I was encouraged,
Speaker 1: so I put this op ed out Thursday morning, and
Speaker 1: within a few hours one of my colleagues, Josh Holley,
Speaker 1: had already put out on Twitter that he was gonna
Speaker 1: follow follow my lead and likewise turned down corporate packs.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to increase the pressure on a
Speaker 1: lot of other Republicans to go down the same road.
Speaker 1: And if that happens, that's a good thing. I love that.
Speaker 1: You know. There was a line in Joe Biden's speech
Speaker 1: which was it was totally regurgitated left wing talking points
Speaker 1: where he said, you know, the ninety nine percent and
Speaker 1: the one percent, and we've got to make the rich
Speaker 1: pay their fair share, even though they already pay virtually
Speaker 1: all of the taxes. And it was this classic class
Speaker 1: warfare sort of stuff. But then I remembered the rich
Speaker 1: and especially corporations voted for Biden, donated to Biden. That
Speaker 1: is this I idea that the Democrats are the party
Speaker 1: of the working man, and the Republicans are these plutocrats
Speaker 1: with their fancy cigars. I mean, I might have the
Speaker 1: fancy cigars, but the idea that we're all rich uncle pennybags,
Speaker 1: it's just not what's going on in the parties. And
Speaker 1: I can say this, I've spoken multiple cigars with you.
Speaker 1: I've never once seen you use one hundred dollar bill
Speaker 1: to light it. And I think you're too chio not
Speaker 1: to do that, which is good. I would advise against
Speaker 1: that fiscal conservative. It'll look you look at the Fortune
Speaker 1: one hundred. There are only a handful of CEOs and
Speaker 1: the Fortune one hundred who could be remotely characterized as
Speaker 1: right of center. They're almost all Democrats. And that is
Speaker 1: the ethos a big business. Because big business does great
Speaker 1: under the Democrats. They're quite happy with this massive expansion
Speaker 1: of spending and regulations and even taxes. The giant companies
Speaker 1: think if you tax everyone, you'll drive the little guys
Speaker 1: out of business, and the big guys will be just fine.
Speaker 1: And that's that's bad, right of course. Barry Goldwater put
Speaker 1: it very well in Conscience of a Conservative. He said,
Speaker 1: conservatives need to make war on all monopolies. We need
Speaker 1: to make war on all unlimited power, all of this
Speaker 1: unchecked power. And anyway, I don't mean to lay it
Speaker 1: on too thick here, but I was just so pleased
Speaker 1: to see that up ed. I hope that all the
Speaker 1: other Republicans feel the pressure. It's absolutely the right direction
Speaker 1: for the party. And you know, we've got a lot
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Speaker 1: we are not going to get to a single one
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Speaker 1: those questions asap. Senator, I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
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