Texas Sen. Cruz Calls Biden 'Boring But Radical' After Snoozing During President's Speech
NORTH TEXAS (CBSDFW.COM) – "Boring but radical." That's the word from U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who fell asleep during President Joe Biden's Wednesday address to a joint session of Congress.
Speaking to CBS 11 Political Reporter Jack Fink, Cruz chuckled and admitted he dozed off a bit during the speech.
"I did. It was a long speech. It was over an hour," said Cruz. He said those three words sum up the first 100 days of the Biden Presidency. "It has been deliberately boring but radical," Cruz continued.
Cruz said that he thought Biden made a calculation that people were a little bit tired of the president driving the news "every minute of every day," but that the "boring facade" serves a political function.
"We have seen the most radical policy agenda rolled out in the first 100 days of any president in the history of the country," said Cruz. "Joe Biden has handed control of the policy agenda over to the radical left in his party. The people running the agenda are Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and AOC, and the result is tremendously harmful for Texas and for the country."
Cruz said that he believes the $6 Trillion of spending proposed by the Biden Administration is not good for the United States and that it will likely lead to higher taxes.
"If you're working, your taxes are going up. Joe Biden wants to raise individual tax rates. He wants to raise corporate tax rates. He wants to raise small business tax rates. He wants to raise capital gains tax rates. He wants to raise the death tax," said Cruz.
Cruz said this plan would especially hammer Texans and small businesses who are struggling to open their doors after the COVID-19 Pandemic.
"We ought to be helping small businesses survive and thrive, not hammering them with new taxes, with new regulations. You look at Biden's proposals last night, it was tax after tax after tax. It was trillions of dollars of wasteful spending," said Cruz.
Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa reacted to the comments Thursday saying, "When he makes these statements, he denies that these things are important to families. You know, not everybody has the money to afford to go to Cancun during the middle of this power shortage crisis. People are working every single day just to try to make it."
On Biden's speech, Hinojosa said, "I was very pleased. I mean, I think that what he's proposing right now is something that the American people have been long waiting for."
Cruz also said that Biden ignored -- what he said -- was the crisis at the border.
"He refuses to do anything to stop the fact that we are projected to have 2 million people come into this country illegally. That we have children in cages -- Joe Biden cages -- packed in there with 10% COVID positivity rates. It's a national security crisis. It's a public health crisis and it is a humanitarian crisis and all of it is man made. Last night in the speech he said not a word about any of that."
"In 2019 Donald Trump negotiated an agreement with the government of Mexico that, for people from Central America who had crossed illegally into Mexico, that the government of Mexico would allow them to remain in Mexico, while their asylum cases were being processed," said Cruz. "And that's what caused this crisis. We went from last year -- the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years -- to this year -- the highest rate in 20 years. And that's because Joe Biden ended the remain in Mexico policy."
Texas Senator John Cornyn, Democratic Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Republican Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales announced Thursday, April 22, they've introduced identical bills in the House and Senate. If passed, the bills would create at least four regional processing centers in high traffic Border Patrol sectors designed to handle what's expected to be the highest number of migrants crossing into the U.S. in 20 years.
Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is also working with them on the legislation called the Bipartisan Border Solutions Act.
Cruz was asked if he would support Senator Cornyn's bill.
"That's his legislation. I think the better solution is to return to the Remain in Mexico policy that we know was working, and had been working right until Joe Biden did it."
Senator Cruz also said that he was no longer accepting money from corporate PACs.
"We have seen -- more and more -- the rise of the woke corporations, of corporate CEOs behaving --essentially -- as the political enforcers of the Democratic Party."
Cruz also said he thought that positions CEOs take on politics is damaging to companies, shareholders, employees and customers.
"You know, as Michael Jordan famously said many years ago, Republicans buy sneakers too."
Cruz said his campaign will be funded by individuals. "Big business has decided that they want to crawl in bed with the radical left and the socialists and make common cause with them. I've decided enough is enough and so I announced today that I will no longer accept even one penny of contributions from any corporate PAC," said Cruz. "Americans are less than thrilled with [corporations] getting in bed with Bernie Sanders and AOC."