Of the many, many ill-advised things Ted Cruz has done throughout his life and career, deciding to pick a fight on Twitter with Trevor Noah ranks among the top of them. Especially if he thought he had a chance of coming out on top. Cruz, of course, has never been known for making the wisest decisions, just as he’s never been praised for his rapier wit. But even after being blindsided by Jon Stewart entering (or some might say ending) the argument, the Trevor vs. Ted debacle had one more twist no one saw coming: The Daily Show host actually agreeing with Cruz on something. Namely, that Cruz wasn’t wrong to doze off during Joe Biden’s Wednesday night policy speech.
During the hour-long sermon, Biden laid out a lot of big plans for his next four years, including raising the minimum wage to $15, lowering insurance deductibles for working families, reducing prescription drug costs, offering four years of free college to every person in America, making childcare affordable for working parents, building trust between police and the public, banning assault weapons, ending racism, and curing cancer.
These, of course, are all admirable goals. But as Noah noted, it’s a big ask—even without the plans for eradicating both cancer and racism. “I half-expected him to go: ‘You know what, f*#k it, we’re going to Mars right now. Get in the rocket everyone—there’s a rocket outside,’” Noah said, describing Biden’s plan as “hella progressive.”
But all commendable intentions aside, the moment in the speech that struck the strongest personal chord with Noah was when the camera panned to a sleepy Cruz trying his best not to nod off.
“Ted Cruz was so bored at that speech that he fell asleep,” Noah said, getting in one more subtle dig at the senator. “I know what you’re thinking right now. You think I’m going to say something like, ‘Oh that’s weird. I thought lizards slept with their eyes open.’ But I’m not going to say that. Because honestly, that was the most relatable thing that Ted Cruz has ever done. Because that speech was boring. And when you consider that almost none of Biden’s goals are actually going to get past Congress… we basically just listened to an old man talk for about an hour about his dreams.”
But Noah did have an idea for how Biden could spice things up in the future: Get himself a hype man/emcee to shout things like “You down with GDP? Yeah, you know me” each time the president makes a particularly salient point.
On the other hand, with the exception of the past four years—where any presidential address felt a bit like watching a David Lynch movie, where you’re just waiting for something bizarre and seemingly non-germane to the plot to happen—having a president be boring sort of feels like politics as usual.
You can watch the full clip above.