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WTH Did Biden Say in His Joint Address to in Office

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WTH Did Biden Say in His Joint Address to in Office WTH did Biden say in his joint address to in office Episode #100 | April 30, 2021 | Danielle Pletka and Marc Thiessen Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. Marc Thiessen: And I'm Marc Thiessen. Danielle Pletka: Marc? Marc Thiessen: Well, today it's just us, Dany, and we're talking about Joe Biden's first address to a joint session of Congress. And we watched it, so you don't have to. Dany, what did you think? Danielle Pletka: Well, actually, I'm most curious to ask you what you thought, and I'll tell you why. You've written two of these. In addition, you had a very nice column writing what Joe Biden should say. So, what did you think? Marc Thiessen: Well, first, let's talk about what he did say. Last night, Biden delivered what was both the most expensive and least attended presidential address to a joint session of Congress in American history. It was a miasma of spending unlike Chamber holds 1,600 people. When you write a State of the Union address, you get to attend it, so I've been in the House Chamber and it's packed to the gills. The White House staff is standing along the walls. The galleries are full of people. Everybody's jostling to get the seat on the row where the president walks in so they could shake his hand. And it was empty last night because they limited it to 200 people. Danielle Pletka: Let me ask you a question. I didn't understand that. And I didn't read a ton about it, but I was confused. Isn't every single person in that room vaccinated? Marc Thiessen: Yeah. Every single one of them is. So, Joe Biden is vaccinated. The Vice President is vaccinated. The Speaker of the House is vaccinated. Every single member of Congress has access to the vaccine, so do the cabinet officials, so do the Supreme Court Justices. And yet they were all wearing masks and they had seats taped off for social distancing. It was like an unpaid advertisement for the anti-vax movement. I've looked it up, this is what the Center for Disease Control guidance says about what fully vaccinated people can do. "Fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors without wearing 2 masks or physical distancing." That's the CDC guidance. That's what was happening in that room last night. Every single one of them was vaccinated and they were in the indoors. And instead of following the CDC guidance, following the science, they were wearing masks, they were social distancing. It was the most absurd thing I've ever seen. Danielle Pletka: So, I think a lot of people say to themselves, "Obviously, the president and the members of Congress are vaccinated, but at the same time, they're trying to send a message to people that the danger isn't over." And this is part of the problem. The problem here is that people need to see the rewards. They need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And the president and all around him seem absolutely determined to prove there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Get vaccinated and you can dot, dot, dot, what? Oh yeah, you can not wear a mask outside, but that's it. And oh, if I'm the president, I'm still going to wear a mask outside because, I don't know. It seems to me they're using their signaling power to send exactly the wrong message, which is the vaccine means freedom, go and do it. Marc Thiessen: So, two thoughts on that. First of all, the message they need to start sending is the vaccines work. Because as our colleague, Scott Gottlieb, has pointed out, we're fast approaching the point where everybody who's eager to get the vaccine is going to get the vaccine and be fully vaccinated. We're now going to get to the point where we need to start convincing the vaccine hesitant to start getting the vaccine. And if the message is you still have to wear a mask, you still have to social distance, you can't hug your grandparents, you can't live your life as normal, then they're not going to get it. Because why? If they're worried about the vaccine and there's no reward at the end of the tunnel, as you say, why would they do it? Marc Thiessen: They had a great chance last night to send a message that the vaccines work, because we are all vaccinated, we were able to have a normal joint session of Congress. And if you get vaccinated, your life's going to return to normal too. This was pandemic political theater. And the reason is because they understand that if they had done that, the message would have been that a return to normalcy is at hand. The coronavirus crisis is reaching an end. Democrats don't want the crisis to end because it is the pretext they need for the $6 trillion in spending that Biden proposed last night. It's all supposed to be his response to the crisis. Marc Thiessen: But if the crisis is over, then how do you justify $6 trillion in spending? So, they wanted to send the message that we're not out of the woods yet, that we still have to mask. We're still in a COVID crisis, when the rest of the country is starting to move on from this stuff, because if they don't have the crisis, they don't have the pretext they need to spend all that money. Danielle Pletka: Again, I'm not enthusiastic about any of these bills. I'm not enthusiastic about the government spending $6 trillion. I think here, the challenge really is to explain to people that in fact, they're not spending $6 trillion on what they say they're spending $6 trillion on. If you said to me, "We're spending on infrastructure." I'd say, I think that's probably not the right amount, but at the same time, we need to spend on infrastructure, we need to maintain our infrastructure, and in many AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 3 cases, we need to upgrade our infrastructure. Fair enough. But the vast mass of the spending on the infrastructure is not infrastructure. The vast mass of spending on families is not spending on families. And I will be frank with all of our listeners, what bothers me the most about all of this isn't what's bothering the Wall Street Journal or a lot of my colleagues at AEI, which is where the hell is this money coming from? Danielle Pletka: What bothers me the most about this, is that it is built on a foundation of the American public being a supplicant at the trough of government. You need the government to go to school. You need the government to get an education. You need the government to tell teachers what grades you need to get. You need the government to tell people what tests you're supposed to take. You need the governor to tell you whether to be in a union or not. You need the government to tell you what kind of a job you can have and what kind of a job you can't have. You need the government to tell you what you can say and what you can't say. I could go on for a while on this thing. Marc Thiessen: Shorter Dany Pletka? Socialism. That's what it is. What you've just described is socialism. The government tells you what you can and cannot do, how you do it and gives you what it wants to give you and takes away what it wants to take away. That's what we're talking about. Danielle Pletka: Marc, I think actually there's a better word for it, which is of course, what all socialist economies actually are. Marc Thiessen: Communism? Danielle Pletka: Dictatorship. I don't understand this vision, and I don't understand why the American people would be excited about it. In years past, you would say to people, "I'll give you money not to work," and they'd say, "No, I want the dignity of a job." What are we turning into? That's the Biden vision that I don't understand. Marc Thiessen: Well, it's what they're turning us into. It's not what we're turning into on our own. I think most Americans want to work. I think most Americans still want to earn their own success, to quote our older leader, Arthur Brooks. Here's what's happening. First of all, you're absolutely right that they're lying about what the bills are about. So, we've now redefined infrastructure. This is a Politico analysis of the bill, 37% of the infrastructure bill is actually infrastructure, and the rest is infrastructure adjacent to not even close. Marc Thiessen: One of Biden's economic advisers was on Fox News Sunday, and Chris Wallace asked him about the $400 billion for long-term care for the elderly that's in the bill. And he said, "Well, it's our healthcare infrastructure." And he said, "You're stretching the word to the point where it has no meaning.
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