Late night hosts mock Ted Cruz for picking a vaccine fight with Big Bird

"After seven months of negotiations, late Friday night the House finally passed President Biden's infrastructure deal," but somehow all anyone was talking about over the weekend was "Big Bird tweeting that he got vaccinated," Jimmy Fallon shrugged on Monday's Tonight Show. "It was a big day, actually, for Big Bird, because immediately after getting vaccinated he was signed by the Green Bay Packers."

"Republicans and anti-vaxxers are furious that Big Bird got a COVID vaccine," Stephen Colbert said on The Late Show. "This is the craziest anti-vax Muppet outrage since they claimed Pfizer gave Swedish Chef giant meatballs." No one was angrier about Big Bird's tweet than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), he said, "so he retweeted it with the comment: 'Government propaganda ... for your 5 year old!' Sen. Cruz, how should I put this? Our show tonight is brought to you by the letters F and U."

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The Late Show also had Big Bird sing about his feelings for Ted Cruz.

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"Next they're gonna claim Moderna is how the Swedish Chef says 'my dinner,'" Seth Meyers said on Late Night. "Every day it seems like we have to endure one dumb culture war controversy after another," he sighed, reminding viewers that before going after Big Bird, Cruz and the Fox News set claimed Joe Biden tried to cancel the Muppets.

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Cruz, who is vaccinated himself, "desperately just wants to be noticed," but "the truth is, I think maybe Ted's still sore about Big Bird's most recent book, Big Bird Visits Cancun to Find Ted Cruz's Balls," Jimmy Kimmel joked on Kimmel Live. "Spoiler alert: He never finds them."

Kimmel circled back to the Green Bay Packers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers defending his decision to not get vaccinated and then lie about it. He was not impressed with Rodgers' "dumb" defense or his "ridiculous" claim he's being being canceled. "The Packers only scored 7 points without him yesterday, he's not getting canceled."

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The core of Rodgers's argument is that "he's an 'independent thinker' who doesn't want to be told what to do with his body," Trevor Noah said on The Daily Show. "I don't know, you ever notice how all the 'independent thinkers' are doing the exact same thing?"

Also, Ted Cruz needs to "calm down," because "5-year-olds aren't even going to see Big Bird's tweet," Noah said. "If they really want to convince kids" to get vaccinated, "they should have killed one of the Sesame Street characters with COVID." He imagined the Count counting his dying regrets, then offered "Independent Thinking Bird" a shot to rebut Big Bird, with predictable results.

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