How Rand Paul Would Change the State of the Union

— -- Under hypothetical President Rand Paul, the State of the Union address would be a much quieter – and probably much shorter – affair.

Paul told ABC News today, that he would ban audible reactions of any sort during the annual joint meeting of Congress.

“If I’m president we'll have a rule, no clapping throughout the whole speech,” Paul said. “All that clapping takes up about 30 minutes. That speech goes on forever. So no clapping, everyone should sit quietly and politely, let's get it over with.”

But Paul does hope for applause when he takes the stage at Thursday’s GOP debate, which he said he will boycott if he is relegated to the under-card debate featuring candidates who score below a certain percentage in the polls.

“The last couple weeks there have been quite a few polls, and we've been 5th or 6th. In fact in the CBS poll last week we were within one point of being in 4th place. So we think there's every indication that we should be on the debate stage,” Paul said.

The junior Kentucky senator is also hoping for a victory with his “Audit the Fed” bill, which would give Congress greater oversight on the Federal Reserve.

But not even Paul is sure how the vote is going to go.

Back in November, a House bill similar to Paul’s passed 241-185 in a mostly party-line vote. But passage of Paul’s bill in the Senate, where Republicans do not enjoy a filibuster-proof majority, is less certain.

“I think it's going to be closer in the Senate. So we'll see what happens but there's no reason this should be partisan in any way,” he told ABC.