Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / In Hollywood, the Revolution Will Be Televised ft. Isaiah Washington

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In Hollywood, the Revolution Will Be Televised ft. Isaiah Washington · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: We are in the belly of the beast, the left coast,
0:04
Speaker 1: La La Land. We have left the politicians, we have
0:07
Speaker 1: moved on over to show business. And yet even here,
0:11
Speaker 1: even in the heart of leftism, there are some people,
0:15
Speaker 1: including our guest, who have decided it was too much,
0:18
Speaker 1: who have decided to walk away. This is Verdict with
0:21
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm
0:29
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. We are in sunny Hollywood, California. Senator. Thank
0:34
Speaker 1: you for flying out here, and also thank you to
0:36
Speaker 1: our guest, a show biz man, not someone usually in politics,
0:41
Speaker 1: Isaiah Washington. But Isaiah, you have become very politically active here,
0:48
Speaker 1: maybe not of your own desire, but because you have
0:51
Speaker 1: contradicted some of the leftist orthodoxies of Hollywood, and they
0:55
Speaker 1: don't take that very well. Yes, yes, I have been
0:59
Speaker 1: a contradiction in this town for twenty four years. I've
1:02
Speaker 1: said that a lot of checks from a lot of
1:04
Speaker 1: people I did not like, and a lot of people
1:05
Speaker 1: who did not like me for various reasons, and had
1:08
Speaker 1: none of them had anything to do with politics. It
1:10
Speaker 1: had everything to do with microaggressions. You know, back in
1:13
Speaker 1: the nineties, there weren't a lot of people that looked
1:15
Speaker 1: like me and colorism. There were certain people like you know,
1:18
Speaker 1: you may have heard of guy Eddie Murphy Western Side.
1:21
Speaker 1: She may have heard of those guys my name's sake.
1:24
Speaker 1: I probably noticed this guy named um Denzel Denzel Washington
1:30
Speaker 1: that I was kind of popular, pretty popular time magazine
1:33
Speaker 1: named Arsenio Hall. Oh yeah, you know, don seetle those guys.
1:36
Speaker 1: So I studied them back in nineteen eighty eight, before
1:39
Speaker 1: I became a California in New York in theater, I
1:42
Speaker 1: swore I would never do television because that's not cool.
1:45
Speaker 1: And then you became a big TV star. Oh, I
1:47
Speaker 1: did a commercion and I got a check in the
1:49
Speaker 1: mailbox and I was completely corrupted. That is what it
1:53
Speaker 1: set me on to study what kind of actor can
1:56
Speaker 1: I be in this town that I know I don't
1:58
Speaker 1: want to be in. So I had to start to
2:00
Speaker 1: figure out the looks of my engineering background in the military.
2:04
Speaker 1: I took ten years to say, what what's missing? How
2:07
Speaker 1: can I fit in? Because they have these great names,
2:10
Speaker 1: these great businesses, and they have these will Smiths, and
2:13
Speaker 1: I know they only pink one at a time for
2:16
Speaker 1: whatever reason. It's like a pecking order out here. Couldn't
2:18
Speaker 1: take it personally, so I had to take it in
2:20
Speaker 1: a business way to figure out how can I fit in,
2:22
Speaker 1: how can I catch up? I'm starting late in the game.
2:25
Speaker 1: So what drew you to the world of acting? Did
2:27
Speaker 1: you always know it's what you wanted to do or no?
2:29
Speaker 1: I had a midlife crisis twenty three, shortly after a
2:33
Speaker 1: space shuttle blew up. I was working as a private
2:36
Speaker 1: sector in hern the Virginia with an organization and at
2:38
Speaker 1: the time we had a facts we didn't have an
2:40
Speaker 1: internet nineteen eighty six right, eighty five eighty six, and
2:44
Speaker 1: I was very concerned, a lowly positioned about oll rings.
2:48
Speaker 1: And at the time I was like, you know, we
2:50
Speaker 1: need to take a look at the shelf life of
2:52
Speaker 1: these ole rings that are going out in the world. Now.
2:55
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was a connection, but I
2:59
Speaker 1: knew there was a problem with the old rings for
3:01
Speaker 1: the space shuttle and it went up anyway, and what
3:04
Speaker 1: I started become really politicized after. Even when I was
3:07
Speaker 1: in the military during the regular years, I started seeing
3:10
Speaker 1: things that I didn't want to see, like why are
3:12
Speaker 1: we putting Christo mcculiff and these people up in the
3:15
Speaker 1: ship when there's some issues, and all I remember were
3:18
Speaker 1: a lot of people around me going, he's got to
3:20
Speaker 1: go up. It's got to go up because the president
3:22
Speaker 1: ratings are down. We need we need to boost literally
3:25
Speaker 1: where it went up and it blew up. Yeah, I
3:29
Speaker 1: heard a lot of people. We know the story. I
3:31
Speaker 1: think for me, I was clinically depressed because no one
3:34
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with the information I had.
3:36
Speaker 1: No one was really listening. But I think at the time,
3:38
Speaker 1: when I look back on it, it's a good question.
3:40
Speaker 1: I think I was clinically depressed but didn't know it.
3:42
Speaker 1: And at that point I left, walked away from my wife,
3:44
Speaker 1: I walked away from everything. I worked, away from my
3:46
Speaker 1: big screen television back in the eighties, a unit to
3:48
Speaker 1: do like a big old bowling ball, the big red,
3:51
Speaker 1: green look ugly thing. Right, I had to Askott my pipe.
3:54
Speaker 1: I walked away from my cards. Everything ended up homeless, wow,
4:00
Speaker 1: and ended up in Windy's were here, I was Engageburger
4:06
Speaker 1: with there hungry across the street, was sleeping on my
4:10
Speaker 1: lawn solo my furniture. I think I just completely lost it,
4:15
Speaker 1: and I said I'm gonna pretend that I'm gonna eat
4:18
Speaker 1: this Winnie's burger. That's when they were making a good
4:19
Speaker 1: Winnie's burger, when it was really a big thick square
4:21
Speaker 1: of meat. Is that the sat there, smell the food,
4:27
Speaker 1: pretended that I had eaten and went back. I was
4:29
Speaker 1: no longer hungry, And at that point I felt like,
4:32
Speaker 1: if I can act like I've eaten and I haven't
4:34
Speaker 1: eaten in three days, And I asked, God, if you
4:38
Speaker 1: tell me what I'm supposed to do, I promise you
4:43
Speaker 1: I would be the best at that thing, of whatever
4:48
Speaker 1: it is. The next day, I was given an opportunity
4:50
Speaker 1: to audition for a play called Can Can. I wasn't
4:53
Speaker 1: a dancer. They wanted me to come and dance. I
4:56
Speaker 1: lied to said I could do a pier. I didn't
4:58
Speaker 1: know what a pier of what was? Then say can
5:00
Speaker 1: you do a pek turn? I didn't know what a
5:01
Speaker 1: pek turn was? So I looked at all the other
5:03
Speaker 1: guys that was doing these new turns and went out
5:06
Speaker 1: there and made a complete food out of myself. So
5:08
Speaker 1: they had fun with me, and they said, Okay, that's
5:10
Speaker 1: god awful. Can you do a cart wheel? So I
5:13
Speaker 1: did three cart Wheels did not get the job, but
5:16
Speaker 1: I got the attention of another musical director to put
5:18
Speaker 1: me in a play in a church and that was
5:20
Speaker 1: my first play called Frankenbeans, where I played a gay
5:23
Speaker 1: character that was in effect with HIV pot blown as wow.
5:26
Speaker 1: That was my first role. And from there I got
5:28
Speaker 1: to Howard University or Kats who's writing the book now?
5:31
Speaker 1: Who's behind many people from Debbie Allen, Alicia Rashad, A
5:36
Speaker 1: lot of people went to hire University. She put me on,
5:38
Speaker 1: put me on the New York City Kids original play
5:42
Speaker 1: member for the City Kids Repertoire Theater dealing with kids,
5:45
Speaker 1: the city at risk children. But Lake Yoba came out
5:48
Speaker 1: of that and then did a commercial, got the money,
5:51
Speaker 1: did a little one Life to Live. That'st thing I know.
5:54
Speaker 1: I'm in LA didn't want to be, but I figured
5:57
Speaker 1: that if I find a role where I can play
5:59
Speaker 1: a thug with a heart, if I can play a
6:03
Speaker 1: thug that looked like he's intelligent, like in Romeo Must Die,
6:07
Speaker 1: then I might be able to work more than everybody else.
6:11
Speaker 1: So that is what I saw was missing. I saw
6:13
Speaker 1: these stereotypes of bad guys, crips, bloods, yea not really much.
6:18
Speaker 1: I said, I need to play a bad guy or
6:20
Speaker 1: a thug that has a little bit more intelligence, and
6:23
Speaker 1: it worked well. This is an aspect of Hollywood is
6:26
Speaker 1: there are always just boxes and you got to fit
6:28
Speaker 1: into this boxing. Oh, it's only one or two guys
6:30
Speaker 1: that get to fit in that box at a time.
6:32
Speaker 1: Sam Jackson he created his just he worked so much
6:37
Speaker 1: that he just beat them down with his talent. That
6:40
Speaker 1: he just worked so much. That's another way he just
6:43
Speaker 1: became Sam Jackson. But you've you've had a great career
6:45
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. I have. But you know, in a certain sense,
6:49
Speaker 1: you don't fit into a box. No, I hit him.
6:53
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person that being at taxing, you
6:57
Speaker 1: try to put me in a box. Still you and
7:00
Speaker 1: I grew up in the same town. Yeah, he's still
7:02
Speaker 1: a family history. They're all dying off. Moved out unfortunately,
7:06
Speaker 1: my mom passing two two thousand and one, same years
7:09
Speaker 1: and Leah, you know, so that was my transition. But
7:12
Speaker 1: I don't have a reason to go back to Houston
7:13
Speaker 1: and go to David Busters anymore. Yeah, or where my
7:16
Speaker 1: boots anymore, where my hats and all that. But I
7:19
Speaker 1: don't have any reason to go back to Houston. But yeah,
7:21
Speaker 1: you know I was a f a. I roteoed. Uh wow,
7:25
Speaker 1: we did. Uh you know, what we call mule saddling
7:29
Speaker 1: was a big deal. You ever seen the mule cry?
7:31
Speaker 1: It's really sad cry. They crab blood, they cry blood. Literally,
7:36
Speaker 1: it's like, damn one of my treating this mule this way.
7:38
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to move. But that's the Democrats for you,
7:43
Speaker 1: just all right, So that's not a popular statement in Hollywood.
7:47
Speaker 1: What jackass Democrats? Anything about the Democrats that are short
7:52
Speaker 1: of all of the above? Uh huh? So what what's
7:58
Speaker 1: Hollywood's politics like from the inside. I never really knew
8:04
Speaker 1: until I went to the White House for Trump. So
8:08
Speaker 1: supporting a policy that I believe then that's letting out
8:11
Speaker 1: nine one present of the men that's getting out of
8:13
Speaker 1: federal prison for the first time, fis looked like me.
8:16
Speaker 1: So when Meek Mill didn't want to go because jay
8:18
Speaker 1: Z told him not to go, and I understand that
8:21
Speaker 1: you want to mess with his paper, well you're already
8:23
Speaker 1: messing with my paper. So I had to figure out
8:24
Speaker 1: how to make paper on my own, right, literally, Well,
8:27
Speaker 1: I like the Federal Reserve. Yeah, I had to figure
8:32
Speaker 1: out how to survive without you. And I've done that
8:34
Speaker 1: for twelve years, and I always say that up to
8:37
Speaker 1: that point, I was twelve years of slave, so you thought.
8:40
Speaker 1: And then I happened, ironically be freed. On a tweet
8:45
Speaker 1: from April Foods Day that I as a tweet of
8:48
Speaker 1: Ernie saying, look at this. I'm being blown away with
8:51
Speaker 1: this man getting off this teleprompter and helping these returning citizens,
8:55
Speaker 1: letting them out of federal prison. Now we got a
8:58
Speaker 1: man that's sitting here working for Anchorage. The first Orange
9:01
Speaker 1: man supposedly bother said that the biggest cannabist company in
9:06
Speaker 1: the world or is not in the country, selling weed.
9:10
Speaker 1: And here I am being ostracized, and it's created for
9:14
Speaker 1: supporting a policy that's freeing out people that look like
9:18
Speaker 1: me that was called selling weed. So I made a
9:22
Speaker 1: tweet saying, isn't it funny that I was talking to
9:24
Speaker 1: this guy named a forty four Obama talking about nothing
9:27
Speaker 1: but the black agenda, nothing about Africa where we promise.
9:30
Speaker 1: But here I am watching this man who's supposed to
9:32
Speaker 1: be a racist, freeing people poor people. So that was
9:36
Speaker 1: a big issue for you. That was a big sort
9:38
Speaker 1: of criminal Justice reform. It still is, and I'm really
9:42
Speaker 1: disturbed because the Left has tricked these useful idiots to
9:47
Speaker 1: the point to turn the First Step Act into not
9:51
Speaker 1: a non secretary but like it never made history. It
9:53
Speaker 1: was never all that fighting that everybody had to get
9:55
Speaker 1: behind in a bipartisan way. Now now you forced this
9:59
Speaker 1: man the Korea a ten year in prison, I think
10:01
Speaker 1: from ten and down monuments. So now you're gonna take
10:04
Speaker 1: these same people that look like me, most of them
10:07
Speaker 1: not really from here, but still the opjects of you
10:09
Speaker 1: taking these people and now I'm putting them back in
10:12
Speaker 1: federal prison. That doesn't seem like an accident to me. Well,
10:18
Speaker 1: and you know, look the Democrats they had eight years
10:22
Speaker 1: of the White House under Bill Clinton. They had eight
10:24
Speaker 1: years of the White House under Barack Obama. They didn't
10:27
Speaker 1: pass criminal justice reform. They didn't they didn't do anything.
10:30
Speaker 1: And First Step back, I was a big supporter of it.
10:34
Speaker 1: I was in the Oval Office when the President signed it.
10:38
Speaker 1: And my view, you know, I've been involved in criminal
10:41
Speaker 1: justice a long time. I see a big difference between
10:45
Speaker 1: violent offenders and non violent offenders. Oh what we call
10:48
Speaker 1: survival crimes. Yeah, Look, if you've got a young African American,
10:53
Speaker 1: young Hispanic who gets busted for possession of marijuana and
10:57
Speaker 1: serves a long prison term. That can really be unjust.
11:02
Speaker 1: And that's a very different crime than someone who's murdered someone,
11:07
Speaker 1: someone who's raped someone. You commit violent crime. The whole
11:10
Speaker 1: purpose of law enforcement is to stop violent criminals and
11:13
Speaker 1: keep people safe. But I think the First Step Act
11:16
Speaker 1: took a very important step to saying, if it's a
11:18
Speaker 1: non violent crime, you know, some eighteen nineteen year old
11:21
Speaker 1: kid who made a mistake, this may have seemed like
11:24
Speaker 1: the only way out, and it was a mistake, but
11:27
Speaker 1: ruining the kid's whole life is not the right step,
11:29
Speaker 1: and it was It was remarkable that Donald Trump championed
11:36
Speaker 1: that and that we got it done as a bipartisan matter.
11:39
Speaker 1: Democrats talked about it forever but never did anything on
11:42
Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, you know, Um, I probably committed more
11:47
Speaker 1: felonies in the military than I've ever done in my
11:49
Speaker 1: probate life. Really, I made my problem my first nine
11:52
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars seven weeks in the military
11:55
Speaker 1: in the Philippines. Some of the top biggest officers in
11:59
Speaker 1: the thing. But I had to do it because if
12:01
Speaker 1: you didn't, you could get fragged, literally killed in the
12:04
Speaker 1: Philippines and Clark every base at this time. This is truth.
12:06
Speaker 1: So it was so bad I went on. I went
12:09
Speaker 1: so deep to survive that my commanding officer brought me
12:14
Speaker 1: into I talked about this on my podcast. So there's
12:16
Speaker 1: no statue limitations. And I don't know whether the bag
12:19
Speaker 1: of money that I buried in Philippines is so don't
12:22
Speaker 1: ask me, don't. But I had to do it because
12:25
Speaker 1: I wanted to live. So I understand how corruptions worked
12:28
Speaker 1: on both sides. We were busily listening to the stars
12:31
Speaker 1: and stripes every day. The Russians are coming, The Russians
12:34
Speaker 1: are coming. The Russians are coming, The Russians are coming.
12:36
Speaker 1: But yet I'm doing these things with other people that
12:39
Speaker 1: have all this metal on their shoulders, and we're all going,
12:43
Speaker 1: like the money that we're getting paid by the taxpayers,
12:46
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough, huh. It wasn't enough, and it didn't
12:50
Speaker 1: stop this behavior of corruption, And it was at nineteen
12:54
Speaker 1: I was a part of it too, at the highest level. Well,
12:57
Speaker 1: you know, corruption can be at a big issue, can
12:59
Speaker 1: be a big idea. One thing we talk a lot
13:01
Speaker 1: about on the show is the kind of diversity of
13:04
Speaker 1: thought on the right among conservatives. So so we've gotten
13:07
Speaker 1: your kind of acting and professional evolution, but did you
13:11
Speaker 1: have a political evolution. It would seem at one point
13:14
Speaker 1: you would have said you were on the left and
13:15
Speaker 1: then you were on the right. Or maybe not. Maybe
13:17
Speaker 1: I have that wrong. Well, my acting, like I was saying,
13:18
Speaker 1: started at nineteen. I had to act like I was
13:21
Speaker 1: a decent human beings. As an airman, we all had
13:25
Speaker 1: to act like we were professionals. Now imagine I'm nineteen,
13:29
Speaker 1: but I can't go off the base and drink alcohol
13:31
Speaker 1: because I'm not twenty one. When I got back to
13:33
Speaker 1: hollymand aff a space. My point is the goal to
13:35
Speaker 1: this that I saw so much, seeing so many things
13:38
Speaker 1: that didn't add up coming as a little country boy
13:40
Speaker 1: out of Houston. But you go to church, it was
13:42
Speaker 1: white and it was black. There was no great it
13:44
Speaker 1: was in between. My point of bringing that up is
13:46
Speaker 1: is that people have to do what they have to
13:48
Speaker 1: do if they didn't have the opportunity to do what
13:52
Speaker 1: they were supposed to do. And what I mean by that,
13:55
Speaker 1: I didn't get the scholarships to the colleges I wanted
13:58
Speaker 1: to go to because there was corruption in high school.
14:00
Speaker 1: All at Willard Ridge High School. The coach decided he's
14:03
Speaker 1: going to get it a kick back to try to
14:04
Speaker 1: send me to a smaller program. Well that was the
14:07
Speaker 1: first scandal. So I've been a part of scandals since
14:10
Speaker 1: I can remember. I've been part of dealing with things
14:12
Speaker 1: where you go. And I've never really been political until
14:16
Speaker 1: I decided, well who was in power? Well, Reagan was
14:18
Speaker 1: in office, so Reagan is our boss. Didn't get to vote,
14:22
Speaker 1: so whatever Reagan says, Reagan, we have to do. To
14:25
Speaker 1: the point when I finally got in the middle of
14:27
Speaker 1: an element, I'm like, why are we sending f fives
14:29
Speaker 1: to Central America? Why are we sending live ordinance in Thailand?
14:33
Speaker 1: Only to find out that we were doing things we
14:35
Speaker 1: weren't supposed to do with taxpayers money. Why are we
14:38
Speaker 1: dropping bombs Vietnam? Oh, well, somebody wanted to clear out
14:42
Speaker 1: all the landmines. Well who for what? Not a wartime situation.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's a lot of money. Shut up. Now I find out, Oh, well,
14:49
Speaker 1: there's a big resort being built that you were activity
14:52
Speaker 1: for how long? Four years? That's why I got out,
14:54
Speaker 1: so I buy politics. I became political by saying that
14:58
Speaker 1: I'm working for corporations. I'm not working you or you,
15:01
Speaker 1: I'm not working for the people. And I found out
15:03
Speaker 1: either from nineteen to twenty one, I want nothing to
15:06
Speaker 1: do with this, and then I jumped into private sector.
15:10
Speaker 1: Reagan needs get a bump. People die. So it seems
15:14
Speaker 1: like I've always been reminded of people that are doing
15:19
Speaker 1: things they shouldn't be doing, but they make it look
15:21
Speaker 1: like it's really cool, this is the right thing to
15:25
Speaker 1: do and it's really great. Tell us about the walk
15:28
Speaker 1: away movement and what and what what that means to you. Well,
15:32
Speaker 1: a friend of mine h who's a Sirian Leoni and
15:37
Speaker 1: who went to me with the Sirian when I got
15:39
Speaker 1: my do a citizenship and I wanted to see how
15:41
Speaker 1: I can help the most stigmatized country in West Africa
15:43
Speaker 1: that couldn't get any help, to talk to all the
15:45
Speaker 1: senators Senta Obama at the time, about how we can
15:47
Speaker 1: remove the stigma of this country. She I didn't like
15:51
Speaker 1: how I was treated in the press again to bring
15:52
Speaker 1: up this topsic narrative that wasn't accurate in the first place.
15:57
Speaker 1: Of my exit of this show with mental show right.
15:59
Speaker 1: So at this point I actually got angry after I
16:03
Speaker 1: was a good guy, like, okay, I shouldn't said what
16:05
Speaker 1: I said. The ghost glows I've been drinking. I told
16:07
Speaker 1: the truth, but it wasn't a good place to say that. Okay,
16:10
Speaker 1: you know you don't say the word that everybody's accusing
16:12
Speaker 1: you or saying it wasn't. I had a good idea,
16:14
Speaker 1: but I told the truth. I'm not a liar. It's truth.
16:18
Speaker 1: So this comes back up again and again. I'm not
16:21
Speaker 1: doing anything wrong. I decide I'm gonna walk away. So
16:26
Speaker 1: she said you need to join the walk Away. I
16:28
Speaker 1: didn't know what it was. I just thought it was
16:29
Speaker 1: a good term. So everything I was tweeting that I
16:31
Speaker 1: was pissed off about and reminding people of my good works.
16:34
Speaker 1: I used hashtag walk away so much that it got
16:37
Speaker 1: Brandon Stroke's attention and like, dude, that's my brand, Like
16:40
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Are you with me? Or it
16:42
Speaker 1: getst me? Like what's going on? So he hit me.
16:44
Speaker 1: I'm like, who are you? I'm Brandon Strike Striker, he
16:48
Speaker 1: said Struck. So we got together. I got on Varney
16:51
Speaker 1: in Company. We linked up. I supported him and used
16:54
Speaker 1: my platform, and then I started tweeting like craz started
16:57
Speaker 1: tweeting like crazy, and it started driving the Democrats crazy.
17:01
Speaker 1: Everybody attacked the April Run, everybody rolling mind not crush them.
17:06
Speaker 1: Everybody that came to me Mark labout Hill, I crush
17:09
Speaker 1: them because anybody know me on Twitter, I get very blue. Yeah,
17:13
Speaker 1: I'm not scared. I will cuss you out in some
17:15
Speaker 1: of the most extraordinarily creative ways on Twitter. I'm very
17:20
Speaker 1: entertaining well, and they all blocked me. This is something
17:23
Speaker 1: about Hollywood as in centator. You've spent a lot of
17:25
Speaker 1: time in Hollywood. I mean, it's kind of like an
17:27
Speaker 1: unknown fact of politics that a lot of Hollywood conservatives
17:32
Speaker 1: have supported you for years and you've known them. And
17:36
Speaker 1: the thing about Hollywood is they're very big characters, very
17:39
Speaker 1: eccentric personalities out here, and yet so it's so weird
17:43
Speaker 1: to me that you got this whole fun place with
17:45
Speaker 1: such wild characters and personalities, and yet when it comes
17:48
Speaker 1: to politics, they're all exactly the same. They're all identical ideology,
17:54
Speaker 1: and if you disagree with that, you get kicked out.
17:57
Speaker 1: And I found out why why I was talking to
18:00
Speaker 1: a person or we will remain nameless. But I was
18:03
Speaker 1: at an event and he asked me, man, what are
18:05
Speaker 1: you doing. You're hurting me. That's so, what are you
18:09
Speaker 1: talking about. You're killing me. You're on the wrong team.
18:13
Speaker 1: He says. If I don't get this mayor reelected, if
18:18
Speaker 1: we can't get Trump out of here, I'm gonna lose
18:21
Speaker 1: my access to the bag. And I said, what are
18:23
Speaker 1: you talking about? It's this man, I got great opportunities.
18:28
Speaker 1: I got kids. Man, I want build my foundational wealth.
18:30
Speaker 1: And these people will let me know where all the
18:33
Speaker 1: residential places. I can get all the inside information on
18:36
Speaker 1: how what I can invest in. If I lose them,
18:39
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody in the conservative parties. I don't
18:41
Speaker 1: know any Republicans. They don't like me. I don't have
18:44
Speaker 1: a relationship with them. It has nothing to do with politics.
18:48
Speaker 1: These people in the Hollywood are fighting for their greed.
18:50
Speaker 1: She's saying, it's it's an establishment, it's it's a personal
18:53
Speaker 1: interest kind of thing. I mean, you see this completely
18:55
Speaker 1: talked about this with China, right, the relationship between Hollywood
18:58
Speaker 1: and China really and as you know, Hollywood is terrified
19:03
Speaker 1: piss off China. They've been broke since two thousand and eight. Yes,
19:06
Speaker 1: China has paid for anything. There's a man named John Lasseter,
19:09
Speaker 1: yeah used to. I think he's still run Will Smith's company.
19:12
Speaker 1: I got invited to a special little meeting. I felt
19:15
Speaker 1: like I got the little cans. We can hear them,
19:16
Speaker 1: understand the Mandarin. I feel like I was at the
19:18
Speaker 1: un so somehow I don't know why they invited me.
19:21
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm like, I'm like the big tabletell like
19:24
Speaker 1: I'm the run guy. I know you show up on
19:26
Speaker 1: podcasts and talk about it, right, so I'm there. John
19:28
Speaker 1: Laster is arrogant, and other people are arrogant, and the
19:30
Speaker 1: Chinese are sitting there talking about the different levels of copyrights,
19:33
Speaker 1: like there's twenty four levels of copyright, Like if you
19:36
Speaker 1: try to sue them on one, it's like, no, you
19:37
Speaker 1: can't because there's I learned so much from these Chinese
19:41
Speaker 1: and all they were asking the special meeting with SAG afterwards,
19:44
Speaker 1: give us some respect. You didn't respect jetly enough, and
19:48
Speaker 1: you know you didn't make him a star. Just take
19:50
Speaker 1: one of our Chinese people and just actors and make
19:53
Speaker 1: them a huge star, like Tom Cruise, like like Meryl Streep.
19:57
Speaker 1: And they fell asleep the guy fell asleep on the stage. Yeah,
20:01
Speaker 1: said John, I saw you do it. He fell asleep, Arguly,
20:04
Speaker 1: he fell asleep on the stage in front of the
20:07
Speaker 1: Chinese that's paying his bills, all of them, each, one
20:10
Speaker 1: of the major executives. They fell asleep like they had
20:14
Speaker 1: no care. They played the game like, yeah, we're broke. Well,
20:19
Speaker 1: Hollywood is paying the bill. I mean, China rather is
20:21
Speaker 1: paying the bills for Hollywood. But it seems that there's
20:23
Speaker 1: a political dimension of this as well. It's not just
20:26
Speaker 1: that they're infiltrating top Gun or something. There's an agenda
20:29
Speaker 1: here on the international level. So as you know, I
20:32
Speaker 1: just got sanctioned by the Communist government of China. They
20:37
Speaker 1: announced that I am banned from China. Why because I
20:42
Speaker 1: don't like communists and I criticize them and call them out.
20:45
Speaker 1: The Communist Government of China. They're murderers, they're torturers. They've
20:49
Speaker 1: got one million wagers in the concentration camps right now.
20:53
Speaker 1: They're censoring and and by the way, among other things,
20:56
Speaker 1: their censorship helped create the coronavirus pandemic because you had
21:01
Speaker 1: Chinese Trusians they censored. Did you say that the viruses
21:05
Speaker 1: from China eight is from which and the Chinese government
21:09
Speaker 1: is response, did you just say this is a plandemic
21:12
Speaker 1: that this is Do you know that that when the
21:20
Speaker 1: whistleblowers Chinese doctors in December of last year, said hey,
21:24
Speaker 1: we got an outbreak here, this is a problem, the
21:26
Speaker 1: Chinese government arrested them and said, you cannot any responsible
21:31
Speaker 1: government would step in, send health professionals, quarantine the people.
21:35
Speaker 1: And this this may well have been stopped as a
21:37
Speaker 1: regional outbreak, and all of the death all of the
21:40
Speaker 1: economic shutdown, all of the misery could have been stopped.
21:42
Speaker 1: But the Chinese government didn't do that. And I've been
21:45
Speaker 1: calling them out and so you asked why why they
21:47
Speaker 1: sanctioned me. One of the reasons they sanctioned me is
21:49
Speaker 1: in October, I flew to Taiwan, and I flew to
21:52
Speaker 1: Hong Kong, and I met with the protesters in Hong Kong,
21:54
Speaker 1: two million people in the streets. I did one of
21:57
Speaker 1: the Sunday shows dressed in all black and solid day
22:00
Speaker 1: with the protesters. Are you asking for it? Oh? You better?
22:02
Speaker 1: But my dad, Wait a minute, I got chill boobs.
22:09
Speaker 1: You're gonna get us all y'all, Y'll check this room.
22:15
Speaker 1: I'm real. I don't like communists, I don't like it
22:19
Speaker 1: doesn't work. And yet know my dad was imprisoned and
22:22
Speaker 1: tortured by Bautista in Cubea. Sonya was in prison and
22:27
Speaker 1: tortured by Fidel Castro, And so when it comes to
22:30
Speaker 1: standing up to communists, I'm eager to do so. And
22:33
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Hollywood is scared to do so.
22:36
Speaker 1: They're not scared. They just don't have a personal interest
22:38
Speaker 1: to protect anyone who's not part of the club. It's
22:41
Speaker 1: about building their foundational wealth. It's about like purge what
22:45
Speaker 1: Ethan Hawk did to the character the one black character
22:47
Speaker 1: that tried to help his dog ass He says, so
22:50
Speaker 1: I'm gonna save you, and I'm gonna help save you,
22:51
Speaker 1: and they still stabbed and almost trying to kill him
22:54
Speaker 1: in the movie. It's just, you know, a thankless job.
22:56
Speaker 1: Do you think a middle all of this, there's any
22:58
Speaker 1: hope that you're right? I guess it was a crazy
23:04
Speaker 1: premise to begin with. You don't think there's any way
23:05
Speaker 1: that Hollywood's gonna break apart from the leftist consensus. The
23:08
Speaker 1: thing enforce I wanted you to explaining the HR seven
23:12
Speaker 1: forty eight how they became one thing and became a
23:14
Speaker 1: care act. But that's another one. Like one minute was
23:17
Speaker 1: this a lot of people hitting me like wait a minute,
23:18
Speaker 1: this was done and before he shut down? You know,
23:21
Speaker 1: lu little why is this to build this way? But
23:23
Speaker 1: my thing is no, no, it's not about that. It's
23:26
Speaker 1: about distraction. Huh. No, one's asking the right questions. Why
23:30
Speaker 1: would Bob Eiger step down? Why you gotta Why can
23:36
Speaker 1: you not open up a nation as large as California
23:40
Speaker 1: makes all this money driving cars? Why are you gonna
23:44
Speaker 1: lose all this money when you are a state that
23:47
Speaker 1: has produces thirty of all of the wealth and to
23:51
Speaker 1: this nation. Just just put up the wall and just
23:55
Speaker 1: say you want to succeed. Just just be I would
23:58
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't respect the Democrats and Gavin News
24:01
Speaker 1: and answer Pelosi and Kamlahart. If you say you want
24:05
Speaker 1: to kill us, you want to hurt veterans and bring
24:08
Speaker 1: in illegal immigrants, you don't want to close your borders,
24:11
Speaker 1: Just tell us you want to succeed. Just stop playing
24:16
Speaker 1: at this thing. Don't hurt innocent people. Let's just get
24:20
Speaker 1: it on. Well, Isaiah, I'll make a prediction right now,
24:23
Speaker 1: Please do which is if Joe Biden wins, God forbid,
24:27
Speaker 1: I don't want him to win. But if he wins,
24:29
Speaker 1: I know what's gonna happen. The day after he wins,
24:34
Speaker 1: they'll declare everything's better. They'll open up the schools, they'll
24:37
Speaker 1: open up the economy. Suddenly, they'll say, everyone go back
24:39
Speaker 1: to work. And you're seeing so many people in politics
24:43
Speaker 1: and the media that just hate the president and they
24:46
Speaker 1: want everything shut down. They want every school, they want
24:49
Speaker 1: every business, they want everything shut down right until election
24:53
Speaker 1: day because they think it'll change the album. And if
24:56
Speaker 1: they weren't happened, I can sit here and safely tell
24:58
Speaker 1: you that they're all six million people that will be very,
25:03
Speaker 1: very happy to see Biden try to go onto the
25:08
Speaker 1: White House. You will have a civil war and it
25:11
Speaker 1: will be over within six months, guarantee. How do I know?
25:17
Speaker 1: I know? And the one thing we know too is
25:20
Speaker 1: unfortunately we're not going to We could go on, we
25:22
Speaker 1: could go on for hours, but unfortunately the one thing
25:25
Speaker 1: we do know pertaining to Hollywood is the revolution will
25:28
Speaker 1: be televised or maybe it will be live streamed. I
25:31
Speaker 1: should mention too, Isaiah before before we head out. You
25:33
Speaker 1: have a show on Fox Nation. You've got Kitchen Talk
25:36
Speaker 1: on Fox Nation, which you've got to check out with
25:38
Speaker 1: Isaiah Washington. And the next time, well, hopefully California does
25:41
Speaker 1: not secede before we can get the Senator back out here,
25:45
Speaker 1: and we'll have to continue the conversation next time. I
25:47
Speaker 1: am Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This
26:00
Speaker 1: episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to
26:03
Speaker 1: you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action
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Speaker 1: committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across
26:11
Speaker 1: the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security
26:15
Speaker 1: Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress
26:18
Speaker 1: and help the Republican Party across the nation.