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Transcript

Easter In Isolation · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: For the first time in probably seventeen hundred years, Christians
0:04
Speaker 1: around the world will not be permitted to celebrate Easter
0:08
Speaker 1: in public. What is a country founded on religious liberty
0:12
Speaker 1: supposed to do when the government locks the churches? This
0:16
Speaker 1: is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with
0:25
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz and Happy Easter. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. Sorry,
0:29
Speaker 1: we can't be a celebrating today together or at a
0:32
Speaker 1: safe social distance. I think I am not exaggerating here
0:37
Speaker 1: when I say this might be the first time since
0:40
Speaker 1: the Diocletian Persecution that Christians have not been able to
0:44
Speaker 1: go to their churches on Easter. Is that an exaggeration? Well,
0:48
Speaker 1: you know, I gotta say it is so commonplace to
0:50
Speaker 1: have podcasts talking about the Diocletian Persecution. I mean, I
0:54
Speaker 1: mean it really I'm worried that we're going to run
0:56
Speaker 1: into the traffic online. That's true, stright through the roof, right.
1:02
Speaker 1: We you and I have never seen anything like this
1:04
Speaker 1: in our lifetimes. And it's you know, all of us
1:08
Speaker 1: were doing everything from home. Yeah, and whether that's church,
1:12
Speaker 1: whether that's work, whether that's time with the family, it
1:16
Speaker 1: has good aspects to it, and it also makes people
1:20
Speaker 1: pretty stir crazy. This, I think is the big issue
1:22
Speaker 1: for people. I think for a while, people like taking
1:25
Speaker 1: a few days off work. Obviously that got real old,
1:27
Speaker 1: real fast when people lost their jobs. I think people
1:30
Speaker 1: actually for the first few days of this shutdown, we're
1:33
Speaker 1: kind of excited. It was something new, it was dangerous.
1:36
Speaker 1: Maybe we were all going to band together again. That
1:38
Speaker 1: kind of got real old, real fast. The one thing
1:41
Speaker 1: that I think was always a sticking point was the churches.
1:44
Speaker 1: The government closing down the churches. To my mind, that's
1:48
Speaker 1: unprecedented in the United States. Is that what you're hearing
1:52
Speaker 1: and seeing as well? I mean, is that just a
1:54
Speaker 1: different category. Look, it's a hard challenge because if you have,
1:58
Speaker 1: as we do, a pandemic, a public health outbreak, there
2:02
Speaker 1: is precedent for quarantining laws, there's precedent for preventing large gatherings.
2:09
Speaker 1: You know, I will say it, in this time of crisis,
2:13
Speaker 1: you know, people's real character comes out, who they are
2:16
Speaker 1: comes out. And I got to say, some of these
2:19
Speaker 1: democratic politicians are just jackbooted thugs. I mean, they're authoritarians
2:26
Speaker 1: that they believe in the power of the state. So
2:29
Speaker 1: you know, bild de Blasio, mayor of New York. Now,
2:31
Speaker 1: listen to New York has got it worse than than
2:33
Speaker 1: anywhere else in the country. It is horrific, the deaths
2:36
Speaker 1: that have happened there, the infections, people are scared. I
2:39
Speaker 1: get all of that. But de Blasio said, listen, if
2:42
Speaker 1: any church or synagogue meets, we're going to come after
2:45
Speaker 1: you and we will permanently shut you down. Now, who
2:49
Speaker 1: the hell are you to permanently shut a church or
2:52
Speaker 1: synagogue then? And I actually understand saying okay, you can't
2:55
Speaker 1: have a public gathering. You know what my church is doing.
2:57
Speaker 1: We're meeting virtually. Yeah, I think that actually makes good sense.
3:02
Speaker 1: But you see some of these political leaders just eager
3:09
Speaker 1: to strip away liberty and they seem to have a real,
3:13
Speaker 1: real animosity to faith. That's right if you if you
3:15
Speaker 1: look at New York. I mean, that's exactly the right
3:18
Speaker 1: example where it's not de Blasio saying we're going to
3:20
Speaker 1: shut you down for the whole of this pandemic. You
3:24
Speaker 1: are not going to be allowed back into your building,
3:26
Speaker 1: pastor until afterwards. But that's not where they stopped it.
3:28
Speaker 1: They actually said we will permanently shut you down. And
3:31
Speaker 1: he actually singled out churches and synagogues. He didn't go
3:35
Speaker 1: after any other faith groups. He just went after churches
3:37
Speaker 1: and synagogues. How convenient. You know. It's not just de
3:41
Speaker 1: Blasio though. It's going on around the country and even
3:44
Speaker 1: for the people. I know a lot of conservatives where
3:46
Speaker 1: we want to keep our rights, but we're obviously willing
3:49
Speaker 1: to entertain some quarantine. Pennsylvania, they arrested a woman for
3:53
Speaker 1: driving her car. Oh my god, you know, driving your car.
3:57
Speaker 1: You're not violating social distancing. You're sitting in your own
4:00
Speaker 1: damn car, like like, this is not a police state, right,
4:03
Speaker 1: And and you're seeing, you know, North Carolina that they
4:07
Speaker 1: invest arrested David Benham. David David Jason Benham. The Bennam
4:12
Speaker 1: brothers are friends of mine. They're great guys. Um. So
4:15
Speaker 1: the North Carolina governor, a Democrat, determined that that elective
4:20
Speaker 1: abortions are essential, and so that abortion clinics could gather,
4:23
Speaker 1: they could all get together. And so the Bennam brothers
4:27
Speaker 1: went outside and and and wanted to provide pregnancy counseling,
4:30
Speaker 1: wanted to peacefully h tell moms that we're coming in
4:34
Speaker 1: that we're considering abortions. You know, they're alternatives. If if
4:36
Speaker 1: you want to pursue adoption, here are some of the
4:39
Speaker 1: resources available to you. Right, And and they sent the
4:42
Speaker 1: police to arrest them. And actually the video I tweeted
4:45
Speaker 1: out the video. I did encourage you to watch that
4:47
Speaker 1: video because, uh, you know, David is he said, Look,
4:52
Speaker 1: we're being peaceful. He's very calm, he's not angry, he's
4:55
Speaker 1: not they're not harassing anyone. He said, we're six feet away,
4:58
Speaker 1: we're not gathering, we're not leading social distancing. But but
5:02
Speaker 1: if the governor is going to say that that the
5:05
Speaker 1: abortion is essential, that the doctors and all the staff
5:07
Speaker 1: can gather there more than ten people in public, then
5:10
Speaker 1: how can that be essential? But yet the counseling of
5:14
Speaker 1: pregnancy alternatives is not equally essential to And it's interesting
5:20
Speaker 1: the officers are arresting him, and you could see the
5:22
Speaker 1: officers are reluctant, and David, to his credit, he's praising
5:26
Speaker 1: the officers. He said, listen, thank you for your service.
5:28
Speaker 1: Particularly now, I mean he's polite, he's praising them, and
5:33
Speaker 1: it just shows Look, and I don't want to make
5:37
Speaker 1: this partisan. And if there are are Republicans doing it,
5:40
Speaker 1: I will happily call them out too. It just seems
5:42
Speaker 1: to be it's the democratic governors and the Democratic mayors
5:46
Speaker 1: that that in that instance, you know, he's he's hard
5:52
Speaker 1: pro abortion and hard and anti pro life, and and
5:56
Speaker 1: and so it's not if you want to say neither
5:59
Speaker 1: of them are essential. Fine that I actually understand that determination.
6:03
Speaker 1: But you can't pick one side and silence those that
6:06
Speaker 1: would try to give it so ironic, and it totally
6:09
Speaker 1: gives away the game where they say, if you gather
6:11
Speaker 1: together to procure an abortion, that will not endanger your life.
6:15
Speaker 1: And let me tell you something, abortion one hundred percent
6:18
Speaker 1: of the time in danger's life. They say, no, that
6:20
Speaker 1: won't endanger your life. But if you go and offer
6:22
Speaker 1: some counseling, you also gathered together, that will endanger your life.
6:25
Speaker 1: It's so backwards, it's such a power grab. You know,
6:28
Speaker 1: certain states have made exceptions, and you know, in Colorado
6:31
Speaker 1: they arrested a dad for playing t ball with his kids.
6:36
Speaker 1: I mean, that's nutty. I spoke last night to a
6:40
Speaker 1: Nevada state legislator who was complaining the Nevada governor has
6:44
Speaker 1: shut down golf courses. Now I gotta say, Michael, it's
6:48
Speaker 1: hard to think of a sport more situated to social distancing. Listen,
6:53
Speaker 1: if you're with it, if you're closer than six feet,
6:55
Speaker 1: you ain't doing it right right like you ever, Like,
6:58
Speaker 1: I'm all for acting sensibly to protect the public safety.
7:02
Speaker 1: But but there's some that are just eager to put
7:06
Speaker 1: on that jackboot and it's scared. Now, what do you
7:08
Speaker 1: make of these different states? I mean, some states they've
7:10
Speaker 1: been arresting pastors if they try to hold services. Other
7:13
Speaker 1: states have made an exception for religious services, and and
7:17
Speaker 1: you know at various state by state. Luckily we haven't
7:19
Speaker 1: had one national, one size fits all policy for this.
7:22
Speaker 1: I mean, how is that going to play out even
7:24
Speaker 1: after the pandemic's over. Listen, our law has always respected
7:29
Speaker 1: religious liberty. The First Amendment protects religious liberty. I think
7:33
Speaker 1: we should should do everything possible to protect people's right
7:37
Speaker 1: of faith. At the same time, I think the responsible
7:41
Speaker 1: thing to do is to act to protect the community.
7:47
Speaker 1: So so my church, Ide and I are members of
7:49
Speaker 1: a First Baptist church in Houston. It's a big, big church.
7:52
Speaker 1: We've been going to church virtually online. Our pastor made
7:57
Speaker 1: the very I think, very sensible decision to say We're
7:59
Speaker 1: not going to bring people together and have thousands of
8:01
Speaker 1: people in a sanctuary while there's a global pandemic going on.
8:05
Speaker 1: And you know, I will say, as it's Easter Easter,
8:12
Speaker 1: you know, you Easter Sunday. From for as long as
8:15
Speaker 1: I can remember, we would always go to church on
8:17
Speaker 1: Easter Sunday, that's and celebrate the Jesus. But it's worth
8:24
Speaker 1: also remembering, you know, for those of us who are Christians,
8:29
Speaker 1: the church is not a building. The church is not
8:33
Speaker 1: bricks or mortars. So I'm I'm sad not to be there.
8:36
Speaker 1: It's nice to be able to sing and have the
8:39
Speaker 1: music in person. It's nice to be able to worship together.
8:42
Speaker 1: But it actually has been beautiful. So what we do
8:44
Speaker 1: every Sunday morning is we come down, come down to
8:48
Speaker 1: the living room and we put we put the live
8:50
Speaker 1: stream of our church up up up on the TV,
8:54
Speaker 1: and Heidi and the girls and I just the four
8:57
Speaker 1: of us in the living room and we'll watch and participate.
9:00
Speaker 1: You know, we have to kind of drag the girls
9:02
Speaker 1: out of bed, and you know, it's nice. I'll have
9:03
Speaker 1: a cup of coffee and I'll confess I've done church
9:06
Speaker 1: sometimes and my slippers normally did same here. I'm ashamed
9:10
Speaker 1: to say, but I did. But you know it's interesting.
9:13
Speaker 1: Number One, I was talking to my pastor earlier this week.
9:15
Speaker 1: He said that that that the viewership has gone through
9:18
Speaker 1: the roof, that a ton of people are logging on
9:22
Speaker 1: and watching it online who wouldn't necessarily come in person.
9:26
Speaker 1: And it is interesting because we're ending up having much
9:31
Speaker 1: longer conversations with our girls about about the sermon, about
9:36
Speaker 1: what's going on. You know, if you're in church, you
9:38
Speaker 1: don't want to talk talk in church and bother people.
9:40
Speaker 1: If you're in your living room, you can talk to
9:43
Speaker 1: each other and you can say, hey, what do you
9:44
Speaker 1: think about what he just said? And you know, you
9:46
Speaker 1: can have conversations that flow out of it. That that
9:51
Speaker 1: are you know, what the Bible said is that is
9:55
Speaker 1: the Church is the body of believers, is everyone who
9:59
Speaker 1: is a Christian? That we're the church, not the building.
10:03
Speaker 1: Um and and so even though East Easter Sunday, most
10:08
Speaker 1: of us are not going to be at a physical church.
10:10
Speaker 1: If if we are giving thanks for Jesus's resurrection, that
10:16
Speaker 1: we're celebrating Easter and the church is celebrating and and
10:20
Speaker 1: and I hope also listen. This is a time, you know.
10:23
Speaker 1: I remember back when Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and it
10:26
Speaker 1: was devastating in Texas, second costless natural disaster in US history,
10:32
Speaker 1: and it was really amazing to see the churches all
10:35
Speaker 1: throughout Texas, especially on the Gulf Coast, coming out and
10:39
Speaker 1: helping people, helping people whose homes had been destroyed. Everything
10:41
Speaker 1: they had was lost. And it was a time when
10:44
Speaker 1: the church was doing what the church should. The church
10:47
Speaker 1: should be helping people, people in need, people who are
10:49
Speaker 1: scared people. You know our church, we've had one member
10:53
Speaker 1: of a woman in our eighties who died of COVID
10:56
Speaker 1: nineteen and you know, the ministry for seniors. It's hard
11:02
Speaker 1: for seniors to be isolated. And this is a time,
11:06
Speaker 1: I hope and I believe the church is doing more
11:09
Speaker 1: to help people who are scared, who are in need,
11:12
Speaker 1: even if we don't gather in person. It's much more
11:14
Speaker 1: important for the church to reflect the love of Jesus
11:18
Speaker 1: than to stand in one particular building, right. And I
11:21
Speaker 1: think there's something else going on here too with regard
11:23
Speaker 1: to the pandemic, which is people always think about Easter,
11:27
Speaker 1: but you forget that you don't get Easter without Good Friday.
11:30
Speaker 1: This is a reminder. This whole season of Lent, which
11:32
Speaker 1: by the way, has corresponded exactly with the coronavirus pandemic.
11:36
Speaker 1: Lent begins and you get ashes on your head if
11:39
Speaker 1: you're a Catholic or a certain other denominations, and they say, remember, man,
11:42
Speaker 1: you are dust to dust, you shall return. And it's
11:45
Speaker 1: very easy in modern life to forget that someday, eventually
11:49
Speaker 1: we're all going to die. We might not die from
11:51
Speaker 1: the coronavirus, let's hope, but we will die eventually. And
11:55
Speaker 1: that reminder that, you know, I think it was doctor
11:57
Speaker 1: Johnson said, hanging concentrates the mind. You know, when you
12:00
Speaker 1: look death straight in the face, it focuses you on
12:03
Speaker 1: the bigger questions. In a way, locking down the churches
12:06
Speaker 1: might have a pretty positive effect on religion in the country.
12:11
Speaker 1: It also brings families together, whether you whether you like
12:14
Speaker 1: it or not. Look, Caroline said, you know, I can't
12:17
Speaker 1: stand it. I've been in this house for a month,
12:19
Speaker 1: and I mean and she's eleven, and I'm like, sweetheart,
12:21
Speaker 1: I know we all had we're like ready to jump
12:24
Speaker 1: out the windows. But there have also been so every
12:29
Speaker 1: day Heidi and I. We've had had had lunch with
12:32
Speaker 1: the girls. We've had dinner with the girls. That's never
12:36
Speaker 1: happened in the whole time we've been a family. We've
12:38
Speaker 1: never had and and I'll tell you one thing we've started.
12:41
Speaker 1: So we've started doing a couple of things. When we
12:42
Speaker 1: go for walks every evening, um sometimes family walks, we
12:46
Speaker 1: walk the dog. Sometimes it's just tidy in me, but
12:48
Speaker 1: like the whole neighborhood is out walking and and it's
12:51
Speaker 1: like like Central Houston. Now it's we're six feet apart.
12:53
Speaker 1: We stay, we stay at a distance, but it's like
12:56
Speaker 1: Central Houston became Mayberry. I mean, it's an amazing thing.
13:00
Speaker 1: But something else we've started doing that I wanted to
13:03
Speaker 1: do for a long time is every night we're reading
13:07
Speaker 1: from the Bible and listen. I've wanted to do that
13:12
Speaker 1: regular and we've done it. Sometimes we've done it sporadically,
13:15
Speaker 1: but not with real discipline. And part of it is,
13:18
Speaker 1: you know, being in the Senate. Typically I get up
13:20
Speaker 1: Monday mornings, I fly to DC and I'm gone for
13:23
Speaker 1: four days. I come back Thursday night. It's hard as
13:28
Speaker 1: a dad if you're in town two three days a week.
13:31
Speaker 1: It's hard to sort of have a family discipline of
13:34
Speaker 1: after dinner we sit down and read the Bible. And
13:38
Speaker 1: and I've I've been like guilty in thinking about it.
13:40
Speaker 1: We need to do more of it. And so with
13:42
Speaker 1: all this time at home, how do you and I
13:43
Speaker 1: just decid all right, we're going to do this. And
13:45
Speaker 1: our girls didn't like it. I mean, it was a
13:47
Speaker 1: big battle. It was not that this was not mild
13:50
Speaker 1: or easy. And so we started with just Matthew chapter
13:53
Speaker 1: one and reading three chapters a night. I think the
13:58
Speaker 1: first night it took us hour hour and a half
14:01
Speaker 1: to get through three chapters. The girls were acting up.
14:03
Speaker 1: It was it was a bit of a mess. But
14:07
Speaker 1: it's interesting we've gotten through. I think we're like Matthew
14:10
Speaker 1: chapter twenty four. Um, so, so we haven't done it
14:14
Speaker 1: that long, but it's been been each night and it
14:17
Speaker 1: has been really And what's interesting is it just so
14:20
Speaker 1: happens we're right now moving into good Friday and Easter,
14:24
Speaker 1: like like just just the timing worked out. We didn't
14:27
Speaker 1: sit down and planet like this. But but you know,
14:31
Speaker 1: last Sunday was was Palm Sunday and we were we
14:35
Speaker 1: were reading in Matthew where it talks about Palm Sunday
14:38
Speaker 1: and Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey.
14:43
Speaker 1: And by the way, my pastor said something very interesting
14:45
Speaker 1: that I didn't know. I don't know if you knew.
14:47
Speaker 1: Did you know that Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter,
14:51
Speaker 1: was the day traditionally in Judaism when they selected the
14:56
Speaker 1: lamb to be sacrificed. I did not know that. I
14:59
Speaker 1: had never heard that. Our pastor said that this last Sunday,
15:01
Speaker 1: and I thought that was fascinating because a lot of
15:03
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about with the girls was the
15:07
Speaker 1: parallel with Passover and and and and the entire story
15:12
Speaker 1: of Passover, which we kind of take digressions as we're
15:15
Speaker 1: reading the Bible to say, Okay, the people of Israel
15:18
Speaker 1: were in captivity in Egypt, and and the ten plagues,
15:21
Speaker 1: and so Catherine sang a song on the ten plagues
15:23
Speaker 1: like that that that struck Egypt. But but you know
15:26
Speaker 1: we were talking about, you know that for the Angel
15:29
Speaker 1: of Death to pass over your home, that you had
15:31
Speaker 1: to put the lamb's blood on the side of the door,
15:33
Speaker 1: on the top, and and and that that that that
15:38
Speaker 1: is what Easter is all about, is that Jesus was
15:42
Speaker 1: the Lamb sacrificed for us, and the passover Lamb Jesus
15:48
Speaker 1: was that same sacrifice and that story. Having the opportunity
15:54
Speaker 1: to talk about it at this time we're Easter's at home,
16:01
Speaker 1: it has made it, I think, in many ways more
16:04
Speaker 1: meaningful than being in a big service for the converse. So,
16:08
Speaker 1: you know, this is something that my wife and I
16:09
Speaker 1: have been doing too in our little one bedroom apartment.
16:12
Speaker 1: I think probably my greatest risk of death right now
16:16
Speaker 1: is not any pandemic. It's going to be murder when
16:18
Speaker 1: my wife finally snaps. But if that doesn't happen, you know,
16:21
Speaker 1: in the meantime, what we've been doing, especially because we're Catholics,
16:24
Speaker 1: so we have certain icons and religious images around and
16:28
Speaker 1: when we go to church now, the church is at
16:30
Speaker 1: the kitchen table, and we live stream it in from
16:32
Speaker 1: our priests who's down in southern California, and it's just
16:35
Speaker 1: him on a live stream, and it really focuses you
16:38
Speaker 1: on these images. So it's just my wife and I
16:41
Speaker 1: sitting in kitchen chairs. You know, there's no smells and bells,
16:44
Speaker 1: there's no beautiful music going on. It's really just us
16:47
Speaker 1: contemplating some of these images, listening to these words, listening
16:50
Speaker 1: to these prayers, and you know, it does remind you
16:53
Speaker 1: when Jesus says, when you pray, go into your innermost closet,
16:57
Speaker 1: you know, do it in solitude and really make it
17:00
Speaker 1: about that connection to God. And it just gives you
17:02
Speaker 1: another sense when you go and pray the Rosary at
17:05
Speaker 1: night and it's just the two of you and everybody's
17:08
Speaker 1: quiet and no one's outside. In a way, it really
17:11
Speaker 1: amplifies your prayer and your spiritual connection to God, even
17:17
Speaker 1: when you can't go into your own church. Well, and
17:20
Speaker 1: and I'll say this this also cuts across face. So
17:23
Speaker 1: some good friends of ours who are who are neighbors
17:25
Speaker 1: who are Jewish, and they celebrated this week their Passover Sader,
17:30
Speaker 1: which which ordinarily they would do with the whole extended family.
17:34
Speaker 1: And they were telling me, Okay, so we're just doing
17:36
Speaker 1: it with you know, mom and dad. And they have
17:39
Speaker 1: a daughter who's really close friends with Caroline, and they
17:41
Speaker 1: have a son is a little bit younger, and they said,
17:43
Speaker 1: what they're doing is just they're face timing on I
17:46
Speaker 1: think iPads with their extended family. So with parents and sisters.
17:49
Speaker 1: You know they're not you know, most of us are
17:52
Speaker 1: not seeing our parents. My dad's eighty one, my mom's
17:55
Speaker 1: eighty five. I've seen either one of them and over
17:57
Speaker 1: a month because I'm not going to jeopardize their health.
18:00
Speaker 1: But it is interesting, even a passover Satyer. You know,
18:04
Speaker 1: I've been to a lot of sators and they're wonderful
18:06
Speaker 1: and fun. But you think of them as you know,
18:08
Speaker 1: big groups of multi generational extended family, and with technology,
18:14
Speaker 1: you can even do that if it's just a few
18:15
Speaker 1: of you and you're trying to socially distance, you can
18:18
Speaker 1: still you can still have a wonderful faith and family
18:25
Speaker 1: experience together. And I suspect we'll look back at these.
18:32
Speaker 1: It wouldn't surprise me if when our girls are grown
18:35
Speaker 1: they look back to this time of spending day after
18:39
Speaker 1: day and week after week together as a family as
18:42
Speaker 1: some of their favorite time ever. Now they wouldn't admit
18:45
Speaker 1: that now, right who, but it it is. You know,
18:53
Speaker 1: Caroline is in our front yard right now, building a
18:56
Speaker 1: little bit of a treehouse and a tree and you know,
18:59
Speaker 1: coming and pulling me out of I'm on conference calls
19:01
Speaker 1: with work and doing all just I'm in the middle
19:05
Speaker 1: of what basically a teletour across Texas, like meeting talking
19:08
Speaker 1: with all different communities. But like Caroline comes comes yesterday
19:12
Speaker 1: and says, you know, Dad, we need your help to
19:13
Speaker 1: cut the lumber. I'm not very handy, but but thankfully
19:17
Speaker 1: I have told her, okay, no power tools. As an
19:20
Speaker 1: eleven year old, I don't want severed digits. So I
19:22
Speaker 1: got the jig saw and managed to cut the board
19:26
Speaker 1: without in fact severing any of my digits. So that
19:28
Speaker 1: was good. But it's kind of right in the middle
19:30
Speaker 1: of the day. It's like, like, come to the garage
19:32
Speaker 1: and let's cut lumber to build the treehouse. There's something
19:35
Speaker 1: really nice about that. I've noticed the same thing as
19:38
Speaker 1: you mentioned with your friends in the Passover Sader people,
19:41
Speaker 1: family members, old friends that I have not called in
19:43
Speaker 1: a long time. Now, we're just doing calls because that's
19:46
Speaker 1: what people are doing. I mean, it's and speaking of
19:48
Speaker 1: connecting with people virtually. I know we've only got a
19:51
Speaker 1: few minutes left, but I do want to get to
19:52
Speaker 1: some of the mail bag because we've got some very
19:54
Speaker 1: important questions here. Probably this is the most important one
19:57
Speaker 1: that I've read in weeks. Senator Amber does Ted think
20:02
Speaker 1: Joe Exotic should be pardoned? I'm serious, I want his opinion.
20:07
Speaker 1: Michael can answer to Senator, what's your answer? Well, I
20:11
Speaker 1: will say I cracked up laughing that this week at
20:15
Speaker 1: the White House Press conference, they asked if Joe Exotic
20:18
Speaker 1: should be should be pardoned, and and President Trump, I'm
20:21
Speaker 1: not sure he knew what was going on, but said yeah, yeah,
20:23
Speaker 1: we'll have to look at that. And then that was
20:26
Speaker 1: that was pretty durn funny. You know, I've got a
20:29
Speaker 1: pet theory. Yeah that that that that the prospect of
20:32
Speaker 1: Joe Exotic being pardoned is why Obama delayed endorsing Joe
20:38
Speaker 1: Biden because you know, look, I apparently Joe Exotic ran
20:41
Speaker 1: for president in twenty sixteen against against me. I didn't
20:44
Speaker 1: know it at the time, against Trump. So who knows,
20:47
Speaker 1: maybe Joe Exotics on the ballot in twenty twenty and
20:49
Speaker 1: Obama's holding the the endorsement back uh waiting for the
20:53
Speaker 1: Tiger King endorse. This is the most brilliant political insight
20:57
Speaker 1: I have seen in so long. I am now, I
21:00
Speaker 1: don't know my feelings on Joe Exotic getting a pardon,
21:03
Speaker 1: other than I indorse Barack Obama endorsing Joe Exotic. So
21:07
Speaker 1: I guess that means we got to spring him from
21:09
Speaker 1: the slammer. A very good point, Senator. Next question from Peter,
21:12
Speaker 1: is there any evidence that China purposely delayed and lied
21:17
Speaker 1: in their report in order to tank the world economy
21:20
Speaker 1: considering that theirs was already in shambles. So that's an
21:24
Speaker 1: interesting question. There is absolutely evidence that China purposely delayed
21:29
Speaker 1: and that they covered up that when the Wuhan outbreak
21:32
Speaker 1: was ongoing, that that they hid evidence of it, that
21:36
Speaker 1: they punished the scientists who were trying to blow the whistle,
21:39
Speaker 1: including the doctor who courageously did it anyway and has
21:43
Speaker 1: since died of COVID nineteen. You know, I'm not aware
21:48
Speaker 1: of any evidence that they did it with the intent
21:52
Speaker 1: of tanking the global economy. I think that's probably a stretch.
21:57
Speaker 1: Although when it comes to ascribing malign intentions to the
22:01
Speaker 1: Chinese communist you almost can't stretch two minds, no limit.
22:04
Speaker 1: But you know, I had an I had an old
22:07
Speaker 1: boss who was a federal judge who used to say,
22:10
Speaker 1: never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence,
22:15
Speaker 1: and and listen, I think the Chinese covered it up
22:19
Speaker 1: because they were embarrassed, because they didn't want people to know.
22:23
Speaker 1: I think there's a very real possibility that this outbreak
22:26
Speaker 1: occurred from from some sort of accidental transmission. There were
22:30
Speaker 1: two two facilities within miles of the Wuhan Wet Market
22:35
Speaker 1: where we think this started. That we're studying coronaviruses in
22:39
Speaker 1: bats and um. I haven't seen any evidence that this
22:44
Speaker 1: was Look, there's some internet theories that this was manufactured
22:46
Speaker 1: and is like bio terrorism. You know. Look, I'm skeptical
22:50
Speaker 1: that the Chinese government would release a virus on their
22:54
Speaker 1: own people. We've seen tyrannical governments torture and murder their people,
22:58
Speaker 1: but doing it deliberately. I've seen no evidence of that.
23:05
Speaker 1: What strikes me as entirely plausible is that it was
23:08
Speaker 1: a screw up from one of the labs that that
23:11
Speaker 1: may have been studying this virus. As I said, we
23:14
Speaker 1: know they were studying coronaviruses from bats, and then the
23:17
Speaker 1: whole cover up was to hide their embarrassment, to hide there.
23:21
Speaker 1: And the reason that matters is if they hadn't covered
23:25
Speaker 1: it up, we could have gone in. We could have
23:27
Speaker 1: contained this outbreak maybe and found the people who were
23:30
Speaker 1: infected and isolated them and dug the contact tracing and
23:34
Speaker 1: potentially stopped this outbreak from becoming an epidemic and then
23:38
Speaker 1: a pandemic. That if you stop it at the origin,
23:42
Speaker 1: it is entirely possible that that that the death swirldwide
23:47
Speaker 1: and the trillions of dollars of economic destruction could have
23:51
Speaker 1: been covered up if the Chinese had it could have
23:53
Speaker 1: been stopped if the Chinese hadn't engaged in this cover up.
23:56
Speaker 1: All right, final question, this is maybe the most important
23:59
Speaker 1: one ball What are you eating on Easter? And who
24:03
Speaker 1: is doing the cooking? You know, it's funny. I don't know.
24:06
Speaker 1: So yesterday Heidi and I were taking our walk and
24:08
Speaker 1: and and and Heidi's was like, all right, what do
24:11
Speaker 1: we want to do for Eastern I'm like, well, what
24:12
Speaker 1: do you mean what do you want to do for
24:13
Speaker 1: Eastern She's like, well, we need to like do something
24:16
Speaker 1: for Eester. I'm like, did your family do like big
24:19
Speaker 1: Easter things? And like, I gotta admit my family like
24:22
Speaker 1: we would go to church, yeah, and then we just
24:24
Speaker 1: come home and hang out as a family. It was
24:25
Speaker 1: a Sunday. I mean, we didn't like it wasn't a
24:28
Speaker 1: put on the suit and tie. It was I mean
24:33
Speaker 1: it was not. And we had this big discussion because
24:36
Speaker 1: Heidi kept asking, we no know what do we want
24:38
Speaker 1: to do? And I'm like, what do you mean? Do
24:40
Speaker 1: like same thing we do? And she's like, all right,
24:42
Speaker 1: how about an Easter egg hunt. I'm like, okay, if
24:45
Speaker 1: we've done those for our girls. And I think Catherine,
24:47
Speaker 1: who's nine, she's more into it than Caroline, is probably
24:50
Speaker 1: a little too cool for an Easter egg hunt. But
24:52
Speaker 1: I'm like, sure, if you want to get some plastic
24:54
Speaker 1: eggs and put candy or money in them, put in
24:57
Speaker 1: the backyard, we can do that. But um, so, I
25:00
Speaker 1: don't know what we're gonna eat, that's the short answer.
25:02
Speaker 1: Will probably Heidi and I are terrible cooks, yeah, although
25:05
Speaker 1: Caroline has begun cooking at home, so we haven't figured
25:08
Speaker 1: it out. As the short answer, I think we'll do
25:10
Speaker 1: a nicer, nicer meal than just cold pizza, right, But
25:16
Speaker 1: but I don't know what it'll be, and maybe we'll
25:19
Speaker 1: order out. It's literally Heidi is pressing me, saying we
25:22
Speaker 1: need to have a big sort of Easter meal. You know,
25:25
Speaker 1: most Easters I would have done, like gone to church,
25:28
Speaker 1: and then like gone and taking my mom out to
25:30
Speaker 1: dinner or something and done like a brunch at a restaurant.
25:33
Speaker 1: So we're obviously not going to do that. You can
25:36
Speaker 1: always have the mimosas, but you got to do it
25:38
Speaker 1: at home. You know. It's funny because I think what
25:40
Speaker 1: most people are gonna do is more like what you
25:42
Speaker 1: did growing up, which is it'll be the first Easter
25:44
Speaker 1: in the pajamas, and frankly, that doesn't sound so bad.
25:47
Speaker 1: A nice time to spend with family, obviously, Senator, Happy
25:50
Speaker 1: Easter to you, and happy Easter to everybody else who
25:54
Speaker 1: is listening. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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