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Live at the RNC · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: We have just wrapped up the Republican National Convention, and
0:05
Speaker 1: I have to tell you it is really refreshing to
0:07
Speaker 1: see American flags that are not on fire after the
0:11
Speaker 1: past several weeks and months. Nice to see a little
0:14
Speaker 1: bit of patriotism. I don't think there could have been
0:16
Speaker 1: a starker contrast between the two parties as we head
0:20
Speaker 1: into November, and we will get into all of it
0:23
Speaker 1: with someone who knows all of the players, set knows
0:26
Speaker 1: all of the issues, and is deeply involved in everything
0:30
Speaker 1: that we're looking forward to, not just in November, but
0:33
Speaker 1: moving forward afterward. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome
0:42
Speaker 1: back to Verdict. I'm Michael Noles. Is a very special episode.
0:46
Speaker 1: We simply could not wait to get this stream out tonight,
0:50
Speaker 1: so this one is going alive. It occurred to us
0:53
Speaker 1: with everything that's going on, we hadn't even been able
0:56
Speaker 1: to cover the DNC, and obviously the RNC took place. Senator,
1:01
Speaker 1: I have to tell you that I accidentally spread fake
1:03
Speaker 1: news earlier today. I told people on our previous stream
1:07
Speaker 1: when I was on Daily Wire, I said that you
1:10
Speaker 1: were in Washington right now, but your schedule is so
1:13
Speaker 1: hectic that turns out you're not even in Washington. Well,
1:17
Speaker 1: that's true. I'm in the great state of Texas, although
1:19
Speaker 1: when I woke up this morning, I didn't know where
1:22
Speaker 1: for sure I would be. You know, we obviously had
1:25
Speaker 1: a hurricane late last night that made landfall right at
1:29
Speaker 1: the Texas Louisiana border, and so I had been planning
1:33
Speaker 1: this morning to fly up to Washington and be at
1:36
Speaker 1: the White House for the President's acceptance speech. But we
1:39
Speaker 1: were obviously monitoring the hurricane closely, and so I got
1:43
Speaker 1: up this morning about six am and talked to my team.
1:46
Speaker 1: The hurricane had made landfall late last night, and we
1:50
Speaker 1: were assessing where the damage was, and we made the decision,
1:53
Speaker 1: which which frankly I thought was pretty likely. But we
1:56
Speaker 1: made the decision that I needed to go and survey
1:58
Speaker 1: the damage and meet with the local officials. And so
2:02
Speaker 1: went down, went down and jumped on a on a
2:06
Speaker 1: Coastguard helicopter UH and flew to East Texas, flew to Orange, Texas,
2:11
Speaker 1: which is right near the border with Louisiana, and then
2:15
Speaker 1: went up and did a tour of the areas that
2:19
Speaker 1: were impacted by the hurricane. And UH, you know, I
2:22
Speaker 1: gotta say Texas. At least we were blessed. We were
2:26
Speaker 1: really spared what could have been much, much, much worse.
2:30
Speaker 1: At about two or three in the morning last night,
2:33
Speaker 1: the hurricane shifted course and moved east about thirty miles
2:38
Speaker 1: and it ended up hitting Louisiana much much worse. But
2:42
Speaker 1: but it had the effect also sparing much of Texas,
2:46
Speaker 1: and so there was some wind damage in far East Texas,
2:51
Speaker 1: there was some flooding, but it was really Louisiana that
2:54
Speaker 1: that took the braun of the hit. And and I
2:57
Speaker 1: have to say, having been through multiple hurricanes, including obviously
3:01
Speaker 1: Hurricane Harvey, which was the most devastating certainly of my lifetime,
3:07
Speaker 1: I think everyone was grateful that this was not nearly
3:10
Speaker 1: as bad as it could have been. I'm so pleased
3:13
Speaker 1: to hear it, because obviously we've all been, you know,
3:17
Speaker 1: focused on national politics and this issue and that issue
3:20
Speaker 1: and these rioters, and that you forget that a natural
3:23
Speaker 1: disaster can strike and kind of puts puts everything on pause.
3:26
Speaker 1: So it's I'm you certainly did the right thing by
3:29
Speaker 1: going down surveying the damage, even even if it might
3:31
Speaker 1: have been more fun to be at the Republican Party
3:34
Speaker 1: in DC. But but you were able to watch some
3:36
Speaker 1: of the convention, so I was, and and it did
3:39
Speaker 1: lead lead to right now, we're revisiting what was really
3:43
Speaker 1: the birth of Verdict, which is we're doing an episode
3:46
Speaker 1: at at at nearly midnight, you know, for the same
3:50
Speaker 1: reason because all of Washington was going late late into
3:54
Speaker 1: the night and the President just finished his speech not
3:57
Speaker 1: long ago, and I jumped in the car and drove
3:59
Speaker 1: over to the studio and now we're live. And I
4:01
Speaker 1: have to say, this is something that maybe people don't
4:04
Speaker 1: know about you, but I have seen it up close
4:06
Speaker 1: many times. You're nocturnal, you never sleep. You seem to
4:11
Speaker 1: have more energy at two in the morning than you
4:13
Speaker 1: do it two in the afternoon. I am a night
4:16
Speaker 1: owl and I hate mornings. Like if I ever had
4:19
Speaker 1: to do a morning show, I think it killed me. Yeah,
4:22
Speaker 1: but but but you know, a midnight show i'd be
4:25
Speaker 1: I'd be all on board with that. Yeah, that's maybe.
4:28
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll just set it there all the time. I
4:30
Speaker 1: don't know how happy my wife would be about that,
4:31
Speaker 1: but that's okay. If we'll do it, we'll do it
4:33
Speaker 1: for the show. Actually, speaking of that, speaking the origins
4:36
Speaker 1: of Verdict, Our first question in from Laurel is a
4:39
Speaker 1: simple question, but I think a lot of people maybe
4:41
Speaker 1: don't know the answer. What is a verdict? So um?
4:48
Speaker 1: A verdict in in legal sense obviously is the judgment
4:54
Speaker 1: of the court and and and it's the judgment of
4:57
Speaker 1: a jury, typically of guilt or in a sense, uh
5:01
Speaker 1: in a criminal case, or the judgment of whether the
5:04
Speaker 1: plaintiff or defendant prevails in a civil case. And and
5:09
Speaker 1: it is well, don't know, I'm not going to intrude
5:11
Speaker 1: on you. I was going to say what it's from
5:13
Speaker 1: in the Latin. But but but let me not step
5:15
Speaker 1: on the great Michael Knowles is to tell so tell
5:17
Speaker 1: us what is it in the Latin mind? Well, in
5:19
Speaker 1: the Latin, since you bring it up, Senator, it means
5:22
Speaker 1: a true saying ver like for truth and dickt like dictum,
5:27
Speaker 1: you know, a saying. And so we try to obviously
5:30
Speaker 1: speak the truth on this show. And Senator, you know,
5:32
Speaker 1: in our in our absolutely populoust appeal, every so often
5:36
Speaker 1: we have to get into Latin etymology. We have to
5:38
Speaker 1: cover everything everything on the Yeah, yeah, so uh you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: as you know right now, if if you are watching
5:48
Speaker 1: this on YouTube, send your questions in you put your
5:50
Speaker 1: questions into the live chat, we will of course answer
5:53
Speaker 1: them live. We've got another question. This is from Stephen,
5:58
Speaker 1: and I don't know that I know the answer or
6:00
Speaker 1: to this. How does an average citizen go about proposing
6:04
Speaker 1: legislation to their elected representatives? Um? Well, there are lots
6:11
Speaker 1: of avenues of communicating. What one can certainly do is
6:14
Speaker 1: call either your representative, or you can call your senator.
6:17
Speaker 1: You can go by and try to visit, uh with
6:20
Speaker 1: their staff to and typically either a representative senator will
6:25
Speaker 1: have staff both in DC and in the home district. Um.
6:29
Speaker 1: You can you can write something. You can write an
6:33
Speaker 1: op ed and suggest it. You find some way to
6:36
Speaker 1: come up with a good idea and uh, and you
6:39
Speaker 1: know I'll give an interesting example of that. So so look,
6:43
Speaker 1: we know actually how legislation gets proposed. You remember the
6:46
Speaker 1: schoolhouse rock. I'm just a bill, uh, you know, sitting
6:50
Speaker 1: on the steps of Capitol Hill. And I will not
6:53
Speaker 1: um injure anyone's ears by trying to sing it, because
6:57
Speaker 1: I can't carry a tune to save my life. But
7:01
Speaker 1: an interesting story of a bill that was proposed by
7:06
Speaker 1: some New Jersey high school students, and it somehow came
7:12
Speaker 1: to the attention and I don't remember exactly how of
7:16
Speaker 1: Alabama's Senator Doug Jones, a Democrat, and it was a
7:21
Speaker 1: bill to take the records from cold cases civil rights
7:26
Speaker 1: cases from the nineteen fifties or sixties, so a church bombing,
7:30
Speaker 1: a clan murder, or something, but a case that had
7:32
Speaker 1: never been solved. And the idea of the New Jersey
7:35
Speaker 1: High school students was to put these records, make them public,
7:39
Speaker 1: and let citizen journalist go try to solve the case.
7:43
Speaker 1: Fifty sixty seventy years later, and somehow Doug heard about this,
7:50
Speaker 1: and so he was giving a floor speech on the
7:53
Speaker 1: Senate floor as a brand new freshman. He was talking
7:55
Speaker 1: about that he'd introduced a bill to do this, that
7:57
Speaker 1: he'd heard that idea, he liked the idea, and I
8:00
Speaker 1: was presiding. And so the way it works in the
8:02
Speaker 1: Senate is the majority party gets to preside, and it
8:06
Speaker 1: typically rotates between the more junior senators, either first term
8:10
Speaker 1: or second term senators. You typically preside for maybe an
8:14
Speaker 1: hour a week. So I just happened. I was in
8:16
Speaker 1: the chair and Doug was standing there and he was
8:19
Speaker 1: talking about this idea, and I try to listen when
8:23
Speaker 1: people get floor speeches. By the way, a speech on
8:25
Speaker 1: the Senate floor usually as to an empty cavernous room
8:29
Speaker 1: and c span and no one's listening. But I listened
8:32
Speaker 1: to what Doug was saying, thought it was an interesting idea,
8:35
Speaker 1: and so I went down afterwards, said hey, let's do
8:37
Speaker 1: this together. We teamed up together, work together, and passed
8:40
Speaker 1: the bill into law. So it started with New Jersey
8:42
Speaker 1: high school students and it ended up being a good
8:45
Speaker 1: idea and getting passed into law. Well, so this is
8:49
Speaker 1: a hugely important aspect of it. And then I know
8:53
Speaker 1: some people have asked about the deep state, you know,
8:56
Speaker 1: or the administrative state, or the bureaucracy, which seems like
9:00
Speaker 1: makes a lot of laws for people, but they're they're
9:02
Speaker 1: not accountable. You can't call your senator, you can't call
9:04
Speaker 1: your congressman. And I know this is an issue you've
9:06
Speaker 1: talked about quite a lot. Well, yeah, I mean it's
9:09
Speaker 1: one of the massive problems of the administrative state, and
9:12
Speaker 1: for that matter, of judicial activism. Right, you have government
9:16
Speaker 1: officials that are completely unaccountable. Federal judges have life tenure,
9:21
Speaker 1: and so if they're if they're enacting policy, you don't
9:24
Speaker 1: have a constraint over them. Bureaucrats many of their views,
9:29
Speaker 1: as they will outlast every elected official. They're the permanent government,
9:33
Speaker 1: and whoever's coming and going is just sort of a
9:35
Speaker 1: temporary irritant. Yeah. And it's one of the great virtues
9:41
Speaker 1: of our constitution is accountability. And so I think it's
9:44
Speaker 1: really important to have as much decision making as possible
9:49
Speaker 1: in the elected parts of government. And also, I mean
9:54
Speaker 1: that's really separation of powers at the federal level, but
9:57
Speaker 1: also as much decision making and policies at the state
10:01
Speaker 1: or local level, because all of that increases accountability, it
10:05
Speaker 1: empowers the people. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Question and from Daniel,
10:10
Speaker 1: could you guys explain the Hatch Act? Uh, somewhat, although
10:16
Speaker 1: I'm not an expert, and it's the general principle on
10:19
Speaker 1: the Hatch Act is it restricts many, many federal employees
10:25
Speaker 1: from from engaging in politics. Yeah, and so there are
10:30
Speaker 1: some exceptions to it, some are allowed to do so,
10:32
Speaker 1: but as a general matter, the kind of run of mill,
10:35
Speaker 1: run of the mill federal employee, the Hatch Act bars
10:38
Speaker 1: them from engaging in politics because the idea behind it
10:42
Speaker 1: is they don't want to politicize our government. It also
10:47
Speaker 1: prohibits using official assets, So you know, I can't I
10:56
Speaker 1: can't do a political thing in my Senate office. I'm
11:00
Speaker 1: I'm not allowed to do that. That would be a violation.
11:03
Speaker 1: It's actually, I think, not technically the Hatch Act for Congress.
11:06
Speaker 1: It's the Senate Ethics rules, but it's the same principle. Yeah.
11:09
Speaker 1: And the reason everyone is asking is there's lots of
11:12
Speaker 1: chatter about the president's speech tonight on the White House
11:15
Speaker 1: and whether that violated the Hatch Act. Short answer for
11:18
Speaker 1: me is, I don't know. I haven't studied that question.
11:21
Speaker 1: The argument that it doesn't violate the Hatch Act. As
11:24
Speaker 1: I understand, it is their portions of the White House
11:27
Speaker 1: that are considered the president's residence that are separate from
11:32
Speaker 1: the official parts. So, as I understand the argument, he
11:34
Speaker 1: would not have been able to give that speech in
11:36
Speaker 1: the Oval office, but the South Lawn is essentially his residence.
11:41
Speaker 1: It's also COVID and so these are extraordinary times. But
11:46
Speaker 1: to be fair, I haven't studied the legal arguments on
11:49
Speaker 1: either side, so so I don't know who who has
11:51
Speaker 1: the better of that argument, right, And there was a
11:52
Speaker 1: moment during the President's speech where he said this is
11:56
Speaker 1: the White House, really though I think of it as
11:58
Speaker 1: a home, and perhaps that there was a nod at
12:02
Speaker 1: this controversy that Democrats are cooking up. A question from Meetsa.
12:06
Speaker 1: Nietsa says, Hello, I'm a young conservative and plan to
12:09
Speaker 1: open up a business later in my life. Then use
12:11
Speaker 1: that money to campaign for Congress. Wow, it's a full plan.
12:15
Speaker 1: So my question to Senator Cruz is what are your
12:18
Speaker 1: best campaign suggestions? Get involved in an issue you care
12:25
Speaker 1: about and fight for it rather than just run for
12:29
Speaker 1: office and have all these ideas. Go fight for something
12:33
Speaker 1: that matters and build a record, and so that when
12:35
Speaker 1: you do run, you can point to what you've done
12:38
Speaker 1: and you've said, Look, you want to know what I believe,
12:41
Speaker 1: look at what I've been fighting for. And so you
12:43
Speaker 1: can be engaged in whatever issue motivates you, get your
12:49
Speaker 1: get your blood boiling, go and build a record on that. Yeah, yep.
12:53
Speaker 1: From Paul, what is the deepest reason why the Democrats
12:57
Speaker 1: won't disavow Antifa or the rioters? What philosophical hang ups
13:02
Speaker 1: keep them from taking a stance against political violence? You know,
13:07
Speaker 1: I gotta say for Paul that that is a great question.
13:11
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. Um, you know, a couple
13:14
Speaker 1: of weeks ago I chared a hearing on Antifa violence
13:17
Speaker 1: and mob violence, and we heard really chilling testimony about
13:21
Speaker 1: all of the assaults, the assaults on police officers, the violence.
13:27
Speaker 1: Seven Democratic senators participated in that hearing, and not a
13:30
Speaker 1: one of them was willing to denounce Antifa, and and
13:34
Speaker 1: and there's it's interesting the Democrats. They have a message
13:38
Speaker 1: discipline to them. I mean, I mean, look, part of
13:40
Speaker 1: it is Democrats believe in government. They're collectivists, and so
13:44
Speaker 1: when they have orders, they follow orders. I mean, it's yes, comrade,
13:47
Speaker 1: And they all say the same damn thing. Um, you know,
13:50
Speaker 1: Republicans we can barely agree on what time of day
13:53
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, we bigger like crazy. And look,
13:56
Speaker 1: a little bit is that you've got some individualists. So
13:58
Speaker 1: you've got you know, any party that has Susan Collins
14:01
Speaker 1: and Ran Paul in it is a party with a
14:03
Speaker 1: lot of diversity because they and everyone else there's a
14:06
Speaker 1: lot of disagreement. So for whatever reason, at that hearing,
14:11
Speaker 1: it was clear the Democratic talking points had gone out
14:14
Speaker 1: that whenever Antifa or BLM violences is raised, simply attack
14:21
Speaker 1: and say it's right wing violence, that it's a problem.
14:23
Speaker 1: That was their talking point, and so they'd say, well,
14:26
Speaker 1: what about the clan, what about Nazis? And look, of
14:29
Speaker 1: course my response is the clan clan and Nazis are ignorant,
14:33
Speaker 1: bigoted racists and if they commit violence, we should lock
14:35
Speaker 1: them up in jail. Like I don't have a problem
14:37
Speaker 1: denouncing them hired, how about you? How about Antifa and crickets.
14:44
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it is fear that
14:47
Speaker 1: that you know right now the Democratic Party, it's driven
14:51
Speaker 1: by angry voices and maybe they're scared to take them on.
14:59
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it is in the
15:01
Speaker 1: Democratic Party. There's kind of a a glorifying of nineteen
15:07
Speaker 1: sixties protests, and you know, it's sort of part of
15:11
Speaker 1: the self narrative of a lot of Democrats as we're
15:15
Speaker 1: back at Berkeley and we're, you know, protesting against Vietnam.
15:19
Speaker 1: You know his famous story of Reagan when he was
15:22
Speaker 1: governor driving through Berkeley during protests and there were a
15:25
Speaker 1: bunch of hippies who were yelling and screaming in a protest,
15:28
Speaker 1: and that they that they either held up a sign
15:32
Speaker 1: or they chanted we are the future, and Reagan grabbed
15:35
Speaker 1: a pad of paper and he scrawled on it and
15:37
Speaker 1: held it up to the window and said, I'll sell
15:39
Speaker 1: my bonds. So maybe that's some of it that they
15:45
Speaker 1: identify with protesters. But I also think some of it
15:48
Speaker 1: is there's a woke identity politics that that particularly because
15:56
Speaker 1: much of this violence arose in the context of questions
16:00
Speaker 1: of racial justice. I think Democrats are terrified to say
16:07
Speaker 1: anything criticizing someone who they perceive as a racial justice warrior,
16:12
Speaker 1: even if they're committing horrific and organized acts of violence.
16:17
Speaker 1: So so I don't know what's driving it, but some
16:20
Speaker 1: combination of those factors I do know the end result,
16:24
Speaker 1: which is, you know, we went through a Democratic convention
16:26
Speaker 1: last week where we've got cities on fire, police officers
16:30
Speaker 1: being attacked, being murdered, and the Democrats are unable or
16:35
Speaker 1: unwilling to bring themselves to condemn it. Yeah, that's right,
16:38
Speaker 1: And I think you make a great point. It hadn't
16:40
Speaker 1: really occurred to me in all of this madness, but
16:43
Speaker 1: this glorification of the nineteen sixties protests and rioting and
16:48
Speaker 1: violence in some cases is still there even with these
16:51
Speaker 1: boomer Democrats who don't don't ever seem to have really
16:55
Speaker 1: left Berkeley. Maybe they did physically mental It's weird, Michael. Yeah,
16:59
Speaker 1: even though they glorify protesters, leftist today don't believe in
17:04
Speaker 1: free speech right right, It's a very weird. You know. Look,
17:10
Speaker 1: I'm passionate about free speech, and I believe you've got
17:13
Speaker 1: a right to advocate any view you want, no matter
17:16
Speaker 1: how idiotic. I look, I defend people who attack me
17:20
Speaker 1: because you've got a right to do it. What you
17:22
Speaker 1: don't have a right to do is violence. And what's
17:25
Speaker 1: strange about today's left is when it comes to someone
17:29
Speaker 1: speaking on college campus, or speaking in their job, or
17:32
Speaker 1: speaking anywhere else and saying some view that is inconsistent
17:36
Speaker 1: with their orthodoxy, they'll get you fired, they'll silence you.
17:39
Speaker 1: I mean, they're perfectly happy to stifle free speech. But
17:43
Speaker 1: when it comes to you know, there was a CNN
17:49
Speaker 1: still shot that was making the rounds on Twitter today
17:52
Speaker 1: of you know, building just totally in flames, and the
17:58
Speaker 1: chiron at the bottom was and I'm maybe getting this
18:01
Speaker 1: slightly wrong, what was something to the effect of, although fiery,
18:05
Speaker 1: largely peaceful protest and it's literally all on frigging fire
18:09
Speaker 1: like fire is not peaceful. This is not a complicated concept.
18:14
Speaker 1: If you light someone on fire, you're not being peaceable
18:18
Speaker 1: to them. And this didn't used to be a contribute
18:21
Speaker 1: virtual notion. This is also the second time the mainstream
18:24
Speaker 1: media have done this. We now have screenshots on MSNBC,
18:27
Speaker 1: n CNN of reporters standing in front of whole buildings
18:31
Speaker 1: on fire. And it's mostly peaceful. It's mostly ignore, there's
18:35
Speaker 1: nothing to see here, pay no attention to the man
18:37
Speaker 1: behind the curtain. Just for the sake of argument, let
18:39
Speaker 1: me ask you the phrase burn it all down? Is
18:43
Speaker 1: that ever a peaceful notion? Like like, why does one
18:46
Speaker 1: burn things down? And it's look, we just see CNN
18:51
Speaker 1: as a propagandist. We see much of the mainstream media
18:53
Speaker 1: as propagandists right now, right, that's right? And you know,
18:57
Speaker 1: speaking of burning, I mean, I think the Democrats are
18:58
Speaker 1: caught in this issue, which is that they've encouraged the protests.
19:02
Speaker 1: They've encouraged the riots in some cases, and when you
19:05
Speaker 1: play with fire, you might get burned. And I think
19:08
Speaker 1: they're seeing that probably in the polling. Speaking of polling,
19:11
Speaker 1: a dean wants to know this is an important issue.
19:14
Speaker 1: It keeps coming up as people talk about the election.
19:17
Speaker 1: How does the GOP win over more suburban women voters. Look,
19:24
Speaker 1: it's a great question. We've talked a lot on Verdict
19:27
Speaker 1: about what I think are the two broadest demographic trends
19:30
Speaker 1: in the US politically, which is number one, blue collar
19:35
Speaker 1: voters moving right, that's moving Midwestern states more Republican yea.
19:39
Speaker 1: And number two, suburban voters, especially suburban women, moving left.
19:44
Speaker 1: That's moving big suburban states like Georgia, like Texas, like
19:48
Speaker 1: Arizona are all getting more purple. You know, it's interesting.
19:51
Speaker 1: I think there's a very real possibility this week and
19:54
Speaker 1: last week we may look back on them as a
19:57
Speaker 1: real turning point in this campaign. And I don't mean
20:02
Speaker 1: it for the traditional reason. Look, we kind of expect
20:06
Speaker 1: conventions to have a bounce. I mean that's sort of traditionally.
20:09
Speaker 1: One side has their convention, they get a bounce, their
20:11
Speaker 1: numbers go up in the polls. The other side has
20:13
Speaker 1: their convention, they get to bounce, their numbers go up
20:15
Speaker 1: in the polls. I actually not focused on the conventions
20:17
Speaker 1: as much, although I think the Democratic Convention was was
20:20
Speaker 1: very ineffective last week, and I think the Republicans did
20:23
Speaker 1: a very good job with our convention this week. But
20:26
Speaker 1: but I actually think it was a broader turning point
20:29
Speaker 1: the violence we saw in places like Kenosha. And I
20:36
Speaker 1: think as we've seen this violence continue, not just in
20:41
Speaker 1: the immediate aftermath of George Floyd's death, but continuing week
20:45
Speaker 1: after week after week, I do think there are a
20:50
Speaker 1: lot of folks who may not even be all that political,
20:54
Speaker 1: who are seeing this and understandably saying this. This is
20:58
Speaker 1: a little scary, you know. I know you've seen and
21:02
Speaker 1: our viewers are really engaged. So I suspect a lot
21:04
Speaker 1: of our viewers. I've seen the video of these angry
21:08
Speaker 1: leftist mobs screaming at people having dinner. You know, there's
21:14
Speaker 1: one of this woman having dinner and they're demanding put
21:17
Speaker 1: your fist in the air for black power. And it's
21:22
Speaker 1: I mean, it's screaming angry. If you don't salute what
21:26
Speaker 1: we demand, we're gonna berate you. And there's a real
21:30
Speaker 1: threat of or worse, there's a I mean, the threat
21:34
Speaker 1: of violence is in the air. And and I do
21:38
Speaker 1: think and you know why I think it may be
21:41
Speaker 1: something of a turning point is we're suddenly seeing Democrats
21:45
Speaker 1: react like they touched a hot stove. They're suddenly realized,
21:49
Speaker 1: oh crap, people don't like it when their cities are
21:52
Speaker 1: on fire and like people are threatening violence to them.
21:54
Speaker 1: And it's it's been even the past couple of days
21:58
Speaker 1: where it seems like we may have reached a little
22:00
Speaker 1: bit of a tipping point on this. We'll see if
22:02
Speaker 1: we have, but but I do think the angry radicals
22:11
Speaker 1: are getting more and more extreme, and I feel confident
22:17
Speaker 1: the Joe Biden campaign is sitting there right now saying,
22:20
Speaker 1: what the hell do we do about this? This is dangerous?
22:22
Speaker 1: That's right, and you know it's it's good in some
22:25
Speaker 1: ways to make wonkish arguments about tax rates or trade
22:29
Speaker 1: policy or or what have you. There is a place
22:32
Speaker 1: for that. When the country's on fire, That's not what
22:35
Speaker 1: people are thinking about. They're thinking about who's burning down
22:37
Speaker 1: the country, who's trying to put water on those fires,
22:40
Speaker 1: Who you know, wants to tear down George Washington, and
22:43
Speaker 1: who wants to look forward to an American future that
22:46
Speaker 1: resonates with people, even if even if you don't have
22:48
Speaker 1: your nose in white papers from think tanks and that
22:51
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Question from people want to be prosperous
22:55
Speaker 1: but but but even more fundamentally, people want to be safe. Yes, yes, yeah,
23:00
Speaker 1: you know, And I do think that the basic contrast
23:07
Speaker 1: between the two conventions on the Republican side the kind
23:11
Speaker 1: of core messages will keep you safe and we're gonna
23:14
Speaker 1: fight for you to have a job, and the Democratic
23:17
Speaker 1: side not promising to keep anyone safe. And on the economy,
23:22
Speaker 1: they don't really have a message either other than we
23:25
Speaker 1: hate Trump. Yeah, and so we're going to raise taxes
23:27
Speaker 1: that have massive regulations. But trust us, it'll be great
23:30
Speaker 1: for the economy. And you know, I think a lot
23:34
Speaker 1: of people are pretty pretty smart and realize, well, that
23:37
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like it's great for the economy. Yeah, yeah,
23:39
Speaker 1: that's right. And when you have when you have Democrats,
23:42
Speaker 1: you know, led by the future of the Democratic Party.
23:45
Speaker 1: As a DNC chairman, Tom Perez Cooll's AOC talking about
23:48
Speaker 1: the Green New Deal, this ninety three trillion dollar plan
23:51
Speaker 1: by by some estimates, I don't think people look at
23:54
Speaker 1: that and say this is going to lead to prosperity.
23:57
Speaker 1: Now on this so let me actually dis agree with
24:01
Speaker 1: Paris on one thing. I don't think she's the future
24:03
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party. I think she's the president. You know.
24:08
Speaker 1: A couple of weeks ago, I was up in Alaska,
24:10
Speaker 1: which by the way, was very cool, and Heidie and
24:13
Speaker 1: I and the girls went up there and I went
24:15
Speaker 1: up there to campaign for Dan Sullivan, who is the
24:17
Speaker 1: Senator from there. He's a good friend and he's up
24:19
Speaker 1: for re election and I was campaigning for him, and
24:23
Speaker 1: one of it, we did several events for Dan. And
24:25
Speaker 1: one of the things I said at each of the events,
24:27
Speaker 1: as I said, you may not realize it, but AOC
24:31
Speaker 1: is on the ballot in Alaska. And I mean people
24:34
Speaker 1: are really kind of puzzled and startled. What do you
24:36
Speaker 1: mean she's on the ballot in Alaska? I said, Listen,
24:39
Speaker 1: if if this is a bad election, if if Democrats win,
24:44
Speaker 1: and if they take the Senate, and that's a real possibility,
24:49
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer will be majority leader. But as a practical matter,
24:52
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer has seen all of these Democrats being primaried
24:55
Speaker 1: from the left and losing. And Schumer is up in
25:00
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, and if he becomes a majority leader,
25:04
Speaker 1: he is going to be utterly terrified of being primaried
25:07
Speaker 1: by AOC. And for all intents and purposes, that will
25:12
Speaker 1: make AOC effectively the Senate majority leader, because whatever she demands,
25:18
Speaker 1: he's going to be so scared of that primary challenge
25:21
Speaker 1: that I think he'd be more than happy to jump
25:22
Speaker 1: to her tune. And it was kind of an interesting
25:25
Speaker 1: point for Alaskans to think about it, and and I was saying, look,
25:27
Speaker 1: Alaska is a great bellweather where if Sullivan loses, and
25:31
Speaker 1: and Alaska's has elected both Democrats and Republicans, it's a
25:34
Speaker 1: state that has shown it can vote either way. If
25:37
Speaker 1: Alaska loses, and their number states for which this is true,
25:42
Speaker 1: there's a real possibility Schumer's majority leader and AOC is
25:46
Speaker 1: driving the train and setting the agenda in the Democratic
25:50
Speaker 1: Party today, not tomorrow in the future. You know, as
25:53
Speaker 1: a native New Yorker, I'm not even an Alaskan, I
25:56
Speaker 1: have no excuse that hadn't occurred to me. But there
25:59
Speaker 1: has been chattered that AOC could primary Chuck Schumer, and
26:03
Speaker 1: you're right. Effectively, what that means is AOC is going
26:06
Speaker 1: to be calling the shots even more than she already is,
26:08
Speaker 1: and she obviously is already wielding a lot of influence.
26:11
Speaker 1: And Schumer's a political being which means like his only
26:15
Speaker 1: objective will be to stop that, and and so just
26:19
Speaker 1: as a practical matter, that means he's going to be terrified.
26:22
Speaker 1: He does not want to let her outflank him to
26:26
Speaker 1: the left in any respect. You know, minority leader, that's
26:28
Speaker 1: much less of a problem. But if he actually controls
26:30
Speaker 1: a Senate majority, yeah, that's that could be very dangerous.
26:35
Speaker 1: They do have a saying in New York. I think,
26:37
Speaker 1: even still with the riots and all the mayhem, that
26:40
Speaker 1: the most dangerous place in the state of New York
26:42
Speaker 1: is between Chuck Schumer and a television camera. So I
26:45
Speaker 1: think that is the issue. I have heard that although
26:48
Speaker 1: I will confess a affinity for TV cameras is not
26:54
Speaker 1: a unique sin in Washington among Chuck Schumer. That's I
27:00
Speaker 1: can imagine. It's a maybe an occupational hazard down there.
27:04
Speaker 1: A question from Matt, Hey, guys, love your work. How
27:08
Speaker 1: do we know that the right is correct and that
27:12
Speaker 1: true political reality doesn't lie somewhere in the middle of
27:16
Speaker 1: the political scale. I guess what Matt's asking is. You know,
27:18
Speaker 1: as you senator, you're probably one of the most conservative
27:21
Speaker 1: guys in all of Washington, DC. Why should we be
27:25
Speaker 1: strong conservatives? And not squishes. Well, look, I would say,
27:31
Speaker 1: don't don't accept my word for it. Don't accept it
27:33
Speaker 1: on faith test the propositions. Read both sides, study both sides,
27:40
Speaker 1: you know, spend time listening to what the left says,
27:43
Speaker 1: listening look to the right says, and even you know,
27:45
Speaker 1: how do we know the right is correct? One of
27:47
Speaker 1: the things, And we talked about this before, there's a
27:50
Speaker 1: lot of diversity on the right in terms of what
27:52
Speaker 1: is even whether you're you know, a paleo conservative, a
27:56
Speaker 1: neo conservative, a libertarian, half these things. I mean, I
28:00
Speaker 1: barely know what they mean. But there are sharp differences
28:06
Speaker 1: of opinion when it comes to foreign policy within the
28:09
Speaker 1: whole world on the right, when it comes to the
28:13
Speaker 1: role of government within the whole world on the right.
28:16
Speaker 1: What I would say is take the time to think
28:21
Speaker 1: through and analyze the issues one side. The left though
28:27
Speaker 1: right now, doesn't want you to do that. The fact
28:31
Speaker 1: that they're willing to use coersion to silence views that
28:35
Speaker 1: contradict Look, I mean, you know, you look at college
28:38
Speaker 1: campuses where they won't allow conservative speakers to come. When
28:42
Speaker 1: I was in school, when I was in law school
28:46
Speaker 1: at Harvard, there were more openly Marxist professors on the
28:50
Speaker 1: faculty than there were Republicans. Yeah, and it wasn't even close.
28:54
Speaker 1: There was one open Republican on the faculty, Charles Freed,
28:59
Speaker 1: who who worked in the Reagan administration as Solicitor General.
29:04
Speaker 1: M I worked as a research assistant for him. And
29:07
Speaker 1: by the way, Charles Freed, who at the time was
29:09
Speaker 1: the loan Republican on the faculty, voted for Barack Obama,
29:12
Speaker 1: so that he ended up even he ended up voting democratic. Wow,
29:18
Speaker 1: there were and are multiple open Marxist and you know,
29:25
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. One one person who listens to our podcast, Michael,
29:30
Speaker 1: is Heidi. And look, you and I are both married.
29:34
Speaker 1: The fact that my wife actually listens to what we
29:36
Speaker 1: say a is complimentary. But but I'll tell you she
29:40
Speaker 1: kind of chewed us out recently and said, you guys
29:42
Speaker 1: are getting too dogmatic and preaching to the choir too much.
29:46
Speaker 1: And and and the reason she listens to it is
29:50
Speaker 1: she says, listen, I'm really busy. And what she said,
29:55
Speaker 1: and it's the same thing we've heard a lot on
29:56
Speaker 1: this show, is she says, I learned things from the show,
30:00
Speaker 1: spend a little more time. And she actually brought up like,
30:03
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about several of the organizers of
30:09
Speaker 1: BLM or avowed Marxist. She said, a lot of people
30:11
Speaker 1: don't know what Marxist are. And it reminds me we
30:16
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time early in impeachment kind of
30:19
Speaker 1: tapping the brakes and saying, Okay, what is this, what
30:21
Speaker 1: does this mean? And look, Marxism is a philosophy. It
30:25
Speaker 1: was propagated by Karl Marx. Obviously it's the foundation of communism,
30:31
Speaker 1: but but it it advocates it. It it views history
30:35
Speaker 1: through a lens of class warfare. Yeah, and a battle
30:39
Speaker 1: of the proletariat versus the bourgeoisie, the working people versus
30:45
Speaker 1: the property owners, and and it calls for a revolution.
30:52
Speaker 1: Marxism it's an approach to history, it's an approach to government.
30:57
Speaker 1: But and it advocates socialism as its economic system. So
31:01
Speaker 1: socialism is just the economic arm of Marxism. It's but
31:07
Speaker 1: Marxism also consistently says we need actually phrase I think
31:13
Speaker 1: it was. Lennon used a dictatorship of the proletariat, which
31:16
Speaker 1: is inevitably to get to Marxism, you have to have
31:21
Speaker 1: a totalitarian government come in and take the property from
31:24
Speaker 1: the people who have it. And what happens every single
31:27
Speaker 1: time is the Marxist who have power live like kings,
31:32
Speaker 1: and everyone else lives in misery. And so when someone
31:35
Speaker 1: is a Marxist, they are advocating for the principles reflected
31:39
Speaker 1: in the Communist Manifesto that Karl Marx wrote that that
31:43
Speaker 1: advocated for Marxism anyway. So I give, I'm not going
31:49
Speaker 1: to necessarily tell you the right is always correct on everything.
31:54
Speaker 1: What I am going to say is that I believe,
31:57
Speaker 1: if you look at the evidence, free enterprises more successful
32:01
Speaker 1: than socialism in terms of lifting people's economic welfare, combating poverty,
32:08
Speaker 1: producing prosperity. And I also believe that our constitutional liberties
32:14
Speaker 1: are important, and that includes the pluralism and diversity of
32:22
Speaker 1: thought that free speech and religious liberty and all the
32:25
Speaker 1: rest allows that that that if you don't agree, go
32:29
Speaker 1: make your case and convince your fellow citizens that's right,
32:32
Speaker 1: and look at the evidence. You know, as you say
32:34
Speaker 1: in these socialists never seem to get to that Marxism
32:37
Speaker 1: where everybody's free and equal. I was reminded of an
32:41
Speaker 1: expression I once heard someone asked the difference between socialism
32:44
Speaker 1: and communism and they said, well, Christians go to heaven
32:49
Speaker 1: and socialists go to communism, and the problem is you
32:52
Speaker 1: don't get heaven on earth, so it never never seems
32:54
Speaker 1: to materialize. I do also want to get I give
32:57
Speaker 1: a simpler answer, which is the differences in AK forty evan.
33:01
Speaker 1: It's more visual socialisms the economic system. But but inevitably
33:05
Speaker 1: it gets enforced in communism with brute force and oppression.
33:11
Speaker 1: I also want to remind all of our viewers right now,
33:14
Speaker 1: we have a lot of viewers right now live to
33:17
Speaker 1: click that subscribe button, ring the bell. We really appreciate it.
33:20
Speaker 1: That way you will get notifications so long as big
33:23
Speaker 1: tech does not shut us down, which I'm sure is
33:25
Speaker 1: always a possibility. You can also head over to Apple
33:28
Speaker 1: Podcasts and if you would like, if you were so
33:30
Speaker 1: inclined to leave a five star review, we would really
33:32
Speaker 1: appreciate that helps us get over a little bit of
33:35
Speaker 1: the hurdle that is sometimes imposed on non leftist outlets
33:40
Speaker 1: out there. We're also on Google Play, Stitcher, probably my Space,
33:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. We're just all over the place on
33:46
Speaker 1: the internet. For now, we really appreciate it. We've got
33:49
Speaker 1: a lot of views at this point you know, the
33:52
Speaker 1: show hit number one unexpectedly in the first couple of
33:55
Speaker 1: weeks of it, and we just appreciate all of our listeners.
33:57
Speaker 1: Sticking around question from Venray Law, somebody tells me that's
34:03
Speaker 1: not the name that your parents gave you, ven Ray,
34:06
Speaker 1: but I like it anyway. Hey, Senator, why do you
34:09
Speaker 1: think it took tonight's speech to mention David Dorne on
34:13
Speaker 1: the mainstream media despite the mainstream media's support for black
34:17
Speaker 1: Lives matter, Because the media are hypocrites and they're pitching
34:23
Speaker 1: an ideological message. And Dorn's speech was incredible, yeah and powerful.
34:30
Speaker 1: So and Dorn is the widow of David Dorn, a
34:34
Speaker 1: retired Saint Louis police officer who was murdered in the riots,
34:40
Speaker 1: and he is African American. And when when you have
34:45
Speaker 1: people screaming black lives matter, apparently David Dorn's is not
34:50
Speaker 1: included because because he was murdered in the violence by
34:54
Speaker 1: the rioters and and his wife her speech. It's one
34:58
Speaker 1: of the things I think the RNC better than the DNC,
35:01
Speaker 1: as it told real stories. I'm actually glad they had
35:04
Speaker 1: a lot fewer politicians on the RNC. Yeah, um, I
35:07
Speaker 1: I you know, I think listening uh to to an
35:14
Speaker 1: An Dorn or Clarence Henderson or or or the stories
35:17
Speaker 1: that were told were really powerful. And and and her
35:21
Speaker 1: story now she's a police sergeant as well, and and
35:26
Speaker 1: she told the story of of of waking up and
35:30
Speaker 1: finding out he'd been murdered, that he'd gone he was
35:32
Speaker 1: he was retired and was working security to pawn shop
35:35
Speaker 1: and the alarm went off and he went went went
35:37
Speaker 1: to the pawn shop and was was murdered by the
35:41
Speaker 1: rioters and looters. And in any sane conversation, we ought
35:50
Speaker 1: to be talking about the victims of this violence and
35:53
Speaker 1: and and and those that that uh have have been murdered.
35:59
Speaker 1: But but the media doesn't want you to know that.
36:01
Speaker 1: And it's part of it is we've talked about this before.
36:05
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has broken the media. Yeah, that's right. It
36:10
Speaker 1: you used to see the media. CNN is a great
36:12
Speaker 1: example where they try to be balanced. Um, they're not anymore.
36:18
Speaker 1: You know. It's interesting. I watched the President's speech tonight
36:21
Speaker 1: at home on CNN. I don't know why, but that
36:25
Speaker 1: just happened to be what I turned on. And did
36:28
Speaker 1: you did you watch it on CNN? Do you remember
36:30
Speaker 1: what network you watch, Well, no, Senator, I assume you
36:32
Speaker 1: must live in an airport if you were watching it
36:34
Speaker 1: on CNN. That's the only place I ever see CNN live. Now,
36:37
Speaker 1: I was actually watching it on c SPAN because we
36:39
Speaker 1: were doing the stream, but sometimes I will click on
36:42
Speaker 1: just to see the left wing commentary on it. So
36:45
Speaker 1: what was fascinating on CNN is when they were airing
36:48
Speaker 1: the president's speech. Um, when he got to talking about
36:53
Speaker 1: coronavirus and COVID nineteen, they put up at the bottom
36:57
Speaker 1: a chart of the number of cases of COVID nineteen
37:00
Speaker 1: in the US and the number of people who've died
37:02
Speaker 1: on COVID nineteen. And then they began doing a real
37:08
Speaker 1: time what I guess they were pitching is fact checking
37:11
Speaker 1: of the president's speech. And so it was denominated facts
37:15
Speaker 1: first and so. And they just did this during the
37:18
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen portion of the speech. I mean, he spoke
37:21
Speaker 1: seventy minutes and it was just during the you know
37:23
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, eight ten minutes that he
37:25
Speaker 1: was talking about about the pandemic. And so the first
37:29
Speaker 1: one said something like for months, you know, facts first,
37:32
Speaker 1: for months. The President dismissed the seriousness of this crisis.
37:36
Speaker 1: So the first one was really tendentious. It was political,
37:40
Speaker 1: it was and I don't remember that. The second one
37:45
Speaker 1: was equally political, and so like the first, I almost
37:48
Speaker 1: turned it off. It was really ticking me off, Like
37:51
Speaker 1: have you ever seen a network covering either political party's
37:57
Speaker 1: nominee putting at the bottom what they call fact checking,
38:02
Speaker 1: disputing what he said? Like it was really like, who
38:07
Speaker 1: in the hell do they think they are? Like you're
38:09
Speaker 1: literally listening to the nominee's speech and they're gonna put
38:12
Speaker 1: under him. But you know, it was fascinating. So that's
38:18
Speaker 1: in part an answer to why they don't want to
38:21
Speaker 1: say the name of David Dorne. They don't like telling
38:24
Speaker 1: that story. They don't like telling the story of the
38:26
Speaker 1: other officers assaulted, attacked, and murdered. But an interesting flip side,
38:31
Speaker 1: they did include one. I guess you'd call it a
38:35
Speaker 1: pro Trump fact fact check, and I guess somebody felt like, okay,
38:39
Speaker 1: we can't only put fact checks saying we disagree with
38:42
Speaker 1: the president, And the pro Trump one they put up
38:45
Speaker 1: was fascinating. It was when the President was talking about
38:49
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's going to shut down the entire economy, and
38:53
Speaker 1: they said facts. First, Joe Biden said he would shut
38:57
Speaker 1: down the United States if scientists recommended it to him,
39:01
Speaker 1: and I got to say that fact check. I don't
39:03
Speaker 1: think CNN realizes how devastating that fact check. And it's true,
39:11
Speaker 1: but but you rarely get journalist acknowledging things that are true.
39:14
Speaker 1: I mean, Biden did say that, yeah, but I think
39:17
Speaker 1: that is an absolutely devastating emission that, yes, Joe Biden
39:22
Speaker 1: wants to shut down the entire economy and take away
39:24
Speaker 1: your job. And they're like, yep, that's what he said.
39:27
Speaker 1: And so it was an interesting I don't know how
39:29
Speaker 1: that slipped through. I'm wondering if some CNN intern got
39:32
Speaker 1: fired for it maybe, but but but somehow they put
39:35
Speaker 1: it up on air. That is amazing, Although I do
39:38
Speaker 1: wonder if it was just so obvious it was undeniable.
39:42
Speaker 1: The man said it himself, and so they have to
39:44
Speaker 1: get that out there. But but just the whole idea
39:47
Speaker 1: of the fact check, which is very rarely factual. It's
39:51
Speaker 1: always just based in political opinion. You know, the left
39:54
Speaker 1: always points to Fox, which which as far as I
39:58
Speaker 1: can tell, has left wing voices on it, much more
40:00
Speaker 1: balanced than c ann or MSNBC, even though it certainly
40:04
Speaker 1: tilts right. Word, but you wouldn't ever see Fox having
40:08
Speaker 1: a running chiron just contradicting a candidate of either party. Yeah,
40:13
Speaker 1: and look, I think there are reasonable criticisms one can
40:17
Speaker 1: make a Fox. You know, earlier the question was given,
40:21
Speaker 1: how do we know the right is right? I certainly
40:24
Speaker 1: would not advise someone go listen to Fox News and
40:26
Speaker 1: whatever they say, believe it. Certainly, go educate yourself. Go
40:31
Speaker 1: read on the other side. You know, I try to.
40:34
Speaker 1: I try to. Unfortunately, at anything resembling objective journalism is
40:40
Speaker 1: almost disappeared, and so you have to view things almost
40:44
Speaker 1: through the lens of all right, let's get partisans on
40:46
Speaker 1: both sides. So for years I used to read every day.
40:50
Speaker 1: I would read the Washington Post on politics and I'd
40:53
Speaker 1: read National Review, and the two side by side would
40:57
Speaker 1: give you some modoc of that. Sorry for like a
41:02
Speaker 1: daily wire is a great place to do so. I
41:04
Speaker 1: don't mean to be pitching competitors, but but you know,
41:08
Speaker 1: read folks on both sides, and to be honest, the
41:10
Speaker 1: truth is usually somewhere in the middle that people are
41:13
Speaker 1: pitching something, but getting educated on both sides helps then
41:20
Speaker 1: to assess what's right and what isn't. No, that's right,
41:22
Speaker 1: And of course, I mean, of course the Daily Wire
41:24
Speaker 1: is the one news source in all of history that
41:26
Speaker 1: is perfectly balanced. Give you. I'm joking. I would get
41:29
Speaker 1: this question off and they'd say, how do I get
41:31
Speaker 1: an objective perspective? And I said, forget about that idea.
41:34
Speaker 1: Just read both. You want to read the Daily Wire,
41:36
Speaker 1: it's good, and then go read I don't know, the
41:38
Speaker 1: Huffington Post or Box or something and figure out where
41:41
Speaker 1: their truth lies. Have I ever told you my idea
41:44
Speaker 1: for running a newspaper. I don't think so. So I've
41:48
Speaker 1: thought about this for a long time. Like if I
41:50
Speaker 1: woke up one day and they made me the editor
41:54
Speaker 1: of the New York Times, and you know, they just
41:55
Speaker 1: fired the New York Times, So here's the job on
41:58
Speaker 1: me soon. Yeah, but but actually they fired the editorial
42:01
Speaker 1: page editor in the New York Times. More on the
42:03
Speaker 1: news side, I think, oh if I was if I
42:07
Speaker 1: was editor of either, I think what I would do is,
42:09
Speaker 1: rather than purport to be objective, I would consciously try
42:15
Speaker 1: to frame a dialectic. I'd consciously try to frame and say,
42:19
Speaker 1: you know what, we're going to have conservative voices and
42:21
Speaker 1: liberal voices, so on our ed pages they're going to
42:24
Speaker 1: battle it out, and you're gonna get to listen to both.
42:26
Speaker 1: And by the actually the Post used to do that.
42:28
Speaker 1: They used to have some pretty good conservatives, and they
42:31
Speaker 1: still do it more than The Times does. But but
42:34
Speaker 1: instead I would just embrace the dialectic and say, you'll
42:37
Speaker 1: be smarter and more informed if you listen to smart
42:40
Speaker 1: conservatives and smart liberals and assess it. And here's the piece.
42:43
Speaker 1: On the news media side, I'd do the same thing
42:48
Speaker 1: on news stories. And where a lot of the bias
42:50
Speaker 1: of journalism comes in is what stories get green lit,
42:54
Speaker 1: what gets decided this is news and this isn't so. Frankly,
42:58
Speaker 1: if if I owned a newspaper, if I was the
43:02
Speaker 1: editor of a newspaper, I'd probably have a conservative news
43:05
Speaker 1: editor and a liberal news editor, both with the authority
43:08
Speaker 1: to green light stories. And I'd allow some of that
43:11
Speaker 1: same dialectic and have real conservatives and liberals, so they would,
43:17
Speaker 1: you know, and you would get hopefully in that clash,
43:22
Speaker 1: you'd get somewhere closer to truth. That's a great idea,
43:25
Speaker 1: and it's funny you mentioned that The Washington Post used
43:27
Speaker 1: to be a little more balanced. Back when it was
43:30
Speaker 1: I would read the Washington Post certainly much more than
43:32
Speaker 1: I do now. It's a great idea, but certainly no
43:35
Speaker 1: one in the mainstream media is going to take that advice.
43:37
Speaker 1: It's too good, it's too insightful. Oh now, Michael, let
43:41
Speaker 1: me let me do something that will surprise you. And
43:43
Speaker 1: and this is connected to the last two questions we've gotten. Yeah,
43:46
Speaker 1: I'm going to defend the owner of the Washington Post
43:49
Speaker 1: and defend big tech, which is excuse me, sir, where
43:53
Speaker 1: have you put Senator Cruz. We gotta get the Senator
43:55
Speaker 1: crews back here. I don't know if you saw, like
43:58
Speaker 1: protesters set up a guillotine outside of the home of
44:04
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos. And and look, I've got lots of criticisms
44:08
Speaker 1: of the Washington Post. I think Bezos big Tech. I
44:13
Speaker 1: have lots of criticisms, though Amazon has been less noxious
44:16
Speaker 1: than some of the other players. But there are lots
44:19
Speaker 1: of reasons to criticize Bezos. But setting up and I'm
44:23
Speaker 1: not talking a mock guillotine, I'm you know, I mean
44:26
Speaker 1: the the If you haven't seen the video of it,
44:28
Speaker 1: it is chilling. It is, by all appearances, a full
44:31
Speaker 1: working guillotine with a razor sharp blade. And you know
44:39
Speaker 1: that's just deranged. I mean, that is a terrorist threat.
44:42
Speaker 1: And this is outside, as I understand it, his personal home. Um,
44:49
Speaker 1: this is another manifestation of of the mob that we're seeing.
44:54
Speaker 1: You know, you don't get to threaten people with murder.
44:57
Speaker 1: When you put a guillotine in front of someone's house.
45:00
Speaker 1: You're not saying I disagree with your views. You're saying
45:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to murder you. The reason you're putting it
45:06
Speaker 1: there is you're threatening to put their head and neck
45:09
Speaker 1: into it. And that, Um, I just think that was deranged.
45:16
Speaker 1: It absolutely was, And it's it's funny I had the
45:19
Speaker 1: same impulse I suppose that you had. Nobody has been
45:22
Speaker 1: tougher on big big tech than you have. Senator. You've
45:25
Speaker 1: you've really gone after them, when a lot of your
45:27
Speaker 1: fellow Republicans have not. But you look at that and
45:30
Speaker 1: you say, guys, that what are you doing. I can't believe.
45:33
Speaker 1: I can't believe the left is now making me defend
45:35
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and Amazon Washington Post. But but that's where
45:39
Speaker 1: they've put us. You know, it's a it's a strange
45:42
Speaker 1: moment right now. No one who is who is alive
45:45
Speaker 1: has lived through a political moment like this. A question
45:48
Speaker 1: comes in from Tyler specifically about the election results right now.
45:52
Speaker 1: An estimated eighty to one hundred million people are going
45:55
Speaker 1: to vote by mail in the election. I assume a
45:58
Speaker 1: huge number of them are not going to make their
46:00
Speaker 1: ballots hit the deadline, so they're going to come in late.
46:03
Speaker 1: We are very likely not going to know who won
46:06
Speaker 1: the election on election night. So his question is what
46:09
Speaker 1: happens if the election results are delayed beyond January twentieth,
46:15
Speaker 1: President Pelosi or does Trump remain in office? Or what
46:18
Speaker 1: are we looking at? There's a lot of uncertainty on that.
46:25
Speaker 1: I think number one. On election day, if the race
46:27
Speaker 1: is at all close, you're going to see delays because
46:31
Speaker 1: of mail at vooting. But you're also going to see
46:33
Speaker 1: litigation Bush versus Gore. Look, I was very involved in
46:38
Speaker 1: litigating Bush versus Gore twenty years ago. I was a
46:41
Speaker 1: young campaign staff or young lawyer working for the George W.
46:44
Speaker 1: Bush campaign in two thousands, So I was down in
46:45
Speaker 1: Tallahassee as part of the legal team during Bush versus Gore. Yeah,
46:50
Speaker 1: I think there's a very real chance this year we'll
46:52
Speaker 1: see a Bush versus Gore in ten twenty thirty fifty jurisdictions. Wow,
47:00
Speaker 1: it's been reported that Biden has already hired six hundred
47:03
Speaker 1: lawyers to contest elections. And what that means is, if
47:09
Speaker 1: it's at all close, there's a very good chance. We
47:11
Speaker 1: don't know the answer. If you get to January third,
47:20
Speaker 1: it could be thrown if if there is uncertainty, it
47:24
Speaker 1: could be thrown to Congress, which means the House of
47:27
Speaker 1: Representatives chooses the president, and it means that that the
47:32
Speaker 1: Senate chooses the vice president. Now here's what's interesting. It
47:36
Speaker 1: doesn't work by simple majority in the House, so it's
47:40
Speaker 1: not whoever has the majority chooses the president. It's rather
47:44
Speaker 1: each state gets one vote, so each congressional delegation gets
47:49
Speaker 1: a single vote, So California gets one vote. And right
47:53
Speaker 1: now in the current Congress, I think the number is
47:57
Speaker 1: that they're twenty six Republicans ates, that Republicans have a majority,
48:01
Speaker 1: that delegation, twenty two that Democrats have a majority, and
48:05
Speaker 1: two that are tied. I think it's Pennsylvania and Michigan
48:09
Speaker 1: are tied. The reason they can Dems can still have
48:12
Speaker 1: a majority is they rack up huge numbers in states
48:15
Speaker 1: like California and New York, so they have more than
48:18
Speaker 1: two hundred eighteen, but they don't have a majority of
48:20
Speaker 1: the states. Right. What that means is there's a real
48:26
Speaker 1: incentive if Democrats have the majority to prevent it from
48:31
Speaker 1: going to the House. And there is an argument that
48:37
Speaker 1: come January twentieth, if if Congress hasn't exercised its authority
48:42
Speaker 1: to select the president select the vice president, there is
48:46
Speaker 1: an argument that they are are putting forward that on
48:49
Speaker 1: January twentieth, Donald Trump and Mike Pence cease being president
48:53
Speaker 1: and vice president, and third in line of succession is
48:56
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House. And if they
49:00
Speaker 1: would lose otherwise, I fully expect the Democrats to do
49:06
Speaker 1: everything they can to prevent any constitutional mechanism for having
49:13
Speaker 1: a Republican president. So I fully expect them to try
49:16
Speaker 1: to delay to January twentieth and argue that Nancy Pelosi
49:19
Speaker 1: has now become president. That is, and we are in
49:22
Speaker 1: such uncharted legal territory, constitutional territory, these questions, if we
49:32
Speaker 1: get there, are going to be hotly, hotly contested. Senator,
49:36
Speaker 1: when I saw this suggestion of President Pelosi floating around
49:40
Speaker 1: social media. I thought, oh, this is just one of
49:43
Speaker 1: those hokey, crazy things that goes around social media. I
49:45
Speaker 1: kind of dismissed it. And now you've made me feel
49:49
Speaker 1: so so much more worried about this election in November. Well,
49:56
Speaker 1: I will say, if we get to Congress choosing the
50:00
Speaker 1: president and vice president, we will be doing verdict live
50:03
Speaker 1: every night, just as we did an impeachment. And I
50:06
Speaker 1: hope and pray that does not happen. I don't wish
50:08
Speaker 1: this to become a nightly midnight report from insanity, which
50:13
Speaker 1: which is what that would be. So so let's let's
50:15
Speaker 1: hope we don't find that out. But look, Democrats are
50:19
Speaker 1: already setting the foundation for, in their view, one of
50:22
Speaker 1: two outcomes in this election. Yeah, either they win, which
50:27
Speaker 1: they might, or the election is illegitimate. Yes, yeah, if
50:32
Speaker 1: Donald Trump wins, if Republicans win, the odds are now
50:35
Speaker 1: one hundred point zero percent that Democrats and the media
50:40
Speaker 1: are going to say the election was stolen from Yes,
50:42
Speaker 1: that's right. And you know you saw recently Hillary Clinton said,
50:45
Speaker 1: under no circumstances should Joe Biden concede. I mean, it's
50:52
Speaker 1: This is the political equivalent of the rage mob. It's
50:57
Speaker 1: we will not accept will of the people. We won't
51:01
Speaker 1: accept the outcome of the election. And you know, there's
51:04
Speaker 1: a weird Freudian projection. Remember a couple of weeks ago,
51:07
Speaker 1: there was a little news boomlet of all these Democrats
51:09
Speaker 1: and reporters saying, will Trump accept it if he's lost? Right? Right?
51:15
Speaker 1: And the absurd thing is, look the ones who still
51:17
Speaker 1: don't accept it. Hillary Clinton still think she's she's president. Ye.
51:21
Speaker 1: They haven't accepted the last election, and they're making very
51:25
Speaker 1: explicit they don't intend to accept this one either, and
51:28
Speaker 1: so and their tell is they accuse the other side
51:31
Speaker 1: of doing it. And I think that Hillary Clinton is
51:34
Speaker 1: actually just saying out loud what a lot of Democrats
51:37
Speaker 1: are thinking, because do you remember in twenty sixteen she
51:40
Speaker 1: said Donald Trump is said he might not accept the
51:43
Speaker 1: results of the election. This is a threat to our democracy.
51:46
Speaker 1: And then what happens. Hillary is the one who doesn't
51:48
Speaker 1: accept it, and it's not just her. Stacy Abrams still
51:51
Speaker 1: thinks she's the governor of Georgia. That's Governor Abrams. J Michael,
51:55
Speaker 1: he does governor. I want to be respectful. Former President
51:58
Speaker 1: Al Gore still believes he won in two thousand on
52:02
Speaker 1: that recount. This seems to be a trend with democratic politicians. Um. Well,
52:08
Speaker 1: if there's no such thing as truth, and this is
52:11
Speaker 1: actually a Marxist concept, yeah, um, then you can dictate
52:16
Speaker 1: truth is what you say it is, and and and
52:18
Speaker 1: and and that's um when you have a compliant media.
52:24
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the CNN image of buildings on
52:27
Speaker 1: fire and they call fiery yet peaceful protests that that
52:34
Speaker 1: that that that's like hot yet cold, like I'm sorry
52:40
Speaker 1: that those are antonyms. You don't get to have two
52:44
Speaker 1: things directly contradictory other than one of them is your
52:49
Speaker 1: political narrative. Yes, yeah, that's right. And there's also this
52:53
Speaker 1: idea that they know the science of history actually another
52:55
Speaker 1: Marxist concept, that you know, they're on the right side
52:58
Speaker 1: of history. And so if you know how history is
53:01
Speaker 1: supposed to go and something happens to get in the
53:03
Speaker 1: way of that, well clearly that's illegitimate by definition. This
53:07
Speaker 1: actually raises a question from Daniel and maybe maybe we'll
53:11
Speaker 1: end on this question because it will give us so
53:14
Speaker 1: much to stew on until our next episode. Do you
53:18
Speaker 1: think that the Democratic party has become so radical that
53:21
Speaker 1: the party will split into two completely separate parties. You know,
53:25
Speaker 1: the BLM organization is behaving in some ways like a
53:28
Speaker 1: political party, he asks, you know, will there be one
53:32
Speaker 1: party of the liberals and one party of the leftist socialists?
53:37
Speaker 1: So I actually don't think that. I think what we're
53:40
Speaker 1: witnessing is a leftist takeover the Democratic Party. Yeah, and
53:47
Speaker 1: there are no There are no moderate Democrats left. They've
53:53
Speaker 1: been driven out of the party. There used to be. There,
53:57
Speaker 1: used to be conservative Democrats. I mean, I mean, point
53:59
Speaker 1: me to a conservative Democrat today and look some of
54:05
Speaker 1: it is. We talked about this before, how Democrats are collectivists,
54:09
Speaker 1: they believe in government power, they believe that they are
54:12
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a herd discipline. When do you see
54:16
Speaker 1: Democrats disagreeing on a vote in the Senate? Yeah? Pretty
54:19
Speaker 1: much never. Yeah, where's Republicans? We do all the time,
54:24
Speaker 1: for good and for ill. Sometimes we're frustrated. How come
54:27
Speaker 1: we can't have the discipline and cohesion they do. I'd
54:30
Speaker 1: rather our problems of individualism the Republican Party. Splintering is
54:36
Speaker 1: always a potential threat. Yeah, the Democratic Party. I think
54:40
Speaker 1: one or two things will happen. If they win, I
54:43
Speaker 1: think you will see the leftist take over the party completed.
54:46
Speaker 1: That essentially, Joe Biden has ceded the party to Bernie
54:52
Speaker 1: Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and AOC. You know, you look
54:55
Speaker 1: at President Trump did a nice job tonight about talking
54:58
Speaker 1: about the the the Biden Bernie Manifesto that they wrote together,
55:02
Speaker 1: laying out the most radical socialist agenda of any major
55:07
Speaker 1: party nominee in modern times. Yeah. So I think the
55:13
Speaker 1: if the Democrats win, the left completes its takeover. And
55:19
Speaker 1: by the way, one illustration of that, and this goes
55:21
Speaker 1: back again to the the sort of origin story of
55:24
Speaker 1: a verdict. When we voted on impeachment in the Senate,
55:30
Speaker 1: every single Democrat voted to impeach. And you remember when
55:35
Speaker 1: I in particularly when Joe Mansion. So people will point
55:37
Speaker 1: to Joe Mansion or Doug Jones, Doug Jones from Alabama,
55:41
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion from West Virginia. They're both pointed to as oh,
55:45
Speaker 1: they're conservative Democrats. We're both voted to convict the president.
55:49
Speaker 1: And I had interesting reactions. I had different reactions to
55:51
Speaker 1: both of them. So when Doug Jones voted to convict,
55:54
Speaker 1: that didn't surprise me, actually, because I think Doug Jones
55:57
Speaker 1: knows he's gonna lose. Tommy Tubberville, Republican dominee is going
56:00
Speaker 1: to beat him, and I think Dougs decided he's going
56:03
Speaker 1: to go down and ablaze a glory and be a
56:05
Speaker 1: liberal hero back home. And if Biden wins, he'll be
56:07
Speaker 1: in the cabinet, right and and so he knows he
56:10
Speaker 1: ain't winning in November, and he's just let's go. Um,
56:16
Speaker 1: Mansion is different. So Mansion, you recall, voted to confirm
56:24
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh. Yeah, that's right, and it was one brief
56:27
Speaker 1: moment of apostasy and it probably reelected Joe. Um, he
56:32
Speaker 1: got reelected that cycle, and that vote may have saved
56:36
Speaker 1: his bacon. When he voted to convict the president. My
56:39
Speaker 1: reaction I sit next to David Purdue in the Senate floor.
56:42
Speaker 1: I turned to David and said, huh, Mansion's not running again.
56:46
Speaker 1: He's done. And and that's how I interpreted that vote.
56:51
Speaker 1: Is Mansion. And Joe's never really liked the Senate. He
56:54
Speaker 1: was governor before. He liked being governor a lot more
56:56
Speaker 1: than being in the Senate. Yeah, but I think when
56:59
Speaker 1: he voted to there the sort of last vestiges of
57:03
Speaker 1: dissent in the Democratic Party. He just decided to heck
57:06
Speaker 1: with it. I'll vote with the rest of them, because look,
57:09
Speaker 1: in West Virginia, impeaching the president is extraordinarily unpopular. If
57:17
Speaker 1: you're actually looking to get reelected in West Virginia, that's
57:20
Speaker 1: a dumb vote. And the different scenario in terms of
57:26
Speaker 1: the future of the Democratic Party if the Democrats lose,
57:31
Speaker 1: if Trump is reelected, and I think there's a real
57:33
Speaker 1: possibility of that, obviously, I hope that happens. Yeah, I
57:38
Speaker 1: think Democrats will lose their mind even more than they
57:40
Speaker 1: have now. I think the press will lose their mind
57:43
Speaker 1: even more than they have now. But you might see
57:47
Speaker 1: in the wake of a Trump reelection some sort of
57:51
Speaker 1: reassessment in the Democratic Party and a resurgence of more
57:56
Speaker 1: reasonable voices. There will at least be some Democrats that
57:59
Speaker 1: will have the thought, holy crap, being wild eyed socialist
58:03
Speaker 1: and standing with a mob burning our cities to the
58:04
Speaker 1: ground may not be the most appealing electoral platform. If
58:09
Speaker 1: they win, they're not going to say that, but if
58:10
Speaker 1: they lose, they might say that. But I don't think
58:15
Speaker 1: it's going to be a splittering party. I think it's
58:16
Speaker 1: going to be a battle for who controls the party.
58:19
Speaker 1: That's right. You always hear this is the most important
58:21
Speaker 1: election of our lifetimes, and in some ways it's always true,
58:25
Speaker 1: because you know, things progress down a certain path and
58:29
Speaker 1: certain dangers can become more pronounced. But you know, we've
58:32
Speaker 1: talked on this show, on an earlier episode about what
58:35
Speaker 1: could happen if the Democrats win, particularly if the Democrats
58:38
Speaker 1: take the Senate. You know, you could have Puerto Rican statehood.
58:42
Speaker 1: You got a dcase statehood. You got to the end
58:44
Speaker 1: of the filibuster, you have a real surge of a
58:48
Speaker 1: democratic power grab. Really puts the stakes into perspective, really
58:51
Speaker 1: puts the conventions into perspective. And Senator I know that
58:54
Speaker 1: you could stay up all night and keep talking and
58:57
Speaker 1: then show up for work, you know, at seven am.
59:00
Speaker 1: I am not like that. I cannot do that, So
59:03
Speaker 1: I have got to I think end it here. We
59:05
Speaker 1: will have another episode soon. I hope that all the
59:08
Speaker 1: people who are watching right now on YouTube please head
59:11
Speaker 1: on over. First of all, Ring that Bell subscribe on YouTube,
59:13
Speaker 1: Then go over to Apple Podcasts subscribe to the Verdict podcast.
59:16
Speaker 1: You can get on Google play Stitcher on everywhere you
59:20
Speaker 1: can get it everywhere. It's on Spotify, so go please subscribe.
59:23
Speaker 1: We so appreciate it. Be sure to write into the mailbag.
59:25
Speaker 1: You can do that on Twitter by tagging either the
59:27
Speaker 1: Senator or me with hashtag Verdict. You can do that
59:30
Speaker 1: by writing into mailbag at Verdict podcast dot com. Thank
59:34
Speaker 1: you for the excellent questions, Senator. Thank you for us
59:38
Speaker 1: staying up and giving us insight into all the questions
59:40
Speaker 1: that I can't answer. Pleasure as always, and in the meantime,
59:44
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This
59:56
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