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Ask Us Anything · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The Senator has been back in DC all week. There
0:03
Speaker 1: is some bombshell news that's just come out about Mike
0:06
Speaker 1: Flynn and the Russia investigation. But best of all, we're
0:09
Speaker 1: going to be taking your questions live on this special
0:13
Speaker 1: Ask Us Anything episode a Verdict, So send your questions
0:16
Speaker 1: in now. We're gonna be taking them from Twitter using
0:19
Speaker 1: the hashtag verdict. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome
0:29
Speaker 1: back to Verdict. How many times can I say verdict
0:31
Speaker 1: in one minute? I guess we'll find out. I'm Michael Knowles.
0:33
Speaker 1: I'm joined as ever by the Senator. Senator. Before we begin,
0:37
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you your hair today looks excellent. Have
0:42
Speaker 1: you have you done something new with it? Well? As
0:45
Speaker 1: it so happens, I got a haircut this morning. I
0:48
Speaker 1: got on a plane first thing this morning, and it
0:51
Speaker 1: flew to Dallas and went to Shelley Luther, who, as
0:55
Speaker 1: you know, she has a hair salon, and she was
0:58
Speaker 1: sentenced insanely to seven days in jail for daring to
1:03
Speaker 1: open a hair salon during the coronavirus crisis, and she
1:07
Speaker 1: spent two nights in jail and then yesterday, thankfully, the
1:11
Speaker 1: Texas Supreme Court unanimously ruled that she'd be released, and
1:16
Speaker 1: so I got on a plane and flew up there
1:17
Speaker 1: today to get a haircut. Well, she obviously did a
1:20
Speaker 1: very good job. The hair looks good, and more importantly,
1:23
Speaker 1: I think it's good to send that message out. There
1:26
Speaker 1: have been a lot of oversteps during this whole lockdown,
1:29
Speaker 1: pastors getting arrested and things like that. But I think
1:32
Speaker 1: Shelley Luther she might take the cake. You know, she's
1:34
Speaker 1: just dares to try to put some food on the
1:37
Speaker 1: table for her kids, and some judge in Dallas decides
1:41
Speaker 1: she's got to go to the slammer for seven days. Well,
1:44
Speaker 1: you know, it really was outrageous, and if you haven't
1:47
Speaker 1: seen it, i'd encourage folks watch the video of her sentencing.
1:51
Speaker 1: I watched that when it came down, and the judge,
1:54
Speaker 1: who was an elected Democrat in Dallas, he demands of her.
1:59
Speaker 1: He says, apologize to the elected officials who issued these edicts,
2:04
Speaker 1: and if you apologize to them, I won't send you
2:07
Speaker 1: to jail. And to her credit, she says, I can't apologize.
2:11
Speaker 1: I can't apologize for wanting people, wanting the people who
2:14
Speaker 1: worked for me to be able to feed their kids.
2:16
Speaker 1: I can't apologize for that. And you know, it was impressive.
2:20
Speaker 1: She was not angry, she wasn't disrespectful, she was just
2:24
Speaker 1: very matter of fact saying, look, these folks, they need
2:28
Speaker 1: to feed their kids. They're hurting. And I gotta say
2:32
Speaker 1: it is ridiculous. Elected officials don't have the right to
2:37
Speaker 1: demand to the people apologize to me, that's not the
2:41
Speaker 1: way it works in the United States. We work for
2:44
Speaker 1: the people, not the other way around. And the arrogance
2:48
Speaker 1: of our benevolent overlords demanding an apology from the citizenry,
2:53
Speaker 1: it was ridiculous. I tweeted that out a couple of
2:56
Speaker 1: days ago, how absurd it was. And I was really
2:59
Speaker 1: glad to get a chance to meet her in person.
3:01
Speaker 1: I'd never met her um and uh now now, my
3:05
Speaker 1: dad and my cousin they had spoken to her boyfriend
3:07
Speaker 1: on the phone when she was in jail. They had
3:10
Speaker 1: actually prayed with with him on the phone, and my
3:13
Speaker 1: cousin talked with Shelley just right when she got out
3:16
Speaker 1: of jail. But I wanted to be there just to say, look,
3:20
Speaker 1: we stand with you, and and and it is wrong
3:24
Speaker 1: particularly you know what, you've got local officials that are
3:28
Speaker 1: releasing violent criminals from jail because they say coronavirus, we
3:32
Speaker 1: don't want it to spread. So they're releasing murderers, they're
3:34
Speaker 1: they're releasing rapists and child molesters. But god forbid, you
3:38
Speaker 1: have a hairdresser, Well, we need to lock her up
3:41
Speaker 1: because she's not properly kissing the asses of the politicians
3:45
Speaker 1: that that that that are issuing decrees. I was a
3:49
Speaker 1: little pissed off. You can tell fair enough. I think
3:52
Speaker 1: you should be. And I think it sends a great statement.
3:53
Speaker 1: If we had a whole country full of Shelley Luther's,
3:56
Speaker 1: I think probably the culture would be a whole lot healthier.
3:58
Speaker 1: Speaking of unfair sentencing, there's another. And actually, hold on,
4:02
Speaker 1: before we shifted that, I want to make one other
4:04
Speaker 1: point that I made. We did a press conference afterwards,
4:09
Speaker 1: and it's a point I made, but I haven't seen
4:11
Speaker 1: in any of the coverage and it doesn't strike me
4:14
Speaker 1: as entirely accidental. Which is listen, I hadn't had a haircut,
4:19
Speaker 1: as you know we've been doing this. I'd had a
4:20
Speaker 1: haircut in three months. Yeah, I was getting to be
4:22
Speaker 1: that Smalls kind of tiger king. It was, Heidi said,
4:27
Speaker 1: I was bringing mullets back, and you know, look, I
4:30
Speaker 1: was going more for a BG's thing, but but Joe
4:33
Speaker 1: dirt is an underappreciated look, so I'll go either way
4:37
Speaker 1: on that. But you know, it was interesting this week
4:40
Speaker 1: we were back in DC in the Senate, and I
4:44
Speaker 1: couldn't help but look around at my colleagues, and it
4:48
Speaker 1: sure looked like most of them had gotten a haircut.
4:54
Speaker 1: And it's just kind of interesting for those who are
4:57
Speaker 1: defending people's freedom. Fine, but we're seeing some politicians posture
5:03
Speaker 1: how to how terrible it is, and and and and
5:06
Speaker 1: and and it was a good thing that she should
5:07
Speaker 1: be locked up. Well, it's just an interesting question who's
5:12
Speaker 1: gotten a haircut? And how right haircuts? For me? But
5:16
Speaker 1: not for thee as the prevailing wisdom, I think, Well,
5:19
Speaker 1: what was it Bill de Blasio said when he went
5:21
Speaker 1: to the gym after shutting down the gyms, Well, I've
5:23
Speaker 1: got to stay healthy, like like, oh okay, not not
5:28
Speaker 1: the people and and and look, it's also easy to
5:32
Speaker 1: mischaracterize this. Nobody is saying that that that that that
5:36
Speaker 1: everyone should just behave business as usual and ignore ignore
5:40
Speaker 1: the epidemic, ignore the crisis. You know, Shelley at her
5:44
Speaker 1: hair salon when when I got my hair cut, I
5:46
Speaker 1: was wearing a mask. I was wearing gloves. She was
5:48
Speaker 1: wearing a mask. All of the stylists that worked for
5:51
Speaker 1: were wearing masks. They use disinfectant. They wipe down the
5:54
Speaker 1: seat before I sat down. The stylists used disinfectant on
5:58
Speaker 1: her hand. They're trying to be sad if they're trying
6:00
Speaker 1: to use common sense measures to mitigate the spread of
6:04
Speaker 1: the virus, but they're also trying to trying to let
6:08
Speaker 1: these stylists be able to feed their kids, right right, Yeah,
6:11
Speaker 1: you know, being able to feed your family is important
6:14
Speaker 1: to public health as well. And you know, you have
6:17
Speaker 1: the Shelley Luther case that was obviously this gross miscarriage
6:20
Speaker 1: of justice and then luckily got overturned yet another one
6:23
Speaker 1: on the national level, which just came out yesterday. This
6:26
Speaker 1: was the case of Michael Flynn. He was selected by
6:28
Speaker 1: President Trump to become the National Security Advisor. He was
6:32
Speaker 1: then we were told, a traitor to his country, he
6:35
Speaker 1: colluded with Russia. He was going to go to jail,
6:37
Speaker 1: people told us. And then the dj dropped the case
6:41
Speaker 1: yesterday and Michael Flynn, from what we can tell totally exonerated. Well,
6:46
Speaker 1: obviously don't have a law degree. What was going on here?
6:49
Speaker 1: What does this mean for the DOJ, for the Obama administration,
6:52
Speaker 1: for politics? Look that there are a couple of things
6:55
Speaker 1: at play here. One, Michael Flynn is a decorated general
6:59
Speaker 1: and he as a leader until he was fired by
7:03
Speaker 1: the Obama administration because he had the courage to resist
7:08
Speaker 1: some of their willingness to just whitewash and and and
7:12
Speaker 1: cover up radical Islamic terrorists and be apologists for Islamism.
7:19
Speaker 1: He lost his job for that. But but it's interesting
7:21
Speaker 1: that you know, there's been a lot said about the
7:24
Speaker 1: deep state. The deep state despises him for that, and
7:29
Speaker 1: what has come out recently about the prosecution has really
7:34
Speaker 1: been disgraceful. How the Department of Justice, the FBI. I mean,
7:38
Speaker 1: they were politicized at a level under Barack Obama that's
7:42
Speaker 1: never happened before. They were turned into political weapons. And
7:46
Speaker 1: I got to say the notes that have been released
7:49
Speaker 1: of the senior folks going after Flynn, where they say
7:52
Speaker 1: say the objective was to get him to lie h
7:58
Speaker 1: that so that we can either convict him for lying
8:01
Speaker 1: or get him fired. Right, get him fired. I mean
8:05
Speaker 1: it was I gotta say, I commend Bill Barr. What
8:09
Speaker 1: Bill Barr has done, frankly takes backbone because the media
8:13
Speaker 1: is savaging because he came in as Attorney General and
8:18
Speaker 1: said he was going to follow the law and there
8:21
Speaker 1: was going to be accountability, and he directed a US
8:23
Speaker 1: attorney to review this case, and all of these records
8:27
Speaker 1: that had been hidden were suddenly made public, and and
8:30
Speaker 1: and and Barr made the determination, DIOJ made the determination
8:34
Speaker 1: that there was not sufficient evidence. What this was was
8:37
Speaker 1: a phishing expedition. Yeah, where they wanted to get rid
8:41
Speaker 1: of Flynn. And you know, they were getting ready to
8:44
Speaker 1: close the case until Peter Struck, this hard partisan dam
8:48
Speaker 1: who as all of these you know, nasty partisan text
8:52
Speaker 1: back and forth with with a woman with whom he
8:54
Speaker 1: was having an affair. Peter Struck said, keep keep the
9:00
Speaker 1: case open. And what's interesting about it when they went
9:03
Speaker 1: to interview Michael Flynn. You know, Komey has been bragging
9:07
Speaker 1: about how he convinced them. I don't know, you don't
9:09
Speaker 1: need a lawyer, You don't need a lawyer, you don't
9:11
Speaker 1: need to tell the White House counts. No, we're just chatting. No, big,
9:15
Speaker 1: you know, just hanging out and it was an old
9:19
Speaker 1: fashioned game of entrapment. And by the way, the alleged
9:24
Speaker 1: predicate for this is the Logan Act. Now look, most
9:29
Speaker 1: people don't know what the Logan Act is. I'll tell you.
9:31
Speaker 1: The Logan Act is uttering complete garbage. It is a
9:34
Speaker 1: bill that is ostensibly in the US Code that that
9:38
Speaker 1: makes it a crime for a private citizen to interact
9:41
Speaker 1: and conduct foreign policy with with with foreign leaders. Here's
9:46
Speaker 1: the problem. In two centuries, it has been enforced zero times,
9:53
Speaker 1: and there's a reason for it. There's no constitutional basis
9:56
Speaker 1: for it, and it is something that that is routine.
10:01
Speaker 1: I guarantee you today, Michael, I guarantee you John Kerry
10:05
Speaker 1: violated the Logan Gact. Certainly he did by the Logan
10:08
Speaker 1: Act as a crime. Because John Kerry runs around bragging
10:13
Speaker 1: about how he's telling the Iranians, don't worry, we'll come
10:16
Speaker 1: back to the deal. Ignore. Ignore President Trump's foreign policy.
10:22
Speaker 1: You have Democrats all the time who run around and
10:25
Speaker 1: engage in foreign policy in folks out of office. And
10:28
Speaker 1: let's be clear. So the alleged violation for Flynn, it's
10:32
Speaker 1: important to understand this. He's a retired general. He's just
10:37
Speaker 1: been named the incoming national security advisor for the new president.
10:41
Speaker 1: This is after the presidential election, so the incoming national
10:44
Speaker 1: security advisor is putting his team together to come in
10:47
Speaker 1: and lead the president's national security team. And what they
10:53
Speaker 1: were allegedly investigating him is that he talked to the
10:55
Speaker 1: Russian ambassador. I guarantee you every single national security advice
11:00
Speaker 1: going back to the staff of George Washington, was talking
11:06
Speaker 1: to our allies and our enemies that that's actually what
11:09
Speaker 1: you want leaders in government to do. And so it
11:14
Speaker 1: was an assinine phishing expedition based on a laughable claim,
11:22
Speaker 1: and it was all the entire game was, well, let's
11:26
Speaker 1: get him on tape and then let's interview him and
11:29
Speaker 1: see if he says something that contradicts what he says
11:31
Speaker 1: on tape. And and I got to say, look, prosecutors
11:34
Speaker 1: have played that game all the time. There's a reason
11:36
Speaker 1: in trapment is not allowed because because you're just trying
11:39
Speaker 1: to you're trying to set up what's called a perjury trap.
11:42
Speaker 1: And it was obvious that that these partisan, these partisans
11:48
Speaker 1: who who were at the helm of DJ and FBI,
11:52
Speaker 1: that that was the game they were playing. And it
11:54
Speaker 1: wasn't law enforcement. And I think Bill Barr showed a
11:58
Speaker 1: lot of courage for saying we're going to follow the
12:00
Speaker 1: law and not let this be just just a a
12:04
Speaker 1: partisan hammer. Right the way you can tell in the
12:07
Speaker 1: notes that were released from the FBI, the way you
12:10
Speaker 1: can tell that this wasn't even just a regular you know,
12:14
Speaker 1: investigation or entrapment is that phrase, or get him fired.
12:18
Speaker 1: It wasn't just we're gonna see if we catch him
12:20
Speaker 1: in a lie, or we'll get him to admit it
12:22
Speaker 1: was that, or get him fired. They had a political
12:24
Speaker 1: interest in getting this appointee removed. So it's great that
12:28
Speaker 1: this is coming to light, I know that. And there's
12:30
Speaker 1: an old crudge, there's I mean, remember he had been
12:32
Speaker 1: fired from the Obama administration. They didn't like that he
12:36
Speaker 1: was outing what the administration was doing, and they were
12:39
Speaker 1: they were mad at him, and and and that that
12:41
Speaker 1: was evidenced by by the partisan attack. That's right. So
12:45
Speaker 1: we're and of course the irony of all of this
12:50
Speaker 1: is that the media and the Democrats are savaging bar
12:53
Speaker 1: yeah for being partisan. I mean, I mean, it is
12:57
Speaker 1: the biggest case of projection because he says that Apartment
13:00
Speaker 1: of Justice is not going to be a partisan cudgel.
13:03
Speaker 1: They accuse him of being partisan, and it's it's it's
13:07
Speaker 1: a game, and I think a lot of people are
13:09
Speaker 1: sick of that game. Absolutely. So we've got about a
13:11
Speaker 1: million questions here from the viewers. Obviously this is live,
13:15
Speaker 1: so send your questions in now on Twitter with the
13:17
Speaker 1: hashtag verdict. First one is from Rhino Dino. I don't
13:21
Speaker 1: think that's his name at birth. I think that's the
13:23
Speaker 1: Twitter name. When does an executive's emergency power? Yeah, there's
13:27
Speaker 1: some colleagues of mine that go by that. From Rhino
13:29
Speaker 1: Dinah's that is true. It's a little long in the
13:33
Speaker 1: tooth in that institution. When does an executive's emergency power
13:37
Speaker 1: overstep the constitution? Are there any rights that are absolute
13:41
Speaker 1: regardless of circumstance. Should there be a way for the
13:44
Speaker 1: legislature of the state or federal government to end a
13:48
Speaker 1: state of emergency or a lockdown? I suppose. So. Look,
13:53
Speaker 1: that's a that's a complicated question, and even the question
13:56
Speaker 1: an executive there's a difference between the president, a governor,
14:00
Speaker 1: a mayor in times of emergency. The constitutional law has
14:09
Speaker 1: always given some degree of discretion and some degree of
14:13
Speaker 1: deference to emergency powers that are short term, that are temporary,
14:17
Speaker 1: that are designed to address the emergency. Now you can
14:21
Speaker 1: go too far. So for example, there's the famous steel
14:24
Speaker 1: seizure cases where the federal government tried to seize steel mills.
14:29
Speaker 1: In the Supreme Court said, no, you can't do that.
14:31
Speaker 1: That's going too far. You know, when it comes to pandemics,
14:36
Speaker 1: there is the authority to quarantine people, and that's that's
14:39
Speaker 1: actually got a long history and pedigree. Now you think
14:43
Speaker 1: about it. In an ordinary case, the government can't come
14:45
Speaker 1: along and say, Michael, we're going to lock you in
14:47
Speaker 1: one place and not let you go for something that
14:50
Speaker 1: you didn't do. Like normally, to be locked up, you
14:52
Speaker 1: got to do something, You got to break the law
14:55
Speaker 1: to be locked up. Quarantines are an accepted exception into
15:00
Speaker 1: that if you have a contagious disease and or a
15:03
Speaker 1: threat to others. But you know what we're seeing where
15:06
Speaker 1: it crosses the line. We're seeing it every day in
15:09
Speaker 1: the course of this crisis. We're seeing it was Shelley
15:12
Speaker 1: Luthor locking someone up seven days in jail for cutting hair.
15:15
Speaker 1: That's ridiculous. We're seeing it in Colorado with the dad
15:20
Speaker 1: who was who was playing softball with a six year
15:22
Speaker 1: old daughter in a public park and they threatened to
15:25
Speaker 1: give him a ticket. There Pennsylvania, where they gave a
15:29
Speaker 1: woman a ticket for driving a car. She didn't violate
15:32
Speaker 1: any laws by the way, she was driving a car alone,
15:35
Speaker 1: She posed no public health threat to anyone, and yet
15:37
Speaker 1: she got a ticket. We saw the governor of New Jersey,
15:39
Speaker 1: a Democrat, who said, well, figuring out the constitution, that
15:46
Speaker 1: that's above my pay grade. Well, no, actually, as governor
15:49
Speaker 1: of New Jersey, the oath you take is an oath
15:51
Speaker 1: to uphold the Constitution. It's not above your pay grade.
15:55
Speaker 1: So are there are exceptions and for example, in times
16:00
Speaker 1: of war a president it can suspend habeas corpus, but
16:03
Speaker 1: in limited circumstances. And what the Supreme Court has said
16:08
Speaker 1: is that the power of the government is at its
16:12
Speaker 1: height when the executive and the legislature are joined together,
16:16
Speaker 1: because they're a check on each other, right, And so
16:18
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean it's unlimited, but it is at its
16:21
Speaker 1: highest point when they are working together, and you have
16:25
Speaker 1: multiple branches of government together. They are at the lowest
16:28
Speaker 1: point at the federal level, where the executive is on
16:30
Speaker 1: one side and the legislature is on the other because
16:32
Speaker 1: those two are in conflict. And what's interesting, Look, this
16:39
Speaker 1: crisis reveals character and they're just a lot of petty
16:44
Speaker 1: authoritarians running around, right. Many of them are Democrats, but
16:49
Speaker 1: not all. And they just like power. You know, California,
16:56
Speaker 1: I sent out a video of that. You know, they
16:58
Speaker 1: pulled out bulldozers and filled a skate park with sand
17:03
Speaker 1: to stop teenagers from skating. And I took the chance
17:06
Speaker 1: to tweet out and said, okay, skaters, this this is
17:08
Speaker 1: what big government lefties want to do. They want to
17:11
Speaker 1: take away your freedom and this is stupid. And by
17:13
Speaker 1: the way, it would have been perfectly fine for them
17:17
Speaker 1: to insist on social distancing. Say, listen, we're in the
17:19
Speaker 1: middle of a public health crisis. You need to spread
17:22
Speaker 1: out a little bit. But the idea that you can't
17:25
Speaker 1: go outside, that you can't go to the beach, that
17:28
Speaker 1: you can't paddleboard, that you can't go jogging, all of
17:31
Speaker 1: that is an overreach. And it's an overreach because people
17:35
Speaker 1: are statists, are gonna status that's what they do, and
17:40
Speaker 1: that's not right. And there's I guess the question a
17:42
Speaker 1: lot of people are asking is is there some hard
17:44
Speaker 1: and fast rules. So you know, the government is allowed
17:47
Speaker 1: to fill the skate park with sand, but it's not
17:49
Speaker 1: allowed to stop the paddle boarder. I mean, obviously there's
17:51
Speaker 1: no way you could control for all of these details.
17:55
Speaker 1: So how do we know when the government's gone too far?
17:59
Speaker 1: It listened. There is no magic rule on it. You've
18:02
Speaker 1: got the Bill of Rights and so for example, all right,
18:06
Speaker 1: let's take religious liberty. Yeah, religious liberty is a hard
18:09
Speaker 1: question in this circumstance because, for example, churches, Um, Heidi
18:15
Speaker 1: and I go to First Baptist Church in Houston. It's
18:18
Speaker 1: a big church. My pastor is a good friend. Our
18:22
Speaker 1: church hasn't met in person for two months. Yeah, it's
18:24
Speaker 1: really strange. I mean, we do our family. We do
18:27
Speaker 1: church on Sunday mornings where we I log on on
18:30
Speaker 1: my phone and and and put it on the TV
18:33
Speaker 1: and we watch it in our living room. Hum. Now,
18:35
Speaker 1: the church is planning to start meeting at the end
18:37
Speaker 1: of the month, and I've talked with with our pastor
18:39
Speaker 1: about it. He doesn't want to spread the disease. He
18:42
Speaker 1: doesn't want to contribute to people getting sick or losing
18:45
Speaker 1: their lives. That's I think that's a reasonable common sense
18:49
Speaker 1: judgment for pastors to make. We've seen Bill de Blasio
18:56
Speaker 1: where he threatened if a church or synagogue dares meet,
19:00
Speaker 1: I will shut you down permanently. Yeah. Who the hell
19:05
Speaker 1: are you to shut a church or synagogue down permanently?
19:08
Speaker 1: And by the way, Nablasio also, you know he showed
19:11
Speaker 1: up at the funeral of a revered rabbi to personally
19:16
Speaker 1: disburse the crowd and then send out this tweet threatening
19:19
Speaker 1: the Jewish community. You know why exactly is he singling
19:23
Speaker 1: out the Jewish community again? I mean that you start
19:27
Speaker 1: to reveal the willingness to persecute people because of faith. Yes,
19:32
Speaker 1: you can, you can work to protect public safety. But
19:37
Speaker 1: when you start signaling it, singling out faith and religious
19:42
Speaker 1: exercise or speech and punishing what you don't like, that's
19:45
Speaker 1: when you clearly cross the line. Right now, speaking of
19:48
Speaker 1: some maybe clearer steps we could be taking, this comes
19:51
Speaker 1: in from Aunt Betty. What actions are being taken right
19:54
Speaker 1: now to remove Chinese Communist Party sponsored programs in higher
19:58
Speaker 1: education and public school rules, Confucius schools and jong Su.
20:02
Speaker 1: I don't even know what those are. I do know
20:05
Speaker 1: that the Chinese government has infiltrated some educational institutions. There
20:08
Speaker 1: are there steps to remove them. So there are so
20:12
Speaker 1: Confucius institutes have been established at universities all over the country,
20:15
Speaker 1: and they're typically funded by the Chinese government, and they
20:19
Speaker 1: serve as propaganda arms that they serve as efforts that
20:23
Speaker 1: they offer universities help on Chinese language instruction. Yeah. And
20:29
Speaker 1: and China's approach is they use their vast economic resources
20:35
Speaker 1: a little bit like a drug dealer going to a
20:38
Speaker 1: junior or high where they say, you know, hey, kid,
20:41
Speaker 1: let me give you a free sample. Yeah. So Chinese
20:44
Speaker 1: communists go to universities and say the same thing. Hey,
20:47
Speaker 1: we'll give you really cheap or even free Chinese language instruction.
20:50
Speaker 1: Isn't this great? And all you have to do is
20:53
Speaker 1: let us conduct espionage on your campus and and let
20:56
Speaker 1: us let us push propaganda. So Tianamen Square, Nope, never
20:59
Speaker 1: heard of it. There is no Eneman Square. So the
21:02
Speaker 1: question is is there anything we can do? Yes. So
21:05
Speaker 1: several years ago I introduced and passed legislation on the
21:09
Speaker 1: Senate Armed Services Committee, got bipartisan support, and got it
21:13
Speaker 1: written into law, a restriction and a prohibition on Department
21:18
Speaker 1: of Defense funding if a university has a Confucius institute
21:23
Speaker 1: on campus, and it was like, look, we're not going
21:25
Speaker 1: to send your d D money if you've got an
21:28
Speaker 1: outlet for the Chinese government right there. And that legislation
21:32
Speaker 1: that I authored and passed into law has resulted in
21:34
Speaker 1: over a dozen of those confucious institutes shutting down. I'll
21:39
Speaker 1: give you another example is actually legislation I just introduced
21:42
Speaker 1: this week. Phoenix TV. It is a TV station owned
21:48
Speaker 1: by the Chinese government. Do you remember the exchange. It
21:51
Speaker 1: was a couple of weeks ago at a White House
21:52
Speaker 1: press conference. There was that report, this reporter and she
21:56
Speaker 1: was questioning the president and I got to give President
22:00
Speaker 1: Trump credit here. He said, you know who do you
22:02
Speaker 1: work for? China? She goes, no, no, no, Hong Kong.
22:05
Speaker 1: And I don't know if he had been brief beforehand
22:08
Speaker 1: or if he just had good instincts on the moment,
22:11
Speaker 1: But it turns out yes, in their name it's Hong Kong,
22:14
Speaker 1: but it's controlled by the Chinese government and it is
22:17
Speaker 1: a propaganda outlet. And in the US, so that same company,
22:26
Speaker 1: Phoenix TV, purchased a radio station in Mexico which has
22:31
Speaker 1: a huge transmitter pointed north, pointed at the United States,
22:35
Speaker 1: and they changed it from a Spanish language station to
22:38
Speaker 1: a Chinese language station, and they put in an application
22:43
Speaker 1: at the FCC to broadcast into the US. Now, two
22:47
Speaker 1: years ago, in twenty eighteen, I sent a letter to
22:49
Speaker 1: the FCC saying, don't let a propaganda station owned by
22:54
Speaker 1: the Chinese government broadcast propaganda into the US, and the
22:57
Speaker 1: FCC denied them their license. Now, unfortunately, the way it
23:02
Speaker 1: works under the FCC is they even though they'd been denied,
23:05
Speaker 1: they appealed and they got a provisional license while the
23:08
Speaker 1: appeals pending. So right now you're in California. This TV
23:13
Speaker 1: station is broadcasting, saturating southern California. At times it makes
23:18
Speaker 1: it all the way up to northern California Chinese language
23:22
Speaker 1: propaganda through the radio waves. And so I introduce legislation
23:31
Speaker 1: to eliminate the provisional appeal and say, look, if it's
23:34
Speaker 1: if it's controlled by a foreign government broadcasting in a
23:37
Speaker 1: foreign language, we're not going to be simple patsies and
23:40
Speaker 1: let them pump propaganda into our country. And so that's
23:43
Speaker 1: legislation I just filed this week. Right, that's actually some
23:47
Speaker 1: concrete work that's being done it. You know, sometimes everything's
23:50
Speaker 1: been so vague in this lockdown. Those are real steps
23:53
Speaker 1: that are being taken, and hopefully there's more on the horizon.
23:56
Speaker 1: This question from Magoo asks about another concrete step. Do
24:01
Speaker 1: you think there will be another stimulus to help those
24:03
Speaker 1: who are waiting for unemployment? I'd much rather be working
24:07
Speaker 1: though hashtag verdict. Do you think there's another going to
24:10
Speaker 1: be another infusion of cash and people's bank accounts? Maybe? So.
24:17
Speaker 1: We've passed a total of four different bills in response
24:21
Speaker 1: to this major bills in response to this crisis. They
24:26
Speaker 1: were numbered Bill one, Bill two, Bill three, and then
24:30
Speaker 1: kind of Bill three point five that was supplementing the
24:33
Speaker 1: paycheck Protection Plan. The big one was Bill three, the
24:38
Speaker 1: Cares Act. All told, all four of those bills have
24:41
Speaker 1: been nearly three trillion dollars, a whole lot of money. Well,
24:46
Speaker 1: we're now back in session. The Senator is back in session.
24:49
Speaker 1: We were back this week. I was in DC all
24:51
Speaker 1: week and it is being vigorously debated what Congress should
24:56
Speaker 1: do next. And I got to say, they're wildly different views.
24:59
Speaker 1: So the Democra crats want to spend trillions more, and
25:02
Speaker 1: they've got a couple of things they're pushing to do. One,
25:06
Speaker 1: they're trying to do their whole partisan wish list that
25:08
Speaker 1: they tried to do on all the past legislation, things
25:10
Speaker 1: like codifying the Green New Deal, things like um like
25:15
Speaker 1: changing election standards nationally to benefit Democrats at the polls.
25:20
Speaker 1: They're pushing that hard. But their biggest priority seems to
25:24
Speaker 1: be bailouts for big blue states that have huge pension
25:28
Speaker 1: liabilities that long preceded this crisis. Have nothing to do
25:32
Speaker 1: with coronavirus, but but the Democrats want to use that
25:36
Speaker 1: to bail the states out. Anyway, what I've been arguing,
25:40
Speaker 1: and what a fair number of Republicans have been saying,
25:42
Speaker 1: is slow down here. We've spent three trillion dollars. And
25:46
Speaker 1: by the way, it's not like the money sitting there
25:48
Speaker 1: an evolved. We're just borrowing it, right, We're borrowing it
25:52
Speaker 1: and racking up the credit card. We're not going to
25:54
Speaker 1: get out of this crisis through debt. We're not going
25:58
Speaker 1: to get out through borrowing. The only way to get
26:00
Speaker 1: out it's to restart the economy, and to do so,
26:02
Speaker 1: I think the next bill should be a recovery bill.
26:05
Speaker 1: It should focus on tax reform and regulatory reform. As
26:09
Speaker 1: small businesses are starting to open up, small businesses like
26:14
Speaker 1: Cherry Loo hair salon, we ought to be lessening the
26:17
Speaker 1: tax burden, the regulatory burden, making it easier for those
26:21
Speaker 1: businesses to survive and thrive. That's the only thing powerful
26:25
Speaker 1: enough to actually turn this around. We can't borrow enough
26:30
Speaker 1: money in Washington and spend enough money to get there,
26:32
Speaker 1: and so at this point, I think it's very much
26:36
Speaker 1: in flux what Congress will do. But this debate is
26:39
Speaker 1: live and raging right now. Well, especially because the country
26:42
Speaker 1: that we most often borrow from happens to be China.
26:46
Speaker 1: And one of the consequences of this pandemic is we're
26:49
Speaker 1: now trying to decouple ourselves a little bit from China.
26:51
Speaker 1: You can't do that if you keep taking all of
26:54
Speaker 1: their money, you know. I also want to take a
26:55
Speaker 1: moment just to thank all of the listeners. I just
26:58
Speaker 1: saw this number come across the screen. We have now
27:01
Speaker 1: had five million, more than five million audio downloads alone,
27:06
Speaker 1: just the audio from the podcast. I don't think Senator
27:09
Speaker 1: I felt confident going in, but I didn't feel that confident.
27:11
Speaker 1: I don't think either of us thought that the show
27:14
Speaker 1: would would go that big and be listened to by
27:17
Speaker 1: that many people. So thank you so much. You can
27:19
Speaker 1: always subscribe at Apple Podcasts or Google Play or Stitcher
27:23
Speaker 1: or I don't If you ask us nicely, we'll send
27:25
Speaker 1: an audio casset with a carrier pigeon to your house,
27:27
Speaker 1: you know, get it anywhere on the internet, and please
27:30
Speaker 1: send your questions in with hashtag verdict. This question comes
27:34
Speaker 1: in from Mahi. Is that like the Hawaiian fish? I
27:38
Speaker 1: don't know. How do you feel about Andrew Cuomo's handling
27:41
Speaker 1: of the situation. It seems to me like other states
27:45
Speaker 1: suffered as a result of Cuomo's into Blasio's handling, And
27:48
Speaker 1: I'm from the Bronx by the way, Look, I don't
27:54
Speaker 1: know Cuomo personally. I do think New York has had
27:57
Speaker 1: a incredibly hard run of it. What's happening in New
28:01
Speaker 1: York City is horrific. I think Cuomo has been markedly
28:06
Speaker 1: better than Deblasio. That's not a very high bar. But
28:10
Speaker 1: de Blasio has been so overeager, so willing to put
28:14
Speaker 1: the jack boot on, that has really been dismaying. I've
28:21
Speaker 1: seen a fair amount written about Cuomo's decision to send
28:24
Speaker 1: people to nursing homes and to force nursing homes to
28:28
Speaker 1: take people with coronavirus. And obviously many of the deaths
28:32
Speaker 1: that have occurred nationally have occurred in nursing homes. More
28:39
Speaker 1: than half of the deaths in the US from COVID
28:42
Speaker 1: nineteen have occurred in New York and New Jersey, and
28:44
Speaker 1: so that that really is the locus of that, and
28:47
Speaker 1: it's horrific. I don't want to throw rocks at Cuomo
28:52
Speaker 1: in the midst of a crisis like this. I do
28:55
Speaker 1: think there will be serious questions asked, especially about the
28:58
Speaker 1: nursing home issue. But in a time of crisis, we
29:04
Speaker 1: ought to be coming together and solving the public health
29:09
Speaker 1: crisis and also solving the economic catastrophe that has come
29:14
Speaker 1: hand in hand with that. Yeah, I agree. I think
29:16
Speaker 1: that's probably a good impulse to try to bring people together.
29:19
Speaker 1: I just think a lot of people it's not even
29:21
Speaker 1: that they're upset with Andrew Cuomo specifically, it's that they're
29:24
Speaker 1: upset at the double standard, the hypocrisy. You know, Andrew Cuomo,
29:28
Speaker 1: who maybe he did an okay job, maybe he didn't.
29:30
Speaker 1: I don't know. There's some evidence that he didn't. He's
29:33
Speaker 1: being hailed as the great hero of coronavirus, and yet
29:36
Speaker 1: other governors or the president who have done at least
29:39
Speaker 1: as good a job as Cuomo did are being pilloried for,
29:41
Speaker 1: you know, just destroying the whole country. It's it's that
29:44
Speaker 1: double standard. I think it's very difficult for people to swallow. Well, listen,
29:49
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest shifts in the age
29:52
Speaker 1: of Trump is the utter fraud of the media has
29:57
Speaker 1: been exposed. Yeah, you remember three, three or four years ago,
30:02
Speaker 1: people used to argue, oh, the media isn't biased, and
30:05
Speaker 1: somebody argues that even lefties you can't watch the media.
30:14
Speaker 1: They hate Trump so much. I mean Trump derangement syndrome.
30:19
Speaker 1: I mean they twitch and foam at the mouth and
30:21
Speaker 1: anything he does. Look, there are things that Trump does
30:24
Speaker 1: that I wish he didn't do. The things he says
30:26
Speaker 1: I wish you didn't say. But when the media is
30:30
Speaker 1: just the only thing they can do is scream orange
30:33
Speaker 1: man bad, Orange man bad, it starts to get ludicrous.
30:37
Speaker 1: And when the media is just a willing shill for
30:43
Speaker 1: Chinese communist propaganda, so I it pisses me off every
30:51
Speaker 1: time I see the media saying, oh, so and so
30:54
Speaker 1: country has has has a worst case of coronavirus than China.
30:57
Speaker 1: Well that's only because they're doctoring their numbers of the
31:00
Speaker 1: lying to us. And the story that was the most
31:03
Speaker 1: ridiculous was was CNN did a story so the Chinese government,
31:07
Speaker 1: their military propaganda site put out a story that says
31:12
Speaker 1: the Chinese military is dealing with coronavirus much better than
31:16
Speaker 1: the American military. And CNN wrote a whole story saying
31:22
Speaker 1: the Chinese military is doing a better job than the
31:24
Speaker 1: American military with coronavirus. Source the government website from the
31:29
Speaker 1: Chinese Communist government, and it was literally they're repeating Chinese
31:34
Speaker 1: communist propaganda and it so of course the media bestill
31:41
Speaker 1: my beating heart. These democratic governors are wonderful, and every
31:46
Speaker 1: Republican governor, the president, you know, apparently they were all
31:51
Speaker 1: in the wet market in Wuhan, and Donald Trump is
31:54
Speaker 1: personally responsible for this virus, as the media tells. Look,
31:58
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's the double standard and hypocrisy is
32:02
Speaker 1: a little ridiculous. Sure, and I think you're probably right.
32:04
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are tuning them out.
32:06
Speaker 1: This from Cheyenne the Wolf, who I think as a person,
32:09
Speaker 1: but that's the Twitter name. How do we get the
32:12
Speaker 1: churches open again? I think that frankly, from my perspective,
32:16
Speaker 1: that's the question on top of my mind. I think
32:18
Speaker 1: that's true for a lot of people. So I did
32:24
Speaker 1: last weekend. I went and did an interview, did a
32:27
Speaker 1: podcast with my pastor. And I actually feel kind of bad, Michael.
32:30
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm confessing infidelity to you. Yeah, what
32:33
Speaker 1: the heckcast I you know, so I hadn't admitted that
32:38
Speaker 1: to you that But anyway, the pastor said, come to
32:41
Speaker 1: the church, and we did. We did, Uh said, it's
32:44
Speaker 1: probably forty five minutes an hour. We talked back and forth,
32:46
Speaker 1: and you know, it's interesting in our church. What the
32:50
Speaker 1: pastor did. He sent out an email to all the
32:52
Speaker 1: members and said, what do you think where what's the
32:54
Speaker 1: right balance of when are you comfortable coming back? Look,
33:03
Speaker 1: we've seen I think it will vary geographically. It needs
33:09
Speaker 1: to be based on sound science and medicine. So, for example,
33:13
Speaker 1: New York City, the infection rate and the fatalities there
33:17
Speaker 1: are are horrific, and I think it makes sense for
33:21
Speaker 1: people to be have much more rigorous standards trying to
33:24
Speaker 1: enforce social distancing in New York City right now. There
33:27
Speaker 1: are other parts of the country with the numbers are
33:30
Speaker 1: much less. We've seen local officials abusing their power. So
33:35
Speaker 1: Tennessee and Mississippi, both instances you had people that are
33:39
Speaker 1: actually Kentucky and Mississippi. Both instances you had people who
33:44
Speaker 1: went to church, went to church in their cars, were
33:48
Speaker 1: listening to the pastor over the radio, so they didn't
33:50
Speaker 1: get out of their cars. They were all parked together
33:51
Speaker 1: in the parking lot listening to the service over the radio.
33:54
Speaker 1: But they wanted to be parked together, and and and
33:58
Speaker 1: the politicians sent in police to ticke at them all.
34:01
Speaker 1: Now that's just absurd, that's just abusive. But let me
34:05
Speaker 1: give a different encouragement, which is the church is not
34:14
Speaker 1: a building. The church is not bricks or mortis one
34:18
Speaker 1: of the things when I did the podcast with my
34:20
Speaker 1: pastor last week, I was saying, look, this is an
34:23
Speaker 1: opportunity for the church, an opportunity for the church to
34:26
Speaker 1: show show the love of Jesus, show to show care
34:37
Speaker 1: and concern and to help others, to help you know,
34:41
Speaker 1: elderly people who are alone, who are isolated, they need love,
34:45
Speaker 1: they need people to reach out to them. Maybe not physically,
34:48
Speaker 1: but they need to not feel alone and scared. There's
34:51
Speaker 1: so many people who are understandably scared of their own mortality,
34:56
Speaker 1: and this is an opportunity for the church, I think,
35:03
Speaker 1: not to worry about the physical building, but to worry
35:06
Speaker 1: about the community we're in and to be the church,
35:10
Speaker 1: to be the body of Christ and show that love
35:15
Speaker 1: that I think is is much much more important than
35:23
Speaker 1: the exact date and time we're able to gather in
35:26
Speaker 1: large groups. Again, sure that's true, and that date and
35:28
Speaker 1: time will be different, you know, as you say, for
35:31
Speaker 1: different places, and as it should be. Maybe if if
35:34
Speaker 1: we could all take a little note of federalism out
35:36
Speaker 1: of this pandemic, that wouldn't be the worst thing in
35:38
Speaker 1: the world. Absolutely from the seer, this might be the
35:42
Speaker 1: most important question yet, what number guard do you use
35:46
Speaker 1: for your beard? I assume that question is to you,
35:48
Speaker 1: not to me. I don't know, is the short answer.
35:54
Speaker 1: So I bought this this beard tremor right. So I
35:57
Speaker 1: first grew the beard Thanksgiving, not last Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving before,
36:03
Speaker 1: and I just went on Thanksgiving break and I usually
36:05
Speaker 1: on holiday don't shave, and at the end of vacation
36:09
Speaker 1: I usually shave and I just came back and decide,
36:13
Speaker 1: all right, what the heck I'm not going to And
36:15
Speaker 1: I'd like to say it was some profound statement or
36:19
Speaker 1: and it was just kind of a hadn't grown a
36:21
Speaker 1: beard since law school, and I figured, all right, this
36:22
Speaker 1: would be fun. And I gotta say. My campaign manager
36:31
Speaker 1: sends me this email when he sees this picture of
36:35
Speaker 1: me circulating around with sort of the whispy beginnings of
36:38
Speaker 1: a beard, and he's just like, worst decision. Really. He
36:44
Speaker 1: was anti beard, hard anti beard, and so I kind
36:49
Speaker 1: of taunted him and we I am not surrounded by
36:54
Speaker 1: yes man, let me say that it is. It is.
36:58
Speaker 1: We all hold our own well. So the beard started
37:02
Speaker 1: growing in and then it started getting fairly unruly, and
37:07
Speaker 1: I was doing some some press interview. It was a
37:11
Speaker 1: Sunday show at my house, and like like, the team
37:14
Speaker 1: started getting upset that the beard was a little too
37:17
Speaker 1: duck dynasty for their taste, and so they they asked
37:22
Speaker 1: a young guy to run over to the house and
37:24
Speaker 1: buy a beard trimmer and be like, here, trimmed that
37:27
Speaker 1: damn thing. And I'd never trimmed a beard. I'm like,
37:31
Speaker 1: I don't know, So I just I got a beard trimmer,
37:34
Speaker 1: And they have different clips that you clip on the thing,
37:36
Speaker 1: and so I just clipped on whatever the biggest one is,
37:39
Speaker 1: So the long ish whatever the longest clip is that
37:43
Speaker 1: fits on the beard trimmer, that's the one I used
37:45
Speaker 1: and cut it down some. And you know, I'm imagining
37:50
Speaker 1: so so I don't know what number is the short age.
37:53
Speaker 1: I'm imagining if you hadn't trimmed it by now, you'd
37:55
Speaker 1: you'd look like one of those Russian Orthodox priests. And
37:58
Speaker 1: then some crook at the FBI might accuse you of
38:01
Speaker 1: colluding or something. I don't know. I mean, I think
38:02
Speaker 1: it's probably lucky that you were able to trim that beard.
38:06
Speaker 1: So I've I ever told you. A good friend of
38:09
Speaker 1: mine who was used to be on my senate staff,
38:13
Speaker 1: um he had right about when I grew the beard.
38:16
Speaker 1: He had left and was living in Jerusalem, and was
38:20
Speaker 1: was it was it yeshiva yea? And he sent me
38:24
Speaker 1: an email he said a friend of his was a
38:26
Speaker 1: rabbi who had seen a picture of the beard. He said,
38:30
Speaker 1: the beard has a Rabbinical and Talmudic look to it
38:36
Speaker 1: that will bring peace to the Middle East and put
38:40
Speaker 1: the fear of God in the enemies of Israel I
38:45
Speaker 1: like cracked up. There's a real email, And so I
38:47
Speaker 1: actually literally cut and pasted it and I tweeted it out.
38:50
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, this may be a bit much. I'm
38:53
Speaker 1: not sure about I'm glad you're like the beard, but
38:56
Speaker 1: but it did at least make me laugh. Wow, that's great.
38:59
Speaker 1: I would probably at that line in my Twitter bio.
39:01
Speaker 1: That's a very very good feedback. Nevertheless, from John James.
39:06
Speaker 1: With thirty trillion dollars in debt, two hundred trillion dollars
39:10
Speaker 1: in obligations, and one hundred trillion dollars in state debts,
39:13
Speaker 1: how will we ever get our finances in order when
39:17
Speaker 1: the GOP as well as the Democrats keep kicking the
39:20
Speaker 1: can down the road. Look at it. It is a
39:24
Speaker 1: massive problem. It was a massive problem three months ago,
39:27
Speaker 1: and now it's even worse. We've spent three trillion dollars
39:33
Speaker 1: in just a couple of months. And the problem is
39:38
Speaker 1: it's a bipartisan problem in the Senate. For in ordinary times,
39:42
Speaker 1: for any trillion dollars spending bill, you get all the Democrats,
39:47
Speaker 1: and you get half to two thirds of the Republicans.
39:50
Speaker 1: There maybe twenty of us that try to hold a
39:54
Speaker 1: lot and try to push back, but but those votes
39:56
Speaker 1: are usually about eighty twenty. The only way you will
40:02
Speaker 1: get that is with presidential leadership. And there are areas
40:08
Speaker 1: where the president has been vigorous and aggressive. He didn't
40:12
Speaker 1: run in twenty sixteen promising to cut spending. He didn't
40:16
Speaker 1: run campaigning against debt, and so when the president is
40:21
Speaker 1: supporting it, that makes it easy for a whole bunch
40:24
Speaker 1: of Republicans to support it, and all the Democrats always
40:26
Speaker 1: support spending. The answer in terms of how we turn
40:31
Speaker 1: it around, I'd say a couple of things. One you
40:33
Speaker 1: need presidential leadership that's willing to take it on. But two,
40:36
Speaker 1: you've got to have economic growth. So if you look
40:39
Speaker 1: at the numbers, you look at all the variables that
40:43
Speaker 1: go into our federal budget, there is only one first
40:48
Speaker 1: order variable, which is there's only one variable that has
40:51
Speaker 1: just just a dramatic impact, and it is economic growth.
40:57
Speaker 1: If we're at anemic level of growth, if we're at
41:01
Speaker 1: one and two percent growth, which is what we had
41:03
Speaker 1: for the Obama administration for eight years, with anemic growth,
41:08
Speaker 1: you can't solve this problem with robust growth, three four
41:14
Speaker 1: five percent growth. The debt becomes much easier to solve.
41:18
Speaker 1: If you look at the last time the federal deficit
41:22
Speaker 1: went to zero and we actually had a surplus. It
41:25
Speaker 1: was after twelve years of Reagan Bush. It was after
41:28
Speaker 1: twelve years of cutting taxes, reducing regulations, and the economic
41:32
Speaker 1: growth was such that when it got to Bill Clinton,
41:35
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton inherited a four trillion dollars surplus that wasn't
41:39
Speaker 1: that long ago. And it was the incredible economic growth
41:44
Speaker 1: that came from tax reform and reg reform. A little
41:48
Speaker 1: bit of a Johnny one note, growth, growth, growth, and
41:51
Speaker 1: you get it from tax reform and reg reform. Now
41:55
Speaker 1: we're in we're in a situation economic this country hasn't
42:00
Speaker 1: seen since the Great Depression. It's frightening is this is
42:07
Speaker 1: thirty three million Americans have lost their job in two months.
42:10
Speaker 1: We had we had strong growth until three months ago. Yeah,
42:16
Speaker 1: we've got to turn it around. I will say as
42:18
Speaker 1: we start shifting the conversation into a growth conversation. Look,
42:23
Speaker 1: when you're shoveling cash out the door by the trillions,
42:28
Speaker 1: that's kind of naturally the democrats playing field. If you're
42:34
Speaker 1: a status if you're a socialist, shoveling cash, you'd love
42:37
Speaker 1: to do if we start shifting into the recovery debate,
42:42
Speaker 1: which is where I think we should be. How do
42:44
Speaker 1: we bring growth back? How do we bring those jobs back?
42:47
Speaker 1: That then is a conservative or a libertarian's battlefield where
42:51
Speaker 1: the only way to do it is tax reform and
42:53
Speaker 1: reag reform. And so if we can get growth up,
42:57
Speaker 1: and for someone who says, well it seems hopeless, I mean,
43:03
Speaker 1: things are so bad as is it? Just are we doomed?
43:08
Speaker 1: From World War Two to the present, GDP growth has
43:13
Speaker 1: averaged about three point three percent a year from two
43:18
Speaker 1: thousand and eight to twenty twelve. Under Barack Obama it
43:21
Speaker 1: averaged zero point nine percent a year, less than one
43:23
Speaker 1: percent over four years. The last four year period before
43:29
Speaker 1: that we're GDP growth average less than one percent was
43:33
Speaker 1: seventy eight to eighty two. Is coming out of Jimmy
43:35
Speaker 1: Carter YEP. And what happened then? What happened then, and
43:40
Speaker 1: by the way, what produced it in both instances was
43:42
Speaker 1: high taxes, high regulation, strangly small businesses, and growth becomes anemic.
43:46
Speaker 1: Now Reagan comes in in eighty one, cuts taxes, simplifies
43:50
Speaker 1: the tax code, repeals job killing regulations. We go from
43:56
Speaker 1: four years of GDP growth less than one percent. Do
44:00
Speaker 1: you know what GDP growth was in nineteen eighty four?
44:03
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Seven point two percent. Man, those are
44:12
Speaker 1: crazy numbers, and we did that. That's what fueled the
44:17
Speaker 1: incredible growth. By the way, JFK. JFK campaigned on five
44:21
Speaker 1: percent GDP growth and then he cut taxes and repealed regulations,
44:25
Speaker 1: and we got five percent GDP growth. You want to
44:28
Speaker 1: turn the debt around, the only thing strong enough to
44:31
Speaker 1: do it is the incredible engine of the American free
44:34
Speaker 1: enterprise system and its growth. Growth. Growth has got to
44:37
Speaker 1: be our fun right, and we're not going to be
44:39
Speaker 1: able to get there if we're a lockdown for two years.
44:41
Speaker 1: So I think that's another reason to be eager to
44:44
Speaker 1: start to lift some of these lockdowns from Joe. Joe
44:48
Speaker 1: wants to know do you think central banks issuing digital
44:52
Speaker 1: cryptocurrency will lead to the government keeping us from buying
44:56
Speaker 1: and selling? It's a question. I know absolutely nothing about it. Yeah,
45:03
Speaker 1: I gotta admit I don't know much about that question either. Look,
45:07
Speaker 1: when it comes to the FED, I am nervous about
45:11
Speaker 1: the FED. I'm nervous about unchecked power I've long been
45:15
Speaker 1: a co sponsor of audit the FED legislation. I think
45:18
Speaker 1: we need to audit the FED. Right now, the FED
45:25
Speaker 1: is doing a lot to provide liquidity to all sorts
45:28
Speaker 1: of players in the economy. I'm glad if that helps
45:32
Speaker 1: our helps our economy make it through this. But I
45:35
Speaker 1: suspect they're going to be some ugly components there that
45:39
Speaker 1: will come out later. And so the cryptocurrency world, you know, bitcoin,
45:50
Speaker 1: I have to admit, I like, I have some friends
45:52
Speaker 1: that have gotten into the bitcoin world, and I'm all,
45:55
Speaker 1: I'm quite libertarian, so I'm like, great, knock yourself out.
46:00
Speaker 1: A couple who are like, hey, you know, you ought
46:01
Speaker 1: to put a thousand dollars into this, and I don't
46:05
Speaker 1: entirely understand it. Yeah, Like I just they've tried to
46:10
Speaker 1: explain it to me, and I'm like, okay, I'm not sure.
46:13
Speaker 1: And so I don't, like, I don't have that much
46:15
Speaker 1: money to invest to begin with, but but I don't
46:17
Speaker 1: like to put put money I have in something that
46:19
Speaker 1: I don't don't fundamentally understand. And it seems to be
46:23
Speaker 1: very volatile and some people it's gone way up, and
46:25
Speaker 1: then usually things that can go way up really fast.
46:28
Speaker 1: You can go way down really fast. So I don't know.
46:35
Speaker 1: I will say, when it comes to policy makers regulating
46:42
Speaker 1: things like cryptocurrency, I think most of the federal government
46:46
Speaker 1: doesn't know what it's doing yet is not sure Yeah,
46:51
Speaker 1: what the right answer is. I don't doubt there's some
46:53
Speaker 1: big government folks that want to take over everything with it.
46:58
Speaker 1: Is there a role for combating fraud and money laundering?
47:05
Speaker 1: And sure? But I don't know, is the short sure? Well,
47:10
Speaker 1: I'm basically with youth senator, including on the investment front.
47:14
Speaker 1: I spoke to George Gilder, who I think he was
47:17
Speaker 1: the most cited writer by Ronald Reagan during his entire presidency.
47:21
Speaker 1: George Guilder, very very insightful guy, and he wrote this
47:23
Speaker 1: whole book about how blockchain, you know, the essence of
47:27
Speaker 1: bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Blockchain is the future of the Internet.
47:30
Speaker 1: And I have no doubt that he's He's right, But
47:34
Speaker 1: I don't understand it either. It certainly doesn't appear to
47:36
Speaker 1: be happening right now. And so obviously the government is
47:39
Speaker 1: going to weigh in on this more as it develops,
47:41
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, there's a tendency you know the
47:46
Speaker 1: famous story of the Emperor's new clothes, where the Emperor's
47:50
Speaker 1: riding naked down the street because because some unscrupulous tailors
47:55
Speaker 1: convinced him they had invisible thread, and everyone was afraid
48:00
Speaker 1: to say, this guy's naked, he's not wearing anything. Like
48:03
Speaker 1: groupthink can be really dangerous. And you look at like
48:07
Speaker 1: Hollands the tulip bulbs that like there was an investment
48:12
Speaker 1: mania where everyone wanted tulip bulbs, and so happens. I
48:15
Speaker 1: bought Heidi some purple tulips yesterday, and I don't know
48:18
Speaker 1: why I thought of the tulip bulbs, but they became
48:21
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable, like like flower bulbs, Like why would you
48:25
Speaker 1: be spending tons of money on flower bulls? I don't
48:28
Speaker 1: get it, but it became everyone was afraid to say
48:31
Speaker 1: the emperor has no clothes, and everyone wanted tullibubs. And
48:34
Speaker 1: then they went way up and then they collapsed. And
48:36
Speaker 1: I do think there are tendencies people are scared to
48:40
Speaker 1: say they don't understand something, and that that can be
48:43
Speaker 1: a very dangerous place to get involved. I'm still waiting
48:47
Speaker 1: for my beanie babies to shoot right back up through
48:49
Speaker 1: the roof I'm going to be a wealthy man when
48:52
Speaker 1: that happens. It's probably just right around the corner. And
48:54
Speaker 1: that in the Tulips as well. This question from Cbe.
49:00
Speaker 1: I am a waitress. My governor's orders are a slap
49:03
Speaker 1: in the face to me. Mister Cruz, what is the
49:06
Speaker 1: most effective way, in your opinion, to end these restrictions.
49:10
Speaker 1: I've heard people say called the doj the Supreme Court
49:14
Speaker 1: refused to hear the Pennsylvania case. I'm not quite sure
49:16
Speaker 1: what that's referring to. For people who can't work at all,
49:21
Speaker 1: you know, like a waitress simply cannot work during this
49:24
Speaker 1: Obviously it's much more urgent to restart the economy than
49:27
Speaker 1: for people who can work from home. Should they write
49:30
Speaker 1: to their congressmen? I mean, what is best for them
49:33
Speaker 1: to do right now? So did c me say where
49:37
Speaker 1: she was? No? Okay, Look, I mean it's it's harder
49:42
Speaker 1: because it's varying state by state, and some of it
49:45
Speaker 1: is depending on the facts and circumstances. If the infection
49:49
Speaker 1: is really bad and widespread, then then the restrictions will
49:54
Speaker 1: probably be around for a while. I think there's also
49:56
Speaker 1: a pretty sharp difference here between Republicans and democra rats.
50:00
Speaker 1: So if you're in she mentioned Pennsylvania. Look, if she's
50:03
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, they have a democratic governor. Yeah, and you're seeing.
50:08
Speaker 1: Part of the messed up thing about where we are
50:11
Speaker 1: today is everything in life seems to be defined based
50:17
Speaker 1: on what you think about Donald Trump. And it's it's weird.
50:22
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean it's so so. For Democrats who
50:25
Speaker 1: hate Trump, everything is about Trump and it's just and
50:31
Speaker 1: and so this virus, this pandemic, it's all his fault.
50:36
Speaker 1: And their view is everything's got to stay shut down forever.
50:39
Speaker 1: And we're seeing democratic politicians that are saying, until there's
50:44
Speaker 1: not one case, yeah, right, we'll just shut down everyone forever. Look,
50:49
Speaker 1: that's a little nuney and Okay, I'm sorry you don't
50:51
Speaker 1: like Trump, but but that's that doesn't make any it's
50:54
Speaker 1: just impossible. Look to be fair. On the flip side,
50:58
Speaker 1: there are folks who loved Trump who I think are
51:01
Speaker 1: too quick to dismiss this pandemic as it's a hoax.
51:05
Speaker 1: It's not real. This thing's real. It's dangerous. People are
51:09
Speaker 1: dying and we need to treat it seriously. And I
51:12
Speaker 1: gotta say where I am and where I think most
51:14
Speaker 1: Texans are is let's use common sense, Let's treat it seriously.
51:20
Speaker 1: Let's let's do what we can to slow and stop
51:24
Speaker 1: the spread of the virus. But let's not at the
51:26
Speaker 1: same time strangle small businesses and destroy people's livelihood. So Texas,
51:32
Speaker 1: we we just rolled out. So for example, CB said
51:36
Speaker 1: she's a waitress. We've now Texas has laid out guidelines
51:41
Speaker 1: that has allowed restaurants to reopen. Now they're reopening at
51:43
Speaker 1: twenty five percent capacity. So Sunday night, Heidi and I
51:48
Speaker 1: and the girls we went out to dinner for the
51:49
Speaker 1: first time. We hadn't been out to dinner and I
51:51
Speaker 1: don't know two three months, and so we went out.
51:54
Speaker 1: We went out to sushi, which the girls love. Heidi,
52:00
Speaker 1: I actually like sushi too, although Fred of mine was laughing,
52:02
Speaker 1: went your first meal, you went out for bait. But
52:05
Speaker 1: well yeah, um, but now look, we we wore masks
52:10
Speaker 1: into the restaurant. You had to take them off. You
52:12
Speaker 1: obviously can't eat with a mask on. But all the
52:15
Speaker 1: tables were spread apart, pretty far apart um. And it's
52:20
Speaker 1: at twenty five percent capacity. And the plan hopefully if if,
52:23
Speaker 1: if the numbers supported in Texas. What the governor's laid
52:27
Speaker 1: out is to shift to fifty percent capacity and then
52:30
Speaker 1: keep keep going to you till you get up that
52:34
Speaker 1: very state by state. I gotta say, if if if
52:36
Speaker 1: CB is in a blue state with a Democratic governor
52:40
Speaker 1: who is focused on I hate Trump and want to
52:42
Speaker 1: stay shut down forever, you know, my advice might be
52:46
Speaker 1: moved somewhere. Yeah, right where where you don't have politicians
52:51
Speaker 1: who are as crazy. I've been thinking about that everyday.
52:53
Speaker 1: Senator from Quentin, do you think that China should just
52:58
Speaker 1: cancel the debt that we owe them since they've cost
53:01
Speaker 1: the US trillions? That seems like a simple answer to
53:03
Speaker 1: the debt one? Why can't we do that? Oh? Look,
53:08
Speaker 1: if I had a magic wand sure, um, they're not
53:14
Speaker 1: going to Um. We need to deal with them seriously.
53:19
Speaker 1: But there's some folks saying, okay, let's seize Chinese assets. Okay,
53:24
Speaker 1: but look, when you're dealing with foreign policy, right we
53:27
Speaker 1: seize a bunch of Chinese assets, you know what they're
53:29
Speaker 1: gonna do. They're gonna see a bunch of American assets
53:31
Speaker 1: like you know, you know that that's that is a
53:35
Speaker 1: dangerous road to go down. So would I love it.
53:39
Speaker 1: You know if if I'd also love it, if my
53:41
Speaker 1: mortgage company forgave my death, that'd be nice. So yes,
53:45
Speaker 1: But would it would I love it? Of course I would.
53:49
Speaker 1: Do I really have any ability to make it happen? No, um.
53:54
Speaker 1: When it comes to China, I think of it in
53:56
Speaker 1: phases number one. We need a real accounting. We need
53:59
Speaker 1: a real accounting of their responsibility. You and I have
54:02
Speaker 1: talked at length on this podcast. We were among the
54:04
Speaker 1: first to talk about how the preponderance of the evidence
54:08
Speaker 1: is this virus likely came from one of the two
54:11
Speaker 1: Chinese labs in Wuhan that was studying coronaviruses derived from bats.
54:17
Speaker 1: One of those labs was three hundred yards from the
54:20
Speaker 1: wet market in Wuhan where this outbreak occurred. By the way,
54:25
Speaker 1: the nearest bats we know of that have have comparable
54:29
Speaker 1: viruses are a thousand miles away in caves in China. Right.
54:33
Speaker 1: Not only that, we know that the Chinese government demanded
54:39
Speaker 1: of these labs they destroy their samples. Now, when you destroy,
54:45
Speaker 1: you when you destroy evidence that raises an inference, and
54:48
Speaker 1: by the way, courts do this all the time. If
54:50
Speaker 1: you destroy avidace, you're in litigation, you go destroy adace,
54:54
Speaker 1: that raises an inference that the evidence would have revealed
54:57
Speaker 1: something damning to use something that shows your responsibility. The
55:02
Speaker 1: fact that they destroyed those samples does a lot. And
55:05
Speaker 1: let me say something also, So there are lots of
55:09
Speaker 1: people pretending to be learned saying, oh, the evidence is
55:12
Speaker 1: all circumstantial. Yea, that's actually true. Most people, Michael, who
55:17
Speaker 1: are not lawyers, don't know the difference between circumstantial and
55:20
Speaker 1: direct evidence. Direct evidence is let's say an eyewitness, if
55:27
Speaker 1: I see you point a gun at somebody and shoot them,
55:30
Speaker 1: and I testify I saw Michael shoot so and so
55:34
Speaker 1: that's direct evidence. Circumstantial evidence. Let's say you've gone to
55:38
Speaker 1: the opera and you're watching the opera and suddenly you
55:43
Speaker 1: see an you hear a gunshot, you see a man
55:46
Speaker 1: leap from the balcony holding a gun saying six semper
55:50
Speaker 1: turannis and run off. Now that's all circumstantial evidence that
55:56
Speaker 1: you just saw John Wilkes Booth shoot Abraham Lincoln. But
55:58
Speaker 1: if you didn't see it, that is circumstantial. By the way,
56:02
Speaker 1: people get convicted on circumstantial evidence all the time. It
56:07
Speaker 1: is simply looking to the circumstances and drawing reasonable inferences
56:13
Speaker 1: the evidence we have, and it suggests the most rational
56:20
Speaker 1: assessment is this lab, one of these two labs or
56:24
Speaker 1: both was studying this virus and presumably it escaped accidentally.
56:31
Speaker 1: And the media fact checkers that try to refute this,
56:34
Speaker 1: what they keep saying is there's no evidence this was
56:37
Speaker 1: a bioweapon released deliberately. Well do even as bad as
56:43
Speaker 1: the Chinese are, right, Okay, maybe look at anything's possible.
56:47
Speaker 1: But I agree that there is not evidence that they
56:50
Speaker 1: released a bioweapon to kill their own own people. But
56:56
Speaker 1: we do know that they were studying bat coronaviruses in
56:59
Speaker 1: these labs right there where the outbreak occurred. Let's start
57:04
Speaker 1: with a real accounting was the novel coronavirus in those labs?
57:09
Speaker 1: What were the safety protocols? We know also the State
57:11
Speaker 1: Department had two internal wires before this crisis, raising concerns
57:17
Speaker 1: about the shoddy security protocols and actually warning that the
57:21
Speaker 1: security was so shoddy it could lead to a global
57:24
Speaker 1: pandemic of coronavirus. That sounds kind of relevant. Yeah, we
57:30
Speaker 1: also know for a fact that the Chinese government covered
57:34
Speaker 1: it up, that they suppressed it, that they hit it,
57:37
Speaker 1: and so I think we should start with a serious accounting,
57:41
Speaker 1: driven by US, driven by third parties, driven by other countries,
57:45
Speaker 1: to ascertain it's clear China's directly responsible. We need to
57:48
Speaker 1: get the facts. The harder question will be then, therefore, what,
57:55
Speaker 1: yes they should pay, how they should pay? To be honest,
57:59
Speaker 1: we're going to be addling with them. I don't think
58:01
Speaker 1: they're going to pull out a checkbook willingly anytime soon.
58:04
Speaker 1: So we're going to have to figure that out back
58:06
Speaker 1: and forth. And one of the things that will make
58:09
Speaker 1: us more able to be vigorous in solving that is
58:13
Speaker 1: decoupling from China. So much of our supply chain right
58:16
Speaker 1: now is dependent on China. So many of our life
58:19
Speaker 1: saving medicines are manufactured in China. I am fighting hard
58:23
Speaker 1: to bring that manufacturing back to the US so that
58:27
Speaker 1: they don't have the ability to do what they threatened
58:29
Speaker 1: to do during this crisis, which has cut off life
58:32
Speaker 1: saving medicines and kill Americans. As long as we're intertwined
58:37
Speaker 1: with them, the ability to lean in is constrained and dangerous.
58:43
Speaker 1: But let's start with a full accounting, and at the
58:45
Speaker 1: same time, let's be decoupling. That's such an important point.
58:49
Speaker 1: It seems like common sense. There's no such thing as
58:52
Speaker 1: a free lunch. Right, So I've lost audio. You've lost me.
58:56
Speaker 1: I wonder if the rest of the audience can hear me.
58:58
Speaker 1: But it's a good thing that, Michael, you're such a
59:01
Speaker 1: good actor, because the next question is going to have
59:05
Speaker 1: to be mine. See. I don't know if you can
59:08
Speaker 1: hear me, but can you do a box? Yes, I
59:11
Speaker 1: would say for the next question. Okab still I have
59:15
Speaker 1: zero audio. I'll, i'll, I will learn sign language before
59:18
Speaker 1: the next episode. But until then, I will take that
59:21
Speaker 1: as a providential sign, either from the heavens above or
59:27
Speaker 1: from the Chinese government you know that's tapping into our
59:30
Speaker 1: streams or anything in the middle, that that will have
59:33
Speaker 1: to be the end of this episode. Almost at one
59:35
Speaker 1: hour by the dot, I'm back, Senator, you're back. You know.
59:38
Speaker 1: I have a theory that it was the Chinese government
59:41
Speaker 1: hacking into our streamline because they didn't like all the
59:43
Speaker 1: things that you were saying. I think that's right. By
59:46
Speaker 1: the way, could you hear me? Yes, I could hear you,
59:49
Speaker 1: and I guess you couldn't understand my sign language. In
59:52
Speaker 1: my miming, I must say you know, for someone that
59:57
Speaker 1: makes a living in Hollywood as an actor, an exceptionally
1:00:01
Speaker 1: poor box. You know. I'm just listen, Senator. You say
1:00:06
Speaker 1: you don't surround yourself with yes men. Clearly I don't
1:00:09
Speaker 1: surround myself with yes men either. I take your constructive criticism.
1:00:13
Speaker 1: You know, though, what's amazing is that audio cut out
1:00:16
Speaker 1: almost exactly at one hour, so we I think we've
1:00:21
Speaker 1: exhausted not even one tenth of the questions, but we'll
1:00:24
Speaker 1: have to save the rest for the next episode. In
1:00:27
Speaker 1: the meantime, Senator, I look forward to hopefully seeing you
1:00:30
Speaker 1: in person one of these days sometime soon. We'll have
1:00:33
Speaker 1: to wait and see as we reopen. I'm Michael Knowles.
1:00:35
Speaker 1: This is verdict with Ted Cruz.