Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Exclusive Preview: Welcome to The Cloakroom

Transcript

Exclusive Preview: Welcome to The Cloakroom · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, Verdict fans, I want to give you a sneak
0:02
Speaker 1: peek of my new series with Senator Ted Cruz. It's
0:04
Speaker 1: called The cloak Room on Verdict Plus. The only place
0:07
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to find these episodes is
0:08
Speaker 1: on Verdict Plus. So what are you waiting for? Go
0:11
Speaker 1: to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com, Slash Plus and
0:13
Speaker 1: I have a promo code for you. If you use
0:15
Speaker 1: promo code Cloakroom, you get one month free on an
0:18
Speaker 1: annual subscription. That is Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com
0:21
Speaker 1: Slash Plus. Use my promo code Cloakroom to get one
0:24
Speaker 1: month free on an annual subscription without further ado. Here
0:29
Speaker 1: is The Cloakroom. Hello and welcome. I am so excited
0:32
Speaker 1: to introduce today The Cloakroom on Verdict Plus. This is
0:36
Speaker 1: only for Verdict Plus subscribers. If you are a member,
0:39
Speaker 1: go ahead and become a subscriber so you can see
0:41
Speaker 1: all the cool stuff that we're going to be talking
0:43
Speaker 1: about over here. This is a brand new series with
0:45
Speaker 1: Senator Ted Cruiz. It's co hosted by me, Liz Wheeler. Basically,
0:48
Speaker 1: what's going to happen is I'm going to pick his
0:50
Speaker 1: brain like I would in a strategy session. It is
0:53
Speaker 1: a behind the scenes peek into details of what goes
0:55
Speaker 1: on in DC, just like the cloakroom of the actual Senate. Today,
0:59
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about how to apply a constructed
1:01
Speaker 1: foreign policy to a situation, a real life situation like Ukraine.
1:05
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk about Whoopi Goldberg, and we're
1:07
Speaker 1: going to talk about Tom Brady again. If you are
1:10
Speaker 1: a member of the Verdict plus community already, then become
1:13
Speaker 1: a subscriber so that you can join us. If you're not,
1:14
Speaker 1: then obviously go to Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com
1:17
Speaker 1: slash plus to join us, use promo code Cloakroom for
1:20
Speaker 1: a one month free trial on your annual subscription. Senator,
1:23
Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited about this. Yeah, I think this is
1:25
Speaker 1: going to be awesome and in fact, it may be
1:29
Speaker 1: a good thing to start. Do you know what the
1:30
Speaker 1: actual Senate cloakroom is? I do, but I have to
1:33
Speaker 1: tell you I don't know a lot of details, except
1:36
Speaker 1: it has this sort of cloak and dagger connotation. It's
1:41
Speaker 1: a back room right where you guys go to have
1:43
Speaker 1: your off the floor, off the record conversations. So you know,
1:46
Speaker 1: if you turn on c SPAN, you see the floor
1:48
Speaker 1: of the Senate, and so that's where they're a hundred desks,
1:50
Speaker 1: and that's where we go to vote, and that's where
1:52
Speaker 1: when we're speaking on the Senate we debate. And that's
1:54
Speaker 1: all on CSPAN. And if you look at someone who's
1:57
Speaker 1: speaking and you're kind of in the middle of the
1:59
Speaker 1: floor or the Senate, behind you are a couple of doors,
2:03
Speaker 1: and there are two cloak rooms actually, so there's a
2:05
Speaker 1: Republican cloak room and a Democratic cloak room. And the
2:08
Speaker 1: Republican cloak Room, to the surprise of nobody, is behind
2:11
Speaker 1: where all the Republicans sit, and the Democrats are behind
2:13
Speaker 1: where all the Democrats sit. So you go through those
2:15
Speaker 1: doors and basically the cloak room is a room in
2:18
Speaker 1: the back. There there are a bunch of couches, their
2:20
Speaker 1: leather chairs like this. There's still a bunch of ash trays.
2:23
Speaker 1: I don't think anyone has actually smoked in the cloak
2:26
Speaker 1: room for decades, but there's still ashtrays from back in
2:29
Speaker 1: the days when they did. And then you go around
2:32
Speaker 1: the corner and there are a bunch of phone booths,
2:37
Speaker 1: and the phone booths are where you can go and
2:39
Speaker 1: you can get on your cell phone, call someone, you
2:40
Speaker 1: can call your staff, you can call ever you want
2:42
Speaker 1: if you want to have a private conversation. And so
2:44
Speaker 1: people gather and talk in the cloak room, their TVs
2:47
Speaker 1: up there. There's cloak room staff that is sort of
2:50
Speaker 1: paying attention to what's happening on the floor. But it's
2:52
Speaker 1: basically the room and the back of the Senate floor
2:55
Speaker 1: where you gather when you're not on the floor, but
2:58
Speaker 1: you're not back in your office, which is far away.
3:01
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, is this like a
3:03
Speaker 1: normal staffing room or is this where you go when
3:06
Speaker 1: you really want to be off the record and you
3:08
Speaker 1: want to wheel and deal if you will. Is this
3:10
Speaker 1: is this where shady deals are made? You know, I
3:12
Speaker 1: wouldn't say shady deals, but it's just kind of like
3:15
Speaker 1: if you're having a whole series of votes, it's where
3:18
Speaker 1: you'll go hang out. There's usually a little bit of
3:20
Speaker 1: food in there, like their peanuts, and that actually goes
3:23
Speaker 1: back and forth, like in the Republican cloak room, the
3:27
Speaker 1: Georgia senators would want Georgia peanuts there, there'd be North
3:30
Speaker 1: Carolina peanuts. There'd be a little back and forth. There's
3:33
Speaker 1: some candy in there that you kind of grab, but
3:37
Speaker 1: it's mostly it's also where they put things like condolence books,
3:41
Speaker 1: Like we just had a few weeks back Johnny Isaacson,
3:45
Speaker 1: who had been the Republican senator from Georgia, he passed away,
3:48
Speaker 1: so we had a condolence book where we all went
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Speaker 1: in and each of us signed something to Johnny's family
3:53
Speaker 1: and just thanks him for his service. So the cloak
3:56
Speaker 1: room is a place you'll find something like that, but
3:58
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of where you sit around and hang out.
4:02
Speaker 1: People will tell jokes, people will talk about sports. I mean,
4:06
Speaker 1: it's where you get senators hanging out in a more
4:10
Speaker 1: relaxed context. So it's real. It's really behind the scenes,
4:13
Speaker 1: which means that this series on Verdict plus is very
4:16
Speaker 1: aptly named because that's exactly what it is, behind the scenes.
4:19
Speaker 1: So one of the things that is going to be
4:21
Speaker 1: unique to this series is I want to talk about
4:23
Speaker 1: the philosophy of the political philosophy and sometimes the moral
4:27
Speaker 1: philosophy of some of the things that are happening in
4:29
Speaker 1: our nation. So not just the practicalities, which are also important,
4:32
Speaker 1: and we discuss those all the time in a public area,
4:35
Speaker 1: but the philosophy and So what I mean by this
4:37
Speaker 1: is Whoopie Goldberg on the View this week said that
4:40
Speaker 1: the Holocaust was not about race, and she faced an
4:43
Speaker 1: immediate backlash for this, as she should, and she ended
4:46
Speaker 1: up apologizing for this, and she just said, I apologize,
4:50
Speaker 1: I was wrong about this. I stand corrected. I think
4:52
Speaker 1: were her words. So my question to you is, obviously
4:54
Speaker 1: not was she wrong? Of course she was wrong. Obviously
4:57
Speaker 1: the Holocaust was about raised. Obviously the Democratic Party is
5:01
Speaker 1: a little bit too cozy to anti Semites, and so
5:03
Speaker 1: they tend to they tend to play footsie a little
5:06
Speaker 1: bit with these folks. My question to you is, given
5:09
Speaker 1: the cancel culture that's become pervasive in our nation, when
5:13
Speaker 1: should we accept the apologies of people in the public
5:17
Speaker 1: eye who make really nasty comments like this, like the
5:21
Speaker 1: claim that the Holocaust is not about race. Oh look,
5:24
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to public comments on left
5:28
Speaker 1: or right, we should be pretty forgiving, particularly when someone
5:31
Speaker 1: says I misspoke. I'll tell you one reality of living
5:35
Speaker 1: a life where you have a TV camera pointed at
5:36
Speaker 1: you all day long. What you do and I do
5:39
Speaker 1: is if you say enough millions of words, some of
5:43
Speaker 1: them are going to come out wrong, and so you know,
5:48
Speaker 1: look is the left. Are there too many anti Semites
5:53
Speaker 1: among the hard left, people like the squad who hate Israel? Yes,
5:57
Speaker 1: I have no indications that that describes Whoopi Goldberg. I
6:00
Speaker 1: don't know anything. It was a dumb thing to say,
6:05
Speaker 1: but she said it was a dumb thing to say,
6:06
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give credit for a sort of backing.
6:08
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the Holocaust is one of the
6:10
Speaker 1: most grotesques evils in the history of humanity, and it
6:14
Speaker 1: is driven by the explicitly racist ideology of Hitler and
6:19
Speaker 1: the Nazis that viewed viewed Jews and viewed to others,
6:23
Speaker 1: but Jews in particulars as an inferior race and as subhuman.
6:28
Speaker 1: And in fact, we've talked about on Verdict how that
6:32
Speaker 1: justification of this group of people does not qualify as people.
6:40
Speaker 1: In the history of mankind has almost always been a
6:45
Speaker 1: predicate for horrific evil, whether it is the Holocaust and
6:48
Speaker 1: the Nazis believing that Jews did not qualify as human beings,
6:52
Speaker 1: whether it was the justifications of slavery and believing that
6:55
Speaker 1: African Americans were not people but were property, or whether
6:59
Speaker 1: it is justifications behind row that unborn children are not children.
7:04
Speaker 1: That any time you take a human being and say
7:08
Speaker 1: they're not a human being, that history has shown is
7:13
Speaker 1: usually the predicate to terrible evil. And and so you know,
7:21
Speaker 1: I'm glad that will be apologized for that. But as
7:23
Speaker 1: a general matter, I don't think we ought to be
7:26
Speaker 1: silencing people for stumbling over what they say, are saying
7:31
Speaker 1: something stupid. No, That's that's why I think this is
7:33
Speaker 1: a good discussion actually, because I mean, like you said,
7:36
Speaker 1: we both we both worked in the public eye. Hear
7:38
Speaker 1: every one of us has said something that came out
7:41
Speaker 1: wrong for whatever reason, or misspoke or made an error,
7:45
Speaker 1: and correcting that or apologizing for that is fine. But
7:47
Speaker 1: there's also the matter of someone betraying their true colors,
7:51
Speaker 1: I guess, or betraying a poisonous ideology, one that is
7:53
Speaker 1: as poisonous as you just described. And perhaps that's good
7:56
Speaker 1: for people for people to know. But like I said,
7:58
Speaker 1: the philosophy of cancel culture is sometimes it is sometimes
8:02
Speaker 1: interesting to discuss, as I think it is here. I
8:06
Speaker 1: want to move along these topics kind of quickly though,
8:08
Speaker 1: because this one, are you ready, I mean, when I
8:11
Speaker 1: warned you that we were going to nerd out on
8:12
Speaker 1: this series. This is exactly what I meant. So you
8:15
Speaker 1: gave a speech in the spring of twenty nineteen about
8:18
Speaker 1: foreign policy. Now this wasn't about a particular real life
8:23
Speaker 1: event that was happening around the world. This was a
8:25
Speaker 1: presentation of foreign policy philosophy. And this is something that
8:30
Speaker 1: I think is a lost art in the Senator. It
8:31
Speaker 1: used to be that all senators had a constructed foreign policy.
8:35
Speaker 1: Now most politicians, even in the highest offices in our land,
8:38
Speaker 1: don't have a constructed foreign policy. And I think that's
8:41
Speaker 1: why we're seeing as when it comes to Russia and Ukraine,
8:44
Speaker 1: why we're seeing this this differing of opinion, this spectrum
8:49
Speaker 1: among conservatives. Some people are very interventionists, some people are
8:52
Speaker 1: very isolationist, and there's not there's this disagreement on how
8:55
Speaker 1: to handle what's happening in the world right now because
8:57
Speaker 1: people don't have a preconstructed philosophy on foreign policy. And
9:02
Speaker 1: you do yours is and you say it's not actually
9:05
Speaker 1: a middle ground between isolationism and interventionism. You say, it's
9:09
Speaker 1: actually like a triangle. It's a third point. So first
9:11
Speaker 1: of all, can we talk just for a minute about
9:14
Speaker 1: what your philosophy all world, real life events aside what
9:17
Speaker 1: your philosophy on foreign policy is. Yeah, look, I'm happy
9:21
Speaker 1: to And you know, the conventional wisdom looking at Republican
9:26
Speaker 1: foreign policy is that it's it's it's binary, that they're
9:29
Speaker 1: one of two approaches. That you're either what's typically called
9:33
Speaker 1: an interventionist or a neo con which is your approaches.
9:38
Speaker 1: We got to go defend democracy, we got to go
9:40
Speaker 1: use our military, we got to invade countries, we got
9:42
Speaker 1: to get engage in nation building. There been a lot
9:45
Speaker 1: of Republicans who have embraced that, that that had it's
9:49
Speaker 1: it's assent under the presidency of George W. Bush, but
9:52
Speaker 1: there have been people from John McCain and Lindsay Graham
9:56
Speaker 1: to Marco Rubio and Tom Cotton that are explicitly interventionists.
10:04
Speaker 1: On the other side are the isolationists, and the most
10:07
Speaker 1: notable proponents of that are Ron Paul and Ranpaul, both
10:10
Speaker 1: of whom but there are others, particularly in the House,
10:12
Speaker 1: there are several other people who I think would fall
10:13
Speaker 1: into the more isolationist camp. And it used to be
10:18
Speaker 1: that if you're a Republican you had to be one
10:20
Speaker 1: of the two. I think both of those are wrong.
10:23
Speaker 1: I disagree strongly with both of those, and as you noted,
10:27
Speaker 1: I've described my views as a third point on the triangle.
10:33
Speaker 1: I describe myself as a non interventionist hawk. Now what
10:38
Speaker 1: does that mean. It means that the central touchstone for
10:42
Speaker 1: all US military involvement and for foreign policy should be
10:47
Speaker 1: protecting the vital national security interests of the United States.
10:51
Speaker 1: What does that mean as a practical matter? Means we
10:53
Speaker 1: should be very, very reluctant to engage in military conflict.
10:57
Speaker 1: But we should also focused on the purpose and the objective.
11:02
Speaker 1: So let's make it specific, because that's very abstract. So
11:04
Speaker 1: let's make it. Let's bring it to concrete matters. And
11:07
Speaker 1: let's take a couple of foreign policy disputes in the past,
11:11
Speaker 1: and then I'll actually do one that is going on
11:14
Speaker 1: right now in a discussion we had today that illustrates
11:17
Speaker 1: this this point. Yeah, apply it to Ukraine. So let
11:20
Speaker 1: let me let let me let me first start start
11:22
Speaker 1: with history and then go to Ukraine. When Barack Obama
11:27
Speaker 1: was president, he wanted to attack Syria. When Bashar Assad
11:34
Speaker 1: crossed Obama's red line and used chemical weapons, Obama drew
11:38
Speaker 1: a red line, said if you used chemical weapons, we're
11:40
Speaker 1: going to attack you, Asad did, and Obama says, let's
11:42
Speaker 1: go attack. I was in the Senate at the time,
11:46
Speaker 1: and my view was, Okay, I'm gonna keep an open mind.
11:47
Speaker 1: I want to hear how the commander in chief justifies this.
11:50
Speaker 1: Explain to me the vital US national security interest in
11:55
Speaker 1: attacking and I press the Obama administration both publicly and
12:00
Speaker 1: classified settings. I said, okay, at the time, there were
12:04
Speaker 1: nine major rebel groups. But shar saw it is a monster.
12:09
Speaker 1: He killed four hundred thousand of his own citizens. He's
12:11
Speaker 1: a bad, bad guy. But I said, all right, if
12:13
Speaker 1: we attack him and you topple him, he has a
12:17
Speaker 1: big chemical weapon stash and they fall into the hands
12:19
Speaker 1: of the rebels. There were at the time nine major
12:21
Speaker 1: rebel groups. Seven of them were affiliated with radical Islamic terrorists.
12:25
Speaker 1: They were people like al Qaeda, al Nustra. And I said, well,
12:30
Speaker 1: if chemical weapons fall into the hands of people like
12:32
Speaker 1: al Qaeda and Isis who want to kill us, that's
12:35
Speaker 1: worse for America. I don't want people who want to
12:38
Speaker 1: kill us to have weapons to kill us. The Obama
12:41
Speaker 1: administration could not give a coherent answer in terms of
12:44
Speaker 1: how they prevent that from happening. So I opposed military
12:48
Speaker 1: intervention in Syria because they said, it's not protecting America,
12:51
Speaker 1: it's not protecting our lives. Rand Paul and I agreed
12:53
Speaker 1: on that. We were both on the same page on that.
12:55
Speaker 1: Now Rand and I were for very different reasons. Ran
12:58
Speaker 1: just from the beginning said no, no, absolutely not. I
13:02
Speaker 1: could have imagined a military mission that I would have supported.
13:06
Speaker 1: If Obama had said, look, there's a chemical weapons cash here.
13:09
Speaker 1: It's big, it's significant. We're going to come in and
13:11
Speaker 1: either destroy it or seize it and take it away
13:14
Speaker 1: so they can't be used against us or our allies.
13:16
Speaker 1: I could have seen a mission focused on protecting America
13:20
Speaker 1: that might have made sense. That was not what Obama did.
13:23
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Iran, the Ayatola Kama need getting
13:29
Speaker 1: a nuclear weapon, I think is an existential threat to
13:32
Speaker 1: the United States. I think the risks are too high
13:34
Speaker 1: that the Ayatola, who chants death to America and death
13:37
Speaker 1: to Israel, would use a nuclear weapon. And that's why
13:41
Speaker 1: I'm the leading opponent of the Iran nuclear deal. It's
13:44
Speaker 1: why I've said, if need be, if Iran is on
13:46
Speaker 1: the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, we should do
13:50
Speaker 1: whatever it takes to stop it, including military force. Now,
13:53
Speaker 1: to be clear, when I send military force, I don't
13:57
Speaker 1: mean go in vade Iran and spend twenty years they're
13:59
Speaker 1: trying to turn it into a liberal democracy. I mean
14:03
Speaker 1: bob living crap out of it and level what they're
14:05
Speaker 1: doing and leave, like the focus should be protecting America.
14:10
Speaker 1: And another way of phrasing it, Liz, is peace through strength,
14:14
Speaker 1: which is what Reagan's philosophy was that if you're strong enough,
14:18
Speaker 1: you don't have to use military force. Biggest country Ronald
14:22
Speaker 1: Reagan ever invaded was Grenada. Because he was so strong,
14:26
Speaker 1: our enemies didn't want to mess with And by the way,
14:30
Speaker 1: Trump's foreign policy was very much with me on that
14:33
Speaker 1: third point in the triangle where you think about it.
14:37
Speaker 1: He wanted to withdraw from foreign conflicts. He didn't want
14:40
Speaker 1: to leave our soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines
14:43
Speaker 1: in foreign theaters getting shot at. But at the same
14:46
Speaker 1: time he was strong and took out, for example, General
14:50
Speaker 1: General Suleimani, the leading state sponsor of terrorism in Iran.
14:54
Speaker 1: And so that's peace through strength or being a non
14:58
Speaker 1: interventionist talk. Yeah, President Trump called it America first, you
15:02
Speaker 1: call it national interests. It's essentially as you say, the
15:04
Speaker 1: same thing. Yes, here's where it becomes a little more nuanced.
15:07
Speaker 1: So here's my question here as it applies to Russia
15:10
Speaker 1: building up or amassing troops on the border of Ukraine,
15:14
Speaker 1: how do you determine under your foreign policy philosophy, how
15:18
Speaker 1: do you determine what the national interests of the United
15:21
Speaker 1: States are in either aiding Ukraine or becoming militarily involved
15:26
Speaker 1: in Ukraine. Because there certainly are arguments to be made
15:29
Speaker 1: that the United States has an interest in helping enforce
15:31
Speaker 1: international law or defending a country's right to self determination.
15:35
Speaker 1: On the other hand, there are also arguments that that's
15:37
Speaker 1: not a vital national security interest to the United States
15:41
Speaker 1: to do that. So what are the elements that you
15:42
Speaker 1: use to determine that? How do you apply to Ukraine?
15:45
Speaker 1: So in Ukraine, I think, under no circumstances should we
15:49
Speaker 1: send the US military to fight Russia and Ukraine. I
15:52
Speaker 1: don't think that's our job to go fight Russia. I
15:55
Speaker 1: don't want to send the military. If Biden or anyone
15:57
Speaker 1: else supports it, I will oppose it. I'm not willing
16:00
Speaker 1: to risk our sons and daughters in that military conflict. Now,
16:04
Speaker 1: given that that doesn't mean, though that I'm willing to
16:07
Speaker 1: walk away from Ukraine and abandon it. There are all
16:09
Speaker 1: sorts of tools that America has, short of sending in
16:13
Speaker 1: the Marines. What I can't stand about the neo kons
16:15
Speaker 1: of their solution to everything is invade. We've talked a
16:19
Speaker 1: lot on Verdict about Nordstream too, and the sanctions that
16:22
Speaker 1: I drafted that were targeted sanctions that shut down that pipeline.
16:26
Speaker 1: Using our economic might to target the bad guys is
16:28
Speaker 1: a great and powerful tool. I think we also ought
16:32
Speaker 1: to be providing lethal weaponry to the Ukrainians. Look, the
16:35
Speaker 1: Ukrainians want to defend themselves, I'm happy to help arm them.
16:38
Speaker 1: So if the Ukrainians want to fight the Russians, have
16:41
Speaker 1: at it. I'm just not willing to risk Americans in
16:44
Speaker 1: that fight. And you know I mentioned there's sort of
16:48
Speaker 1: a real time application of it. So today we were
16:51
Speaker 1: having Launch Every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. All the Republican
16:54
Speaker 1: senators have Launch and we've spent a lot of the
16:56
Speaker 1: time talking about Ukraine, and one of the Repubublican senators asked.
17:01
Speaker 1: Several other senators said, how would you justify in thirty
17:06
Speaker 1: seconds or less, how it's on our interest to defend Ukraine?
17:11
Speaker 1: And I got to say. One of my colleagues, who
17:13
Speaker 1: will remain nameless, but he is someone who is a
17:16
Speaker 1: prominent neo Khon gave this talk about, well, we have
17:23
Speaker 1: these norms now that we don't allow countries to invade
17:27
Speaker 1: other countries, and if they do, we've got to protect
17:31
Speaker 1: those norms and protect the international order and prevent the
17:34
Speaker 1: ability of one country to invade the other country. And
17:37
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there at lunch going what a load of shit?
17:43
Speaker 1: Like I disagreed with every word he said, and like
17:47
Speaker 1: I literally had to stake. I didn't argue with him
17:49
Speaker 1: at the moment. I just sort of clenched my fists
17:51
Speaker 1: and let him talk. But about fifteen minutes later I
17:56
Speaker 1: got up and I went back to the question that
18:00
Speaker 1: one of my colleagues at ASS and I said, listen,
18:02
Speaker 1: I don't agree with any of what so and so
18:04
Speaker 1: said about the justification. You want to know why we
18:06
Speaker 1: have an interest in Ukraine because Vladimir Putin wants to
18:09
Speaker 1: rebuild the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was a
18:12
Speaker 1: formidable and terrifying enemy of America. It is in our
18:16
Speaker 1: interest not to have the Soviet Union rebuilt because I
18:19
Speaker 1: don't want Putin in Russia stronger because they hate American
18:22
Speaker 1: wanted to feat us. I want to keep Putin in
18:23
Speaker 1: Russian weaker, and so allowing Putin to reassemble the Soviet
18:27
Speaker 1: Union is really bad because it threatens the safety and
18:32
Speaker 1: security of the United States. So we ought to use
18:34
Speaker 1: what tools we can to prevent Putin from getting stronger.
18:38
Speaker 1: By the way, we ought to prevent the Chinese Communists
18:41
Speaker 1: from getting stronger. We ought to prevent North Korea from
18:43
Speaker 1: getting stronger. We ought to prevent Cuba from getting stronger.
18:45
Speaker 1: We are to prevent a rand from getting stronger because
18:48
Speaker 1: our enemies getting stronger threatens us. But I'm not interested
18:52
Speaker 1: in sending the Marines to any of those places to
18:55
Speaker 1: fight the bad guys. I want to use other tools
18:58
Speaker 1: to weaken our enemies and strengthen our friends because that
19:01
Speaker 1: protects American lives. Well. This is one of the interesting
19:04
Speaker 1: things I think about having a preconstructed, meaning a well
19:08
Speaker 1: considered foreign policy philosophy, because then you can take the
19:11
Speaker 1: tenets of that philosophy and you can apply it to
19:13
Speaker 1: real life circumstances instead of letting the emotions of whatever
19:16
Speaker 1: conflict is happening on that day and that time sway
19:20
Speaker 1: whether you think that you should send in the United
19:22
Speaker 1: States military to crush whoever it is. And the other
19:25
Speaker 1: thing I think worth noting here is that the same
19:28
Speaker 1: thing happened in Afghanistan. Actually where we got to this
19:30
Speaker 1: point where the choices almost seemed like a lose lose
19:33
Speaker 1: either in Ukraine, for example, it's a lose if we
19:36
Speaker 1: send in our troops, and it's a lose if we
19:38
Speaker 1: allow Putin to take over Ukraine to try to rebuild
19:40
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. And it is worth noting too that
19:42
Speaker 1: it doesn't have to be that lose lose, It doesn't
19:45
Speaker 1: have to be that binary decision. But we're at this
19:48
Speaker 1: place where we're at this binary lose lose because elections
19:51
Speaker 1: have consequences. Because Biden also doesn't have a well constructed
19:55
Speaker 1: foreign policy philosophy, and he's allowed it to get to
19:57
Speaker 1: this point. Well, it's even worse than that, because Biden's
20:02
Speaker 1: foreign policy is weakness. If you look at what he's
20:06
Speaker 1: doing every enemy to America, he's showing weakness too. He
20:10
Speaker 1: believes in appeasement. I mean it is the left wing
20:13
Speaker 1: Democratic Party believes the enemies of America. They think everyone
20:17
Speaker 1: wants to get along. They're all nice, and if you
20:19
Speaker 1: just give in to Russia, to China and North Korea
20:22
Speaker 1: to Iran, they're are right. It's why Biden is perfectly
20:25
Speaker 1: fine with Iran getting a nuclear weapon, because they're like, oh,
20:28
Speaker 1: they'll be fine with a nuclear weapon. They don't understand evil,
20:31
Speaker 1: and so you look at Russia. One of Biden's first
20:35
Speaker 1: acts was surrendering on Nordstream too and waiving the sanctions
20:39
Speaker 1: that had worked, that had stopped Putin. I wrote them,
20:43
Speaker 1: I authored them, Trump signed him in the law they worked.
20:46
Speaker 1: Biden came in and just gave them away, just gave
20:49
Speaker 1: Putin this gift. And I got to tell you right now,
20:55
Speaker 1: the Biden administration is so panicked about the Ukraine invasion,
20:58
Speaker 1: which they've caused, that they are in full on appeasement mode.
21:02
Speaker 1: So they are in the process I fear of dismantling
21:05
Speaker 1: NATO where they're offering to Putin. You want us to
21:09
Speaker 1: pull our troops out of Europe. You want us to
21:11
Speaker 1: abandon the Baltics, you want us to abandon Poland. You
21:13
Speaker 1: want us to abandon Romania, you want us to abandon
21:15
Speaker 1: Estonia and Lithuania and Latvia, We'll pull out, We'll pull
21:19
Speaker 1: missiles out, we'll pull troops out, we'll stop exercises, we
21:22
Speaker 1: will abandon Europe if you just promised to be nice
21:27
Speaker 1: to us, mister Putin. And weakness invites conflict. It's the
21:34
Speaker 1: left believes if you're weak, you don't have military conflict.
21:37
Speaker 1: I actually think weakness makes military conflict more likely. Why
21:41
Speaker 1: do you think our enemies didn't attack us when Donald
21:46
Speaker 1: Trump was president because they thought he was backcrap crazy
21:49
Speaker 1: and he'd like blow him off the face of the planet.
21:51
Speaker 1: And he was strong enough that enemies of America didn't
21:55
Speaker 1: want to mess with us. Why is it that we're
21:57
Speaker 1: facing a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Why is it the
22:00
Speaker 1: na is preparing to invade Taiwan because they think Biden's
22:03
Speaker 1: so weak that they run all over him. And so
22:05
Speaker 1: I think the leftist weakness creates more military conflict. It
22:10
Speaker 1: does weakness and Bolden's authoritarians and dictators. We can see
22:14
Speaker 1: that with what's happening, what's with the behavior of Vladimir
22:16
Speaker 1: putinam the Chinese honestly, and the North Koreans. Okay, that's
22:19
Speaker 1: our nerdy deep dive into foreign policy, and now we're
22:21
Speaker 1: going to do a hard pivot into Tom Brady quarterback.
22:25
Speaker 1: Tom Brady announced his retirement this week. And I gotta
22:28
Speaker 1: tell you, I'm not a huge football fan myself, but
22:30
Speaker 1: my husband is a diehard, lifelong Patriots slash Tom Brady fan,
22:36
Speaker 1: to the point that I had to ask him when
22:37
Speaker 1: Tom Brady left the Patriots and went to the Bucks
22:39
Speaker 1: whether he was going to root for the Patriots or
22:41
Speaker 1: whether he's going to root for Tom Brady at the Bucks.
22:43
Speaker 1: And you know, I have to say his answer was
22:45
Speaker 1: tom Brady here. However, the controversy here is that Tom
22:49
Speaker 1: Brady when he announced his retirement, he thanked the Bucks
22:51
Speaker 1: organization and all the Bucks fans and his teammates, and
22:54
Speaker 1: he didn't thank Patriot Nation. He didn't thank his old teammates,
22:57
Speaker 1: he didn't thank his old coach, he didn't thank his fans.
22:59
Speaker 1: He laid or did on Twitter, but only after backlash. Um,
23:03
Speaker 1: what do you make of that? Was that? Was that
23:05
Speaker 1: a deliberate diss You think I don't know that it
23:08
Speaker 1: was a disc to the fans and in fact, I
23:10
Speaker 1: doubt that it was. I mean, I mean, Tom Brady
23:13
Speaker 1: is so beloved to New England, um that that that
23:17
Speaker 1: I can't believe he was dissing his fans up there
23:20
Speaker 1: was it a disc to his old team? Was it
23:22
Speaker 1: a disc to Bill Belichick? I'm sure it was that
23:25
Speaker 1: that was quite quite deliberate. And look, there was always
23:28
Speaker 1: I always like Brady. I always thought he was a
23:30
Speaker 1: heck of a quarterback. You know, there's there's a constant
23:33
Speaker 1: debate in sports over the goat the greatest of all time. Uh.
23:38
Speaker 1: In basketball, the debate is between Michael Jordan and Lebron James.
23:42
Speaker 1: I am emphatically on team Jordan and that although some
23:45
Speaker 1: of that generation. I'm fifty one, I you know, I
23:47
Speaker 1: grew up watching Jordan dominated. I'm not a big Lebron fan.
23:50
Speaker 1: Although he's ridiculously talented. I will concede his talent, but
23:54
Speaker 1: I think Jordan had more hard and was more of
23:56
Speaker 1: a champion. UM. In football, the goat, you could argue
24:02
Speaker 1: different players. Some might say Joe Montana. He was certainly
24:05
Speaker 1: someone that had a strong claim to it. Brady was
24:09
Speaker 1: unbelievably winning with the Patriots. I mean he would win
24:12
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. But you could give
24:15
Speaker 1: all these sorts of excuses. He had an amazing supporting
24:18
Speaker 1: cast around him. Bill Belichick's a great coach, he had
24:20
Speaker 1: great receivers, he had I mean, he just had an
24:22
Speaker 1: amazing team around him. So some credited Brady's success to, well,
24:28
Speaker 1: look at everyone he's playing with. And Brady did something
24:31
Speaker 1: that's phenomenal, which as he left the Patriots and he
24:34
Speaker 1: went and joined Tampa Bay and he basically said, to
24:36
Speaker 1: help with you guys, I'm out of here. The Patriots said,
24:39
Speaker 1: you're too damn old, you can't win, and he went
24:41
Speaker 1: and joined Tampa Bay and won the Super Bowl with them,
24:45
Speaker 1: Like it was one of the biggest hoss moves I've
24:49
Speaker 1: ever seen. To leave, you got all your stars, I'm
24:52
Speaker 1: going to Tampa Bay. Watch me do it again. Gronk
24:57
Speaker 1: came out of retirement to play with him, which was
24:59
Speaker 1: awesome and it was spectacular. I tweeted at the time.
25:05
Speaker 1: I just tweeted a emoji of a goat, like, like,
25:08
Speaker 1: you go and win with another team and do it
25:11
Speaker 1: again and not in like when Lebron James left Cleveland
25:16
Speaker 1: to go to Miami. It was a temper tantrum of
25:18
Speaker 1: a spoiled star. You know, he did this whole show
25:21
Speaker 1: of who gets Lebron like, oh, piss off? Like you know,
25:25
Speaker 1: you're not all that. Brady was very different. He went
25:29
Speaker 1: and just one and so I'm a huge Brady fan.
25:35
Speaker 1: I'm sure that the disc was meant to Belichick and
25:39
Speaker 1: the Patriots themselves, but I would be astonished if Brady
25:43
Speaker 1: had anything but respect and adoration for the fans who
25:48
Speaker 1: loved him and who continue to love him. And I
25:51
Speaker 1: will say, based on the experience of my own household,
25:54
Speaker 1: at least you are correct about one things. The fans
25:56
Speaker 1: do not take it personally. They forgive him for tweeting
25:59
Speaker 1: about it after and consider it just a disk to
26:01
Speaker 1: the team and not to them. All right, Senator, we
26:03
Speaker 1: have one mail bag question from one of our Verdict
26:06
Speaker 1: plus subscribers. This is from the Steve forty two. Steve
26:10
Speaker 1: asked what are Senator Cruis's thoughts on Conservatives and the
26:13
Speaker 1: Republicans finding a way to unify for the twenty twenty
26:16
Speaker 1: two and twenty twenty four elections. Republicans have an amazing ability,
26:19
Speaker 1: he says, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory
26:21
Speaker 1: with these golden opportunities on the horizon. How do they
26:24
Speaker 1: how do they not just fff it up? Ooka. It's
26:26
Speaker 1: a very good question. And you know there's an old
26:29
Speaker 1: cartoon back before you and I were born, Hoogo had
26:34
Speaker 1: a line this cartoon from the fifties. We have met
26:36
Speaker 1: the enemy and they is us. There's a lot of
26:41
Speaker 1: truth to that. We manage to shoot each other. Listen
26:44
Speaker 1: twenty two. I think we're gonna be fine. I think
26:48
Speaker 1: we're gonna win. I think Republicans are going to retake
26:50
Speaker 1: the House with a big margin. I think it's going
26:52
Speaker 1: to be like a tidal wave year. And I'm getting
26:54
Speaker 1: more and more confident we're going to retake the Senate. Also,
26:58
Speaker 1: the one danger that could screw it up is a
27:01
Speaker 1: civil war between Trump and Senate Republicans. I don't want
27:04
Speaker 1: to see that happen. I hope that doesn't happen, because
27:07
Speaker 1: that's if we're just, and that means we need some
27:12
Speaker 1: restraint on both sides. We need There are some Senate
27:16
Speaker 1: Republicans that desperately want Donald Trump to go away. He's
27:19
Speaker 1: not going away. That is delusional, and the Senate Republicans
27:23
Speaker 1: who want it need to shut up and stop provoking him,
27:27
Speaker 1: and then I hope that President Trump exercises some restraint
27:30
Speaker 1: and doesn't unload on the Senate Republicans he's irritated with.
27:35
Speaker 1: If we avoid going to war with each other, we'll
27:39
Speaker 1: win in twenty two. After we win in twenty two,
27:42
Speaker 1: then we need to actually do something. If we have majorities,
27:45
Speaker 1: we've got to actually deliver on our promises and fight.
27:48
Speaker 1: Are we going to be able to pass great new legislation? No,
27:51
Speaker 1: because Biden will veto it. But we need to have
27:54
Speaker 1: some backbone to fight against Biden. And there will be
27:56
Speaker 1: will there be Republicans wanting to roll over and surrender.
28:01
Speaker 1: Do I expect that I'm going to be fighting tooth
28:03
Speaker 1: and nail against them. Yes, there is a difference of philosophy.
28:10
Speaker 1: Republican leadership in Congress often believes the way you win
28:14
Speaker 1: is don't rock the boat, don't make an issue, don't
28:17
Speaker 1: don't cause too much fuss. Look on the Biden Supreme
28:22
Speaker 1: Court nomination. I've had several of my Republican colleagues say
28:25
Speaker 1: it'd be good if this just went through quickly and
28:27
Speaker 1: we just let it happen and didn't didn't make a mess.
28:29
Speaker 1: And I'm like, are you out of your mind? He's
28:31
Speaker 1: going to nominate a leftist who wants to destroy the Constitution,
28:34
Speaker 1: and we need to fight like hell. Now. We may
28:36
Speaker 1: not be able to beat it, beat the nominee. We
28:38
Speaker 1: may not be able to beat the nomination, but just
28:42
Speaker 1: stand up and fight for what you believe in, so
28:44
Speaker 1: that even now is a fight. Once we have majorities,
28:49
Speaker 1: it'll be a bigger fight. But I think the way
28:51
Speaker 1: we win in twenty four is fighting for something that
28:55
Speaker 1: matters and that you know, if Donald Trump doesn't run
29:02
Speaker 1: for president, we'll have a big, crowded primary in twenty four. Look,
29:05
Speaker 1: I think primaries are good and healthy. We'll have a
29:07
Speaker 1: discussion about what's the right direction to go. The advice
29:11
Speaker 1: I give candidates, the advice I give both House members
29:15
Speaker 1: and senators is real simple. Do what you said you
29:17
Speaker 1: would do. Just just follow through and your promises, whatever
29:20
Speaker 1: you told the voters you'd do, do it. Too often
29:25
Speaker 1: politicians don't do that, particularly Republicans. And if we do
29:30
Speaker 1: what we said we would do, I think that's a
29:31
Speaker 1: path to winning. Yeah, and like you said, I agree
29:34
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Force that veto show the American people,
29:37
Speaker 1: not only what that you're doing what you would promised,
29:39
Speaker 1: and that Biden is vetoing it. But it also puts
29:42
Speaker 1: on record all of these squishy Republicans who won't vote
29:45
Speaker 1: for a conservative agenda and the Democrats who are voting
29:47
Speaker 1: against what people want. It's a very powerful tool. Senator Cruise,
29:50
Speaker 1: this was a really fun inaugural discussion for this series.
29:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for sitting down. We're gonna do this again.
29:56
Speaker 1: This is the cloak Room on Verdict plus