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The Prosecution Rests · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The Democrat House impeachment managers have concluded their case against
0:05
Speaker 1: former President Trump. The second impeachment trial in one year
0:09
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, seems to be heading for a conclusion,
0:13
Speaker 1: and we are going to speak with a man who
0:16
Speaker 1: is watching it all, is going to be a juror
0:18
Speaker 1: on the case, and has spent most of today speaking
0:21
Speaker 1: with the Trump legal team. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
0:30
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I am Michael Knowles.
0:34
Speaker 1: It's funny that we're in the midst of this impeachment
0:37
Speaker 1: trial of the former president and the bigger news of
0:39
Speaker 1: the day would seem to be Disney firing one of
0:42
Speaker 1: their big TV stars, Gina Krano, other news cancel culture,
0:46
Speaker 1: not just affecting the former president, but affecting conservative journalists
0:50
Speaker 1: as well. We will get to all of that, but
0:52
Speaker 1: I do have to ask you, Senator, what is going
0:56
Speaker 1: on today. I know that the Democrats concluded their case,
1:00
Speaker 1: but unlike last year, it seems like there's just not
1:04
Speaker 1: a lot being reported. It seems like kind of an
1:06
Speaker 1: opaque process. We don't even know how long this thing
1:08
Speaker 1: is going to go, So could you just briefly tell
1:11
Speaker 1: us about how that case concluded, and then what the
1:14
Speaker 1: Trump legal team is thinking? Well, sure, I think the
1:17
Speaker 1: kind of quick bottom line is that the Democrats failed
1:20
Speaker 1: to get the job done and they've run out of steam.
1:22
Speaker 1: So they were given sixteen hours, they were given eight
1:25
Speaker 1: hours both days. They ended up finishing four or five
1:28
Speaker 1: hours early today, so they quit early. And I think
1:32
Speaker 1: it was because they had been number one, unbelievably repetitive,
1:37
Speaker 1: making the same points over and over again. In fact,
1:38
Speaker 1: I had fun today. Claire McCaskill, you remember, the former
1:41
Speaker 1: Democratic senator from Missouri, tweeted out that she thought the
1:46
Speaker 1: House manager's case was getting really repetitive and redundant and
1:49
Speaker 1: kept repeating itself. She didn't quite do that, but I
1:54
Speaker 1: thought you would appreciate that. And I saw that and
1:58
Speaker 1: just hit retweet like with no commentary whatsoever. I'm just
2:02
Speaker 1: I'm sure Claire love that I was retweeting her. But
2:05
Speaker 1: she was right on that, you know, I mean even
2:07
Speaker 1: a stop plus she's right, She's right. So they ran
2:11
Speaker 1: out of steam, and the bottom line is they didn't
2:14
Speaker 1: get the job done, and so where are we now?
2:17
Speaker 1: Tomorrow the President's defense lawyers will present their case. They
2:21
Speaker 1: have a total of sixteen hours over two days. They
2:25
Speaker 1: will not take all that time. They will take substantially
2:28
Speaker 1: less time than that. And so after we finished today,
2:32
Speaker 1: I went and sat down with the lawyers. I actually
2:34
Speaker 1: grabbed Lindsey Graham and I grabbed Mike Lee and said, hey,
2:38
Speaker 1: let's go sit down and just talk through with the
2:40
Speaker 1: lawyers what they're planning and give our thoughts. And so
2:43
Speaker 1: the three of us went in President's defense team. They're
2:47
Speaker 1: they're meeting in the LBJ room, which is actually the
2:52
Speaker 1: room where in non COVID times, the Senate minority has lunch.
2:57
Speaker 1: So they're in what will be our lunch room. Sadly,
2:59
Speaker 1: we weren't in the LBJ room for the last six years,
3:02
Speaker 1: but we will have moved back to the LBJ room
3:04
Speaker 1: once COVID is over. With this sort of sort of
3:07
Speaker 1: smirking portrait of LBJ looking down on you, and it's
3:10
Speaker 1: it's right off the side of the Senate floor. And
3:16
Speaker 1: so what happened. Lindsay shared his thoughts, Mike shared his thoughts. Um,
3:21
Speaker 1: I I'm going to refrain from saying what they had
3:25
Speaker 1: to say, but I'm happy to tell you and and
3:28
Speaker 1: verdict listeners what I had to say. Well, I would
3:30
Speaker 1: like to know sort of your your advice for the
3:33
Speaker 1: legal team, because I know, on the one hand, people
3:36
Speaker 1: are thinking, look, this case is over. As you made
3:39
Speaker 1: I think very clear last night, it ain't gone anywhere.
3:42
Speaker 1: They're they're not going to convict Trump. And so as
3:45
Speaker 1: a practical matter, they're obviously not going to remove him
3:47
Speaker 1: from office because that's not possible, and they're not going
3:49
Speaker 1: to convict him anyway. But as a historical matter, this
3:53
Speaker 1: really does matter. I mean, this is setting a new precedent.
3:57
Speaker 1: I guess that you know, this could have a huge
4:00
Speaker 1: political effects into the future. So the arguments they make
4:04
Speaker 1: are going to redound throughout history, There's no doubt. And
4:08
Speaker 1: and we've had two days of the Democrats pounding their narrative,
4:11
Speaker 1: and so there needs to be a counter story. What
4:13
Speaker 1: I started out saying is actually what you just said.
4:16
Speaker 1: As I said, look, you got you got to remember
4:17
Speaker 1: you've already won. There are not sixty seven votes to convict. There.
4:21
Speaker 1: There are fifty five votes to convict plus minus two.
4:27
Speaker 1: I think there's a low of fifty three. I think
4:29
Speaker 1: there's a high of fifty seven. And that's really the
4:32
Speaker 1: band that's in play. So my opening advice was don't
4:37
Speaker 1: do anything to screw it up, don't you know, don't
4:40
Speaker 1: piss anyone off. You know. Related to that, my advice
4:44
Speaker 1: was be calm. I thought the jurisdictional argument, Uh, for
4:50
Speaker 1: President Trump's lawyers, at times, they got a little hot,
4:53
Speaker 1: they got a little angry, and I encourage them be calm,
4:58
Speaker 1: be reasonable, be rash and all. The way I put
5:00
Speaker 1: it is I said, think more like an appellate argument,
5:03
Speaker 1: like you're arguing to Supreme Court justices, and less like
5:07
Speaker 1: a jury argument. So we'll see if they follow through
5:12
Speaker 1: on that. The most important advice I had, I said, look,
5:16
Speaker 1: we've had two days of the Democrat House managers arguments,
5:19
Speaker 1: and ninety percent of what they've done has focused on
5:25
Speaker 1: being emotional and powerful and telling the story of what
5:30
Speaker 1: happened on January sixth, telling the story of the assault,
5:33
Speaker 1: the attack on the Capitol, telling the story of the
5:35
Speaker 1: police officers who are physically assaulted, telling the story of
5:39
Speaker 1: Officer sick Nick who was murdered that day. And I
5:43
Speaker 1: gotta say they did it powerfully, the Democrats. They have
5:47
Speaker 1: some good trial lawyers, they have some good storytellers, and
5:51
Speaker 1: so as they told that story over and over again.
5:54
Speaker 1: It was powerful and effective, and that was ninety percent
5:57
Speaker 1: of their argument. And my advice to the Trump lawyers
6:00
Speaker 1: disagree with none of it. Look, yes, we agree everyone
6:04
Speaker 1: in this jury, all the senators were here that day.
6:07
Speaker 1: It was a horrific terrorist attack. It was despicable, and
6:11
Speaker 1: anyone who committed crimes of violence that day should be
6:14
Speaker 1: fully prosecuted and locked up a long long time. And
6:17
Speaker 1: so don't argue with them on that. That is indisputably true.
6:20
Speaker 1: Everyone in the Senate understands that, believes that, and everyone
6:26
Speaker 1: agrees on it. The only question before the Senate is
6:31
Speaker 1: whether President Trump committed high crimes or misdemeanors. And there's
6:35
Speaker 1: only one that is charged, and that is incitement, incitement
6:38
Speaker 1: of violence. And I pointed out in the entire sixteen
6:41
Speaker 1: hours they had allocated, the Democratic House managers devoted about
6:47
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes to that question. And it was the second
6:50
Speaker 1: to last speech that the House managers gave. It was
6:54
Speaker 1: Congressman from Colorado is actually a talented trial lawyer, who
6:59
Speaker 1: got up and he spent about fifteen minutes laying out
7:02
Speaker 1: the legal argument why they believe this constitute's incitement and
7:07
Speaker 1: to be honest, it's the only relevant moment. In fact,
7:10
Speaker 1: I said, in the entire time, it's the only time
7:12
Speaker 1: I pulled out a notepad and made any notes, because
7:14
Speaker 1: it was the only time they actually said anything relevant
7:16
Speaker 1: to the question before the body. What the House managers
7:19
Speaker 1: articulated was a three part standard for incitement. They said,
7:25
Speaker 1: number one was violence foreseeable, Number two did President Trump
7:29
Speaker 1: encourage the violence? And number three was the president's conduct willful?
7:34
Speaker 1: So I wrote those three down, and the point I
7:38
Speaker 1: made to the Trump lawyers, I said, first of all,
7:40
Speaker 1: you'll notice those three elements are not found anywhere in
7:49
Speaker 1: a statute. They're not elements of a crime that they're
7:54
Speaker 1: not actually the elements of incitement. They're not found in Brandenburg,
7:58
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court case that talks about incitement and lays
8:02
Speaker 1: out the constitutional standard. They literally just made them up. Yeah,
8:06
Speaker 1: that's a very strange way to prosecute a crime. As
8:10
Speaker 1: I said, look, you know, a lot of the lawyers
8:12
Speaker 1: on the defense team have been either prosecutors or criminal
8:15
Speaker 1: defense lawyers. The way a prosecutor proceeds if they are
8:18
Speaker 1: charging you with a crime, there are statutory elements of
8:22
Speaker 1: the crime. Here's what constitutes the crime, and the prosecutor
8:24
Speaker 1: sets out to prove each of the elements of the crime.
8:28
Speaker 1: That's not, in fact, how the house managers proceeded here
8:31
Speaker 1: because they can't meet the statutory elements for incitement. So
8:34
Speaker 1: they just made these three up. Okay, those are the
8:37
Speaker 1: three they made up. I said, look, I'd start by
8:39
Speaker 1: pointing out where did these come from? They literally just
8:41
Speaker 1: pulled them out of whole cloth. But then here's the
8:44
Speaker 1: critical point. I'd say, look, on any standard, the question
8:47
Speaker 1: for the Senate to assess, is there any coherent way
8:52
Speaker 1: this test can distinguish between the conduct of Donald Trump
8:56
Speaker 1: versus the conduct of countless other political figures, including a
9:01
Speaker 1: whole bunch of Democrats, Right, And and I said, look,
9:05
Speaker 1: I think you should walk through in particular Bernie Sanders,
9:10
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi.
9:17
Speaker 1: She referred to police officers as stormtroopers, compared him to Nazis.
9:23
Speaker 1: You know, there's some rich irony that suddenly the Democrats
9:26
Speaker 1: are the defenders of cops, of course, where for a
9:29
Speaker 1: year they've been vilifying, demonizing police officers. They've been marching
9:34
Speaker 1: against cops, they've been saying abolish the police. They've been
9:37
Speaker 1: saying abolish ice. They've been embracing ACAB as a slogan,
9:45
Speaker 1: and Michael, you know what ACAB means if all cap
9:48
Speaker 1: cops are that's and that has been the Democratic base
9:56
Speaker 1: that they've been snuggling up with. They don't get to
9:58
Speaker 1: suddenly be the great and defenders of police officers. Yeah,
10:02
Speaker 1: you know, I love this, Senator this. I guess two
10:05
Speaker 1: points here in this advice that a lot of Republicans
10:09
Speaker 1: have not recognized, which is one, don't always be on
10:13
Speaker 1: the defensive. You can go on the offensive, or you
10:15
Speaker 1: can point out inconsistencies, you can use the Democrats words
10:18
Speaker 1: against them. But but maybe even more importantly, you don't
10:22
Speaker 1: have to accept their ridiculous premises. You know that the
10:26
Speaker 1: early premise that exactly that the Democrats are trying to
10:29
Speaker 1: get these Republicans to buy into is that somehow Republicans
10:33
Speaker 1: support riots at the Capitol. I don't know any serious
10:36
Speaker 1: Republicans who say, yeah, I loved when the guy and
10:38
Speaker 1: the bullhorns walked in there. He's my guy. Where can
10:42
Speaker 1: I vote for him? And likewise, I mean, you've just
10:45
Speaker 1: spelled it out so perfectly on the question of incitement.
10:50
Speaker 1: If look, I'm not a constitutional law scholar. I'm not
10:53
Speaker 1: a lawyer of any sort. If if I were just listening,
10:56
Speaker 1: but you did stay at a holiday in last night,
10:58
Speaker 1: but I did stay at the right You know, if
11:02
Speaker 1: I were just listening to them lay out this standard
11:04
Speaker 1: for incitement, I guess I would say, Okay, that sounds
11:06
Speaker 1: about right. I mean, I don't know what the real
11:08
Speaker 1: standard is. So if the legal team can go in
11:10
Speaker 1: there and say, wait a second, just so you all know,
11:13
Speaker 1: they completely made that up out of whole cloth, that
11:15
Speaker 1: is not the actual standard for incitement. There is no
11:18
Speaker 1: reason for us to accept premises that have been crafted
11:22
Speaker 1: purely to put us at a disadvantage. We're going to
11:25
Speaker 1: talk about the law. We're going to talk about what
11:27
Speaker 1: is always been true. You know what the long standing
11:31
Speaker 1: standard here for incitement. That seems much more effective than
11:35
Speaker 1: just going along with what the Democrats are trying to
11:38
Speaker 1: lead them. I think that's exactly right. And what I
11:42
Speaker 1: encourage the Trump lawyers to do is say, all right,
11:43
Speaker 1: take their standard and apply it to the conduct of Democrats.
11:47
Speaker 1: Let's take, for example, Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders uses all
11:50
Speaker 1: sorts of hot incendiary rhetoric. And you'll recall we had
11:55
Speaker 1: a crazed lunatic, a leftist who was an enthusiasm stick
12:00
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders supporter, who came to Washington, d C. With
12:04
Speaker 1: an AAR fifteen, went and sought out the Congressional baseball
12:08
Speaker 1: game practice asked are they Democrats or Republicans? The Republicans,
12:13
Speaker 1: so he went to kill Republican members of Congress. There
12:16
Speaker 1: were two senators there, Rand Paul and Jeff Flake that
12:19
Speaker 1: there were a dozen or so House members there, and
12:22
Speaker 1: he opened fire on them. And it was only the
12:26
Speaker 1: coincidence that Steve Scalise happened to be there. So Steve
12:30
Speaker 1: Scalise is a member of House Leadership, so his detail
12:33
Speaker 1: was there, and there were Capitol police officers who engaged
12:37
Speaker 1: with this crazed lunatic and stopped him, but they didn't
12:40
Speaker 1: stop him before he had shot Steve Scalise and nearly
12:44
Speaker 1: killed him. I mean, Steve spent months in the hospital.
12:48
Speaker 1: I mean it was a serious wound. Steve for many
12:51
Speaker 1: months after that couldn't walk, was on crutches. He's doing
12:54
Speaker 1: much better now, but it was a life threatening injury.
13:00
Speaker 1: And all right, let's take their three standards. Was violence
13:05
Speaker 1: for seeable? Well, given the rhetoric Bernie was using, and
13:08
Speaker 1: I encourage them, and you know, play videos show that
13:10
Speaker 1: rhetoric Bernie was using. He said, they're trying to take
13:12
Speaker 1: your health healthcare away and want you to die. Okay?
13:15
Speaker 1: Is violence foreseeable from that? Did Burnie encourage it? I?
13:19
Speaker 1: You know, I guarantee you. Bernie has the rhetoric saying go, fight,
13:22
Speaker 1: stop it, go, has exactly the kind of rhetoric Donald
13:25
Speaker 1: Trump used. And then was it willful under that standard?
13:32
Speaker 1: Bernie's conduct apparently as incitement? I guess we're going to
13:36
Speaker 1: start the removal proceedings for Bernie Sanders. Maxine Waters who
13:40
Speaker 1: told her supporters, if you see a Republican and go
13:42
Speaker 1: harass them, engage them, yell at them, surround them. I
13:45
Speaker 1: mean that is inviting violence. By the way, Corey Booker
13:48
Speaker 1: did the same thing, and the most compelling Chuck Schumer
13:53
Speaker 1: on the steps of the Supreme Court calling out to
13:56
Speaker 1: Supreme Court justices by name and saying, you unleash the whirlwind.
14:01
Speaker 1: You're going to pay the price. But the central example
14:05
Speaker 1: and what I encouraged them to make it exactly side
14:09
Speaker 1: by side as Kamala Harris. So, Kamala Harris did a
14:13
Speaker 1: couple of things. Number one, as we had Black Lives
14:17
Speaker 1: Matter and Antifa riots all over the country, and we
14:20
Speaker 1: had violence going on. We had police cars being fire bombed,
14:24
Speaker 1: we had police police officers being murdered. Kamala Harris went
14:29
Speaker 1: on Stephen Colbert and was asked about it. Said, this
14:32
Speaker 1: is a movement. It's powerful, and she said, and it
14:34
Speaker 1: needs to keep going, right, it won't end, and it
14:37
Speaker 1: shouldn't end, and it shouldn't end. She explicitly encouraged that it.
14:43
Speaker 1: And this was, by the way, after the violence, after
14:45
Speaker 1: the riots. Not only that, but she raised money for
14:49
Speaker 1: bail money to bail out and by the way, it
14:52
Speaker 1: wasn't bailing out the peaceful protesters. The people who were
14:55
Speaker 1: arrested were the people committing acts of violence. So she
14:58
Speaker 1: literally raised al money to support the violent criminals. And
15:04
Speaker 1: all right, let's look at the three standards. This is
15:06
Speaker 1: apparently the standard for incitement was violence foreseeable? It was
15:09
Speaker 1: going on right then. It was not only foreseeable, it
15:13
Speaker 1: was blazingly obvious and indisputable because it was happening as
15:16
Speaker 1: she was speaking. She knew full well did she encourage it.
15:21
Speaker 1: She explicitly said, yes, it needs to go on. Was
15:24
Speaker 1: it willful? She raised money supporting the violent criminals? And
15:30
Speaker 1: there's no coherent way that the standard the House Democrats
15:35
Speaker 1: had put forward can conclude that Trump committed incitement and
15:38
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris didn't. You can conclude rightly that neither committed
15:43
Speaker 1: the crime of incitement. That's actually the right answer, or
15:48
Speaker 1: you can use their made up standard, in which case,
15:51
Speaker 1: right after we finished with Donald Trump, I guess we're
15:53
Speaker 1: going to start an impeachment proceeding of Vice President Kamala Harris.
15:56
Speaker 1: Right right, But you don't get both and by the way,
16:00
Speaker 1: under their standards, in a lot of ways, Kamala's behavior
16:03
Speaker 1: was worse. Yeah, as I told him to ask, I said, listen,
16:07
Speaker 1: last I checked, Donald Trump isn't raising bail money for
16:10
Speaker 1: the violent criminals. There are whole bunch people who have
16:12
Speaker 1: been arrested. He's not raising bail money for them. She
16:15
Speaker 1: raised money for them. So if it is, and this
16:19
Speaker 1: is another important point I made, Michael, So the House
16:23
Speaker 1: managers put a lot of emphasis on did President Trump
16:28
Speaker 1: do enough to stop the riot once it's happened? Did
16:31
Speaker 1: he denounce it? To tell him to stand down, and
16:35
Speaker 1: I said, look, you guys got to decide as president's lawyer,
16:38
Speaker 1: what you think about that. Frankly, I wish he'd done more.
16:42
Speaker 1: When I look back at what he said that day,
16:44
Speaker 1: I wish he had been clearer, more unequivocal, saying stop
16:47
Speaker 1: this right now, immediately go home and leave. There were
16:50
Speaker 1: a lot of Republicans calling on him to do that.
16:52
Speaker 1: I wish he had been clear, But within an hour
16:58
Speaker 1: or two he sent out a tweet tolling him to
17:00
Speaker 1: stand down. He put out a video calling on him
17:02
Speaker 1: to stand down. So he did, in fact tell him
17:05
Speaker 1: to stand down. I wish it had been clear and
17:07
Speaker 1: more unequivocal, but he didn't fact do it. Come Harris
17:09
Speaker 1: still hasn't done it? Yeah, right right. We had this
17:13
Speaker 1: week Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters marching in DC
17:17
Speaker 1: saying burn the place down. She still hasn't told them
17:22
Speaker 1: to stand down. And so if that's the test, did
17:27
Speaker 1: you tell him to stand down after the violence erupted,
17:30
Speaker 1: Look what we had in the chaz autonomous zones. We
17:34
Speaker 1: had Democrats defending it, calling it the summer of love.
17:38
Speaker 1: Remember that it's just harmless. Yes, people are being murdered,
17:42
Speaker 1: but it's harmless because we agree politically with those guys. Yeah,
17:47
Speaker 1: and so what I urge the Trump legal team is
17:51
Speaker 1: to calmly, without emotion, just compare the conduct of Democrats
17:57
Speaker 1: to what the conduct of the president, and under the
18:00
Speaker 1: standard they're laying out, either we're going to start impeaching
18:04
Speaker 1: dozens of people, or ain't nobody guilty of this because
18:08
Speaker 1: this is a made up political persecution, which is again
18:11
Speaker 1: the right answer to what's happening. You know, I think
18:13
Speaker 1: this is great advice, not just for the impeachment trial,
18:16
Speaker 1: though it is, but just generally speaking, reject their false
18:20
Speaker 1: premises and hold them to their own standards because this
18:24
Speaker 1: is so much bigger than impeachment. Frankly, I think impeachment
18:27
Speaker 1: isn't even the biggest news story right now. It'll have
18:30
Speaker 1: historical implications, so we really have to focus on it.
18:34
Speaker 1: But the bigger stories right now involve cancel culture more broadly,
18:38
Speaker 1: not just canceling the former president, but canceling TV stars,
18:42
Speaker 1: canceling journalists. And we've seen this with Gina Krano, who
18:47
Speaker 1: is in the Star Wars show The Mandalorian. Disney has
18:51
Speaker 1: fired her because of their accusing her of making anti
18:54
Speaker 1: Semitic comments. I've read all the comments. I can't find
18:57
Speaker 1: even a hint of anti Semitism in any of them. Really,
19:00
Speaker 1: I think they're going after her because broadly speaking, she's
19:03
Speaker 1: been a little more conservative, she's been a little more
19:05
Speaker 1: right wing, and they can't tolerate that, so they're going
19:08
Speaker 1: after her. We've just found out that James O'Keefe, the
19:11
Speaker 1: investigative journalist, a real thorn in the side of the
19:15
Speaker 1: liberal establishment. He's been permanently kicked off of Twitter because
19:19
Speaker 1: it turns out he's now running investigations on big tech companies.
19:24
Speaker 1: What these people have been ostracized for and censored for
19:29
Speaker 1: would absolutely fall apart if you held the left to
19:32
Speaker 1: that same standard. It seems there's one set of rules
19:35
Speaker 1: for conservatives another one for liberals. But that's the world
19:39
Speaker 1: we live in. What are we supposed to do about it? Look,
19:41
Speaker 1: I think you're exactly right. What happened with Gina Krano
19:44
Speaker 1: is nuts. I mean, number one, you have a strong,
19:48
Speaker 1: kick ass character on The Mandalorian, which which lots of kids,
19:51
Speaker 1: especially little girls, are are inspired by, and and you
19:55
Speaker 1: know made you know, helped made Star Wars more fun
20:00
Speaker 1: it's always been fine, and I would look. I grew
20:01
Speaker 1: up on Star Wars. I still remember standing in line
20:04
Speaker 1: with my dad on opening day of Empire Strikes Back,
20:07
Speaker 1: and we stood in line for two hours to see
20:10
Speaker 1: Empire the first day it opened up. Disney. Disney is
20:15
Speaker 1: not the company it used to be. Disney is a giant, corporate,
20:22
Speaker 1: politically correct propaganda outfit. And you look at here. So
20:30
Speaker 1: I haven't read all of the blog posts that that
20:32
Speaker 1: that Jinnakrona put up. I've I've seen. I actually looked
20:36
Speaker 1: for it online and it was hard to find, but
20:38
Speaker 1: I read stories quoting excerpts up it. So I read
20:41
Speaker 1: the excerpts that were quoted in stories, and what I
20:43
Speaker 1: read that she posted is she was saying, look, if
20:46
Speaker 1: you looked at the rise of the Nazis in Germany
20:50
Speaker 1: and all of the horrific things that that happened to
20:54
Speaker 1: the Jewish people that culminated in six million Jews being
20:57
Speaker 1: being murdered in concentration camps. That began because the Nazis
21:03
Speaker 1: demonize the Jews, they dehumanize the Jews. They they they
21:07
Speaker 1: used rhetoric that caused ordinary Germans, not SS stormtroopers, but
21:14
Speaker 1: a baker or you know, a storekeeper, to view the
21:18
Speaker 1: Jews as as subhuman, as not human, to inculcate hatred.
21:24
Speaker 1: And her point was that hatred, yes, it erupted in
21:29
Speaker 1: the horrific, grotesquely evil genocide that was carried out by
21:34
Speaker 1: the Nazis, but it also manifested in day to day
21:38
Speaker 1: barbaric inhumanity because they had been dehumanized. And from what
21:44
Speaker 1: I read of her blog post, she was saying, you
21:46
Speaker 1: know what, we're seeing that same dehumanizing happening in America
21:51
Speaker 1: where people are demonizing their other, rising their political opponents,
21:55
Speaker 1: that that if you disagree you you are not it's
22:01
Speaker 1: not valid for you to have a different point of view. Now,
22:05
Speaker 1: from what I read, she didn't say that we've become
22:07
Speaker 1: Nazi Germany. She didn't say we're erecting concentration camps. But
22:12
Speaker 1: because she simply made the point that spreading a culture
22:15
Speaker 1: of hate and dehumanizing is really dangerous and leads in
22:18
Speaker 1: bad directions, Disney described her comments as abhorrent, and I
22:24
Speaker 1: was like, saying, we shouldn't hate each other and dehumanize
22:28
Speaker 1: each other. What am I missing? Unless they're portions of
22:31
Speaker 1: the blog posts that weren't quoted in the stories, and
22:33
Speaker 1: given that the stories are critical, I'm assuming they included
22:36
Speaker 1: whatever the worst portions were. This is there's an irony
22:43
Speaker 1: that she's complaining, we're becoming hateful and intolerant of differences
22:49
Speaker 1: and opinions. And what does Disney say, we hate your opinion,
22:52
Speaker 1: You're fired. It would seem to me there's this even
22:55
Speaker 1: deeper irony here, which is maybe the best way I
23:00
Speaker 1: can read Disney's statement is they're saying that any comments
23:04
Speaker 1: that makes any comparison to Nazi Germany is unacceptable. It's abhorrant.
23:08
Speaker 1: We can't we can't tolerate that sort of thing. And okay,
23:11
Speaker 1: let's just take that standard for what it is. Am
23:14
Speaker 1: I wrong? Or has the left not spent the past
23:16
Speaker 1: five years calling Donald Trump literally hitler? Right? They call
23:20
Speaker 1: him hitler. They refer to to seventy five million Americans
23:24
Speaker 1: as Nazis neo Nazis regularly, so they make the exact
23:28
Speaker 1: same analogy. And before Trump, they called George W. Bush hitler.
23:33
Speaker 1: That's their standard. Any Republican they dislike they call hitler. Now,
23:37
Speaker 1: my view is you shouldn't actually call people hitler unless
23:40
Speaker 1: they are in fact genocientomdiacs that are murdering millions of people.
23:43
Speaker 1: But there is a unique like in Dante's circles of Hell,
23:48
Speaker 1: there is a unique hell. The Nazis are the most
23:52
Speaker 1: grotesque example of evil in certainly modern times. And maybe ever, look,
23:58
Speaker 1: there is a reason why never Forget has such power.
24:04
Speaker 1: There's a reason why Holocaust museums are important, because it's
24:08
Speaker 1: worth reflecting on the absolute inhumanity. You know, you look
24:12
Speaker 1: at uh Hannah rant who who you know, wrote on
24:17
Speaker 1: what led to the to the evil that is the Nazis,
24:21
Speaker 1: And she had a phrase that that was really powerful,
24:25
Speaker 1: the banality of evil and and and and it's worth reflecting.
24:29
Speaker 1: And she really she talked about how it's not just
24:33
Speaker 1: you know, someone cackling with horns and a red tail,
24:37
Speaker 1: like so obviously evil that that you know, you're like, okay,
24:42
Speaker 1: this is this is a crazy bad guy. It was
24:46
Speaker 1: the boring aspect she talked about. I think it was Eichmann,
24:51
Speaker 1: how when he testified at Nuremberg, he sounded like an accountant,
24:58
Speaker 1: that it wasn't it wasn't Hannibal lecture in Silence of
25:02
Speaker 1: the Lambs to to sort of mixed references it wasn't like,
25:07
Speaker 1: you know, Lecture's giant eyes on the screen, You're like,
25:09
Speaker 1: oh god, that guy's really creepy and evil. But it
25:13
Speaker 1: was a boring accountant simply carrying out Hitler's quote final
25:18
Speaker 1: solution to murder six million people. It was It's worth
25:23
Speaker 1: asking what conditions led to use another movie, you know,
25:31
Speaker 1: Schindler's List, which is one of the greatest movies ever.
25:35
Speaker 1: I love Schindler's List, but it talks about how in
25:38
Speaker 1: a different world these people would be regular, ordinary people,
25:42
Speaker 1: and yet the conditions of evil made them all complicit
25:47
Speaker 1: in this grotesque horror. We should ask what causes that
25:52
Speaker 1: to happen? And from what I read, that's that's what
25:56
Speaker 1: Gina was doing, right. I mean, just you know, take
25:59
Speaker 1: the Nazi comparison out, because that seems to be what
26:02
Speaker 1: they're objecting to. Just the circumstances and the broader point
26:06
Speaker 1: that Gina was making it seems to be perfectly true.
26:10
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how you could disagree
26:12
Speaker 1: with it. And this is you know, it's not just
26:14
Speaker 1: happening at it And let me jump jump in real quick, Michael.
26:17
Speaker 1: There's also a broader pattern of evil which is that
26:20
Speaker 1: dehumanizing anyone, defining them to no longer qualify as human
26:28
Speaker 1: invariably leads to horrific oppression. And so it was integral
26:33
Speaker 1: to what the Nazis did, but it was also integral
26:37
Speaker 1: to slavery. And you look at at all of the
26:40
Speaker 1: reasoning that was used to justify the horrific evil that
26:44
Speaker 1: was slavery in America. It was based on the proposition
26:47
Speaker 1: dread Scott. The Supreme Court decision was based on the
26:50
Speaker 1: proposition that an African American was not a human being
26:53
Speaker 1: but instead was defined as as property. And that is
26:57
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous and it leads to grotesque oppression and evil.
27:01
Speaker 1: And you and I have talked about this before. That
27:03
Speaker 1: is also the justification that is used to justify abortion,
27:08
Speaker 1: is to say an unborn child is not a human
27:10
Speaker 1: being that anytime you're taking and it leads to today's
27:15
Speaker 1: democrats justifying things like partial birth, abortion, delivering a child
27:20
Speaker 1: who's living, and with cold blood taking their life. All
27:26
Speaker 1: of those begin with saying the person in question is
27:31
Speaker 1: not a person, and that is a really dangerous step
27:35
Speaker 1: one of an analysis, because step two is invariably horrific.
27:41
Speaker 1: And you know, we've been hearing on the topic of
27:44
Speaker 1: other rising or dehumanization. Half the country called deplorable, irredeemable.
27:50
Speaker 1: Going back to Obama, bitter clingers, right, you know, these
27:53
Speaker 1: people who basically ought to be ostracized from society. We're
27:56
Speaker 1: now seeing this ostracism manifest through cancel cultures. People lose
28:00
Speaker 1: their jobs, they lose their platforms through the censorship, through
28:03
Speaker 1: the through actual d platforming on the social media platforms.
28:07
Speaker 1: The cancelation of journalists. James O'Keefe would be a key
28:11
Speaker 1: example of this. This seems to be and that's outrageous,
28:14
Speaker 1: by the way, the fact that that that social media's
28:18
Speaker 1: banned James O'Keefe. Look, James O'Keefe, the guy has done
28:22
Speaker 1: incredible undercover journalism and they may not like that he's
28:27
Speaker 1: exposed what people on the left are doing, including exposing
28:30
Speaker 1: big tech. By the way, this is a protect their
28:34
Speaker 1: own asses step because he's uncovered the corruption of big tech,
28:39
Speaker 1: and so they're like, well, let's just muslim that that's
28:42
Speaker 1: you know, this is trying to silence a whistleblower because
28:45
Speaker 1: he gets whistleblowers and he engages in in undercover tactics, which,
28:51
Speaker 1: by the way, sixty minutes does other journalistic outlets do.
28:54
Speaker 1: But the difference is that big Tech agrees with their politics,
28:58
Speaker 1: so that's great, But if you disagree with their politics,
29:01
Speaker 1: this is the left is trying to consolidate power and
29:06
Speaker 1: their systematically trying to silence every single setting voice. And
29:10
Speaker 1: I think this word banality is very important because the
29:14
Speaker 1: way they're doing it. What has really impressed me most
29:17
Speaker 1: about it is how steady it is, how gradual it's
29:20
Speaker 1: not you know, people jumping out with the devil horns
29:23
Speaker 1: and saying, Aha, it's just this slow. More and more
29:26
Speaker 1: people being kicked off of social media, not being permitted
29:29
Speaker 1: to even work, or not being permitted to go to
29:32
Speaker 1: boiling a frog. Yes, it is boiling a frog. And
29:35
Speaker 1: you know, this gets to a mail bag question that
29:38
Speaker 1: I was hoping to get to last night. But obviously
29:40
Speaker 1: there was a lot a lot going on with the trial.
29:42
Speaker 1: This is from Right Minded USA who asks he's referring
29:46
Speaker 1: to that Time magazine article where liberal establishmentarians basically said
29:51
Speaker 1: there was a conspiracy in the twenty twenty election. It
29:55
Speaker 1: was right before our eyes. Though. It is all these
29:56
Speaker 1: groups kind of working to make the situation more advantageous
29:59
Speaker 1: tow amocrats. He says, in light of that Time article
30:02
Speaker 1: that detailed the collusion between the AFLCIO, Big Tech, and
30:05
Speaker 1: the Chamber of Commerce to win the twenty twenty election,
30:08
Speaker 1: what does the Senator think the GOP and Conservatives should
30:11
Speaker 1: be doing right now to build something to counteract it
30:15
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, and more importantly, in twenty twenty four. Look,
30:18
Speaker 1: it's a great question, and that article was chilling. Number one,
30:22
Speaker 1: Time Magazine was celebrating, Yeah, that you had the titans
30:26
Speaker 1: of industry, the Fortune five hundred CEOs, teaming up with
30:30
Speaker 1: big Tech and then teaming up with the big union bosses,
30:34
Speaker 1: all of them together saying, let's work together to make
30:38
Speaker 1: sure Donald Trump can't win this election. Let's work together
30:42
Speaker 1: to hand this election over to Joe Biden. And by
30:45
Speaker 1: the way, anyone who said this before the election, who
30:47
Speaker 1: said that that the fix was in, would get ridiculed
30:51
Speaker 1: as a crazy conspiracy theorist. And then afterwards Time Magazine said, oh, look,
30:55
Speaker 1: how wonderful the fix was in. Aren't we happy because
30:58
Speaker 1: we're part of the people engaged in this. Look, I
31:01
Speaker 1: think as conservatives we need to be not naive. You
31:05
Speaker 1: and I did a live episode in Miami last week,
31:08
Speaker 1: and our big theme was big as bad. Big business
31:12
Speaker 1: is bad, big government is bad, Big tech is bad.
31:15
Speaker 1: Any big accumulation of power and money will be used.
31:20
Speaker 1: You know. It's like Lord Acton said, power corrupts. Absolute
31:23
Speaker 1: power corrupts absolutely giant corporation. Name me one Fortune one
31:30
Speaker 1: hundred CEO, who's actually a courageous conservative. We'd be here
31:35
Speaker 1: all night. It doesn't. It's why, in fact, they were
31:39
Speaker 1: willing to get in bed with their ostensible adversary, the
31:43
Speaker 1: union bosses, to preserve power. I think the answer is
31:49
Speaker 1: we've got to empower the people. We've got to go
31:51
Speaker 1: around big tech. I think the answer, frankly is things
31:53
Speaker 1: like the podcast. I think the answer is finding ways
31:56
Speaker 1: to empower the people and to focus on small business.
32:00
Speaker 1: Look at is the small businesses that you know the
32:03
Speaker 1: economist Chumpeter talked about creative destruction. I look, I'm interested
32:08
Speaker 1: in small entrepreneurs, people that are shattering the status quo.
32:12
Speaker 1: And and frankly, there are more of us than there
32:15
Speaker 1: are of them. They're willing to use power to hold
32:18
Speaker 1: on to control. But there is a common sense conservative
32:22
Speaker 1: core in this country, and we've got to develop ways
32:25
Speaker 1: to mobilize, educate, energize, and turn them out. That's how
32:30
Speaker 1: we fight against it. Because you better believe they've done
32:32
Speaker 1: it once, they're going to keep doing it again and again.
32:35
Speaker 1: Those with power want to hold onto power, and the
32:37
Speaker 1: only way to stop them is to take it away
32:40
Speaker 1: from them. And the only thing powerful to do that
32:41
Speaker 1: is the people. You know, you're you're going to be
32:43
Speaker 1: accused of being a populist for saying these sorts of things,
32:47
Speaker 1: But what you were saying is such an important point,
32:50
Speaker 1: and it's something that has driven me crazy about the
32:52
Speaker 1: GOP for years, which is they have all too often
32:57
Speaker 1: cozied up to these big business in may case of
33:00
Speaker 1: these oligarchs who hate our values, who often have very
33:04
Speaker 1: little loyalty to the country, who push radical leftism, who
33:08
Speaker 1: abuse their power, who are cronies and crooks very often.
33:11
Speaker 1: And there's nothing particularly conservative about that. You know, Conservatives
33:15
Speaker 1: once understood that big, unlimited power is a danger to
33:20
Speaker 1: the people into constitutional government, whether it's in a government
33:23
Speaker 1: bureaucracy or whether it's in a corporate bureaucracy. I think
33:26
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. And there's another dynamic. Look, I'm not
33:29
Speaker 1: interested in attacking a company that's a job creator and
33:33
Speaker 1: trying to destroy them. I like jobs. I want as
33:35
Speaker 1: many jobs as possible. But if you look at what
33:38
Speaker 1: happens with big business, they almost invariably get in bed
33:42
Speaker 1: with big government. There's a reason big business wants Joe
33:46
Speaker 1: Biden wants socialism because they profit. And my view of
33:51
Speaker 1: big business and I look, I've worked with lots of companies,
33:53
Speaker 1: lots of employers. As I say, if if you want
33:55
Speaker 1: a subsidy, if you want corporate welfare, if you want
33:59
Speaker 1: a special hand at out, I ain't your guy. Yeah,
34:02
Speaker 1: we shouldn't be in the business of corporate welfare, of
34:04
Speaker 1: benefititing corporations doesn't mean I'm going to go out and
34:07
Speaker 1: try to destroy businesses that are giving people good livelihoods.
34:10
Speaker 1: But you know, the big companies of the world, they
34:13
Speaker 1: don't need government's help. Also, what big business does, it's
34:17
Speaker 1: not just that they want subsidies and welfare. They want
34:21
Speaker 1: government to hammer the little guys. So big business goes
34:25
Speaker 1: to government and says, you know, the only thing that
34:27
Speaker 1: can beat us is some upstart small business that might
34:30
Speaker 1: challenge us, can you shut them down? And and that
34:34
Speaker 1: pattern it is they're both focused on maintaining the power
34:40
Speaker 1: of the status quo. And it's look conservatives who believe
34:45
Speaker 1: in the free market. There's something revolutionary about the free market.
34:49
Speaker 1: You look at socialist countries and communist countries. There are
34:53
Speaker 1: giant companies that are the status quo. Nothing changes when
34:57
Speaker 1: government has control of the economy. Who vers in charge
35:01
Speaker 1: stays in charge. It is about maintaining power. There is
35:04
Speaker 1: a a chaos that status tte in a free market society.
35:12
Speaker 1: But that's incredibly good for prosperity and opportunity because it
35:15
Speaker 1: means little guys can achieve great things. You don't have
35:18
Speaker 1: to be born into the lucky sperm club of just
35:21
Speaker 1: happening to be you know, gosh, I was born in
35:23
Speaker 1: the right family, So who I get to be a
35:27
Speaker 1: duke or what have you? Instead, it is you succeed
35:30
Speaker 1: based on the content of your character. I did not
35:34
Speaker 1: anticipate the phrase lucky sperm club coming up on the
35:36
Speaker 1: show tonight, but I think the point is very, very important,
35:40
Speaker 1: and this is really what we're talking And by the way,
35:42
Speaker 1: if we do get sponsors and advertisers, let's turn them down.
35:46
Speaker 1: If if that's actually like, you know, sort of a
35:48
Speaker 1: CD club, let's just not take that one is they
35:52
Speaker 1: have no place on this show. But you know that
35:55
Speaker 1: that is really what we're talking about here, is the
35:57
Speaker 1: future because this impeachment trial, this whole thing that's happening
36:01
Speaker 1: right now, it feels like we're just stuck in mud.
36:03
Speaker 1: That is coming to an end, and we'll have to
36:05
Speaker 1: look to the future, the future for the conservative movement
36:08
Speaker 1: and the future for the country. And Michael, two things
36:10
Speaker 1: to go back where we started. Two things just to
36:13
Speaker 1: close out on of advice that I gave the Trump lawyers.
36:16
Speaker 1: Number one, I said that the House managers keep using
36:19
Speaker 1: the word insurrectionist, and my advice to the Trump lawyers
36:24
Speaker 1: is don't repeat that. I would refer to them either
36:28
Speaker 1: as rioters or violent criminals. And the reason is, look,
36:32
Speaker 1: insurrection actually has a definition under the law. An insurrection
36:36
Speaker 1: is an organized it's like a revolution. It's designed to
36:40
Speaker 1: overturn the government and to take over the country. That's
36:43
Speaker 1: the Democrats political narrative. It's why they keep using insurrectionist
36:47
Speaker 1: insurrectionist insurrectionists. It's, by the way, why they also apologize
36:54
Speaker 1: for and brush under the rug the rioters who are
36:57
Speaker 1: burning cities all across the country because they say, oh, well,
37:00
Speaker 1: they're not insurrectionists, They're just murderers. Murderers are okay for
37:03
Speaker 1: peaceful protesters. And my advice I told the Trump players, look,
37:07
Speaker 1: don't make the argument about whether they're insurrectionists or not.
37:10
Speaker 1: That is quicksand just don't buy into the democrats phrasing
37:15
Speaker 1: of terms. Just call them what they are, unquestionably, which
37:19
Speaker 1: is violent criminals. And then a second thing that I
37:22
Speaker 1: told them, As I said, look sitting on the Republican
37:25
Speaker 1: side of the Senate floor and talking with a lot
37:27
Speaker 1: of the Republican senators as I have been during this trial,
37:31
Speaker 1: a sentiment that is very widely felt is real frustration
37:36
Speaker 1: with the Democrats of their hypocrisy. And the hypocrisy is rich.
37:43
Speaker 1: You know. I mentioned before how they're waxing eloquently about
37:48
Speaker 1: how much they love police officers after spending a year
37:51
Speaker 1: demonizing cops. One of the house managers did a presentation
37:55
Speaker 1: of protesters who showed up at the house of I
37:57
Speaker 1: think it was the Michigan Secretary of State, and that
38:00
Speaker 1: it was a high dungeon. Just can you believe they
38:03
Speaker 1: would come to the house. How terrible that is. And
38:06
Speaker 1: I got to tell you, most of the Republican Senators,
38:08
Speaker 1: we've had protesters coming to our house. I had a
38:12
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago protesters put three full sized coffins
38:15
Speaker 1: in my front yard while Heidi was at home and
38:18
Speaker 1: while my kids were at school, and virtually all of
38:22
Speaker 1: us have had this happened. Susan Collins leftist protesters dropped off.
38:27
Speaker 1: I think it was hundreds of bodybags at her home.
38:31
Speaker 1: Not only that, they threatened both Susan Collins and her
38:36
Speaker 1: staff with sexual assault, they threatened to rape them. Eric Swalwell,
38:41
Speaker 1: who's one of the House impeachment managers, when they did that,
38:45
Speaker 1: he tweeted out in response to the threats of rape
38:48
Speaker 1: against Susan Collins and her staff, he tweeted out, boo hoo,
38:53
Speaker 1: crimea river. These guys, the hypocrisy. And by the way,
38:59
Speaker 1: Susan remembers at Yeah, so when we're listening to these
39:04
Speaker 1: democrats suddenly decry, oh, we don't like people coming to
39:10
Speaker 1: your house. Okay, I actually agree that you shouldn't be
39:13
Speaker 1: coming to any public officials house and terrorizing their family.
39:18
Speaker 1: Engage in a free speech in the public square, but
39:21
Speaker 1: leave people's families and homes alone. But the Democrats don't.
39:25
Speaker 1: They've remained silent, and not just silent, they've cheered it
39:29
Speaker 1: on when it's their leftist supporters harassing others, and now
39:33
Speaker 1: suddenly they discovered virtue. And I think, I think tomorrow
39:37
Speaker 1: in the president lawyer's presentation, we're going to see the
39:41
Speaker 1: theme of hypocrisy coming out pretty powerfully, and I think
39:45
Speaker 1: that will resonate certainly among Republican Senators. It's it's something
39:50
Speaker 1: that a lot of Republican Senators when we sit down
39:53
Speaker 1: for lunch before the trial, a lot of us are
39:55
Speaker 1: thinking and pretty irritated with the earlier than now since
40:01
Speaker 1: we're getting from the House managers. Well, if that advice
40:04
Speaker 1: can in any way persuade this legal team and the
40:08
Speaker 1: Republicans more broadly to hold Democrats to their own standards,
40:12
Speaker 1: that will be a massive step forward and an advantage.
40:15
Speaker 1: We have to leave it there, but we will get
40:17
Speaker 1: into a whole lot more, I assume, depending on how
40:20
Speaker 1: long it takes to finally equit President Trump former President
40:24
Speaker 1: Trump in the impeachment trial of a now private citizen,
40:27
Speaker 1: we will obviously break down more of that. Thank you
40:29
Speaker 1: to everyone for subscribing. If you haven't already subscribed, be
40:33
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to Verdict wherever you get your podcasts,
40:37
Speaker 1: be that YouTube, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify. We'll
40:41
Speaker 1: be back with a whole lot more in the meantime.
40:43
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This
40:55
Speaker 1: episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to
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Speaker 1: you by Jobs, Freedom and Secure Pack, a political action
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