Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Newsroom Revolution & Trump Breaks the Media, plus Breaking Down School Choice, and The Border, a Question of National Security the Week In Review

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The Newsroom Revolution & Trump Breaks the Media, plus Breaking Down School Choice, and The Border, a Question of National Security the Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz Weekend Review, Ben
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Ferguson with you, and these are the stories you may
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: have missed that we talked about this week. First up,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Senator Cruise's new book is out, Unwoke, How to Defeat
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Cultural Marxism in America, And there's a very interesting conversation
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: in this book about how Donald Trump broke the media up. Second,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: school choice a major issue and how big of an
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: issue should it be in this presidential election. Senator Cruse
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and I break that down and why Republicans should double
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: down on the issue of school choice. And finally, the
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: southern border. It is a question of national security. Now
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we bring in Rick Grenelle, who is in the job
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of dealing with national security under the Trump administration. So
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: just how bad and how dangerous is our broken border?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: We deal with that as well. It's the week in
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Review and it starts right now. You mentioned what we're
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: up against in one of your chapters is about the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: new US room Revolution, and you start with a great
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: story of a former colleague of mind that is hard
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: to deal with, Jake Tapper in a fight as he's
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: in essence calling you a liar. And this is the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: new thing that the media has done. They've become so
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: sanctimonious that they are always looking for a moment to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: tell you why you're wrong and why they're brilliant. We've
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: seen this in the last several days as they've been
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: demanding a ceasefire to protect the terrorists in Gaza. Who
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: the who the Israelis are trying to eradicate from the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: face of this earth with good reason after what they
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: did just one month ago.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And we talked about this on Verdict Israel.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: We knew was on a on an artificial clock the
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: day the terrorist attack happened, before the media, before the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: left started going to the aid of Hamas and the
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Palestinian people that were backing Hamas, many of them that
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: were and saying, okay, all right, you had a few
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: days now to go after these terrorists. Now you've got
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to stop it now. Now it's your your, your obligation
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: to stop trying to protect yourself. And this is our
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: media now. And it goes back to this idea that
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: they have, which is they're better than everyone else. They're
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: not here to report news anymore. They're here to go
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: after people like you and others. They don't like and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: in doctrinate a nation to believe in socialism and communism
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: and Marxism.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Look that that is exactly right.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: And the media has fundamentally changed. And so the chapter
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: on journalism, I talk about how when I was first
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: elected to the Senate eleven years ago, and I actually
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: focus on CNN as really a case lesson eleven years
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: ago CNN they aspired to be journalists. If you ask them,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: they'd say, we want to be journalists. We want to
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: present both sides. We want to be fair and objective
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: and balanced, and we want to focus on facts and
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: not our opinion. Now, they were terrible at it. They
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: leaned hard left and they couldn't help themselves. But that
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: was the object active Number one, they would articulate to
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: you they were trying to achieve. But number two, I
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: think they believed in their heart they were trying to
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: do that. And so when I was first elected to
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: the Senate. You may find this hard to believe, but
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I went on CNN just about every week. I went
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: on there over and over and over again, and they
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: would give you a chance to lay out a conservative
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: argument that they'd attack you from the left, and they'd
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: be unfair and they'd play gotcha questions, but they would
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: give you a chance to present the other side. And
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: what happened is when Donald Trump became president, I think
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it fundamentally broke the media. Their brains shattered. They hated
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: him so much that today the media no longer views
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: its vision as being journalists, as being fair and impartial
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: and presenting both sides. Instead, they have embraced a vision
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: that they are advocates. They are defenders of democracy, and
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: what they mean by democracy is left wing radical policies.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And you know, so the story I tell in the
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: very beginning of the journalism chapter is during the presidential race,
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: I was out on the campaign till I was actually
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: in our campaign bus and I was doing an interview
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: with Jake Tapper. And look, I'll confess I like Jake.
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: I've known Jake for over twenty years. I've known Jake
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: since he was a CUB reporter on the George W.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Bush two thousand campaign and I was a baby staffer
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: on it, and so I've known him a long time.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: And he was interviewing me for his Sunday show and
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: we did an interview and it was I don't remember,
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: probably ten minutes or so, and I had learned a lesson.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: It's something that I do with every Sunday show, which
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: is that I insist that the Sunday Show either be
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: live or it'd be live to tape. And the reason
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: I learned that is I had done just a few
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: weeks earlier in an interview with Bob Scheffer at CBS,
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: and Bob Scheffer I hadn't insisted on that, and he'd
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: done the interview, and then afterwards his show had edited
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: it and it basically cut out every good argument I
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: made and just put this slash job where he decimated
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: me because he excluded all my good answers and just
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: edited it in a way that was really deceptive. And
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: I said, okay, never again. If we do one of these,
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: they must air what I actually say. And I said, look,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: if you want to give you five minutes or six
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: or eight or ten or twelve or whatever, you can
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: pick the time. But when we film it, you air
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: exactly what happens during that time. So we had agreed
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: with that with CNN, and in the course of the interview,
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: we were talking about the shooting at Fort Hood and
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: Nadal Hassan, who was the radical Islamist who had walked
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: through and murdered fourteen innocent souls, yelling at luhawk Bar,
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: and I mentioned that the Obama administration knew that Hassan
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: was a radical jahadist. They knew that he had been
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: in email communication with Anwaar al Alaki, who was the
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: Islamist cleric, the radical that he'd asked al Alaki about
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: the permissibility of waging jahad on his fellow soldiers, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: yet the Obama administration did nothing until he committed that
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: act of mass murder. And when I said all of that,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: Jake immediately interrupted and he said, that's not true. No,
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: that's not right, and he said, what you're saying is
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: fundamentally false. That's a lie, it's not true, and you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I just kind of smiled, and I said, well, you know, Jake,
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: as John Adams said, facts are stubborn things, and what
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I'm saying is entirely accurate, and you know, when you
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: research the issue, that's exactly what you're going to find out.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: So we do the interview, Jake and his production team
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: leaves the bus, and I don't know five ten minutes later,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: there's a knock on the door of the bus and
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: we open it. It's Jake and he's very sheepish, and
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: he said, hey, can come in and talk for a second.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: I said, yeah, sure, come on in, and he said, look,
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: after we did the interview, he said, I went and
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: got on the internet and I researched it, and actually,
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: you were right, he said. I didn't know that I
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: had missed. I just had not seen the revelation that
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: the Obama administration knew it. It just I couldn't believe it.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: But turns out you were right. I was wrong, And
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: Jake said, listen, I'll give you a choice. We can
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: do it one of two ways. He said, I agreed
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: we would do this live to tape, and so if
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: you want, I will air it exactly as it happened,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: and then after I air it, will I will come
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: on live and I'll say after the interview, I researched it,
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: and it turns out I was wrong, and.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: Cruz was right.
• 7:28
  Speaker 3: What he said was exactly right, and I was in
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: error when I said he was not telling the truth.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: He said, that's option number one.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: He said.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: Option number two, which he said, I'd really much prefer it,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: is that we just edit out that segment, we just
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: remove it from the interview and we air everything else
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: and just not include that segment. And I describe in
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: the book that you know, I thought about it, and
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: it was obviously in my self interest to pick option
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: number one. That like having CNN having Tapper admit he
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: was full of crap. And I was right, that was
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: a big political victory. But I also expected that I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: would be doing a whole lot more interviews with Tapper
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: and with CNN, and I frankly respected how he approached it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: That he came to me and he admitted he was wrong,
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: and he gave me that option I thought was an
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: honorable way to handle it. And so I made what
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: I would say is a long term play rather than
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: a short term play, and I said, Okay, you can
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: go ahead and cut the segment out, and so they did,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: so the story I recount in the book that segment
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: never aired because CNN cut the segment out. I focus
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: on Tapper in particular because I think he's a smart guy,
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: and I think he wants to be a journalist, and
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: I think in his heart right now he knows that
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: he's not that Trump broke Tapper that now CNN will
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: have a panel of five experts there to discuss true
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: or not Donald Trump is the devil, and all five
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: of them agree, of course he's the devil.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: No, he's worse than the devil. That's the whole debate.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: And you know, look, CNN used to be a place
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: if you go back to twenty seventeen. In twenty seventeen,
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: I did three town hall debates on CNN with Bernie Sanders.
• 9:09
  Speaker 3: We did one on healthcare and two on tax policy,
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: and they were great debates. I think they were among,
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: if not the highest rated shows on CNN that whole year.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: They were ninety minutes. Bernie is an unapologetic defender of socialism.
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: I'm an unapologic defender of capitalism. And we had a
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: real and substm debate that CNN doesn't exist anymore, and
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: it's bad for America, it's bad for the world that
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: we don't have functioning journalism. And I describe all of
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: this in the book, but I also describe how because
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: journalism corporate media is broken, It's part of what makes
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: the radical Democrats so extreme, why they vote for such
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: ridiculous policy positions that are so out of the mainstream,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: because they know they will never ever ever get asked
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: about it by reporters back home. They will never have
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: to defend it, and so it's radical the Democrat Party
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: in Washington.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: Last question for you, a little comedy and congratulations. Jimmy
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Kimmel is promoting your book, Senator. I'm very excited about this.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: I also am waiting for the restraining order because he's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely obsessed with you. Your new book that is out, Unwoke,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America. He gave it
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: a prime time promotion on his show last night. Here's
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: what it sounded like.
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: Ted Cruz has a new book. It's called Unwoke. It's uh,
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: he's you know what, he's so cool, he's you can
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: tell it's Ted's book because the dust jacket doesn't quite fit.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: It won't won't button in the front. But this is
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Cruse's fifth book.
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: The last one was called Ted Cruz A Time for
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: Truth seem there without the beard. He also wrote Ted
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: Cruz head Ooze. He wrote Glued Pubes, the Guy from
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Isaac Damguro Bearing of course, the New York Times bestseller,
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: A partially Digested.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Rat, and other things. I found my chin pouse there.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: Are many interesting musings and revelations in the books. He
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: says The Princess Bride is his favorite movie and he's
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: seen it hundreds of times, which is definitely not true.
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: No one's seen anything hundreds of times. And apparently he's
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: not a big fan of late night television. This is
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: an excerpt, real excerpt. He wrote a late on TV
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: is virtually unwatchable. I love comedy, but watching angry leftists
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: scream about how much they hate Donald Trump, is it
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: remotely funny?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's pitiful.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Well, all I'll say is it's an honor to be
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: called pitiful by a man who abandoned his dog in
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: an ice storm to go to Mexico.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: But congrat and not seriously doesn't want to say, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: writing writing a book like this is a huge accomplishment,
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: especially for him.
• 11:45
  Speaker 6: You know, it's very difficult to type with hoofs, I
• 11:49
  Speaker 6: mean cider. It doesn't it prove your point that you
• 11:52
  Speaker 6: just wrote in your book. That was the part that
• 11:54
  Speaker 6: made me laugh is as he's forcing this comedy on
• 11:57
  Speaker 6: the audience and there's some awkward laughter, It's like, yeah,
• 12:00
  Speaker 6: thanks for proving the point of what that you just
• 12:02
  Speaker 6: wrote about in your book.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: Sure, look, I mean it was when when he did
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: that last night. I actually tweeted his monologue out this
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: morning and I said, hey, thank thanks for pitching my book.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: You forgot the link to where you can buy it,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: and I sent the link and I did something that
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: that that is is fairly obligatory also, which is Kimmel
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: regularly blasts me in his late night monologues, and every
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: time he does, I respond and I point out that
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: that that ever since I whipped Jimmy Kimmel's ass in
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: one on one hoops, it seems that I'm living rent
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: free in his head.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: And so I sent a video of me scoring on
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: him and blocking him, just to remind him of that
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: moment that I think he probably still wakes up in
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: tremors about. But I thought it was hysterical what he
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: read there was an actual excerpt from the book, and
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: then he put put up the book book cover, and I,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I think that's fabulous. But I do wish the substanti
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: point that Late Night Humor I wish was actually funny.
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: I love comedy. I grew up watching SNL. I like
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: real comedians who are funny, and they used to be funny.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: And now it's one of the many examples that I
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: discussed it at length in the book Unwoke, How How
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: Trump broke the media, Trump broke the Democrat Party, and
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: Trump broke late night comedy because they just it's a partisan,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: primal skeet scream instead of good comedy, makes fun of
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: both sides. I'm perfectly fine with making fun of me,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: but they never ever make fun of the Democrats. It's
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: purely a I am leftist. Hear me, roar now.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: from earlier this week.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Now onto story number two.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Before we get into Q and A, I want to
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: ask you one other thing, and it's it's the issue,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and I have a feeling a lot of people are.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Going to like this idea here choice. I am a
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: huge proponent of school choice. It's been something that.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: You have been a champion of for years, but it's
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: also become in many circles they say a third rail.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Don't touch it, don't talk about it, don't deal with
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: in politics. Do you believe in this next election cycle
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: that conservatives can win on the issue of school choice?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: And how would they best do that nationwide?
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Look, I think absolutely, yes, I am. There is no
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: domestic issue I care about more than school choice. I
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: think school choice is the civil rights issue of the
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: twenty first century. And listen, it is worth noting that
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: school choice has been around from the dawn of time.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: The rich and the middle class have always had school choice.
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: If you were a student at the Bethesda Public Schools
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: in Maryland, Bethesa's this very wealthy suburb of Washington, DC,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: if that school had a fifty percent dropout rate, if
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: among the students that remained there fewer than half of
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: them graduated reading at grade level, If drug dealers were
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: walking in the hallways, if little girls were getting sexually
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: assaulted in the bathrooms, the Bethesda Public schools would be
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: empty immediately. Because the parents, they are rich, so they
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: would do one of two things. They would either write
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: checks and pay tuition at a private school, or they
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: would move to another neighborhood that had a better public school,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: and they would exercise choice through choosing where to live.
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: That's what the rich have always been able to do.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: That's what the upper middle class have always been able
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: to do. It is low income Americans. It is single
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: moms in inner cities who were trapped with failing schools.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: And those numbers I've described are true in school after
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: school after school in this country, and it dominantly hurts
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: low income kids, It hurts African American kids, it hurts
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Hispanic kids. And the Democrat Party is bought and paid
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: for by the teachers unions. If you look at African
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: American communities or Hispanic communities, systematically, sixty seventy as much
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: as eighty percent of African American parents, as much as
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: sixty seventy eighty percent of Hispanic parents support school choice.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: I believe every child in America deserves a right to
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: have access to an excellent education, regardless of their race,
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: of their ethnicity, of their wealth, of their zip codes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: So to say, we are sitting in actually an extraordinary
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: place because I want to say to the men and
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: women here, thank you for your leadership. Arizona has led
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: the nation in providing choice to your students. It has
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: been extraordinary, it has been inspirational, it has been powerful,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: and the Goldwater Institute has been pivotal in making that happen.
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: And if you look nationally, the two states at the
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: front of this fight have been Arizona and Florida. And
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I will say something. You and I are both Texans,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: and look Texans. We are known for being quiet and
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: for our humility. Look Aus Texans. I hate that there
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: is anything Texans are not leading on, but when it
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: comes to school choice, Texans have been lagging behind. And
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: I can tell you there's a major battle playing out
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: in the Texas legislature right now. We have the single
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: best moment we have ever had in our lifetimes to
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: pass real and meaningful school choice in Texas. The Governor
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Greg Abbott has said he's going to keep pat calling
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: special sessions until they pass it. And I'll tell you
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: something that I do in Texas that is unusual. Ben So,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: virtually every US Senator stays out of state primaries in
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: their own state. And the reason is getting involved in
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: a primary in your own state is just stupid. It
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: hurts you that if you make an endorsement in your
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: own primary. In a primary in your state, the rule
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: of thumb is you get half of their friends and
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: you get all of their enemies. I don't do that.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: I regularly endorse in primaries. To the best of my knowledge.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know another US senator that does. To the
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: best of my knowledge, ninety nine of my colleagues do not.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: And I endorse in lots of primaries in Texas. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: here's how I have my staff prepare an Excel spreadsheet
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: of every vote that a state legislator has cast.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: On school choice.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: And my rule is, if you voted in favor of
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: school choice, and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're quite likely
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: to get my support. If you've voted against choice, the
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: chances of getting my support are essentially zero, And it
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: is very likely that I will indorse your primary opponents.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: And when I do that, I don't do it gently.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: I come in and I cut radio and TV ads
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: and I come in.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: You're accus of a lot of things. You going gently
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: into political time is not one of them.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: So the stakes are too high. And so we had
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: last election cycle seven runoffs with the teachers unions on
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: one side and me on the other, and we beat
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: them in a majority of those races. And the reason
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I do that, and listen, it hurts me politically to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: do that. I am losing votes when I do that.
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: But the reason I'm doing that is that I want
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: for the state legislators when they're thinking about what do
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: I do on this for it to be a carrot
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: and stick that if there is a Republican house member
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: that's on the fence, do I support it? Do I not?
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: I want them to say, you know, I really don't
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: want Cruise to screw around in my primary. So maybe
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: I'll just do the right thing and I'll tell you something.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: And it's something why I'm so inspired by the men
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: and women in this room. When I was first elected
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: to the Senate in twenty twelve, here's what I told Heidi.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: I said, sweetheart, if when I die, if my tombstone
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: says Ted played a meaningful role in bringing about school
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: choice to every child in Texas and every child in America,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: I will die a very very happy man.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: As before, if you want to hear the rest of
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: this conversation on this topic, you can go back and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: entire thing. I want to get back to the big
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: story number three of the week you may have missed.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about another question that deals
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: with the southern border, and I want to go back
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to putting your you know, taking the ambassador head Off.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Going back to national intelligence, you look at our southern
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: border right now, and it doesn't take a very bright
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: human being to understand that an open border the way
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: it is now is a national security threat.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: There are more and more people that are saying this.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: We saw the FBI Director Ray saying that we're at
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the highest level in his opinion, since nine to eleven
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: for the prospect of an attack in this country.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: We know that terrorists are coming across the border.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: Though on the terrorists watch lists that have been caught,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: these terrorists are not trying to turn themselves into border
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: patrol agents. They're trying to become guidaways. We have no
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: idea how many terrorists have made it into this country
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: undetected so far. But when you look at the warnings now,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: and you look at what just happened, and you look
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: at the warnings of possibilities of the same type of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: style attack that we just saw in Israel, and yet
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: we still have an open border and we still have
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: my orcas before Congress, was that yesterday day before saying
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that no, he doesn't believe we need a border wall.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: What is your reaction from an intelligence standpoint.
• 22:07
  Speaker 7: Yeah, Ben's good question, because you know, I got to
• 22:11
  Speaker 7: believe that all of the intelligence officials who are collecting
• 22:16
  Speaker 7: raw intelligence see it on a daily basis. They're seeing
• 22:19
  Speaker 7: I mean, how else do we know that someone from
• 22:22
  Speaker 7: the terrorist watch list is crossing the border. It's because
• 22:25
  Speaker 7: of raw intelligence. We're figuring it out. But I think
• 22:29
  Speaker 7: that it's being hidden when they report it. It's not
• 22:34
  Speaker 7: being analyzed and talked about, it's not being put into
• 22:36
  Speaker 7: the president's daily briefing. All of that information is completely
• 22:40
  Speaker 7: being suppressed. And once again we should be asking these
• 22:44
  Speaker 7: questions of Avril Haynes. You know, what are you seeing
• 22:47
  Speaker 7: at the border? What are you hearing at the border?
• 22:51
  Speaker 7: And you know, she's just not getting pushed on it,
• 22:54
  Speaker 7: but it's clearly extremely dangerous. Everybody knows that you're not
• 22:58
  Speaker 7: going to have a country if you have an open border.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: We all know that.
• 23:02
  Speaker 7: But I find the most outrageous thing is that the
• 23:07
  Speaker 7: media are complicit in this problem, because Democrats would have
• 23:13
  Speaker 7: to face the music if they were hearing from the
• 23:16
  Speaker 7: media in their home states, if they were being pushed
• 23:20
  Speaker 7: and held to account like they used to when I
• 23:23
  Speaker 7: would sit around and watch the news with my dad
• 23:25
  Speaker 7: as a kid. The News was kind of holding both
• 23:28
  Speaker 7: sides to account.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Well, Rick, this is a point that we've made a
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: lot on this podcast and that I make in my
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: brand new book, Unwoke, which is that the corruption of
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: the media and Donald Trump, I believe broke the media,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: he shattered their brains. That has played a critical role
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: in driving today's Democrat party to such extremes and go
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: so crazy left because they never ever, ever get questioned
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: on any of it. So there's no down side to
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: giving in to the radical extreme in their party. They
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: never fear that they will get a hard question at home,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: they never fear they'll get a bad story at home.
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: And and so I think the abandonment of any effort
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: at journalism by the corporate media has been one of
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: the most destructive developments in recent years.
• 24:24
  Speaker 7: I totally agree, because it's unleashed, right, there's no consequences,
• 24:29
  Speaker 7: there's no downside, so they get to do and say
• 24:31
  Speaker 7: anything they want. As I watch April Haynes, and you know,
• 24:35
  Speaker 7: she got into office and immediately in order to please Iran,
• 24:41
  Speaker 7: one of the first things she did was manipulate past
• 24:46
  Speaker 7: intelligence to pretend like it was real, and they went
• 24:49
  Speaker 7: after the Saudis and the Kushogi issue all over again.
• 24:52
  Speaker 7: They literally there was nothing new in that report. It
• 24:55
  Speaker 7: was repackaged to hit the Saudis hard. We had basically
• 25:02
  Speaker 7: looked at them and tried to make some changes. Uh,
• 25:06
  Speaker 7: And we're trying to heal that relationship.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: She opened it up or on the verge of signing
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: the Abraham Acord. Yes, and until Biden screwed that up.
• 25:16
  Speaker 7: True, and and they I look back now, and it
• 25:20
  Speaker 7: makes sense to me. The reason they did it is
• 25:22
  Speaker 7: because they wanted to show the Iranians that somehow that
• 25:26
  Speaker 7: they were going to play more fair and that they
• 25:29
  Speaker 7: were going to be nicer to the Iranians by beating
• 25:32
  Speaker 7: up on the Saudis. Right, And then why aren't we
• 25:36
  Speaker 7: talking about the fact that they took the Houthis off
• 25:38
  Speaker 7: the terrorist watch list? And the Huthis are the ones
• 25:40
  Speaker 7: who just shot down the drone?
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: Why were they taken off that list? To me explain
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: the politics behind.
• 25:46
  Speaker 7: That, Well, I think again, it's a it's a gift
• 25:48
  Speaker 7: to the Iranians. They're they're trying to please them because
• 25:52
  Speaker 7: they want to get back and you know, they will
• 25:54
  Speaker 7: spin that somehow the international sanctions was pressure were pressuring
• 25:59
  Speaker 7: the Iranians and therefore they were closer to a nuclear
• 26:04
  Speaker 7: bomb because of the sanctions and the grip that we had.
• 26:08
  Speaker 7: And again this is the same strategy that they had
• 26:11
  Speaker 7: with Russia. When you go and you see Democrat senators
• 26:16
  Speaker 7: making the case for dropping the sanctions on Nordstream too,
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: it is in summary they keep saying, well, we don't
• 26:23
  Speaker 7: want to stick it in the eye of the Russians
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: this pipeline in US. Sanctioning in it, making it not
• 26:32
  Speaker 7: come online is creating problems. So we must therefore let
• 26:38
  Speaker 7: the pipeline flow through with gas, because things are going
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: to be better if we don't stick it in the
• 26:45
  Speaker 7: eye of Putin.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: This is this was appeasement always, always, always fails. It
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: invites bullies and tyrants to be aggressive to invade it.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: It call war absolutely. I mean Joe Biden inherited peace
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: and prosperity. We now have the biggest land war in
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: Europe since World War Two and the biggest war in
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: the Middle East of our lifetimes. I mean, I mean
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: that is and and you know you're talking about the Saudis. Look,
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: in my view, the dominant foreign policy objective of Joe
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Biden and his team has been to re enter an
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: even worse Iran nuclear deal, and everything in the Middle
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: East hinges on. Why do they go after the Saudis
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: so ferociously For the same reason that I am largely
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: pro Saudi, which is that the Saudis are the most
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: important regional counterweight other than Israel to Iran. Now, look,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: the Saudis have lots of problems, so I describe the
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: Saudi's as a problematic ally, but we want them to
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: be an ally and we want them to be strong
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: as a counterbalance to Iran. That's precisely why the Biden
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: administration wants the Saudis to be weak, because everything is
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: subservient to getting in another deal with Iran, including in
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: the middle of this Ukraine War. After Biden's weakness causes
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: the war in Ukraine, it has now become the ultimate
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Democrat virtue signal to wear a Ukrainian flag and commit
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: that we must be in the war until the end
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: of time. And even while they say that, they continue
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: to flow now roughly one hundred billion dollars into Iran,
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: much of which goes into Iranian drones. That Iran becomes
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: the top weapon supplier to Russia and so Biden is
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: funding both sides of the Ukraine War.
• 28:39
  Speaker 7: Well, there's no question about that. And this goes back
• 28:42
  Speaker 7: to what my original point on Iran. It sounds crazy,
• 28:46
  Speaker 7: but they trust the Iranians. There's some belief Jake Sullivan.
• 28:51
  Speaker 7: Maybe it's just a white paper intellectual exercise that if
• 28:55
  Speaker 7: you're nicer to them, somehow they're going to give up
• 28:57
  Speaker 7: a nuclear weapon.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And they really believe that.
• 29:01
  Speaker 7: In the NGO community totally supports that, and we call
• 29:06
  Speaker 7: it a peacement. But they they're trying once again engagement.
• 29:10
  Speaker 7: And this is one of my problems with the foreign
• 29:13
  Speaker 7: policy community is that we should be able to try engagement,
• 29:17
  Speaker 7: try sanctions, try all sorts of things, but we should
• 29:20
  Speaker 7: quickly evaluate whether it's working or not. We could talk
• 29:24
  Speaker 7: all day about Venezuela, because I think that's a failure
• 29:27
  Speaker 7: of a policy.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: It is, you know, it's worth also underscoring that the
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: Biden administration's top Iran diplomat, Rob Malley, who's been fired
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: and had his security clearance pulled and is nonetheless than
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: a cushy job at Mi alma Mater at Princeton, which
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: is really disgraceful. His inner circle included three individuals who
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: were Iranian operatives recruited by the Iranian government, reporting directly
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: to the Iranian Foreign Minister and advancing Iranian policy agendas
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: within the United States government, within the Biden administration, one
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: of whom, as far as we know, is still a
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: chief of staff in the Department of Defense to this day.
• 30:12
  Speaker 7: Yeah, and they've been caught asking the Iranian diplomats for
• 30:18
  Speaker 7: sign off, yes, for speaking engagements. It's really so outrageous,
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: so treasonous. But once again, you don't see any of
• 30:28
  Speaker 7: these national security reporters at the New York Times of
• 30:31
  Speaker 7: the Washington Post or Politico or anywhere else putting pressure
• 30:35
  Speaker 7: asking the questions.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: They get away with it.
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: So let me ask you another question. So you were
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: the Director of National Intelligence under Trump. You were acting
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: DNA for how long? It was a short period of time.
• 30:50
  Speaker 7: A short period of time supposed to be three months,
• 30:53
  Speaker 7: but it was about four and a half.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: So it's four and a half months. It was the
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: most consequential tenure at DNA that I have seen, and
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: you really shook that place up in a very short
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: time period. And I guess what I would ask is
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: number one, how did you do that? How did you
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: take on the deep state, which, which is real throughout government,
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: but especially in the intelligence community, is a persistent problem.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: And and lots of conservatives sometimes feel frustrated and say, well,
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: you can't take on the deep state. And I think
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: you managed to do it remarkably during that tenure. And
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: what I would say as a second part of the
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: question is what advice would you give to the next
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: Republican Cabinet member coming into office and facing career bureaucrats
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: that are ideologically and passionately opposed to the next Republican
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: president and the agenda of the next White House.
• 31:54
  Speaker 7: Well, let me take the second part first. I think
• 31:57
  Speaker 7: the reality is is you can't hire someone who's life
• 32:00
  Speaker 7: fleehood is Washington, d C. If you're hiring somebody who
• 32:03
  Speaker 7: needs a job later in the Washington system, where reporters
• 32:08
  Speaker 7: go to church with politicians and lobbyists, they live in
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: the same communities, they're never going to make big, bold
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: decisions because they'll have the ire of their friends and
• 32:19
  Speaker 7: their church acquaintances. What I believe that you have to
• 32:25
  Speaker 7: do is hire people also who really don't care about
• 32:29
  Speaker 7: their New York Times profile piece, who somehow have the
• 32:33
  Speaker 7: ability to make the right decisions. I've told President Trump
• 32:39
  Speaker 7: we're going to fix the personnel problem when he's president.
• 32:42
  Speaker 7: And the first thing is is to look at every
• 32:44
  Speaker 7: resume and if the resume has a Washington, d C.
• 32:47
  Speaker 7: Address on it, throw it away. We can hire people
• 32:50
  Speaker 7: from outside of Washington, d C. What happened with me
• 32:55
  Speaker 7: at DNI is actually pretty simple. When I came into DNA,
• 33:01
  Speaker 7: one of the first things they did is they gave
• 33:03
  Speaker 7: me four reports that had been done over the last
• 33:07
  Speaker 7: ten years of how to fix the intelligence system. I
• 33:12
  Speaker 7: read the reports and I thought, well, a lot of
• 33:15
  Speaker 7: this makes sense. We've got duplicitous programs, We've got people
• 33:21
  Speaker 7: who it's supposed to be a coordinating body, and yet
• 33:27
  Speaker 7: it's no longer a coordinating body. It's actually a competitive body.
• 33:31
  Speaker 7: It ballooned to more than two thousand people. It should
• 33:34
  Speaker 7: be like two hundred people. And so I just started
• 33:37
  Speaker 7: sending people back to their home agencies d and I,
• 33:41
  Speaker 7: the OD and I had become the wasteland. If intelligence
• 33:48
  Speaker 7: agency didn't like somebody, rather than fire them, they sent
• 33:50
  Speaker 7: them over to OD and I, and so I just
• 33:53
  Speaker 7: started sending people back and getting rid of every possible
• 33:56
  Speaker 7: person that we could freezing hiring this in Germany as
• 34:02
  Speaker 7: well and forcing people to rethink this.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: You've got to be able to play the system.
• 34:07
  Speaker 7: But you got to know the system. And I've worked
• 34:10
  Speaker 7: at the State Department, and I knew how the federal
• 34:13
  Speaker 7: government works to where you can come in and manipulate
• 34:16
  Speaker 7: it and start using its own rules against it. I
• 34:20
  Speaker 7: do think though, that in order for us to make big,
• 34:23
  Speaker 7: bold decisions, Congress is going to have to somehow change
• 34:26
  Speaker 7: the way the labor force is legally allowed to be cut.
• 34:34
  Speaker 7: As you know, and I'm preaching to the choir here,
• 34:37
  Speaker 7: but when we come up with new technologies and we
• 34:40
  Speaker 7: decide to spend on a different program, by definition, other
• 34:45
  Speaker 7: things should fall. People should be fired, the program should
• 34:50
  Speaker 7: be eliminated, and that's not happening.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Ted Cruz ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: with my podcast and you can listen podcast every other
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts and
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: we will see you back here on Monday morning,