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How Do We Start The Economy Again? · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Three point three million Americans lost their jobs two weeks ago.
0:04
Speaker 1: Another six point seven million Americans lost their jobs last week,
0:09
Speaker 1: and we have got at least another month of shutdown
0:13
Speaker 1: to go. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back
0:23
Speaker 1: to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. I'm
0:26
Speaker 1: sorry to be joining you in these unpleasant conditions. I
0:30
Speaker 1: was hoping by now we could be doing shows in
0:32
Speaker 1: person again. Instead, we are quarantined and the economy is
0:36
Speaker 1: collapsing all around us. So we've got so much to
0:38
Speaker 1: get to. Ten million Americans have lost their jobs in
0:42
Speaker 1: two weeks. At what point does this shutdown become economically untenable. Well,
0:48
Speaker 1: we've got two disasters that are playing out simultaneously. We've
0:52
Speaker 1: got the public health crisis, and it is real. The
0:55
Speaker 1: numbers keep growing, the fatalities keep growing, and that all
1:00
Speaker 1: of us are struggling to deal with that. At the
1:03
Speaker 1: same time, we've got an economic crisis that's playing out,
1:06
Speaker 1: and the economic crisis is caused by the government's policies
1:11
Speaker 1: put in place to deal with a public health crisis.
1:14
Speaker 1: That economic crisis is producing devastation. Ten million people have
1:18
Speaker 1: lost their jobs in the last two weeks, small businesses
1:22
Speaker 1: are shutting down, one after the other after the other. Restaurants, bars,
1:28
Speaker 1: nail salons, movie theaters. People are hurting and we don't
1:35
Speaker 1: know how long this is going to last. That being said,
1:38
Speaker 1: we're seeing I think the federal government, the legislation that
1:41
Speaker 1: was passed last week will begin to provide some much
1:45
Speaker 1: needed relief to a lot of people who are hurting.
1:47
Speaker 1: But we got to get through this crisis. We've got
1:49
Speaker 1: to defeat the pandemic. That's when the economic calamity is
1:52
Speaker 1: going to end, when we defeat the disease. Well, because
1:56
Speaker 1: I noticed that there's this balance that people are trying
1:58
Speaker 1: to strike. And yet you are some people like New
2:00
Speaker 1: York Governor and R. Cuomo who said, if we can
2:03
Speaker 1: save just one life, then all of these policies will
2:06
Speaker 1: have been worth it. But but of course people die
2:09
Speaker 1: in economic collapse as well. Suicide spike, drug overdoses spike.
2:13
Speaker 1: So is there any pushback within the government people that
2:16
Speaker 1: you're talking to that perhaps, as we've heard, the cure
2:20
Speaker 1: might be worse than the disease here, Look, of course
2:23
Speaker 1: there is. I mean there's very real debate. I mean,
2:26
Speaker 1: if we're looking at two three months from now, twenty percent,
2:32
Speaker 1: twenty five percent, thirty percent unemployment. I mean, I mean
2:35
Speaker 1: those are great depression numbers. You and I've never been
2:37
Speaker 1: alive for that. I mean, if we end up destroying
2:41
Speaker 1: our domestic economy and destroying the international economy, that legacy
2:46
Speaker 1: could last a long, long time. And you're right that
2:49
Speaker 1: that that kind of poverty and suffering will also take lives.
2:54
Speaker 1: That inevitably, when you see economic devastation, you know the
2:58
Speaker 1: consequences of that are to be. With an increased poverty,
3:01
Speaker 1: you're going to have increased depression, increased suicides, substance abuse,
3:07
Speaker 1: all sorts of problems flow from economic devastation. So there
3:12
Speaker 1: is a tradeoff that has to be made. But on
3:15
Speaker 1: the public health side, look, my view is we need
3:18
Speaker 1: to listen to the science and the physicians about how
3:22
Speaker 1: to combat this epidemic, how to contain it so that
3:26
Speaker 1: we don't overwhelm our health system. We haven't seen that
3:29
Speaker 1: happen yet, but we have seen it happen in places
3:32
Speaker 1: like Italy. What is happening in Italy none of us
3:35
Speaker 1: want to see happen here, and so I think there
3:40
Speaker 1: has to be a balance between the two. We have
3:42
Speaker 1: to see when we've got the virus under control, when
3:46
Speaker 1: it's not spreading at dramatic rates, that's when we're going
3:49
Speaker 1: to have to be be looking to ease up on
3:54
Speaker 1: some of the restrictions. But if we do it early
3:55
Speaker 1: and look, part of the problem is think for a
3:58
Speaker 1: minute about the political dynamic. Let's say, Michael, you woke
4:01
Speaker 1: up tomorrow and you were the mayor of a large city.
4:05
Speaker 1: Would you want to be the mayor who said, Okay,
4:07
Speaker 1: everybody go back to work, Everyone go back to the restaurant.
4:11
Speaker 1: And then two weeks later, five hundred people die in
4:13
Speaker 1: your city and they all say it was mayor knows
4:17
Speaker 1: who killed them. The blood is on your hands. And look, Pete,
4:20
Speaker 1: as you know, people will use rhetoric that hot and
4:23
Speaker 1: nasty and personal. The incentives are such You've got a
4:27
Speaker 1: lot of leaders who are struggling with what to do
4:31
Speaker 1: because you do you want to say people's lives, but
4:33
Speaker 1: there does over time, there has to be a balance,
4:37
Speaker 1: of course. This is what keeps running through my mind
4:39
Speaker 1: when I'm thinking, is President Trump overreacting? Is Andy Quom overreacting?
4:45
Speaker 1: Is Gavin Newsom overreacting? Is what if I were in
4:47
Speaker 1: that position. What if any of us were in that position?
4:50
Speaker 1: And you just don't know. None of us can predict
4:52
Speaker 1: the future. A lot of the models are disagreeing with
4:55
Speaker 1: one another. Do you want to be the guy where
4:58
Speaker 1: the headlines all say enitor so and so? Or I
5:01
Speaker 1: suppose in this case governor President so and so is
5:03
Speaker 1: responsible for killing all of these people? Of course not. However,
5:08
Speaker 1: we don't want this thing to go on forever. And
5:10
Speaker 1: I know initially the President had said that he was
5:14
Speaker 1: hoping this would be over by easter. Then that became
5:16
Speaker 1: April thirtieth. Then now doctor Fauci is suggesting we might
5:21
Speaker 1: have to maintain the mitigation efforts after April thirtieth. I
5:26
Speaker 1: think what a lot of people want to know is
5:27
Speaker 1: not even when is this going to end? But what
5:30
Speaker 1: criteria is the government using to determine when this will end?
5:35
Speaker 1: Is it when there are no more cases? Is it
5:36
Speaker 1: when we're past the top of the curve? Is it
5:39
Speaker 1: when they're no more deaths? And what are we looking at? Well?
5:42
Speaker 1: I started this morning on a conference call with doctor
5:45
Speaker 1: Faucci and also with Stephen Manuchen, the Treasury Secretary, and
5:50
Speaker 1: Faucci this morning was talking about how There are all
5:53
Speaker 1: sorts of measures that we're looking at. We're looking at cases,
5:56
Speaker 1: we're looking at hospitalizations, we're looking at those who are
6:00
Speaker 1: in critical conditions, and we're looking at deaths, and we
6:05
Speaker 1: want to see each of those indicators start to slow.
6:08
Speaker 1: The rate of new cases, the rate of new hospitalizations,
6:12
Speaker 1: the rate of new deaths. But each of those is
6:14
Speaker 1: a lagging indicator to the other. So even as we
6:18
Speaker 1: begin to see hopefully a decline in new cases, the
6:22
Speaker 1: rates of deaths is typically lagging several weeks behind, and
6:26
Speaker 1: so we may see those numbers one set of numbers
6:29
Speaker 1: going down while another is still on the upswing. But
6:34
Speaker 1: one of the challenges is testing. Still there are not
6:37
Speaker 1: that many people who've been tested, so we don't know
6:40
Speaker 1: really how widespread things are. We have the numbers from
6:45
Speaker 1: the United States. The United States is starting to test
6:47
Speaker 1: more widely. It was a big problem three weeks ago
6:51
Speaker 1: getting a test. It's still challenging in some circumstances getting tested.
6:55
Speaker 1: But what we're doing a lot more testing, which is
6:57
Speaker 1: one of the reasons our numbers are going up. It's
6:59
Speaker 1: clear are there are places like New York City. The
7:02
Speaker 1: outbreak there is serious and it's concentrated. You have a
7:05
Speaker 1: lot of people close in and in a close geographic location,
7:11
Speaker 1: and the challenges. Listen, I've asked the CDC, I've asked
7:15
Speaker 1: the medical experts over and over again. Okay, how long
7:18
Speaker 1: is this going to last? Is this another two weeks,
7:20
Speaker 1: four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks? What are we talking about?
7:24
Speaker 1: The simple answer is they don't know. They have lots
7:27
Speaker 1: of models. But the models, if you adjust the variables
7:31
Speaker 1: even slightly in terms of the rates of contagion, how
7:35
Speaker 1: many people have it, it makes a massive difference in
7:39
Speaker 1: terms of how widespread this is. So listen, when the
7:42
Speaker 1: President said that he hoped everything would be opened by Easter,
7:46
Speaker 1: I think that was a perfectly good aspiration to say, listen,
7:48
Speaker 1: we all want to get back to work, we want
7:50
Speaker 1: to get back to normal. And you saw the media
7:53
Speaker 1: kind of lose their minds about it. And obviously, if
7:58
Speaker 1: if the numbers are spiking in more and more where
8:00
Speaker 1: people are getting sick, nobody is going to step in
8:03
Speaker 1: and say, all right, all right, let's let's let's all go.
8:05
Speaker 1: Let's all go to a you know, a basketball game.
8:08
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's not It's also the case so
8:13
Speaker 1: for example, all of the American press really gullibly reported
8:18
Speaker 1: that America has now passed China for infections. Well, that's
8:23
Speaker 1: only because China is absolutely lying about every aspect of
8:28
Speaker 1: this pandemic, including Look, China claims in the last month
8:33
Speaker 1: that their cases went from eighty thousand to eighty one thousand.
8:37
Speaker 1: What utter garbage. So it's spread like it spread like
8:40
Speaker 1: an epidemic and then suddenly halted all together. I don't
8:44
Speaker 1: think anyone believes that. And and to see the American
8:47
Speaker 1: media just just parrot propaganda, I don't think is helpful.
8:53
Speaker 1: We do know the Chinese Communist government, they tried to
8:56
Speaker 1: cover up this outbreak. They try to suppress this outbreak.
8:59
Speaker 1: They were complicit, and I think they didn't want to
9:03
Speaker 1: be embarrassed. So imagine a different world of when this
9:07
Speaker 1: outbreak first started in Wuhan. If the Chinese government had
9:11
Speaker 1: brought in health experts, if they'd quarantined the first people,
9:14
Speaker 1: we could have stopped maybe this epidemic from becoming a pandemic.
9:19
Speaker 1: We could have held it to a regional location. But
9:22
Speaker 1: instead they covered it up and tourists and travelers went
9:25
Speaker 1: from Wuhan all over the world. You had Chinese travelers
9:28
Speaker 1: going to Italy, which produced a big outbreak there, and
9:31
Speaker 1: so their cover up played a big part in the
9:35
Speaker 1: worldwide catastrophe we're seeing right, And speaking of parroting this
9:39
Speaker 1: Chinese communist propaganda, I mean, one of the institutions that
9:43
Speaker 1: did that most persistently and successfully was the World Health Organization.
9:47
Speaker 1: A lot of people were looking to them, and yet
9:50
Speaker 1: for some reason it would seem that they've installed a
9:52
Speaker 1: patsy to run the who they covered it up. They
9:55
Speaker 1: didn't send experts over there for months and months. I
9:59
Speaker 1: think the quest on a lot of people's minds here
10:02
Speaker 1: is how are we going to hold people responsible? And
10:05
Speaker 1: one how are we going to ascertain the guilt here?
10:08
Speaker 1: I mean, one study said that China could have reduced
10:10
Speaker 1: the spread of this pandemic by ninety five percent if
10:13
Speaker 1: they had just acted three weeks earlier. How are we
10:16
Speaker 1: going to hold them responsible once this is all said
10:18
Speaker 1: and done. Well, Look, I think the first step is accountability.
10:22
Speaker 1: We need to find out what happened. We need to
10:25
Speaker 1: find out where the virus originated. We've talked before about
10:28
Speaker 1: how where the virus originated is just miles away from
10:33
Speaker 1: the Wuhan Institute of Virology, one of only about three
10:37
Speaker 1: dozen P four testing facilities that test and contain very
10:43
Speaker 1: deadly viruses. Not only that, we know that at that
10:47
Speaker 1: institute they weren't just testing viruses. They were testing coronaviruses.
10:52
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just coronaviruses, they were testing coronaviruses from bats.
10:57
Speaker 1: And the odds I mean, if you think of all
11:01
Speaker 1: the towns, all the cities in the world, the odds
11:05
Speaker 1: that this outbreak just happens to occur miles away from
11:09
Speaker 1: a lab that is testing coronaviruses and bats, that those
11:12
Speaker 1: odds are minuscule. Now here's here's what a lot of
11:16
Speaker 1: the American mainstream media is. There was a very concerted
11:18
Speaker 1: effort to respond to questions like that, but by screaming
11:22
Speaker 1: this is a tinfoil hat conspiracy and conspiracy theory, right,
11:26
Speaker 1: and we know they say that this virus wasn't manufactured.
11:31
Speaker 1: That that was their response. And I'll tell you that's
11:33
Speaker 1: what the CDC doctors have told me. I asked them
11:36
Speaker 1: early on. Look, there were questions about is this a bioweapon?
11:39
Speaker 1: I asked our doctors, is there any evidence of that?
11:41
Speaker 1: They said no, they said, looking at the genome and
11:45
Speaker 1: the sequencing. It does not appear to be anything that
11:48
Speaker 1: was manufactured in a lab. It appears to be something
11:51
Speaker 1: that occurred in nature. So that's what the experts have
11:53
Speaker 1: told me. But the next and obvious question is, okay, fine,
11:57
Speaker 1: if it wasn't created in a lab, was this novel
12:01
Speaker 1: coronavirus a virus they were studying at the Wuhan Institute
12:06
Speaker 1: of Virology that they'd gotten from nature, that had occurred
12:09
Speaker 1: naturally in a bat or some other creature that they
12:11
Speaker 1: were studying, And was there some sort of accident, did
12:14
Speaker 1: someone get in effected, did an animal get infected? Did
12:17
Speaker 1: it somehow get out? There'd been numerous stories written in
12:21
Speaker 1: the press before this outbreak about the poor, poor efforts
12:26
Speaker 1: at security in keeping the viruses contained at that particular
12:30
Speaker 1: institutions from the Chinese government. They more or less admitted
12:33
Speaker 1: it in certain documents that were distributed at that Institute
12:37
Speaker 1: of Virology rather, and so it strikes me as entirely
12:41
Speaker 1: plausible that it accidentally escaped. That explains why the Chinese
12:47
Speaker 1: government would be so embarrassed about it, why they would
12:49
Speaker 1: work so hard to try to suppress any evidence of it,
12:53
Speaker 1: why they would punish the whistleblowers, including the doctor who
12:56
Speaker 1: lost his life to COVID nineteen but who first blew
13:01
Speaker 1: the whistle where the Chinese government came down on him,
13:04
Speaker 1: and that that dynamic. And I got to say, with
13:08
Speaker 1: the exception of a handful of journalists, and I'll give
13:11
Speaker 1: a shout out to Tucker Carlson, I think Tucker Carlson
13:15
Speaker 1: has been courageous and addressing this. I actually called Tucker
13:18
Speaker 1: yesterday as I was going for my walk with my family.
13:21
Speaker 1: I called him in the cell phone. I just said, hey, Tucker,
13:23
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for having the backbone to ask
13:28
Speaker 1: these questions. Because most of the mainstream media, they're so desperate.
13:34
Speaker 1: The network executives want to be in the Chinese market.
13:38
Speaker 1: The Chinese market is billions of dollars, and because of
13:42
Speaker 1: the money, they won't raise these questions. And the first
13:47
Speaker 1: step is ensuring that we have accountability, that we know
13:50
Speaker 1: what actually happened. You know, I have to tell you
13:52
Speaker 1: yesterday was April Fool's Day, as you know, Senator, and
13:55
Speaker 1: I was just waiting for that government bulletin to come
13:58
Speaker 1: out and say, hey guys, it was all a big
14:00
Speaker 1: April Fools. You can all go back to work. Now.
14:02
Speaker 1: Unfortunately that didn't happen. Well, I will say last night,
14:05
Speaker 1: as I was going to bed, the girls you know,
14:08
Speaker 1: called called me in. Heidi said come into bed, and
14:10
Speaker 1: she was already going to bed, And as I walked in,
14:13
Speaker 1: Caroline had set a cup of water on the on
14:16
Speaker 1: the door to dump on my head. Then as I
14:21
Speaker 1: was putting him to bed, it was kind of late,
14:22
Speaker 1: as about eleven thirty at night. I was trying to
14:24
Speaker 1: get him down to bed, and Catherine said, I'm not
14:26
Speaker 1: going to bed until you pull an April Fools prank
14:29
Speaker 1: on us. So I went to our bathroom and I
14:31
Speaker 1: got a can of shaving cream and came in and
14:34
Speaker 1: sprayed the girls with shaving cream, which which obviously they
14:39
Speaker 1: run and scream, and they run into Caroline's room. Then
14:42
Speaker 1: the door opens and Caroline has a full can of
14:45
Speaker 1: shaving cream she had hidden in her room. So we
14:49
Speaker 1: had a giant shaving cream fight last night. I finally
14:52
Speaker 1: got the girls in bed. A note to self, never
14:55
Speaker 1: get on the wrong side of Senator Cruz's daughters. They
14:58
Speaker 1: really it sounds like they were We're planning this out
15:01
Speaker 1: long before April Fool's Day. I think also another bit
15:03
Speaker 1: of evidence that all of us staying at home, whether
15:06
Speaker 1: we're in California or in New York, or even if
15:09
Speaker 1: we're a US senator, we're all going a little bit
15:11
Speaker 1: crazy with this quarantine, and so now shaving cream everywhere
15:14
Speaker 1: and a couple of water on dad's head when people
15:16
Speaker 1: are cooped up together, I mean, there are only so
15:18
Speaker 1: many things you can do. I've just been binge watching
15:21
Speaker 1: Tiger King. Is Tiger King not the most surreal thing
15:24
Speaker 1: you have ever seen? I Like, every episode you're like,
15:29
Speaker 1: all right, it cannot get any more insane, and then
15:32
Speaker 1: the episodes ends and you go, you gotta be kidding. Mean,
15:37
Speaker 1: it's just turned into the next one, you know. I mean,
15:40
Speaker 1: those are all the positive aspects of it, And I
15:42
Speaker 1: think it is very important in times like this not
15:45
Speaker 1: to panic, not to only look at everything that's awful.
15:47
Speaker 1: We're getting a lot of mail bad questions in because
15:50
Speaker 1: because people are sitting around at home, they're not allowed
15:53
Speaker 1: to go out anywhere, and so I think it's important
15:55
Speaker 1: if we can get to as many as we can,
15:57
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of specific questions. I obviously
16:00
Speaker 1: don't know the answer to any of them, but possibly Senator,
16:02
Speaker 1: you do. A first question from Mimi, I heard that
16:05
Speaker 1: if you're on Social Security you have to file a
16:08
Speaker 1: new and separate tax return. How is that going to work? Well,
16:12
Speaker 1: there was guidance that came out earlier this week in
16:15
Speaker 1: which the Treasury Department said that if you hadn't filed
16:18
Speaker 1: a tax return in twenty eighteen, if you're on Social
16:20
Speaker 1: Security and you didn't make enough that you had to
16:22
Speaker 1: file a tax return, that you had to file a
16:24
Speaker 1: new special tax return. That was a stupid policy. It
16:28
Speaker 1: was a stupid idea. A number of us were quite
16:31
Speaker 1: critical of it, and thankfully yesterday Treasury rescinded it. They said,
16:36
Speaker 1: you don't need to file this special tax return. If
16:39
Speaker 1: you're receiving a Social Security check, you will receive your
16:42
Speaker 1: relief check. That was the right outcome. It's where it's
16:45
Speaker 1: where they should have started. But I'm glad they got
16:47
Speaker 1: there right. Of course, you don't want people who are
16:50
Speaker 1: on a fixed income who are particularly vulnerable to this
16:52
Speaker 1: virus to be specifically the ones excluded from receiving the relief.
16:57
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. That's exact from JJ
17:00
Speaker 1: JJ asks can required minimum deductions from four oh one
17:04
Speaker 1: ks be relaxed due to stock market due to the
17:09
Speaker 1: stock market being depressed, meaning every year there at a
17:13
Speaker 1: certain point you will have to pull a certain amount
17:15
Speaker 1: of money from your four oh one K. But if
17:17
Speaker 1: you do it now, obviously we're in the midst of
17:19
Speaker 1: an economic crisis. Is there any way to stop that?
17:22
Speaker 1: So good news on that. The answer is yes, and
17:25
Speaker 1: that was in the bill that passed Congress. So the
17:27
Speaker 1: required distributions from four oh one ks and iras are
17:32
Speaker 1: halted for the year precisely for that that. You don't
17:35
Speaker 1: want to force people if they don't have to withdraw
17:37
Speaker 1: the money, you don't want to force them to do it.
17:40
Speaker 1: But also in the legislation pass last week, there is
17:45
Speaker 1: the ability if you need to access your retirement savings
17:48
Speaker 1: just for cash flow to provide for your family. The
17:52
Speaker 1: penalties have also been lifted for accessing those as well,
17:56
Speaker 1: So there are positive policies on both ends on on
18:00
Speaker 1: that front great well for those of us who haven't
18:02
Speaker 1: read every single page of that relief bill, that's a
18:05
Speaker 1: very useful information from Mike. When is the Small Business
18:09
Speaker 1: Administration going to provide responses to applications and inquiries? The
18:14
Speaker 1: application format has changed nobody's getting any information or updates
18:18
Speaker 1: or funding. So how can small business owners who are
18:21
Speaker 1: probably under a lot of constraints right now get that
18:23
Speaker 1: relief money from the SBA? So that should be coming it.
18:27
Speaker 1: It is supposed to be live and starting as soon
18:30
Speaker 1: as tomorrow, as soon as Friday, and it's being administered.
18:34
Speaker 1: I'd say your resources. I'd go number one to the
18:36
Speaker 1: Small Business Administration website. That's one resource there that should
18:40
Speaker 1: be able to answer some questions. And number two, if
18:43
Speaker 1: you're a small business owner, go to your local lenders.
18:46
Speaker 1: The way that this program will be implemented is through
18:50
Speaker 1: local and community banks, and any small business and any
18:54
Speaker 1: business that has five hundred employees or fewer will qualify
18:58
Speaker 1: for a guaranteed loan. That loan can be up to
19:02
Speaker 1: ten million dollars. And that loan if you use those
19:08
Speaker 1: loan proceeds to pay for payroll for your employees, to
19:12
Speaker 1: pay for mortgage or rent for your business, or to
19:15
Speaker 1: pay for utilities, that amount of the loan that is
19:19
Speaker 1: paid for that is used for those purposes will be forgiven.
19:22
Speaker 1: It becomes a grant. Wow. And so that's designed. The
19:26
Speaker 1: whole purpose of that is to keep as many people
19:28
Speaker 1: as possible employed and getting a paycheck. And and so
19:34
Speaker 1: it is. And by the way, if you're a small
19:36
Speaker 1: business owner, let's say two weeks ago you laid off
19:39
Speaker 1: or you furloughed a bunch of employees, you can bring
19:43
Speaker 1: them back and the loans will apply to their salaries
19:47
Speaker 1: as well. So it's designed so if you've already laid
19:50
Speaker 1: off workers, don't it's not just the workers you have today.
19:53
Speaker 1: If if you have workers that you laid off a
19:55
Speaker 1: week or two ago, you can hire them back, so
19:57
Speaker 1: that employees will get a paycheck. But from the small
20:01
Speaker 1: business owners perspective, that amount will be forgiven, will be
20:05
Speaker 1: a grant. I'm not seeing that information anywhere, and I
20:09
Speaker 1: know that nobody's read this entire bill. So that is
20:11
Speaker 1: extremely hopeful news and good news for small business owners
20:15
Speaker 1: and for employees of small businesses that even if you're
20:18
Speaker 1: one of the ten million people who lost your job
20:20
Speaker 1: in the last couple of weeks, if you're working for
20:22
Speaker 1: a small business, you can be rehired. There is a
20:25
Speaker 1: path to do that. Next question, is there a limit
20:29
Speaker 1: to how much money the federal government can borrow without
20:33
Speaker 1: severe consequences? You know, now President Trump is talking about
20:36
Speaker 1: a possible infrastructure bill that could I mean, we're not
20:39
Speaker 1: talking in even one trillion anymore. We're talking about many
20:43
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars. Is there a limit where we say
20:45
Speaker 1: we can't do anymore? Look, Michael, we don't really know.
20:50
Speaker 1: It depends how bad this crisis gets. Last week, Congress
20:53
Speaker 1: spent two trillion dollars in an afternoon. I mean, that's
20:58
Speaker 1: nearly ten percent of total national death. That is breathtaking,
21:02
Speaker 1: and it's worth noting. In the Senate it passed unanimously.
21:06
Speaker 1: There's ninety six to nothing. That means Bernie Sanders voted yes,
21:10
Speaker 1: and I voted yes, and every senator in between voted yes.
21:14
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean that. And the reason is this,
21:17
Speaker 1: This is a crisis unlike any we've ever seen. And
21:21
Speaker 1: it's a crisis that the people who were hurting, they
21:26
Speaker 1: didn't do anything to cause this problem. All the restaurant owners,
21:29
Speaker 1: the bar owners, the movie theater owners, that they didn't.
21:33
Speaker 1: This is not like TARP. This is not like where
21:36
Speaker 1: the financial firms were taking advantage of the system and
21:40
Speaker 1: created a crisis. Here it's not their fault that this,
21:44
Speaker 1: this worldwide pandemic began and from a governmental perspective, the
21:49
Speaker 1: costs are coming anyway. So for example, let's take the
21:52
Speaker 1: loans to small businesses that three hundred and seventy seven
21:57
Speaker 1: billion dollars was appropriated. Well, we could have not done that,
22:00
Speaker 1: in which case those small businesses all would have gone
22:03
Speaker 1: out of business, and those employees would all filed for unemployment,
22:07
Speaker 1: and and you would have seen more and more employees
22:10
Speaker 1: on unemployment on welfare. That's those are massive government expenditures anyway,
22:17
Speaker 1: And so we made the determination, you know what, it's
22:19
Speaker 1: we're in a better situation to try to essentially give
22:23
Speaker 1: a bridge loan to the small business owners to try
22:26
Speaker 1: to keep that business in existence, try to keep them,
22:29
Speaker 1: hopefully in in a few weeks or or or maybe longer,
22:36
Speaker 1: we will get past this this shutdown and go back
22:41
Speaker 1: to work, and we'd like to have as many of
22:42
Speaker 1: those small businesses still viable and as many people still
22:46
Speaker 1: have the jobs that they had a month ago. Right,
22:49
Speaker 1: of course, I mean you've only got bad options here, right,
22:52
Speaker 1: You're this is going to have a major cost just
22:55
Speaker 1: by virtue of it being a pandemic. So the question
22:57
Speaker 1: is do you have that cost and lose all your
22:59
Speaker 1: businesses trying to keep some of your businesses. Very difficult decision.
23:02
Speaker 1: Last question is a little controversial, but people sometimes forget
23:08
Speaker 1: there's a presidential election going on. I know that it's
23:10
Speaker 1: not exactly in the news these days, but we will
23:12
Speaker 1: elect a president in November. Question is from Twitter uncomfortably quarantined.
23:18
Speaker 1: What happens if Joe Biden is found to legitimately have
23:21
Speaker 1: competency issues by a physician, yet he was selected as
23:25
Speaker 1: the nominee. What happens then? As far as who is
23:28
Speaker 1: on the ballot? You know who knows Listen Biden. I'll
23:36
Speaker 1: tell you one of the odd things about Biden. It
23:38
Speaker 1: seems like the guys in a witness protection I mean,
23:40
Speaker 1: what has happened to him? I mean it's can you
23:46
Speaker 1: recall in your lifetime ever seeing anyone effectively wrap up
23:50
Speaker 1: a nomination and then disappear. I mean, I guess he
23:54
Speaker 1: did did what was it? A Facebook live town hall
23:58
Speaker 1: that he like wandered off the run and didn't go
24:01
Speaker 1: very well. Look, I like Joe personally, He's an affable guy.
24:05
Speaker 1: But but you know, I gotta say he has slowed
24:10
Speaker 1: down more than a step or two. And I've heard
24:14
Speaker 1: more of the little speculation that get to the convention,
24:18
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to want to pull the plug and
24:21
Speaker 1: abandoned ship. I don't know if that happens under their rules.
24:25
Speaker 1: The superdelegates. You know, it's interesting that the Democratic Party
24:30
Speaker 1: believes believes in the state and believes in government, so
24:33
Speaker 1: they're much more authoritarian. So they have these things called superdelegates,
24:37
Speaker 1: which are elected officials that are basically free to do
24:40
Speaker 1: whatever they want at a convention. Republicans don't have super delicates. Yeah, no, no,
24:45
Speaker 1: it's interesting Republicans. Republicans don't have superdelegates. Republicans actually follow
24:50
Speaker 1: the votes of the people. The Democrats have a much
24:54
Speaker 1: more top down, power driven system. You know, I've heard
24:59
Speaker 1: interesting spec elation about Andrew Cuomo suddenly becoming the dark
25:03
Speaker 1: horse candidate. I don't know it. I will say this,
25:11
Speaker 1: the longer this crisis continues, the more the question for
25:15
Speaker 1: every voter is going to be what leader do I
25:20
Speaker 1: trust to lead this country in a time of crisis
25:24
Speaker 1: and calamity, whether it's a public health crisis or an
25:27
Speaker 1: economic crisis. And I think that issue is likely to
25:32
Speaker 1: become the only issue for the Democrats at their convention,
25:35
Speaker 1: and the only issue, or at least the dominant issue
25:38
Speaker 1: in November the general election, of course. I mean that's
25:41
Speaker 1: the theme that everybody's talking about, is unemployment, and it
25:43
Speaker 1: could affect a restaurant worker, and it could affect the
25:46
Speaker 1: Democratic nominee for president. There's a wide spectrum here in
25:50
Speaker 1: a lot of uncertainty. We will try to clear up
25:54
Speaker 1: more of it next time, as things are changing day
25:56
Speaker 1: by day. But that's all the time we have for today.
25:58
Speaker 1: Thank you, senator. I'm Michael. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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