Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Oil Means National Security, Rep. Jim Jordan vs Jack Smith & Crime Crashes Coast‑to‑Coast Week In Review

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Oil Means National Security, Rep. Jim Jordan vs Jack Smith & Crime Crashes Coast‑to‑Coast Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz.
0:03
Speaker 2: Weekend Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and here's some of
0:05
Speaker 2: the big stories that we talked about this week that
0:08
Speaker 2: you may have missed. First up, oil, Is it a
0:11
Speaker 2: issue of national security? Well, President Trump is dealing with
0:14
Speaker 2: that exact issue, and all executives are also breaking it down.
0:18
Speaker 2: We had a very interesting conversation with some of those
0:21
Speaker 2: old executives and we're gonna explain to you exactly what
0:23
Speaker 2: they say about that issue and energy independence. Also, Jim
0:28
Speaker 2: Jordan goes up against Jack Smith. You remember Jack Smith,
0:32
Speaker 2: the special prosecutor that tried to overthrow the will of
0:34
Speaker 2: the people and get rid of Donald Trump. Well, now
0:37
Speaker 2: he's having an answer for exactly what he did and
0:40
Speaker 2: it's truly unbelievable. And finally, the media not talking about
0:44
Speaker 2: the most amazing part of all. In the first year
0:48
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump's presidency, the crime stats nationwide have come
0:52
Speaker 2: down drastically, literally saving people's lives. So why is the
0:57
Speaker 2: media not talking about it? We'll give you those stats
0:59
Speaker 2: and explain it all. It's the Weekend Review and it
1:02
Speaker 2: starts right now. There is I had at dinner the
1:05
Speaker 2: other night with some oil executives and they were frustrated
1:08
Speaker 2: a little bit because the price of oil.
1:10
Speaker 1: Has come down.
1:11
Speaker 2: And one of the people at the table was also
1:13
Speaker 2: White House, and they said, what you don't understand is
1:17
Speaker 2: that our energy and its policy is also a national
1:20
Speaker 2: security policy. Because when you take away the money that
1:24
Speaker 2: is to the leadership in Iran to Vladimir Putin in Russia.
1:29
Speaker 2: Venezuela is another example of this, right, then what the
1:34
Speaker 2: money that they need to survive and to hold on
1:36
Speaker 2: to power and to pay their forces to keep them
1:39
Speaker 2: in power and to go after their citizens just completely disappears.
1:45
Speaker 2: That is part of I think what Donald Trump, and
1:47
Speaker 2: it was very interesting to hear this kind of back
1:48
Speaker 2: and forth. It's like, hey, I'm sorry that the price
1:51
Speaker 2: of per barrel is not where you want it, but
1:53
Speaker 2: it's helping American families the lower gas prices, and it's
1:56
Speaker 2: a national security thing for us as well. And it's
1:59
Speaker 2: allowing some of these these horrible people in the world
2:01
Speaker 2: to start teetering a little bit because they don't have
2:04
Speaker 2: the cash flow they had two three four years ago
2:06
Speaker 2: under democratic leadership.
2:09
Speaker 3: I think that's right. There's also a balance that President
2:12
Speaker 3: Trump and the Trump administration are trying to strike, which
2:15
Speaker 3: is we've seen the price of oil drop dramatically from
2:18
Speaker 3: from one hundred bucks a barrow to down just around
2:21
Speaker 3: sixty bucks of barrow a little bit lower. That has
2:24
Speaker 3: weakened almost every bad guy in the world. That is
2:27
Speaker 3: weak in Russia, that is weakened Iran, that is weak
2:29
Speaker 3: in Venezuela, and Maduro because it is I guess God
2:34
Speaker 3: has a sense of humor in that that many of
2:36
Speaker 3: the worst players on planet Earth depend upon oil revenues.
2:40
Speaker 3: There in many ways, Petro tyrants. Now yeah, Duro's not
2:43
Speaker 3: Maduro is innate number two, five seven whatever.
2:48
Speaker 1: But he used sticking out with pddy.
2:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'll say this, Look, there is a balance
2:54
Speaker 3: because from a US national security interest, look, oil and
2:59
Speaker 3: gas and energy or powerful weapons against our enemies and
3:03
Speaker 3: to buttress America. But you don't want to slash the
3:06
Speaker 3: price of oil so dramatically that you devastate US producers.
3:11
Speaker 3: And as you know, I talked to I represent Texas,
3:14
Speaker 3: I talk to a lot of US producers, and I
3:17
Speaker 3: will say, at down around sixty seventy dollars a barrel,
3:21
Speaker 3: you see what we've got now, which is gas prices
3:24
Speaker 3: at about two three bucks a gallon, depending on what
3:26
Speaker 3: part of the country you're in. Now, if you're in California,
3:28
Speaker 3: there's still four or five bucks a gallon.
3:30
Speaker 1: But that's that's on you for living in California voting
3:32
Speaker 1: for these nut jobs.
3:33
Speaker 3: But again that's Gavin new some of the Democrats fault.
3:35
Speaker 3: But here here in Texas, you fill up your tank,
3:38
Speaker 3: it's you know, somewhere between two and three bucks typically
3:40
Speaker 3: is what you're paying right now. I think that's a
3:43
Speaker 3: sweet spot is sixty to seventy dollars. Where it get
3:46
Speaker 3: lowers under Biden, when we had one hundred dollars oil,
3:49
Speaker 3: you were seeing four or five, six seven dollars a
3:51
Speaker 3: gallon a gasoline. That really hurts consumers.
3:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I say, crushing middle and lower class families even
3:57
Speaker 2: more than anybody else.
3:59
Speaker 3: I will say this. If you see oil prices plummet,
4:02
Speaker 3: so let's say they drop from the sixties down to
4:05
Speaker 3: say the forties.
4:06
Speaker 1: Are below, it hurts out people.
4:09
Speaker 3: That's when it starts doing real damage, in particular to
4:12
Speaker 3: the independent producers, the small guys in West Texas and
4:17
Speaker 3: the Permian. That's when you see drilling basically stop. And
4:21
Speaker 3: by the way, the majors will be fine. The x
4:23
Speaker 3: on Mobiles, the Chevrons. I mean, look, those are companies
4:27
Speaker 3: that literally have more revenue and assets than most countries
4:30
Speaker 3: on planet Earth. They're that massive. So the majors will
4:34
Speaker 3: survive a drop. But what happens if we see forty
4:38
Speaker 3: dollars oil? You'll see bankruptcy bankruptcies throughout the Permian basin
4:44
Speaker 3: of the small producers. And when those guys go away,
4:47
Speaker 3: those are the guys driving production. And what it does
4:51
Speaker 3: is it weakens America's ability to produce oil and makes
4:55
Speaker 3: us more dependent on foreign adversary. So I think what
4:58
Speaker 3: President Trump of the administra trying to do is stay
5:01
Speaker 3: in a sweet spot where oil is low enough that
5:04
Speaker 3: our enemies are weakened, but not so low that we're
5:07
Speaker 3: devastating us small businesses. And I think they're doing a
5:10
Speaker 3: pretty good job of trying to balance those two factors.
5:14
Speaker 2: Well, I was talking to some small refineries and that
5:16
Speaker 2: was exactly their concern. Center was, Hey, these small refineries
5:20
Speaker 2: that keep these small towns going, that employ a lot
5:23
Speaker 2: of people. They want to make sure that they're okay
5:25
Speaker 2: as well. And like you said, that's where this administration
5:28
Speaker 2: kind of asked away both ends of this because you
5:31
Speaker 2: don't want to hurt mom and Pops.
5:32
Speaker 1: You don't want to hurt the small ones.
5:33
Speaker 2: Like you said, the big ones will be okay, but
5:36
Speaker 2: these small refineries that literally power these small towns where
5:40
Speaker 2: they are, you don't want them to get hurt either.
5:43
Speaker 3: Yeah. And look, in the last several weeks, with everything
5:45
Speaker 3: happening in Iran, everything happening in Venezuela, I've been reaching
5:48
Speaker 3: out to energy leaders, primarily in Texas. So I've had
5:52
Speaker 3: conversations with the CEO of Chevron and the CEO of Valero,
5:56
Speaker 3: the biggest refiner in America, and I've had conversations with
5:59
Speaker 3: a number of smaller ee and p expiration and production
6:04
Speaker 3: independence in West Texas, and they've expressed optimism. Number one
6:10
Speaker 3: in terms of Venezuela. Venezuela, as we've talked about, has
6:14
Speaker 3: the highest proven reserves of oil in the world. No
6:17
Speaker 3: country has more. But the Venezuelan infrastructure is completely collapsed.
6:22
Speaker 3: Communism is not capable of producing what they should and
6:27
Speaker 3: so Venezuela right now is producing about a million barrels
6:30
Speaker 3: a day, which is a fraction of what their capacity is.
6:34
Speaker 3: I will say, I asked one of the major CEOs.
6:37
Speaker 3: I said, okay, what would the time frame be to
6:40
Speaker 3: take Venezuela from one million barrels a day to three
6:44
Speaker 3: million barrels a day? And the response was ten years.
6:48
Speaker 3: That it doesn't happen over it would take tens of
6:53
Speaker 3: billions of dollars of investment, and perhaps north of one
6:56
Speaker 3: hundred billion dollars. Now you would recoup that, but the
6:59
Speaker 3: infrast structure has so degraded. And I said, all right,
7:02
Speaker 3: so ten years to go from one million a day
7:05
Speaker 3: to three million a day? How about just from one
7:07
Speaker 3: to two And the answer was five to seven years.
7:10
Speaker 3: So the first million is it's.
7:14
Speaker 1: An interrastrystruct it's just straight up infrastructure.
7:16
Speaker 3: Right, and you could keep going up from there. I
7:18
Speaker 3: also am talking to refiners. So, so Venezuela produces h
7:25
Speaker 3: what is called heavy sour crude, which is a different
7:28
Speaker 3: sort of crude than in West Texas, they produce what's
7:31
Speaker 3: called light sweet crude. You refine them very very differently. Now,
7:35
Speaker 3: it so happens that the refineries that were built to
7:39
Speaker 3: handle heavy sour crude are along the Gulf coast. They're
7:42
Speaker 3: in Texas and Louisiana, and so we've got the capacity.
7:45
Speaker 3: I've been told that the Gulf Coast refineries could almost
7:49
Speaker 3: overnight refine an additional two hundred and fifty thousand barrels
7:54
Speaker 3: of the heavy crude from Venezuela. Now, interestingly enough, when
7:57
Speaker 3: I've asked the refiners, okay, what would the trade off be,
8:00
Speaker 3: what would the impact be, say for West Texas producers. Yeah,
8:03
Speaker 3: the refiners at least were not that concerned about it.
8:06
Speaker 3: And they said, look, the other producers of heavy crude
8:10
Speaker 3: are Canada, and so the tar sands in Alberta. And
8:13
Speaker 3: I said, look, more Venezuelan and crude would impact Canada.
8:17
Speaker 3: And actually Mexico. Mexico also produces similar crude to to
8:22
Speaker 3: to what Venezuela and Canada produce. And so that in
8:26
Speaker 3: terms of the impact, those are the trade offs, and
8:28
Speaker 3: that's those are That's the kind of decision making the
8:31
Speaker 3: Trump administration is engaged in.
8:32
Speaker 2: Right now, I want to ask you one final question
8:35
Speaker 2: before we wrap here. We talked a lot about Venezuela
8:38
Speaker 2: in the last couple of shows. We kind of know
8:40
Speaker 2: the state of play there, Uh, we we talked a
8:43
Speaker 2: lot about it. Ran today, can you give us, for
8:45
Speaker 2: everyone listening just a quick update on what's happening in Cuba.
8:49
Speaker 2: We've mentioned it several times of of how things could
8:53
Speaker 2: be teetering there. Give a little bit of an update
8:55
Speaker 2: for people that so they understand what's happening on the
8:57
Speaker 2: ground there as we wrap things up.
8:59
Speaker 3: So, the Cuban regime has been a communist dictatorship since
9:03
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty nine. As you know, that for me is
9:06
Speaker 3: not some abstract statement because my family was directly involved
9:10
Speaker 3: in him. My dad was a kid, He was fourteen
9:13
Speaker 3: when he began fighting in the Cuban Revolution. And to
9:17
Speaker 3: this day, my dad turns eighty seven in March, and
9:20
Speaker 3: he told me, he said, look the revolution. He said
9:23
Speaker 3: it was fourteen and fifteen year old boys who he
9:26
Speaker 3: said were too stupid to know any better. And as
9:30
Speaker 3: you know, you know my dad. Well, but when I
9:32
Speaker 3: want to give my father grief, I'll call my dad
9:35
Speaker 3: a communist gorilla. He gets very mad.
9:39
Speaker 2: I have a feeling that through during game night, when
9:42
Speaker 2: you guys are playing games, I just I feel like
9:44
Speaker 2: that's one of that's going to get used the most.
9:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he will say I was not a communist.
9:48
Speaker 3: I was never a communist. He was a kid, and
9:51
Speaker 3: they were fighting against Batiste, who was a dictator. He
9:55
Speaker 3: was corrupt, and Batista's thugs through my fire in prison
10:00
Speaker 3: and they tortured him. And so when my dad came
10:03
Speaker 3: to America, he was fleeing Batista, and he came to
10:05
Speaker 3: Texas at eighteen with nothing, and he couldn't speak English.
10:08
Speaker 3: He came seeking freedom. His younger sister is my theos Onya,
10:13
Speaker 3: and might theo Sonia. I adore my theos Sonia. I
10:16
Speaker 3: call her my Theoloka. She's my crazy aunt. She is
10:19
Speaker 3: a fireball. She was there in fifty nine when Castro
10:24
Speaker 3: took over and the young people, the Cubans didn't realize
10:28
Speaker 3: Castro was a communist. They just thought it was a
10:30
Speaker 3: people's revolution against Batista. He took over it, he clared
10:34
Speaker 3: he was a communist. He began firing squads. He began
10:38
Speaker 3: executing anyone who disagreed with him again, seizing people's lands.
10:42
Speaker 3: And my Theosagnia fought in the counter revolution. She was
10:47
Speaker 3: there was a whole counter revolution of the people trying
10:49
Speaker 3: to fight back, and my theoso Onia ended up being
10:51
Speaker 3: thrown in prison and tortured by Castro's goons. So I
10:57
Speaker 3: take it very personally when it comes to communism, it
10:59
Speaker 3: it strikes very close to home. If you look at
11:02
Speaker 3: the history of Cuba, starting early on, from when Castro
11:06
Speaker 3: took over and made Cuba a communist dictatorship. For decades,
11:10
Speaker 3: Cuba was effectively a satellite state of the Soviet Union,
11:15
Speaker 3: remember the whole Cuban missile crisis under JFK, and the
11:18
Speaker 3: Soviets provided them a financial lifeline. Look, if you're a communist,
11:23
Speaker 3: you destroy the economy. That happens all across the world.
11:27
Speaker 3: Communism is a great way to destroy jobs and make
11:30
Speaker 3: your people incredibly poor. Cuba went from it was the
11:34
Speaker 3: number one sugar producer in all of Latin America. They
11:37
Speaker 3: just destroyed the sugar industry and everything else and brought
11:40
Speaker 3: massive poverty to Cuba. They survived because the Soviet Union
11:45
Speaker 3: sent them money, and they sent them money because the
11:47
Speaker 3: Soviets wanted a military satellite just ninety miles off the
11:51
Speaker 3: coast of America. Now, when we won the Cold War,
11:55
Speaker 3: when the Soviet Union collapsed, suddenly that financial lifeline diss
12:01
Speaker 3: and what happened was Venezuela stepped into the breach and
12:04
Speaker 3: you had Huo Chavez and then later Maduro both communist
12:08
Speaker 3: dictators who destroyed the economy in Venezuela, just like Castro
12:12
Speaker 3: had in Cuba. Chavez and Maduro did the same thing
12:16
Speaker 3: in Venezuela, and Venezuela had a corrupt bargain where they
12:20
Speaker 3: were sent oil which they had a ton of, and
12:23
Speaker 3: they would send money, which they had a lot of,
12:25
Speaker 3: in exchange for selling the oil, and what they would
12:28
Speaker 3: get back is is enforcers in thugs. There was a
12:31
Speaker 3: reason Maduro's entire protection detail were Cuban guards. And you know,
12:36
Speaker 3: in the article I just read, it talked about how
12:39
Speaker 3: one of the reasons is Maduro didn't trust Venezuelans because
12:42
Speaker 3: he was such a terrible leader that he was afraid
12:44
Speaker 3: Venezuelans would turn on him, which is why he used
12:46
Speaker 3: Cuban enforcers instead. Well, with Venezuela, with Maduro having been
12:53
Speaker 3: arrested no longer in power, Venezuela is no longer sending
12:56
Speaker 3: oil and no longer sending money to Cuba, and the
12:59
Speaker 3: Cuban economy is in freefall, just like the Iranian economy
13:02
Speaker 3: is in freefall. The regime is incredibly precarious, and i'll
13:06
Speaker 3: tell you what's keeping it alive right now, which is
13:08
Speaker 3: Mexico is still sending oil to Cuba. And and my
13:12
Speaker 3: hope is the Trump administration is going to lean on
13:14
Speaker 3: Mexico to stop that oil going to Cuba. I think
13:19
Speaker 3: that may be the single most important piece to nudge
13:23
Speaker 3: Cuba beyond the tipping point, much like Iran is and
13:27
Speaker 3: and and I think the communist dictatorship is terrified that
13:31
Speaker 3: that they will lose control. Now, the counterbalance to that
13:36
Speaker 3: is the Cuban regime has a massive oppressive machinery that
13:42
Speaker 3: has been in place for decades and and and that
13:46
Speaker 3: machinery can be really brutal and and and so I
13:49
Speaker 3: think the vulnerability right now is that when people face
13:55
Speaker 3: a collapsing economy, they get angry and they can turn
13:58
Speaker 3: on their leaders. And and so I think the Trump administration,
14:02
Speaker 3: I think President Trump is encouraging that. But it is
14:05
Speaker 3: the economic factor, more than anything that I think is
14:08
Speaker 3: putting the regime in a massively fragile position.
14:11
Speaker 2: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
14:14
Speaker 2: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
14:16
Speaker 2: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. All right,
14:21
Speaker 2: I want to get to another big story center and
14:23
Speaker 2: it deals with Jack Smith he was in front of Congress.
14:26
Speaker 2: I would assume ninety percent of this audience does not
14:30
Speaker 2: know that he had to testify before Congress this week,
14:33
Speaker 2: not because they're uninformed, because the media refuses to cover this.
14:36
Speaker 2: They think this is old news and just hashing out
14:40
Speaker 2: something that happened a long time ago, so no one
14:42
Speaker 2: should care. I think we should remind people of why
14:47
Speaker 2: accountability is still so vitally important and what Jack Smith
14:51
Speaker 2: was a part of. Can you just give a quick
14:55
Speaker 2: synopsis to people so that people remember who is Jack Smith,
14:58
Speaker 2: what was he doing to abuse power, and just how
15:01
Speaker 2: corrupt was his quote investigation to Donald Trump and.
15:04
Speaker 3: Others, Jack Smith was the point of the spear on
15:07
Speaker 3: the greatest abuse of power we have seen in modern times.
15:10
Speaker 3: And to put it in context, what Jack Smith did
15:14
Speaker 3: was orders of magnitude worse than what the Nixon administration
15:18
Speaker 3: did during Watergate. During Watergate, you had a couple of
15:21
Speaker 3: half right burglars break in to the headquarters of the DNC,
15:26
Speaker 3: the Democrat National Committee. In this instance, Jack Smith, what
15:31
Speaker 3: he did was orders of magnitude worth He went directly
15:34
Speaker 3: after President Trump indicted him multiple times. He did so
15:39
Speaker 3: for a very explicit reason because he wanted to prevent
15:41
Speaker 3: the American people from re electing him. It was an
15:43
Speaker 3: effort directly to subvert democracy. It was the first time
15:48
Speaker 3: in the history of the United States that a president
15:50
Speaker 3: or former president has been indicted. Jack Smith did it twice,
15:52
Speaker 3: and then he also teamed up with his rogue Democrat
15:56
Speaker 3: local prosecutors to do it two more times. He also
15:59
Speaker 3: subpoenaed the phone records of roughly twenty percent of the
16:03
Speaker 3: Republicans in the Senate in a fishing expedition, he targeted
16:07
Speaker 3: over four hundred Republicans. It was a political persecution. If
16:13
Speaker 3: you're a fan of lame Is Jack Smith would make
16:16
Speaker 3: Javert blush. He was out of control and he continues
16:21
Speaker 3: to be brazen. And I will tell you his testimony
16:23
Speaker 3: testified for the House of Representatives. It was a disaster.
16:26
Speaker 3: Jim Jordan your friend of mine. He's been a guest
16:29
Speaker 3: on the Verdict podcast. Before Jim Jordan shaired the hearing.
16:32
Speaker 3: He opened the hearing by pointed out that the FBI
16:35
Speaker 3: when it rated mar A Lago, that it searched Milania's
16:39
Speaker 3: closet because apparently her clothing and underwear as a matter
16:44
Speaker 3: of national security, according to Jack Smith and the Biden
16:46
Speaker 3: DOJ and it searched baron Trump's bedroom because you know,
16:51
Speaker 3: going after a teenager is really the best use for
16:54
Speaker 3: the Department of Justice, and I guess it is if
16:57
Speaker 3: you're willing to abuse your power. I want you to
16:59
Speaker 3: listen to Jim Jordan talking about Jack Smith at the hearing.
17:04
Speaker 4: Here, give a listen, gentlemen, yields back. Mister Smith. Is
17:07
Speaker 4: Cassidy Hutchinson a liar.
17:10
Speaker 5: She was their star witness January sixth Committee, their star
17:14
Speaker 5: witness in one of those staged and choreographed hearings they
17:17
Speaker 5: paid the former president of ABC News to put together.
17:21
Speaker 5: She was fact the only witness at this special prime
17:24
Speaker 5: time hearing Tuesday, June twenty eighth, twenty twenty two, eight
17:29
Speaker 5: o'clock in the evening, and she told some stories.
17:32
Speaker 4: I mean, these were these were some stories.
17:35
Speaker 5: She talked about President lunged across the back seat, grabbed
17:39
Speaker 5: the steering wheel, tried to drive the car to the Capitol.
17:43
Speaker 5: And I just want to know you think.
17:45
Speaker 6: She was lying, Chairman Jordan.
17:47
Speaker 7: My assessment of that particular issue is that with respect
17:52
Speaker 7: to the testimony about someone of the president lunging towards
17:58
Speaker 7: the driver. Recollection of her testimony about that is that
18:02
Speaker 7: it was secondhand.
18:03
Speaker 6: She said she'd heard that from somebody.
18:05
Speaker 5: You familiar with the name Tony Ornado? I'm sorry, Do
18:08
Speaker 5: you familiar with the name Tony Ornado?
18:10
Speaker 7: Yes?
18:11
Speaker 5: White House Deputy Chief of Operations, Deputy cheap of staff
18:13
Speaker 5: for operations, right.
18:15
Speaker 4: You know, remember what he said about.
18:17
Speaker 6: It, as I said here right now, I do not.
18:19
Speaker 5: Yeah, he said it didn't happen. How about Bobby Engle?
18:22
Speaker 5: Are you familiar with that name? Yes, I am Secret
18:24
Speaker 5: Service agent who was actually in the car that day.
18:28
Speaker 4: You know what he said? He said it didn't happen.
18:30
Speaker 5: And they both said the first time they ever heard
18:33
Speaker 5: this story was when miss Hutchinson testified in the prime
18:38
Speaker 5: time hearing as their star witness of the January sixth committee.
18:42
Speaker 5: By the way, do you ever confirm her testimony about
18:44
Speaker 5: this particular incident?
18:47
Speaker 7: We conducted, as I said, before, our own independent investigation
18:52
Speaker 7: of all aspects of the case that we thought was relevant.
18:55
Speaker 6: We attorneys from my office.
18:57
Speaker 4: Did you ever confirm it? That's a simple question.
19:00
Speaker 7: We interviewed her, I should say, attorneys in my office.
19:02
Speaker 5: But did you ever confirm the President leaping across the seat,
19:06
Speaker 5: grabbing the steering wheel. This whole concoction she brought up
19:09
Speaker 5: in the January sixth hearing.
19:10
Speaker 7: Do you ever confirm that we interviewed another firsthand witness
19:15
Speaker 7: who was in the car who did not confirm that
19:19
Speaker 7: that can happen.
19:20
Speaker 5: But also your deposition to the committee last month, mister Smith,
19:25
Speaker 5: you said this my recollection with miss Hutchinson was a
19:28
Speaker 5: number of the things that she gave evidence on were
19:30
Speaker 5: secondhand hearsay. Your remembers making that statement to us last
19:33
Speaker 5: month in the deposition, I did, and I.
19:35
Speaker 7: Was referring particularly to what we're talking about now.
19:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you also said miss Hutchinson regarding this particular claim,
19:41
Speaker 5: was a second or even third hand witness. We ask you,
19:43
Speaker 5: if you were a defense attorney, how would you handle
19:45
Speaker 5: cross examining her if she was on the witness stand,
19:48
Speaker 5: And you said, if I were a defense attorney, miss
19:49
Speaker 5: Hutchinson were a witness, the first thing I would do
19:51
Speaker 5: was seek to preclude her testimony because it was here
19:54
Speaker 5: say you remember saying all that.
19:55
Speaker 6: Yes, that's correct, so that's correct? Right?
19:57
Speaker 5: Were you gonna put her on the witness stand if
19:59
Speaker 5: you ever got to trial.
20:00
Speaker 7: We had not made final determinations as to who we
20:03
Speaker 7: were going to call as a witness. We had a
20:05
Speaker 7: large we're still considering her. We had a large choice
20:09
Speaker 7: of witnesses in this.
20:10
Speaker 5: Are you familiar what Washington Post reporters Carole Lenning and
20:14
Speaker 5: Aaron Davis said in their book? They did his book,
20:16
Speaker 5: three hundreds on pages book on chronicle and the whole
20:18
Speaker 5: investigation of the Justice Department, And here's what they said.
20:21
Speaker 5: On page three to ten, they said Jack Smith had
20:24
Speaker 5: wondered whether some of Hutchinson's claims might be relied upon
20:27
Speaker 5: a trial. Still, at one point, Smith told the elections
20:30
Speaker 5: team he wasn't ready to give up on Hutchinson's account. Ultimately, however,
20:34
Speaker 5: Trump administration officials uniformly fiercely disputed her accounts under oath.
20:39
Speaker 5: Prosecutors on your team told Smith they wouldn't want to
20:42
Speaker 5: use Hutchinson as a witness in court, and Smith agreed.
20:46
Speaker 5: Are Carol Lenning and Aaron Davis who wrote this are
20:48
Speaker 5: they lying?
20:49
Speaker 7: My recollection is that I certainly had not made any
20:52
Speaker 7: final determinations about.
20:54
Speaker 6: In who we were going to call.
20:56
Speaker 4: Well, that's the point. That is the point.
20:58
Speaker 5: The fact that they used her in a primetime hearing,
21:01
Speaker 5: and you won't rule out using her, didn't rule out
21:04
Speaker 5: using her putting on the witness stand when everybody knows
21:06
Speaker 5: she wasn't telling the truth.
21:08
Speaker 4: That says it all.
21:10
Speaker 5: That's the degree the Left and Democrats were willing to
21:14
Speaker 5: go to get President Trump putting on the witness stand someone.
21:17
Speaker 4: Everybody knows is making it up. Everybody knows that, and
21:21
Speaker 4: you were willing to do.
21:22
Speaker 5: By the way, you know how many times Cassiy Hutchinson
21:24
Speaker 5: was mentioned in their report, the January sixth report, Any idea,
21:27
Speaker 5: mister Smith, I do not one hundred and eighty five
21:30
Speaker 5: times someone that the whole country knows wasn't telling the truth,
21:35
Speaker 5: and you were still considering putting her on the witness
21:38
Speaker 5: stand because you had to get President Trump. And everybody
21:42
Speaker 5: can see that.
21:44
Speaker 1: Senator.
21:45
Speaker 2: You listen to that line of questioning, and that's just
21:48
Speaker 2: five minutes of pure facts and gold from Jim Jordan
21:51
Speaker 2: reminding people what they were trying to do on the left,
21:56
Speaker 2: even when they knew that things were being made up,
21:58
Speaker 2: that lies were being told. And this is no different
22:00
Speaker 2: than Russian collusion. Back in sixteen, when the FBI had
22:04
Speaker 2: already declared that they thought that Steele dossier was quote
22:07
Speaker 2: user generated and they used it anyway. That's exactly what
22:11
Speaker 2: was happening here with this special counsel. It was weaponize
22:16
Speaker 2: and do whatever you want to do to try to
22:18
Speaker 2: stop Donald Trump from becoming president again.
22:21
Speaker 3: Well, and what Jim Jordan did there was also highlight
22:24
Speaker 3: the willingness to rely on people that were lying, that
22:26
Speaker 3: were obviously lying. You know, I will say it's interesting.
22:29
Speaker 3: Cassidy Hutchison. I don't know her personally. Before she worked
22:34
Speaker 3: in the White House, she was apparently an intern in
22:36
Speaker 3: my office. I have no recollection of her. We have
22:40
Speaker 3: lots of interns who come in and out of the office.
22:42
Speaker 3: We tend to have interns in the spring semester and
22:44
Speaker 3: the fall semester, and also during the summer, and typically
22:48
Speaker 3: I will sit down with the group of interns that
22:50
Speaker 3: are with us for like a twenty minute meeting in
22:52
Speaker 3: my office and I'll talk with them a little bit.
22:53
Speaker 3: So I assume I met her when she interned, but
22:56
Speaker 3: I don't remember her. She wrote a book right after
23:00
Speaker 3: her her star testimony. She wrote a book of all
23:03
Speaker 3: of her stories and and and in it she describes
23:06
Speaker 3: this exchange with me this conversation that she says happened
23:11
Speaker 3: with me, that is truly fantastic U, because it never occurred,
23:15
Speaker 3: and it was an exchange that she said occurred after
23:18
Speaker 3: she went to the White House, and the dialogue back
23:21
Speaker 3: and forth she makes up has me kind of like
23:25
Speaker 3: like like tugging on her shirt sleeve and asking for
23:27
Speaker 3: her help, and it has her like strongly like sticking
23:32
Speaker 3: it to the Senator. I have to admit, so I
23:35
Speaker 3: didn't read her book, and I think very few people
23:37
Speaker 3: actually did. I did what's called the Washington read when
23:41
Speaker 3: someone writes something about you that's sort of making a
23:43
Speaker 3: little bit of news, which is I went and read
23:45
Speaker 3: the page where she talks about it, and I literally
23:48
Speaker 3: laughed out loud at the exchange because it it it
23:52
Speaker 3: was truly fiction. And and the fact that she was
23:55
Speaker 3: willing to fictionalize a conversation with me that that did
24:00
Speaker 3: not occur tells me that the other pages of the
24:04
Speaker 3: book are quite likely to be fiction as well. And
24:07
Speaker 3: it speaks volumes that both Jack Smith and the Democrats
24:12
Speaker 3: running the January sixth Commission were perfectly happy to rely
24:15
Speaker 3: upon a fabulous whom they knew was not telling the truth.
24:18
Speaker 1: As before.
24:19
Speaker 2: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
24:21
Speaker 2: on this topic, you can go back and dow the
24:24
Speaker 2: podcasts from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
24:28
Speaker 2: I want to get back to the big story, number
24:30
Speaker 2: three of the week. You may have missed, all right, Senator,
24:33
Speaker 2: So let's just get back to this headline. A lot
24:36
Speaker 2: of people not paying attention to it because why well,
24:39
Speaker 2: no one's covering it because it's good news. There are
24:43
Speaker 2: fewer Americans that are becoming victims of crime, fewer people
24:46
Speaker 2: in America that are being murdered. All of this because
24:50
Speaker 2: of Donald Trump's leadership and trying to go into dangerous
24:53
Speaker 2: cities and make them safer for all Americans.
24:57
Speaker 3: That's right. Let's start with crime, and what was release
25:00
Speaker 3: this week is the latest murder rates. And the murder
25:03
Speaker 3: rates across the United States decreased nationwide roughly twenty percent.
25:08
Speaker 3: And let's put that in specific numbers. If you look
25:12
Speaker 3: at January through October of twenty twenty five and you
25:15
Speaker 3: compare it to the same time period in twenty twenty four.
25:19
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty five, approximately five nine hundred and twelve
25:24
Speaker 3: murders were recorded in the US in that same time period.
25:28
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty four, seven thousand, three hundred and sixty
25:32
Speaker 3: nine murders were recorded. In other words, there are about
25:35
Speaker 3: fourteen hundred people one thy four hundred people alive who
25:39
Speaker 3: were not murdered because of common sense law and order policies,
25:46
Speaker 3: because of not releasing murderers onto the street, because of
25:49
Speaker 3: deporting murderers and violent gang members. And let's break the
25:52
Speaker 3: numbers down. Chicago the murder rate dropped thirty percent. New
25:58
Speaker 3: York City the murder rate dropped twenty percent. Birmingham, Alabama,
26:03
Speaker 3: it dropped forty nine percent. Albuquerque, New Mexico, had dropped
26:06
Speaker 3: thirty two percent. Baltimore, Maryland it dropped thirty one percent, Atlanta,
26:11
Speaker 3: Georgia twenty six percent, Oakland, California, thirty three percent, Washington,
26:17
Speaker 3: d C. Where President Trump deployed the National Guard thirty
26:21
Speaker 3: one percent. These are historic lows, and if these trends continue,
26:28
Speaker 3: the US may record its lowest murder rate since nineteen sixty,
26:34
Speaker 3: that is sixty six years ago. That is a stunning result.
26:38
Speaker 3: By the way, border crime, border crime, other violent crimes
26:44
Speaker 3: also decreased in twenty twive, including a twenty five percent
26:48
Speaker 3: drop in motor vehicle theft, an eighteen percent drop in robberies,
26:54
Speaker 3: and an eight percent drop in aggravated assaults. Now these
27:00
Speaker 3: data are being reported, and what is really quite interesting
27:05
Speaker 3: is the media is doing everything they can to cover
27:09
Speaker 3: it up. So Axios wrote the first story on this,
27:12
Speaker 3: and they talk about the murder rate has fallen, but
27:14
Speaker 3: they say, well, it's unclear that this has anything to
27:16
Speaker 3: do with Donald Trump or DJ or the FBI or
27:20
Speaker 3: policies that Republicans have put in place deporting violent criminals
27:23
Speaker 3: and murderers and gang members, which is truly it is
27:28
Speaker 3: a level of dishonesty that is incredible. And I want
27:33
Speaker 3: to give you some of the raw backgrounds that explains
27:40
Speaker 3: why the murder rate has dropped so profoundly. Here are
27:44
Speaker 3: some raw numbers and this was put out by FBI
27:46
Speaker 3: Director Cash Betel of what has happened that would explain
27:50
Speaker 3: why is it that we've seen a twenty percent drop
27:52
Speaker 3: in murder rate in the last year, we've seen an
27:56
Speaker 3: increase in violent crime arrests. What rate do you think
27:58
Speaker 3: the increase in violent crime arrest has been?
28:01
Speaker 1: What has it been? I have no clue?
28:03
Speaker 3: One hundred percent? Wow, all right, how about this. Gangs
28:09
Speaker 3: and criminal enterprises disrupted. What rate do you think that
28:13
Speaker 3: that increase has been.
28:15
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess it's got to be significant.
28:18
Speaker 3: Two hundred and ten percent. A total of one thousand,
28:22
Speaker 3: eight hundred gangs and criminal enterprises disrupted, all right. Fentanyl
28:27
Speaker 3: more than two thousand kilos of fentanyl sees. That's up
28:30
Speaker 3: thirty one percent. That's enough to kill one hundred and
28:33
Speaker 3: thirty million Americans. There've also been more than six thousand
28:38
Speaker 3: child victims located. That's an increase of twenty two percent.
28:42
Speaker 3: There have been more than one thousand, seven hundred child
28:45
Speaker 3: predators arrested. That's an increase of ten percent. There have
28:49
Speaker 3: been more than three hundred human traffickers arrested. That's up
28:53
Speaker 3: fifteen percent. There's a thirty five percent increase in espionage arrests.
28:59
Speaker 3: And four of the FBI's top ten most wanted fugitives
29:05
Speaker 3: were captured. And to give you a sense of that,
29:08
Speaker 3: in one year, do youny how many of the FBI's
29:11
Speaker 3: top ten lists were captured in the four years of
29:13
Speaker 3: the Biden presidency.
29:15
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess it's less than five four So.
29:19
Speaker 3: In one year they captured as many on the top
29:22
Speaker 3: ten list, as Biden did in all four years, and
29:26
Speaker 3: the media want to do everything they can to say no, no,
29:30
Speaker 3: this drop and the murder rate, it just happened magically.
29:32
Speaker 3: It's probably due to global warming or something. It has
29:35
Speaker 3: nothing to do with arresting murderers. It has nothing to
29:40
Speaker 3: do with deporting murderers. It certainly has nothing to do
29:43
Speaker 3: with MS thirteen gang members being put in jail and deported,
29:46
Speaker 3: despite the fact that the way you join MS thirteen
29:50
Speaker 3: is by murdering someone. And this is real results. And
29:57
Speaker 3: then you put on top of it. You put on
29:59
Speaker 3: top of it the drop in overdoses, and when we
30:04
Speaker 3: come back, we're gonna give you the drop in overdoses,
30:06
Speaker 3: which is even more profound. Even more lives have been
30:10
Speaker 3: saved in the past year.
30:12
Speaker 2: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with center
30:15
Speaker 2: Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down
30:17
Speaker 2: with my podcast and you can listen to my podcasts
30:20
Speaker 2: every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each
30:22
Speaker 2: day when you listen to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to
30:24
Speaker 2: have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson
30:27
Speaker 2: podcasts and we will see you back here on Monday morning.