Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Wuhan Coverup
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: We have some shocking news about the origins of the coronavirus,
- 0:03Speaker 1: all while twenty two million Americans are thrown out of work.
- 0:08Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict
- 0:17Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. Just in our
- 0:21Speaker 1: prep call, I feel like there's so much information that
- 0:23Speaker 1: there is no way we're going to be able to
- 0:25Speaker 1: get to everything. The topic on everybody's mind is restarting
- 0:29Speaker 1: the economy from Michigan to North Carolina, all around the country.
- 0:33Speaker 1: The presidents talked about it. Even the liberal governors have
- 0:35Speaker 1: talked about it. I know that you are on the
- 0:38Speaker 1: Restart the Economy task Force. I know you spoke to
- 0:40Speaker 1: the President yesterday. What did you talk about and what
- 0:43Speaker 1: is the plan. Look, we got to get Americans back
- 0:47Speaker 1: to work. Americans are ready to go back to work.
- 0:51Speaker 1: Texans are ready to get back to work. Yesterday I
- 0:53Speaker 1: spent over an hour on the phone with the President
- 0:56Speaker 1: as part of the Restarting the Economy task Force. Talk
- 1:00Speaker 1: about two things really that I emphasized to the President.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Number One, testing, we need to continue to lean in
- 1:04Speaker 1: and do even more on testing. The Abbot Labs quick test.
- 1:08Speaker 1: You know when I went up to meet with the
- 1:10Speaker 1: President a couple of weeks ago, and the energy CEOs
- 1:14Speaker 1: on energy they required actually that was the first day
- 1:17Speaker 1: they required everyone going in to meet with the President
- 1:20Speaker 1: had to be tested for coronavirus. And I got that
- 1:24Speaker 1: they had just gotten one of those Abbot quick tests situations,
- 1:30Speaker 1: you know, And it's interesting that the I know a
- 1:32Speaker 1: number of people who had been tested on the old tests,
- 1:34Speaker 1: and the old tests they'd stick it up your nose
- 1:36Speaker 1: and like, way way way up your nose, they said,
- 1:39Speaker 1: I mean it was like going to the back of
- 1:40Speaker 1: your brain. It really hurt and was unpleasant. No, thankfully,
- 1:46Speaker 1: with the Abbot thing, which is what they had just gotten,
- 1:48Speaker 1: just put a little swab in each nostril, ran it
- 1:50Speaker 1: through a machine, and ten minutes later to get a result,
- 1:53Speaker 1: so you don't have to wait four or five six days.
- 1:56Speaker 1: They're producing about fifty thousand of those a day. I've
- 1:59Speaker 1: spoken this week with Texas hospitals, Texas communities. We're starting
- 2:03Speaker 1: to get the Abbott lab quick labs. We need to
- 2:05Speaker 1: get even more and more of them, and we need
- 2:07Speaker 1: to get even more of the antibody test. One of
- 2:11Speaker 1: the things the Vice President said in the call yesterday
- 2:14Speaker 1: with a task force is by the end of the month,
- 2:16Speaker 1: they're expecting to be producing twenty million antibody tests a month,
- 2:20Speaker 1: so that'll start getting out in real numbers. And so
- 2:23Speaker 1: what I emphasized to the President was two things, lean
- 2:26Speaker 1: in even harder on testing, getting it out more widely available,
- 2:30Speaker 1: but also we have got to get people back to work.
- 2:33Speaker 1: It's got it very geographically. Obviously, New York City has
- 2:37Speaker 1: been hammered. It's been horrific, it's been heartbreaking. What's happened
- 2:40Speaker 1: in New York. No one in their right mind would
- 2:43Speaker 1: suggest New Yorkers should go back to work tomorrow, right.
- 2:46Speaker 1: But for much of the rest of the country, the
- 2:49Speaker 1: virus numbers are not nearly as bad. We have flattened
- 2:52Speaker 1: the curve, we've seen the numbers moving in the right direction,
- 2:55Speaker 1: and we need to segment the population. For those who
- 2:58Speaker 1: are really vulnerable, the very elderly, those with serious health issues,
- 3:03Speaker 1: they ought to remain quarantined, they ought to remain protected
- 3:06Speaker 1: because those are those are the communities that are really
- 3:08Speaker 1: vulnerable to this virus. But for everyone else, for young,
- 3:12Speaker 1: healthy people, we need to get back to work, using
- 3:15Speaker 1: ppe where appropriate, using masks, using gloves, practicing social distancing.
- 3:20Speaker 1: So for example, restaurants, they may need to reconfigure their
- 3:24Speaker 1: dining rooms to spread the tables out a bit so
- 3:27Speaker 1: that you can socially distance between tables. But we're imposing
- 3:31Speaker 1: massive harms on the economy. Twenty two million people out
- 3:34Speaker 1: of work, millions of small businesses on the verge of bankruptcy.
- 3:38Speaker 1: And Michael, this is something I emphasize to the President yesterday.
- 3:42Speaker 1: If we keep on this path, there is a real
- 3:45Speaker 1: public health consequence to killing the economy. We're gonna see
- 3:51Speaker 1: mental health issues. We're going to see depression, We're going
- 3:54Speaker 1: to see increased rates of suicide. We're going to see
- 3:56Speaker 1: increased rates of substance abuse and alcohol abuse, and lives
- 4:01Speaker 1: will be lost, and we got to protect lives. The
- 4:03Speaker 1: objectives should be protect as many lives as possible, and
- 4:07Speaker 1: on both sides of the ledgers, So be smart, follow
- 4:10Speaker 1: medical science and stop the pandemic, but also don't kill
- 4:14Speaker 1: the economy and destroy people's livelihoods and cause suffering and
- 4:19Speaker 1: death on the economics side either, well, we've already seen
- 4:23Speaker 1: some of the consequences of this. You know, for some reason,
- 4:26Speaker 1: one of the responses to coronavirus in various states was
- 4:29Speaker 1: to let criminals out of jail. I guess it was
- 4:31Speaker 1: so that the virus wouldn't spread in the jails. Guess
- 4:33Speaker 1: what happens That criminal gets released the very next day,
- 4:37Speaker 1: he committed murder and then he's re arrested. And we've
- 4:39Speaker 1: seen stories like this around the country. It's very hard
- 4:42Speaker 1: to quantify that. You know, we can quantify the deaths
- 4:45Speaker 1: from coronavirus. Is there any way we're gonna be able
- 4:47Speaker 1: to measure the fallout and end even up to the
- 4:50Speaker 1: deaths caused by an overreaction, Well, we certainly need to
- 4:56Speaker 1: go back and assess that. And you're right, we're seeing
- 4:58Speaker 1: that all over the country in Travis coun Annie, Austin,
- 5:01Speaker 1: uh In, Texas, that they're releasing violent criminals, people charged
- 5:05Speaker 1: with with with violent crimes, with assault, with with sex trafficking,
- 5:09Speaker 1: and they're releasing them. That that's really dangerous. When you
- 5:12Speaker 1: release violent criminals, you're gonna get more violent crime. That's
- 5:15Speaker 1: the wrong response. And you know, there's a weird backwards
- 5:20Speaker 1: approach that violent criminals are being released from jail, but
- 5:23Speaker 1: at the same time that they're arresting people for driving
- 5:26Speaker 1: in their car, that that they tried to arrest a
- 5:29Speaker 1: guy in Colorado for playing catch with a six year
- 5:32Speaker 1: old daughter playing softball. Look, Catherine, my nine year old,
- 5:36Speaker 1: as a softball player, as a as a softball dad,
- 5:39Speaker 1: I'm offended that you'd go after a dad for simply
- 5:42Speaker 1: paying playing catch with his daughter. He wasn't endangering anyone,
- 5:45Speaker 1: he wasn't near anyone. That's just stupid. And and you know,
- 5:51Speaker 1: crises bring out people's character. And I got to say,
- 5:56Speaker 1: there are some authoritarians, almost all its seems, on the
- 6:00Speaker 1: democratic side of the ledger, that are just abusing power.
- 6:04Speaker 1: You know, Tennessee and Mississippi both places you saw people
- 6:09Speaker 1: being ticketed for going to church even though they stayed
- 6:12Speaker 1: in their cars and they were parked there listening to
- 6:15Speaker 1: the sermon on the radio. Look in your car, You're
- 6:18Speaker 1: not endangering anyone. That's just stupid. And to all of
- 6:21Speaker 1: these little petty tyrants, stop it. The governor of New
- 6:24Speaker 1: Jersey was was doing an interview. He was asked, well, well,
- 6:28Speaker 1: does your order comply with a Bill of Rights and
- 6:31Speaker 1: the Constitution. He said, well, that's above my pay grade,
- 6:34Speaker 1: that is your job. No, it's actually not. And in fact,
- 6:38Speaker 1: I couldn't help but jump on Twitter and tweet out
- 6:41Speaker 1: the actual goat oath that every governor of New Jersey takes,
- 6:46Speaker 1: and he takes an oath to support and defend the
- 6:49Speaker 1: Constitution of the United States. And we need to focus
- 6:53Speaker 1: on defending people's liberties, letting them go go back to
- 6:57Speaker 1: work and earn a living and provide for their family.
- 7:00Speaker 1: We can do all of that while being smart and
- 7:02Speaker 1: mitigating the spread of this virus. Of course. And I've
- 7:05Speaker 1: noticed this not even just from conservatives, not even just
- 7:08Speaker 1: from people in certain cities, but all around the country,
- 7:11Speaker 1: even liberal governors. It seems like over the past few days,
- 7:14Speaker 1: we've reached a turning point. We're now at the pivotal
- 7:17Speaker 1: moment where all of the energy is not just on shutdown, shutdown,
- 7:21Speaker 1: stay in place. But now it seems that there's a
- 7:23Speaker 1: growing consensus that we have got to restart things, even
- 7:26Speaker 1: as certain experts are telling us we can't leave our
- 7:29Speaker 1: homes for two years. Do you think that moment has happened.
- 7:32Speaker 1: We're now on the other side of this. We're at
- 7:33Speaker 1: this turning point. So I do now listen. I think
- 7:37Speaker 1: it varies geographically. It needs to be based on the
- 7:40Speaker 1: medical science and where the virus is, and if you've
- 7:43Speaker 1: got an active outbreak that is spreading, you need to
- 7:45Speaker 1: be more aggressive in your efforts to contain it. But
- 7:48Speaker 1: where we are containing it, I'll give you another example.
- 7:50Speaker 1: We have a lot of places that have shut down
- 7:53Speaker 1: elective surgeries, at elective medical procedures. That's having a devastating
- 7:59Speaker 1: impact on hospital I've been talking to physicians hospital CEOs
- 8:02Speaker 1: who are seeing their revenue cut, you know, eighty percent,
- 8:07Speaker 1: and they're going broke, They're laying people off, and explain
- 8:12Speaker 1: to me the reasoning of we're going into a pandemic
- 8:15Speaker 1: where we desperately need our hospitals and doctors, so let's
- 8:18Speaker 1: slam them and stop them from performing the procedures that
- 8:22Speaker 1: generate all their revenue. And by the way, that too
- 8:25Speaker 1: will have a public health harm. Like even though something's elective,
- 8:28Speaker 1: there are a lot of elective medical procedures that are
- 8:31Speaker 1: nonetheless beneficial. And if we keep delaying them and delaying
- 8:34Speaker 1: them and delaying them, people don't go into the doctor
- 8:38Speaker 1: for other health issues, a hard issue, what have you.
- 8:41Speaker 1: We're going to have more and more deaths the more
- 8:44Speaker 1: we freeze and shut down our economy and we've got
- 8:48Speaker 1: away life. On both sides of the ledger, maximize the
- 8:51Speaker 1: protection of life. Yeah, on the medical science front, I
- 8:55Speaker 1: want to turn for a moment from the economy into
- 8:58Speaker 1: the virus itself, and I want to take just a
- 9:01Speaker 1: slight victory lab because I remember on this very show, Senator,
- 9:05Speaker 1: on March tenth, over a month ago, you suggested that
- 9:10Speaker 1: there was very likely a link between the Wuhuan Institute
- 9:13Speaker 1: of Virology and this virus that just so coincidentally happened
- 9:18Speaker 1: to occur within a couple miles of that institute. During
- 9:21Speaker 1: that time, the mainstream media said this was crazy, this
- 9:24Speaker 1: was a conspiracy theory, There was no evidence of it.
- 9:26Speaker 1: Now we are getting multiple reports all saying that the
- 9:30Speaker 1: virus came from the lab. My question here is not
- 9:34Speaker 1: My point is not just to take a victory lap.
- 9:36Speaker 1: My question is did the US government know that the
- 9:39Speaker 1: Wuhan Institute of Virology was conducting this sort of dangerous research?
- 9:44Speaker 1: And if we did know, why didn't we stop it?
- 9:48Speaker 1: Absolutely yes, the US government knew, and and in fact,
- 9:52Speaker 1: when when you and I brought this up on March tenth,
- 9:55Speaker 1: over the month ago, you're right, it was treated as
- 9:57Speaker 1: tinfoil hat biracy theory nut jobbery. Well, it turns out
- 10:04Speaker 1: there was wasn't just one. There were two labs within
- 10:06Speaker 1: miles aware this outbrook break occurred that were studying coronaviruses
- 10:11Speaker 1: from bats, and that there were Internal State Department wires
- 10:16Speaker 1: before this pandemic, raising concerns about the security in those
- 10:21Speaker 1: labs and that an accidental a virus could escape and
- 10:25Speaker 1: cause a global pandemic. But I'll tell you it's worse
- 10:28Speaker 1: than that. And let me give you some some breaking
- 10:30Speaker 1: news right now, which is the US government was funding
- 10:37Speaker 1: the Chinese research at the Wu Hunt Institute of Virology.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Your taxpayer dollars and my taxpayer dollars, and let me
- 10:44Speaker 1: give you specifics that we just got today today and
- 10:48Speaker 1: inquiring of the National Institutes of Health, did any of
- 10:51Speaker 1: your money go to the Wuhun Institute of Virology. The
- 10:54Speaker 1: answer is yes, and and here's here's what they told
- 10:58Speaker 1: us in writing today. They ad in fiscal year twenty nineteen,
- 11:02Speaker 1: the funding for the Wu Hunt Institute for Rology was
- 11:05Speaker 1: seventy six thousand dollars and the three hundred and one
- 11:08Speaker 1: dollars seventy six thousand, three hundred and one dollars. Now,
- 11:12Speaker 1: what did it go to? And I'm repeating what NIH
- 11:15Speaker 1: has told me in writing. It went to It was
- 11:18Speaker 1: part of an overall three point seven million dollar funding
- 11:23Speaker 1: program that went to six years in sights in China, Thailand, Cambonia, Laos, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia,
- 11:32Speaker 1: and Men March. And here's what they were studying. These
- 11:35Speaker 1: are nah's words. The project included studying viral diversity in
- 11:41Speaker 1: animal parentheses, bats reservoirs, surveying people that live in high
- 11:48Speaker 1: risk communities for evidence of bat coronavirus infection, and conducting
- 11:56Speaker 1: laboratory experiments to analyze and predict which newly discovered viruses
- 12:03Speaker 1: pose the greatest threats to human health. That's what the
- 12:08Speaker 1: NIH funding was going to. And we followed up and said, okay,
- 12:11Speaker 1: that's what you described as the project in all of
- 12:14Speaker 1: these countries. How about at the wu Hunt Institute of Virology.
- 12:17Speaker 1: What specifically did US taxpayer dollars go to at the
- 12:21Speaker 1: wu Hunt Institute of Virology. Here's what the NIH said
- 12:24Speaker 1: in writing said said the project supported the following activities
- 12:29Speaker 1: at the wu Hunt Institute of Virology, coronavirus screening and
- 12:34Speaker 1: psyology of non human samples, viral pathogenesis, syriological testing, host
- 12:43Speaker 1: receptor binding spike s, protein sequencing, and in vitro and
- 12:52Speaker 1: in viva virus characterization, and it goes on to say
- 12:56Speaker 1: that they had not supported the creation of recombinant viruses
- 13:00Speaker 1: at the wu Hunt Institute of Virology. I just want
- 13:03Speaker 1: to make sure what your tax dollars and my tax
- 13:05Speaker 1: dollars went to. I want to make sure that I
- 13:07Speaker 1: have got this right, because obviously, if there were State
- 13:11Speaker 1: Department memos about this, a lot of people knew about
- 13:13Speaker 1: this from the very beginning of this pandemic. And what
- 13:16Speaker 1: you're saying right now, according to the NIH IS for
- 13:20Speaker 1: the past month and a half, two months even more,
- 13:23Speaker 1: we've been told the Wuhun Institute of Virology had nothing
- 13:26Speaker 1: to do with this coronavirus. It's just a coincidence. Get
- 13:30Speaker 1: your tinfoil hat off. No way that that happened. Not
- 13:33Speaker 1: only do we now hear serious reports that it came
- 13:38Speaker 1: from the lab, now we are learning whoopsie daisy, I
- 13:41Speaker 1: guess we forgot actually US taxpayer money was being used
- 13:46Speaker 1: to fund that very viral research at the laboratory. Well,
- 13:51Speaker 1: and let me make clear we don't have confirmed evidence
- 13:55Speaker 1: that it did come from the lab. We still don't
- 13:57Speaker 1: know that just reports. What we know is that US
- 13:59Speaker 1: tax dollars were going to the Chinese government to fund
- 14:03Speaker 1: this research on bat coronaviruses on how they could, how
- 14:09Speaker 1: they could be infectious to humans, how they could be
- 14:11Speaker 1: transmitted to humans, how they could be dangerous to humans,
- 14:14Speaker 1: at the same time that the State Department was raising
- 14:17Speaker 1: real concerns about the safety and security protocols at the
- 14:21Speaker 1: lab that we're partially funding, and and and that I
- 14:27Speaker 1: gotta say that is nuts. And given that they were
- 14:30Speaker 1: studying these bat coronaviruses, the Chinese government needs to answer
- 14:35Speaker 1: the question right now where they studying the novel coronavirus?
- 14:39Speaker 1: This virus, Yeah, the virus that has killed over one
- 14:42Speaker 1: hundred and forty thousand people worldwide. Was that a virus
- 14:46Speaker 1: that was studied at one or both of the Chinese
- 14:49Speaker 1: government labs in Wuhan. They won't answer that question. They
- 14:52Speaker 1: need to answer that question, and over one hundred thousand
- 14:56Speaker 1: lives have been lost while they refused to answer that question.
- 14:58Speaker 1: You know, I wish the media would ask them that question.
- 15:00Speaker 1: I think if the mainstream media would tune in and
- 15:02Speaker 1: watch our show. They might be able to get a
- 15:04Speaker 1: little ahead of the curve here on these news stories.
- 15:06Speaker 1: I can't expect, And honestly, you know, it is beneficial.
- 15:10Speaker 1: You and I have an advantage that the mainstream media
- 15:12Speaker 1: doesn't have, yeah, which is that our revenue stream doesn't
- 15:15Speaker 1: depend on access to the Chinese market. It helps that
- 15:19Speaker 1: we don't have a revenue stream, so that that makes
- 15:20Speaker 1: it even simpler. But everyone, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, they
- 15:28Speaker 1: make millions of dollars every single year from access to China.
- 15:34Speaker 1: They're terrified, they're terrified of ticking off the Chinese look.
- 15:40Speaker 1: They edit out you know, I was reading something recently.
- 15:43Speaker 1: Remember the movie Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah, Yeah, wonderful, wonderful movie
- 15:47Speaker 1: about Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, lead actor one
- 15:51Speaker 1: Best Actor Oscars. Fantastic movie. Do you know in China
- 15:54Speaker 1: when they aired that, they edited out the fact that
- 15:56Speaker 1: Freddie Mercury was gay. It's just that minor detail, Like,
- 16:00Speaker 1: how do you watch a movie about Freddie Mercury and
- 16:02Speaker 1: edit out that he's gay. I mean, it's kind of
- 16:05Speaker 1: a pretty central element of the guy's life. And the
- 16:08Speaker 1: Chinese censors demanded it be edited out, and you know what,
- 16:12Speaker 1: our free speech defending Hollywood said, okay, thank you, and
- 16:17Speaker 1: they just happily edited it out. And there was an
- 16:21Speaker 1: article this week that I tweeted out about Bloomberg Media
- 16:26Speaker 1: silencing a story about Chinese corruption. Why because they didn't
- 16:30Speaker 1: want to piss off the Chinese government. Our media needs
- 16:33Speaker 1: to stop being This week, CNN wrote a story You
- 16:38Speaker 1: actually can't make this up, Michael. They took the Chinese
- 16:43Speaker 1: Communist parties propaganda website. Yeah, that said, the Chinese military
- 16:49Speaker 1: is doing better than the American military in fighting coronavirus.
- 16:52Speaker 1: It's literally the propaganda website from the Communist Party. CNN
- 16:57Speaker 1: writes a story Chinese military doing much better than American military.
- 17:01Speaker 1: Thus saith Chinese propaganda. They don't even say propaganda, they
- 17:05Speaker 1: treat it as news. These guys are behaving like money
- 17:10Speaker 1: grubbing purveyors of lies. Yeah, and anyone in the media
- 17:15Speaker 1: who gives a damn about integrity, who gives a damn
- 17:18Speaker 1: about truth, ought to be investigating these labs and ought
- 17:21Speaker 1: to be speaking the truth. I'm sorry, I'm getting pissed off,
- 17:23Speaker 1: but but but it the media's complicity in this and
- 17:27Speaker 1: China's responsibility in this is mass. I think really CNN
- 17:31Speaker 1: should just give the Chinese Communist Party the log incredentials
- 17:34Speaker 1: to the website. They can just write their own stories.
- 17:36Speaker 1: You'll be able to cut out all of the middlemen. Obviously,
- 17:39Speaker 1: we can't expect honest. I actually think the Chinese would
- 17:42Speaker 1: make them a little more balanced. They feel they needed
- 17:44Speaker 1: some credibility. They wouldn't just shamelessly reproduce the Chinese website,
- 17:49Speaker 1: right right. You know at least sometimes that the Chinese
- 17:52Speaker 1: Communist Party is competent. You know, we can't expect honesty
- 17:56Speaker 1: out of them. Is the trouble. They've just revised up
- 17:58Speaker 1: their death numbers. We know that China was lying about
- 18:01Speaker 1: the death numbers from coronavirus. They've now gotten a little
- 18:04Speaker 1: bit more honest, but we obviously still don't have the
- 18:06Speaker 1: whole story. Unfortunately, we can expect that from the Chinese
- 18:10Speaker 1: Communist Party. Even worse, the World Health Organization, which we
- 18:15Speaker 1: should be able to trust, has been parroting that very
- 18:18Speaker 1: same propaganda. The President announced just this week that he
- 18:21Speaker 1: is going to defund the Who What do you make
- 18:24Speaker 1: of that decision? I think it makes an awful lot
- 18:28Speaker 1: of sense. The WHO sadly operated throughout this coronavirus epidemic
- 18:33Speaker 1: as really a parrot, a shill for the Chinese Communist Party.
- 18:37Speaker 1: In January that the WHO sent out a tweet saying
- 18:41Speaker 1: no evidence of human to human transmission and China is
- 18:44Speaker 1: doing a lip skip any good job. Let's see if
- 18:46Speaker 1: he may not have been in there, but it was
- 18:47Speaker 1: implied for the translation. Look, it's you remember Baghdad Bob. Yeah,
- 18:54Speaker 1: that's right. I don't know how many people do remember
- 18:57Speaker 1: soon so so Baghdad Bob. The press secretary for Saddam
- 19:01Speaker 1: Husaying or Sadam who's as forty one fabulously did as
- 19:05Speaker 1: psyops who just spread their proper like we repeat their propaganda.
- 19:10Speaker 1: We're winning right as they were losing. The WHO is
- 19:14Speaker 1: like that there's no human to human transmission. I gotta
- 19:17Speaker 1: tell you one of the things we're gonna do in
- 19:19Speaker 1: the next podcast. Yeah, we're gonna walk through a timeline
- 19:21Speaker 1: of what happened in China and Jim Garrity a National
- 19:24Speaker 1: Review did a fabulous timeline that we're going to spend
- 19:28Speaker 1: some time walking through carefully. By the way, National Review
- 19:31Speaker 1: not a wholly owned subsidiary of the Chinese Communist Party,
- 19:33Speaker 1: so they actually can cover news. Where's the New York Times,
- 19:36Speaker 1: Where's the Washington Post? Where are actual people who pride themselves, who,
- 19:41Speaker 1: by the way, give each other prizes for journalistic courage
- 19:47Speaker 1: because they stand up and scream orange man bad Oh,
- 19:50Speaker 1: you're so courageous. You're so courageous. You don't like Trump.
- 19:53Speaker 1: I don't like Trump. We all don't like Trump. Yeay,
- 19:56Speaker 1: how about show some real courage and stand up to
- 19:59Speaker 1: the line communists who have direct responsibilities for covering up
- 20:03Speaker 1: this pandemic and endangering the lives of millions across this planet.
- 20:08Speaker 1: That would be journalistic courage, even if it costs your
- 20:11Speaker 1: employers a few bucks and market access. You know, Senator,
- 20:14Speaker 1: I was sort of thinking that, now that you're outside
- 20:16Speaker 1: of Washington for a few weeks, you might be able
- 20:19Speaker 1: to take some downtime. But unfortunately, now you've got to
- 20:22Speaker 1: work to restart the economy. You've got to work to
- 20:25Speaker 1: get real information out of China, which is basically an
- 20:28Speaker 1: impossible task. There's so much to do. Have you had
- 20:31Speaker 1: any downtime whatsoever? You know, I'm having every day. I
- 20:36Speaker 1: have lunch and dinner with the girls. Two days ago
- 20:39Speaker 1: was Caroline's twelfth birthday, So April fourteenth, she turned twelve,
- 20:44Speaker 1: which is a bits a little traumatizing. I'm not sure
- 20:47Speaker 1: how she got to be twelve so quickly. But we
- 20:49Speaker 1: had planned a whole party. We're gonna go to a
- 20:51Speaker 1: roller rink, all the kids, we're gonna go skating. Well,
- 20:53Speaker 1: obviously you can't go to a roller rink right now,
- 20:55Speaker 1: So what do you do with a sixth grader where
- 20:57Speaker 1: you have a birthday party? And she's like, all right, dad,
- 20:59Speaker 1: this sucks. Um. So what we ended up doing is
- 21:04Speaker 1: we did this thing where we invited all the girls
- 21:06Speaker 1: who were coming to drive by the house and to
- 21:10Speaker 1: wave and like they hung signs out the car windows
- 21:13Speaker 1: that are with their parents and they would wave and
- 21:14Speaker 1: they yelled happy birthday. And we put up three poster
- 21:17Speaker 1: boards and the kids came and all wrote little sign
- 21:21Speaker 1: We put them on our driveway and the kids came
- 21:22Speaker 1: and wrote happy birthday, we love you Caroline. And it
- 21:25Speaker 1: was fun. Like Caroline stood at the front door and
- 21:27Speaker 1: waved it's like high and jumped up and down. So
- 21:29Speaker 1: I mean it was a nice thing to do to
- 21:32Speaker 1: have a birthday celebration. Look, it's in the age of
- 21:35Speaker 1: social distancing. But it but it but it was still
- 21:40Speaker 1: it was. It was a nice and fun birthday. I
- 21:42Speaker 1: hope the kids dropped off the presence too, you know.
- 21:44Speaker 1: I know the economy has taken a big hit, but
- 21:46Speaker 1: they better not have taken those presents away from your daughter.
- 21:51Speaker 1: That they did drop off the presence, including Heidie, and
- 21:54Speaker 1: I got Caroline an electric scooter, which which both girls
- 21:58Speaker 1: have been enjoying. By the way, I will confess, although
- 22:01Speaker 1: we're a capitalist household, we have a little bit of
- 22:04Speaker 1: socialist policies with the girls in that we told Caroline
- 22:07Speaker 1: she has to share the scooter with a younger sister,
- 22:10Speaker 1: which she thinks is an outrage because it was her
- 22:12Speaker 1: birthdache present. But both girls they ride like crazy on
- 22:16Speaker 1: that electric scooter and it's they're having fun with you. Well,
- 22:19Speaker 1: I fear that, you know, if we don't get this
- 22:21Speaker 1: economy restarted soon, we're all going to be socialists. Obviously,
- 22:24Speaker 1: the Democrats in the House are trying to push to extend,
- 22:27Speaker 1: you know, the relief coverage to now be two thousand
- 22:31Speaker 1: dollars every single month until we've got full you know
- 22:34Speaker 1: employment again. A lot of fears coming out of that. So,
- 22:38Speaker 1: how long do you think I want to get to mailbag,
- 22:40Speaker 1: but just briefly, how long do you think we have
- 22:44Speaker 1: before we will have to restart the economy again or
- 22:48Speaker 1: else face really dangerous political consequences. Look, we have got
- 22:52Speaker 1: to get people back to work. You know, the last
- 22:54Speaker 1: two weeks, I've done a teletour all around Texas. So
- 22:58Speaker 1: I've had video conferences with with people in East Texas,
- 23:02Speaker 1: people in West Texas, people down in the Rio Grand Valley,
- 23:04Speaker 1: people all over the state. It's interesting. City and government,
- 23:08Speaker 1: city and county leaders. They're all going broke. Their tax
- 23:11Speaker 1: revenue is plumbting, and a number of them are saying, well, well,
- 23:15Speaker 1: could the Feds send us more money? And my response,
- 23:18Speaker 1: and that, by the way, is what the Democrats keep saying,
- 23:20Speaker 1: is let's send more money to state and local governments.
- 23:23Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I keep telling them. You know what,
- 23:25Speaker 1: the Feds are broke too. You know, we just spent
- 23:27Speaker 1: two point two trillion dollars. It's not like there's some
- 23:30Speaker 1: safe we pulled it out of. We just borrowed it all.
- 23:33Speaker 1: We're borrowing it from our kids and grandkids. And by
- 23:36Speaker 1: the way, your city in county tax revenues are plumbting.
- 23:39Speaker 1: Guess what Federal tax revenues are plumbing, and they're going
- 23:42Speaker 1: to plumb it even more because tax revenues are a
- 23:46Speaker 1: function of the economy, and right now government policies are
- 23:49Speaker 1: killing the economy. You want your tax revenues to come back.
- 23:53Speaker 1: Let the economy come back, Let people go back to work,
- 23:56Speaker 1: let them, let them drive economic growth in small businesses
- 23:59Speaker 1: are chomping at the bit. You know, we've seen in
- 24:02Speaker 1: the in the in the time of this this this crisis,
- 24:06Speaker 1: hundreds of federal regulation, state regulations, local regulations suspended. We
- 24:12Speaker 1: need every regulation that was suspended during the crisis should
- 24:17Speaker 1: should continue suspended during the recovery. It's a great example
- 24:22Speaker 1: of you know, look for example in DC, when I
- 24:26Speaker 1: was up in DC, when when the Senate was in session,
- 24:29Speaker 1: you could order Mexican food and get a margharita. That
- 24:32Speaker 1: used to be illegally you weren't allowed to order a margharita.
- 24:34Speaker 1: And suddenly the idiotic law that prevented you from ordering
- 24:37Speaker 1: a margharity did and now you could have fehed as
- 24:38Speaker 1: and a margharita. Like like, why did we need that
- 24:42Speaker 1: stupid rule in the first place. All the rules against telemedicine,
- 24:45Speaker 1: like like telemedicine is great. Get a world class physician
- 24:48Speaker 1: to go into rural areas, underserved areas. All of these
- 24:53Speaker 1: barriers that that that hurt small businesses in economic growth.
- 24:57Speaker 1: We need to get them out of the way. But
- 24:59Speaker 1: all all of the politicians that want more tax revenues,
- 25:02Speaker 1: I got an easy way for you to get more
- 25:04Speaker 1: tax revenues. Stop killing the economy, Let people get back
- 25:09Speaker 1: to work. Liberate America, Liberate small businesses, liberate American workers.
- 25:15Speaker 1: Do it in a way that is smart and keeps
- 25:17Speaker 1: us safe. And that's how the economy turns around. And
- 25:20Speaker 1: that's how the country turns around. Right. I mean, there's
- 25:22Speaker 1: a meme that's been going around the internet, and it's
- 25:25Speaker 1: of somebody at the Federal Reserve churning a machine and
- 25:28Speaker 1: it says, money printer go burr. You know this idea
- 25:30Speaker 1: that you can print money forever. Now, the States they
- 25:32Speaker 1: don't have their own money printers. Federal government I suppose does,
- 25:35Speaker 1: but the money printer can't go burr forever. Eventually you're
- 25:39Speaker 1: gonna have to pay a price. And the Democrats few
- 25:43Speaker 1: they just think it's it's it's sort of magic money tree.
- 25:46Speaker 1: Just keep spending. Let's just give away trillions forever and
- 25:49Speaker 1: ever and ever. Look it comes from small businesses and jobs.
- 25:54Speaker 1: If you want this to turn around, people want to work,
- 25:58Speaker 1: People want to get back to work. Their frustrated. Let
- 26:02Speaker 1: them go back to work. Let let people drive the
- 26:06Speaker 1: miracle of the American economy. That's right. You know, we
- 26:10Speaker 1: reacted very seriously. Of course, we've been through the first
- 26:13Speaker 1: phase of this coronavirus. Now we have to get back
- 26:15Speaker 1: to work very quickly before we go. We're typically tight
- 26:18Speaker 1: on time, but we got to get to a little
- 26:20Speaker 1: bit in the mail bag from Katherine actually speaking of
- 26:24Speaker 1: staying home with your children. From Katherine, Will I be
- 26:27Speaker 1: able to enjoy my empty nest this fall? Will my
- 26:30Speaker 1: freshman daughter be able to go off to college? I
- 26:35Speaker 1: have no idea. I hope. So. Right now, colleges and
- 26:40Speaker 1: universities pretty much all of them or most of them,
- 26:42Speaker 1: have said that they're out through this semester, so we'll
- 26:45Speaker 1: get through the summer. I think most colleges are planning
- 26:49Speaker 1: to be back in the fall. The big question is
- 26:52Speaker 1: a do we defeat this virus? And it may be
- 26:55Speaker 1: we see a lot of viruses that are seasonal, that
- 26:57Speaker 1: as things get hot, that may help kill it all off.
- 27:00Speaker 1: But if it is seasonal, that raises the real prospect
- 27:03Speaker 1: that we'll see a resurgence in the fall, that that
- 27:06Speaker 1: comes September October, we may see the numbers go back
- 27:09Speaker 1: up again. If there's a big resurgence, I think there
- 27:12Speaker 1: becomes a likelihood that that colleges and university shut down again.
- 27:16Speaker 1: I hope not. I mean, I feel really bad for
- 27:18Speaker 1: these college kids that are not able to be at
- 27:21Speaker 1: school and they're going through something that I hope is
- 27:24Speaker 1: is limited in time and isolated. But it's going to
- 27:27Speaker 1: depend on the medical facts and what happens. Right, And
- 27:30Speaker 1: as doctor Fauci just said, the viruses don't just go away.
- 27:34Speaker 1: You know, we can start to deal with them. We
- 27:36Speaker 1: can develop drugs, they're new drugs on the horizon and
- 27:39Speaker 1: show promise, we can develop vaccines, but they don't just
- 27:42Speaker 1: disappear forever. And so we're gonna be dealing with the
- 27:44Speaker 1: fallout for this for years to come. And I guess
- 27:47Speaker 1: next time we will get into exactly the timeline here,
- 27:50Speaker 1: because if we want to figure out how to deal
- 27:52Speaker 1: with this and prevented in the future, we've got to
- 27:54Speaker 1: find out how it all began. And there's been a
- 27:57Speaker 1: lot of misinformation and disinformation around on that. I did
- 28:01Speaker 1: retweet someone who had a custom face mask that had
- 28:06Speaker 1: the don't tread on me flag, except it said don't
- 28:09Speaker 1: sneeze on me. Those are you know, I guess that's
- 28:12Speaker 1: really I've got a good chuckle from that. Yeah, we've
- 28:14Speaker 1: got a balance in our response here, the don't tread
- 28:17Speaker 1: on me and they don't sneeze on me. We will
- 28:19Speaker 1: get into so much more of that next time. And
- 28:21Speaker 1: by the way, did you see the video in Philadelphia
- 28:24Speaker 1: of this guy being dragged off the bus by several
- 28:27Speaker 1: officers because he wasn't wearing a mask and they're like
- 28:30Speaker 1: physically man handling him. And I said a tweet, I said, well,
- 28:33Speaker 1: wouldn't have been easier just to give him a mask?
- 28:36Speaker 1: Look like, at some point, just don't be stupid, don't
- 28:39Speaker 1: behave like jack booted thugs. And it's kind of funny
- 28:42Speaker 1: all these Twitter lefties are going, I agree with Crews.
- 28:46Speaker 1: It's like, well, good, then stop elected politicians from behaving
- 28:52Speaker 1: like petty tyrants. That's right. And you've seen these overreaches everywhere.
- 28:56Speaker 1: I mean It's not just in Philly, it's all over
- 28:58Speaker 1: the country. People seem to enjoy flexing their muscles in
- 29:02Speaker 1: these power grabs. And you know that's gone on long enough.
- 29:06Speaker 1: Now it would appear that it's time to turn it around.
- 29:10Speaker 1: Retake our economy, retake our society, and retake our rights. Senator,
- 29:15Speaker 1: all of that for next time. In the meantime, we
- 29:18Speaker 1: have run out of time on this episode. I'm Michael Knowles.
- 29:22Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict
- 29:33Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs,
- 29:35Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to
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