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Nancy Pelosi, Chief Mask Officer · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Mister President. In eighteen eighty seven, Lord Acton wrote a
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Speaker 1: series of letters to Bishop Creighton, letters that would echo
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Speaker 1: down across the centuries. Lord Acton wrote, I cannot accept
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Speaker 1: your canon that we are to judge Pope and King
0:21
Speaker 1: unlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did
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Speaker 1: no wrong. If there is any presumption, it is the
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Speaker 1: other way against holders of power increasing As the power increases,
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Speaker 1: historic responsibility has to make up for the want of
0:45
Speaker 1: legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt. An absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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Speaker 1: Great men are almost exclusively ad men, even where they
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Speaker 1: exercise influence and not authority. Still more, when you super
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Speaker 1: add the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority
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Speaker 1: as president, those words were true in eighteen eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: and they're true today. If you want to understand how
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Speaker 1: power corrupts, an absolute power corrupts absolutely, look no further
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Speaker 1: than the other chamber. In the United States Capital Speaker
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Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is drunk on power. The orders that Speaker
1:45
Speaker 1: Pelosi is issuing are abusive and unprecedented. Speaker Pelosi has
1:57
Speaker 1: decreed the members of the House of Representatives elected by
2:01
Speaker 1: the people that if you dare walk onto the floor
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Speaker 1: of the House of Representatives without a mask. I, Speaker
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Speaker 1: Pelosi shall find you. Who the hell is she to
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Speaker 1: be finding members of the House. But you know what,
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Speaker 1: she's not done with that. She's not done with disrespecting
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Speaker 1: our constitution, disrespecting our democratic system that elects leaders. She
2:27
Speaker 1: goes further to the good men and women who work
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Speaker 1: here in the United States Capital. We are surrounded by
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Speaker 1: men and women who have chosen to come and work
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Speaker 1: for the public good. And here's what Speaker Pelosi has decreed.
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Speaker 1: If you dare walk in the hallway without a mask, I,
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Speaker 1: Speaker Pelosi will arrest you. I will put you in jail.
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Speaker 1: I will find you. That is an absolute and complete
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Speaker 1: abuse of power. She has no authority to disrespect the
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Speaker 1: men and women who work here, to threaten you with
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Speaker 1: physical harm, to threaten you with imprisonment. And why does
3:16
Speaker 1: she do so. She does so for one reason, political theater.
3:26
Speaker 1: Welcome to hurdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator.
3:30
Speaker 1: I have to compliment you. You have now very famously
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Speaker 1: read and quoted Doctor Seuss and Lord Acton on the
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Speaker 1: floor of the Senate. That is a very broad spectrum
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Speaker 1: of reading, and I think the Lord Acton quote was
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Speaker 1: absolutely apt. We have now passed the five hundredth day
3:48
Speaker 1: of fifteen days to slow the spread, and we are
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Speaker 1: seeing the reinstitution of mask mandates, even for the vaccinated.
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Speaker 1: We are seeing the threat of lockdowns around the country.
4:00
Speaker 1: Is it just deja vu all over again? Is there
4:03
Speaker 1: any way to break out of this cycle? Well? I
4:05
Speaker 1: do not like green eggs and ham, but I do
4:08
Speaker 1: not like absolute power being abused even less. This has
4:15
Speaker 1: been a bad week for liberty. This has been a
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Speaker 1: bad week for science. It's been a bad week for
4:22
Speaker 1: common sense. And it is frightening because we're seeing, you know,
4:28
Speaker 1: two decisions i'd highlight, both of which came this week.
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Speaker 1: Number one, as you know, the CDC revised its guidance.
4:36
Speaker 1: So a couple of months ago, the CDC acknowledged what
4:41
Speaker 1: people knew already, which is vaccines work, that actually science operates.
4:46
Speaker 1: If you're vaccinated, the vaccine has a very high likelihood
4:50
Speaker 1: of being successful. And so the CDC acknowledging that reality,
4:54
Speaker 1: said people who are vaccinated don't need to wear masks.
4:57
Speaker 1: That was right then, it's right now. But as of
5:02
Speaker 1: this week, the CDC magically changed its guidance and now
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Speaker 1: said even if you're vaccinated, you need to wear a mask.
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Speaker 1: That wasn't science, that was politics, and it was cynical
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Speaker 1: politics at that And I think people are frustrated with
5:20
Speaker 1: the hypocrisy from the CDC, and they're frustrated with how
5:25
Speaker 1: Democrats are behaving. We're seeing now democratic jurisdictions imposing new
5:30
Speaker 1: mandates and posing new mask mandates. The CDC decreed that
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Speaker 1: when school starts this fall, that every person in a
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Speaker 1: school must wear a mask, regardless of whether you're vaccinated
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Speaker 1: or not. That's not remotely based on science. That's based
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Speaker 1: on the politics of the fact that the teachers' unions
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Speaker 1: demanded that, and the CDC is basically acting like it's
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Speaker 1: it's part of the DNCS. It is a political arm
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Speaker 1: in the Biden administration. And then also this week, Nancy
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Speaker 1: Pelosi issued a decree that anyone in the House must
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Speaker 1: wear a mask, even if you're vaccinated. She said that
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Speaker 1: if you're a member of the House and you walk
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Speaker 1: onto the floor without a mask, that she will find you.
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Speaker 1: And even worse, she said, if you're a hill staffer
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Speaker 1: and you are caught without a mask, that you will
6:23
Speaker 1: be arrested, that you will be potentially put in jails,
6:27
Speaker 1: sentenced to jail and find if you dare not wear
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Speaker 1: a mask. And I gotta say that's just nuts. I mean,
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Speaker 1: that is an abusive power that has no link to
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Speaker 1: anything resembling medical science. You know, even a CNN anchor
6:43
Speaker 1: pointed out the other day that the CDC has a
6:45
Speaker 1: big credibility problem, and there's no question we've covered it
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Speaker 1: on this show that the public health officials have flip
6:51
Speaker 1: flopped on everything. Doctor Fauci told us the masks don't work,
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Speaker 1: then he told us we all need to wear the masks.
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Speaker 1: We were told the vaccines are absolutely wonderful and they
6:59
Speaker 1: work very very well to stop infection and transmission. Now
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Speaker 1: we're being told, well maybe they don't, so the vaccinated
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Speaker 1: need to wear the mask anyway we were We've been
7:06
Speaker 1: told so much conflicting information. There is no question. I
7:10
Speaker 1: think the right and the left, if they can agree
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Speaker 1: on anything, it's that the CDC has some issues. But
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Speaker 1: the question is what is the political end game here?
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Speaker 1: I suspect that you're right that this is not about
7:21
Speaker 1: science and it is about politics, But what's the politics?
7:24
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard to understand the politics other than
7:28
Speaker 1: that Democrats, particularly now, they like power, They like arbitrary power,
7:33
Speaker 1: they like controlling your life. You know, listen when it
7:36
Speaker 1: comes to masks. I've never been one that's a zealot
7:40
Speaker 1: on either side. I've never really understood some of the
7:44
Speaker 1: folks who say, never wear a mask, no matter what.
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Speaker 1: I certainly didn't fall into that can't. Particularly in the
7:49
Speaker 1: height of the pandemic, I wore a mask. I thought
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Speaker 1: we should do reasonable steps to slow the spread of
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Speaker 1: a disease. It's a dangerous disease. But I also never
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Speaker 1: understood the purist who would ostentatiously where a mask is
8:01
Speaker 1: a symbol of their nobility and purity and virtue. Yet,
8:07
Speaker 1: you know, let me take folks inside the Senate for
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Speaker 1: a minute to understand the dynamic in real time. So
8:16
Speaker 1: early this year January, they made vaccines available to members
8:21
Speaker 1: of Congress. Number of members of Congress got the vaccines
8:24
Speaker 1: in early January. I didn't get the vaccine then. And
8:28
Speaker 1: the reason I didn't get it then is at that
8:31
Speaker 1: point it was not widely available. Most Americans hadn't gotten it,
8:34
Speaker 1: and I'm a relatively young and healthy person. I didn't
8:38
Speaker 1: think it was right that just because I was elected
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Speaker 1: to represent Texas in the Senate, that I should cut
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Speaker 1: in line, that I should get a vaccine before seniors did,
8:47
Speaker 1: before people with serious immuno compromised issues did, before frontline
8:54
Speaker 1: responders did. And so I didn't get the vaccine in January.
8:59
Speaker 1: I waited a couple of months, and then after tens
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Speaker 1: of millions of vaccines had been distributed in the people
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Speaker 1: with the highest need had gotten it, then I got
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Speaker 1: the vaccine. I said, Okay, enough time has passed that
9:08
Speaker 1: I think it is fair and reasonable. I'd like to
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Speaker 1: get the vaccine. I'd like to be protected against the disease.
9:15
Speaker 1: So I did get the vaccine, and I waited a
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Speaker 1: couple of weeks so till the vaccines fully effective. So
9:20
Speaker 1: I had both. I got the Fizer shot, and I
9:22
Speaker 1: got both of them, and I gave the requisite time
9:25
Speaker 1: that they said you had to wait before it's effective.
9:27
Speaker 1: And then I decided to stop wearing my mask on
9:30
Speaker 1: the Senate floor because vaccines work like that's the whole
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Speaker 1: science of it. The whole point of getting the damn
9:35
Speaker 1: shot is to give you protection against catching the disease,
9:41
Speaker 1: and so on. The Senate. It was kind of interesting.
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Speaker 1: The first person not to wear a mask was Rand
9:46
Speaker 1: Paul and Ran never wore a mask, and look, I
9:49
Speaker 1: love Rand, but he just said, to hell with it,
9:51
Speaker 1: I'm not wearing a mask. And Ran had COVID and
9:55
Speaker 1: he'd never wore a mask, and so okay, that was
9:57
Speaker 1: his choice. For a long time, it was just Ran
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Speaker 1: with no mask, skin ninety nine senators with masks. The
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Speaker 1: second Senator not to wear a mask was me, And
10:05
Speaker 1: after I'd gotten the vaccine, after a couple of weeks
10:07
Speaker 1: had passed, I said, all right, I'm gonna stop wearing
10:08
Speaker 1: the mask. The same time I did that, Roger Marshall,
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Speaker 1: who's a Republican senator from Kansas, is also a medical doctor.
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Speaker 1: He made the same decision. So Roger and I both
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Speaker 1: right about the same time stop wearing wearing our mask.
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Speaker 1: We were numbers two and three in the Senate, and
10:25
Speaker 1: for several weeks the three of us were the only
10:28
Speaker 1: ones not wearing a mask. And I gotta tell you,
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Speaker 1: the peer pressure is interesting. Like when you stood on
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Speaker 1: the Senate floor and everyone's wearing a mask, I mean,
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Speaker 1: you felt like you were like a rebel on the
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Speaker 1: fringe and it was interesting. Then the fourth person to
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Speaker 1: stop wearing a mask was Jim Rish from Idaho, and
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Speaker 1: he said, all right, I'm joining the no mask caucus
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Speaker 1: because he'd been vaccinated. Now, what was Bizarres. We'd gone
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Speaker 1: a couple of months with everybody wearing masks, even though
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Speaker 1: they all are virtually all were vaccinated. If you remember
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Speaker 1: Joe Biden's pseudo State of the Union address where everyone
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Speaker 1: was wearing a mask and almost every person in that
11:11
Speaker 1: chamber was already vaccinated, it was it was political theater then.
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Speaker 1: But then what happened is the CDC issued it's it's
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Speaker 1: ruling and said if you have a if you're vaccinated,
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Speaker 1: you don't need to wear a mask. And it was
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Speaker 1: the funniest thing. Within about two days, everybody took their
11:26
Speaker 1: mask off. One hundred percent of the senators. Chuck Schumer
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Speaker 1: took his mask off, Bernie Sanders took his mask off,
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Speaker 1: Mazie Herono took it to her mask off. Look, I
11:34
Speaker 1: joked for some of the Democrats, I'd be much happier
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Speaker 1: if they kept their masks on. And and you know,
11:38
Speaker 1: really my criticism was their mask needed to be tighter.
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Speaker 1: You know, we could still hear them talk so clearly
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Speaker 1: their masks were not attached sufficiently firmly. But listen, the
11:49
Speaker 1: fact that everybody took off their mask indicates what we
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Speaker 1: all knew, which is, if you're vaccinating, wearing a mask
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Speaker 1: is stupid. Everyone knew that. All the Democrats immediately knew. Now,
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Speaker 1: when that was happening in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi was
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Speaker 1: still finding House members who didn't wear a mask on
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Speaker 1: the House floor. And so I know a number of
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Speaker 1: House Republicans who were fined five bucks apiece even though
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Speaker 1: they were vaccinated because they didn't wear a mask, literally
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Speaker 1: on the very same day that Chuck Schumer and Bernie
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Speaker 1: Sanders and every Democrat has no mask on. So people
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Speaker 1: understood the difference between reality and performance theater. All right,
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Speaker 1: let's fast forward to this week. This week Monday, we
12:37
Speaker 1: started out this week one hundred percent of Senators had
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Speaker 1: no mask on. Every Republican had no mask, every Democrat
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Speaker 1: had no mask. Then the CDC issues their magical new rulings.
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Speaker 1: Suddenly vaccines don't work. Suddenly if you're vaccinated doesn't matter.
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Speaker 1: You got to put a mask on? Why? Because we
12:54
Speaker 1: decree it to be so? And it was a very
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Speaker 1: funny thing. They issue the order and the Democratic Party,
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Speaker 1: I don't know, they're like docile sheep that they want
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Speaker 1: to follow the orders of whoever the dictator is and
13:09
Speaker 1: they want to demonstrate self righteously how pious they are.
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Speaker 1: And so a day after the CDC acted, you had oh,
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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe a third of the Democrats wearing masks.
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Speaker 1: You had people like Brian Shots from Hawaii who was
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Speaker 1: wearing a mask. You had people like Corey Booker wearing masks.
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Speaker 1: But still at least half the Democrats weren't wearying. This
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Speaker 1: was a day or two after the CDC, but the
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Speaker 1: sort of peer pressure of elected Democrats kicked in, and
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Speaker 1: by today, virtually every Democrat is wearing a mask. Kirsten
13:46
Speaker 1: Cinema wasn't wearing a mask. She may have been the
13:48
Speaker 1: only Democrat not wearing a mask. But what's funny is
13:51
Speaker 1: even those Democrats wearing them, they know it's a croc look. Yesterday,
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Speaker 1: the day before, I was in an elevator in the
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Speaker 1: Russell Senate office building. I walked under the elevator. There
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Speaker 1: was a senator. He was there with two of his staff.
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Speaker 1: Two of his staff had masks on the senator didn't
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Speaker 1: have his mask on, so he's standing in an elevator
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Speaker 1: with no mask. He sees me and like who reaches
14:14
Speaker 1: in his pocket and quickly puts on the mask. It's
14:17
Speaker 1: not like he suddenly became contagious. The guy's vaccinated that
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Speaker 1: the mask does nothing. But he had to put it
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Speaker 1: on because he had to show I am obedient to
14:28
Speaker 1: the government decree. And it's really stupid and it I
14:32
Speaker 1: think it diminishes Number One, the CDC is letting itself
14:37
Speaker 1: be politicized. It's behaving like a political institution. I mean, Michael,
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Speaker 1: let me ask you. Has there been an institution that
14:43
Speaker 1: has done more to damage their credibility in the last
14:46
Speaker 1: year and a half than the CDC has a year
14:48
Speaker 1: and a half ago, they were one of the most
14:49
Speaker 1: respected medical and scientific organizations on the face of the planet.
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Speaker 1: And now we've seen Fauci do nineteen backflips beyond every
14:57
Speaker 1: side of every issue. We understand he's a political player.
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Speaker 1: He's not a scientist in terms of what he says.
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Speaker 1: He says what's politically convenient at the moment, and the
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Speaker 1: damage to the credibility of the CDC and to the
15:14
Speaker 1: scientific pontificators, I think has been really enormous to the
15:18
Speaker 1: CDC's credibility I think is in tatters well, as you see,
15:22
Speaker 1: just even on this issue of the vaccines. Either way,
15:25
Speaker 1: either the vaccines do work and the decision is political
15:28
Speaker 1: and the CDC loses credibility, or the vaccines don't work
15:32
Speaker 1: and what we've been told is not true and so
15:33
Speaker 1: everyone needs to wear the masks again and the CDC
15:35
Speaker 1: loses credibility. But it seems that as the credibility collapses
15:39
Speaker 1: the liberal establishment, you know, and that includes not just
15:43
Speaker 1: the elected people, but the bureaucrats and the technocrats and
15:46
Speaker 1: the other institutions, they seem to be getting more aggressive.
15:49
Speaker 1: And I think this is what a lot of people
15:51
Speaker 1: are worried about, speaking of pure pressure, is You've got
15:54
Speaker 1: the White House now saying that they may move into
15:57
Speaker 1: another lockdown. They're looking at potential teral vaccine mandates for
16:01
Speaker 1: goodness sake, Yes, even as we're being told that the
16:03
Speaker 1: vaccines allegedly are not working as well as we were
16:06
Speaker 1: told they were. So anyway, there's obviously a lot of
16:08
Speaker 1: confusion here. But but if Nancy Pelosi is going to
16:11
Speaker 1: throw staffers in jail, they seem to mean the threats
16:14
Speaker 1: that they're making. Yeah, I mean, you think about that.
16:16
Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi is saying to someone who's a twenty something,
16:20
Speaker 1: thirty something Hill staffer is working on Capitol Hill that
16:25
Speaker 1: if you dare not wear a mask, even if you're vaccinated,
16:28
Speaker 1: she's going to put you in jail. I mean, that
16:31
Speaker 1: is a level of dictatorial I don't give a damn that.
16:38
Speaker 1: That's really frightening. And you're right. You combine it with
16:41
Speaker 1: Joe Biden who's saying he wants to mandate federal employees
16:44
Speaker 1: all get vaccines. He wants to mandate the military all
16:48
Speaker 1: get vaccines. Listen my view number one, I think vaccines
16:53
Speaker 1: are good. I'm a supporter of vaccines. I'm a supporter
16:55
Speaker 1: of science. I've been vaccinated. Heid He's been vaccinated, My
16:58
Speaker 1: parents have been vaccinated. At Heidi's parents have been vaccinated.
17:02
Speaker 1: I was quite glad to get vaccinated. I want to
17:03
Speaker 1: get the damn mask off. I wanted to be able
17:07
Speaker 1: to go out in crowds of people and interact again
17:10
Speaker 1: without being concerned about catching or spreading a dangerous disease.
17:14
Speaker 1: But I also believe in individual liberty. I believe in
17:17
Speaker 1: individual choice. The fact that I chose to get a
17:19
Speaker 1: vaccine doesn't mean you need to make that choice. You're
17:22
Speaker 1: an adult. You can make your own choice. You should
17:26
Speaker 1: talk to your doctor, you should educate yourself, you should
17:28
Speaker 1: think about the pros and cons. And I believe in
17:32
Speaker 1: that individual responsibility. And it's amazing the Democrats. They don't
17:37
Speaker 1: want to give you that choice. They don't want you
17:39
Speaker 1: to be able to make your own choices about medical
17:41
Speaker 1: treatment that you're receiving. They want the government. But you know, Senator,
17:46
Speaker 1: the argument that they're making, the argument that they're making
17:49
Speaker 1: is that when it comes to a pandemic, and I
17:51
Speaker 1: guess you know the term is being redefined. It is
17:55
Speaker 1: a little bit loose right now, but when it comes
17:57
Speaker 1: to a pandemic, you lose your individual rights because your decision,
18:02
Speaker 1: I mean not your decision, but someone else's decision not
18:04
Speaker 1: to be vaccinated is a direct threat to me because
18:07
Speaker 1: you could spread the virus to whomever. And so what
18:10
Speaker 1: is the conservative answer to that? There's a logical flaw
18:13
Speaker 1: in that argument, and it's really important to break it
18:15
Speaker 1: down because you're right, the left is making it by
18:17
Speaker 1: the way, the press is making this argument like crazy
18:20
Speaker 1: it's very funny. On Capitol Hill, the press reporters, almost
18:24
Speaker 1: all of them have dutifully put their masks on. There
18:27
Speaker 1: was one one poor guy running around with two masks
18:29
Speaker 1: because that, hey, if you've got virtue, I can have
18:32
Speaker 1: twice as much virtue and have two masks on. Yeah,
18:35
Speaker 1: and it just there were only a couple of reporters
18:39
Speaker 1: who dared take their mask off. And again they were
18:41
Speaker 1: almost like, you know, Mel Gibson and Braveheart or something.
18:44
Speaker 1: But let's go to this argument about the unvaccinated or
18:48
Speaker 1: endangering others. And this week I think the person who
18:53
Speaker 1: said it most offensively was Haraldo. So Haraldo was on
18:57
Speaker 1: on Fox and Erldo went on this this rant on
19:02
Speaker 1: the five where he said, he said, if you're unvaccinated,
19:05
Speaker 1: I'm going to paraphrase, but this is basically right. He said,
19:07
Speaker 1: if you're unvaccinated, then you're arrogant, you're rude, and you're inconsiderate,
19:11
Speaker 1: and you're jeopardizing everybody. And he was quite bombastic. I
19:15
Speaker 1: know that's hard to believe Eraldo being bombastic, but you
19:18
Speaker 1: just can't go imagine on this. Here's the logical flaw.
19:22
Speaker 1: Eraldo presumably is vaccinated if not, he's a remarkable hypocrite.
19:28
Speaker 1: So I assume he's vaccinated. If he's vaccinated, the risk
19:33
Speaker 1: to him of getting COVID is extremely small. Depending on
19:37
Speaker 1: which vaccine you got, if you got Fiser or MODERNA,
19:41
Speaker 1: the risks are somewhere in the neighborhood of three percent
19:44
Speaker 1: or maybe five percent. But if they're very small, and
19:46
Speaker 1: if you do catch COVID, there's some percentage, some small
19:49
Speaker 1: percentage of people who are vaccinated can catch COVID. If
19:51
Speaker 1: you do catch COVID, the risks of it being serious,
19:54
Speaker 1: of you being hospitalized or dying are very very small.
19:59
Speaker 1: That's why people get the vaccine. They want to dramatically
20:01
Speaker 1: reduce the risk of getting getting the disease, and even
20:04
Speaker 1: more so, reduce the risk of getting it seriously. That
20:07
Speaker 1: means for anyone who's vaccinated, the risk of people who
20:10
Speaker 1: are unvaccinated is negligible. It's very small. Now, is there
20:15
Speaker 1: some possibility that someone who's unvaccinated will pass the disease
20:19
Speaker 1: onto someone else who's unvaccinated. Yes, but you know what
20:22
Speaker 1: that someone else who's unvaccinated, they made their damn choice
20:26
Speaker 1: like that, you're assuming that risk. If you say I'm
20:29
Speaker 1: not going to get the vaccine. Okay, you're a big boy,
20:32
Speaker 1: you can adult. You're an adult, you can make that risk.
20:35
Speaker 1: But at the same time, the left jumps up and
20:40
Speaker 1: down and says, those evil unvaccinated people are jeopardizing me. No,
20:44
Speaker 1: if you're vaccinated, they're not. They're jeopardizing each other potentially.
20:48
Speaker 1: And you know what, the same thing is true of smokers.
20:51
Speaker 1: If you smoke, you may die of lung cancer. Look,
20:55
Speaker 1: you and I are both cigar smokers. You know what
20:57
Speaker 1: might happen. Our lips and tongues might all off. That
21:01
Speaker 1: would suck. I really don't want my lips and tongue
21:03
Speaker 1: to fall off. But I believe adults have the ability
21:08
Speaker 1: to make choices and bear the consequences of your choices.
21:13
Speaker 1: And the left doesn't agree with any of that. They
21:16
Speaker 1: want you to be subjects and obey their decrees. Yes,
21:21
Speaker 1: so I mean we can certainly assess risk, make prudential judgments.
21:25
Speaker 1: We as conservatives think that the left seems less inclined
21:28
Speaker 1: in that direction. But this gets back to that absolute
21:31
Speaker 1: power point. Ye, the point that we opened up with
21:34
Speaker 1: in the Lord Acton quote, which is just as a
21:37
Speaker 1: practical matter, here we're past day five hundred of this.
21:41
Speaker 1: This should have been over by now. We were all
21:44
Speaker 1: told it was going to be over by now. They've
21:46
Speaker 1: moved the goalposts. Every single time that we hit one
21:49
Speaker 1: of them. It was slow the spread, then it flattened
21:52
Speaker 1: the curve, then it was find a cure, then it
21:54
Speaker 1: was and it just keeps moving. So how does this end?
21:58
Speaker 1: I mean, how do we make sure that we don't
22:01
Speaker 1: go from five hundred days to slow the spread two
22:03
Speaker 1: thousand days, that we're not that we're not here again
22:05
Speaker 1: in another year and a half. Look, if it's up
22:06
Speaker 1: to the Democrats, I don't know that this ever does end,
22:10
Speaker 1: because it's an excuse for power. It's an excuse for
22:13
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars a new spending, it's excuse for trillions
22:17
Speaker 1: of dollars of new taxes. It's an excuse for everything
22:20
Speaker 1: they want to do anyway they want power. You know,
22:23
Speaker 1: you look at these Democratic politicians, for example, who shut
22:26
Speaker 1: down churches, who declared it was illegal to go to
22:29
Speaker 1: church during the pandemic. They are just statists and authoritarians.
22:35
Speaker 1: They don't like people who go to church. They were
22:37
Speaker 1: quite happy to strip your religious liberty. And by the way,
22:43
Speaker 1: anyone with a triple digit IQ or even a double
22:48
Speaker 1: digit IQ could see the rank hypocrisy that that you
22:55
Speaker 1: would have the media, you'd have democratic politicians, you would
22:59
Speaker 1: have these these self declared scientific experts who would opine
23:04
Speaker 1: that thousands of people crammed into the public streets protesting
23:09
Speaker 1: black lives matter, zero risk of COVID transmission, that there's
23:13
Speaker 1: no chance of it. But if you go to church
23:16
Speaker 1: and sing hallelujah, everyone's going to die. And look, that
23:20
Speaker 1: was on its face absurd. Everyone knew this is crap.
23:24
Speaker 1: You have a political preference, and you're claiming that the
23:28
Speaker 1: virus and the infection just happens to perfectly match your
23:31
Speaker 1: political preference. We make a couple of other points. Many people,
23:35
Speaker 1: certainly the CDC, certainly Democrats, certainly the press, but a
23:40
Speaker 1: lot of people out of Republicans too rightly say we
23:43
Speaker 1: should be encouraging people to get vaccinated. I agree with that.
23:45
Speaker 1: I'm encouraging people to get vaccinated. Ironically enough, with the
23:50
Speaker 1: CDC did this week maybe the single biggest disincentive to
23:56
Speaker 1: get vaccinated we have seen since the vaccine was introduced.
23:59
Speaker 1: So when the CDC initially issued its common sense ruling
24:02
Speaker 1: that once you're vaccinated and it's effective, you can take
24:04
Speaker 1: your mask off. That was a really good incentive to
24:08
Speaker 1: get vaccinated. It encouraged people to get vaccinated because they
24:12
Speaker 1: wanted the freedom. Said, by the way, this is not
24:15
Speaker 1: hypothetical in my family. So Heidi and I were both
24:19
Speaker 1: eager to get the vaccine. My mom got or her
24:21
Speaker 1: parents got up. But my dad didn't want to get
24:24
Speaker 1: the vaccine. I mean, you know my father, he's eighty
24:27
Speaker 1: two years old, he's a pastor. He is stubborn as
24:31
Speaker 1: all get out. And I spent probably a month arguing
24:34
Speaker 1: with my dad about getting the vaccine. He's like, I
24:36
Speaker 1: don't trust it. It was developed too quickly. There might
24:39
Speaker 1: be side effects, and you know what, there may be risk.
24:42
Speaker 1: It was developed very quickly, and often with medical innovation
24:46
Speaker 1: you don't anticipate all of the effects of it. And
24:48
Speaker 1: I went round around with my dad. I really wanted
24:51
Speaker 1: him to get it, and it probably took me about
24:53
Speaker 1: a month and eventually he agreed to get it. And
24:57
Speaker 1: what was really compelling for him, so he's a pastor,
24:59
Speaker 1: he been hold up at home for a lot of
25:02
Speaker 1: this pandemic. It's really hard on him to be alone.
25:05
Speaker 1: And I said, listen, you want to get out. You
25:07
Speaker 1: want to be preaching again. You want to be in crowd.
25:09
Speaker 1: Do you want to be talking to people? And at
25:12
Speaker 1: eighty two you want to do so safely where where
25:14
Speaker 1: you know we've seen with this virus that for people
25:17
Speaker 1: who are your age, the risks are pretty significant. And
25:21
Speaker 1: I'll actually take you inside and argument with my dad.
25:25
Speaker 1: He said, well, I don't trust trust the vaccine. It
25:27
Speaker 1: might it might be bad. And I said, well, look
25:29
Speaker 1: here's the vaccine everyone in Congress is taking. Why don't
25:31
Speaker 1: you take that vaccine. He's like, no, no, no no, no,
25:33
Speaker 1: I don't trust Pelosi and Red and Schumer. I said, look,
25:36
Speaker 1: I don't trust Pelosie and Schumer either, but do you
25:39
Speaker 1: think they're like trying to poison themselves? Like like it
25:42
Speaker 1: is what they're taking. He finally did it, but it
25:47
Speaker 1: was his choice. No one had to make him. He
25:49
Speaker 1: finally did it because he wanted to get out again.
25:51
Speaker 1: And now my dad is back preaching in churches, he's
25:54
Speaker 1: back giving speeches, he's traveling. He's very happy because getting
25:58
Speaker 1: the vaccine gave him freedom that he cared about. When
26:01
Speaker 1: the CDC gave that guidance, you get the vaccine, no mask.
26:05
Speaker 1: It incentivized people, Hey, I want that freedom. What the
26:09
Speaker 1: CDC did this weekend is implicitly said vaccines don't work.
26:14
Speaker 1: Said even if you get the vaccine doesn't matter. Do everything.
26:18
Speaker 1: Have all of your liberties curtailed, just like you did
26:21
Speaker 1: before you got the vaccine. That's terrible, it's stupid. And
26:25
Speaker 1: by the way, they relied on no science or no
26:29
Speaker 1: data to basis what they said. It was really quite ironic.
26:32
Speaker 1: They said, well, we have scientific studies that back this up.
26:35
Speaker 1: We're just not going to tell you what they are.
26:37
Speaker 1: We have data, but it's double supersecret and no one
26:41
Speaker 1: actually gets to see the data. But trust us because
26:44
Speaker 1: we've shown we're such a political credible scientist that we
26:47
Speaker 1: just say whatever is politically convenient and then change it tomorrow.
26:52
Speaker 1: And it's listen, here's what I think, Michael. I think
26:56
Speaker 1: we should have no government mandates on COVID period. That
27:01
Speaker 1: means no vaccine mandates, That means no mask mandates, that
27:05
Speaker 1: means no vaccine passports, that means no shutdowns, that means
27:09
Speaker 1: schools being open. What does the left think? What do
27:13
Speaker 1: the Democrats think they want to see all those things mandated?
27:16
Speaker 1: And what people I think are most concerned about is
27:19
Speaker 1: they're going to drive us off the cliff again of
27:20
Speaker 1: shutdowns and shutting schools, and that did massive damage. I
27:26
Speaker 1: think it is now abundantly clear that the politicians who
27:29
Speaker 1: ordered shutdowns committed a catastrophic mistake, a mistake that I
27:35
Speaker 1: hope people study for decades never to make again, because
27:39
Speaker 1: they destroyed lives, they destroyed businesses, they hurt children profoundly.
27:45
Speaker 1: And the problem is Joe Biden the Democrats are eager
27:47
Speaker 1: to do it again. I mean, just even the economic
27:50
Speaker 1: effects were so catastrophic, which does bring to another another
27:55
Speaker 1: issue here, which is while Nancy Pelosi is busy throwing
27:59
Speaker 1: staffers into jail, the other topic that the legislators are
28:03
Speaker 1: taking up on Capitol Hill is this infrastructure bill that
28:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's not quite as sexy as the coronavirus
28:11
Speaker 1: lockdowns and the mandates, and it's it's not pulling at
28:14
Speaker 1: people's interest quite as much. But this is a major
28:17
Speaker 1: piece of legislation, yea. And it's very unclear, at least
28:20
Speaker 1: from my read on the reporting, how this is being
28:23
Speaker 1: built and where it's going to go. So this get
28:26
Speaker 1: gets complicated. But let me let me try to explain
28:29
Speaker 1: some of what's going on. So Joe Biden and Pelosi
28:33
Speaker 1: and Schumer want to spend a crap ton of money
28:37
Speaker 1: that that, by the way, is a technical term. That
28:40
Speaker 1: they're looking to spend somewhere six seven trillion dollars, which
28:44
Speaker 1: even in federal government terms is is a staggering, terrifying sum.
28:50
Speaker 1: They've already spent one point nine trillion in their first
28:52
Speaker 1: bill that they called the COVID Relief Bill, of which
28:55
Speaker 1: you'll recall, only nine percent of that was healthcare spending
28:58
Speaker 1: on COVID and that was a long left wing special
29:02
Speaker 1: interest spending list. So the next bill they're trying to
29:06
Speaker 1: take up is what they call an infrastructure bill, and
29:10
Speaker 1: the Democrats have proposed three and a half trillion dollars.
29:14
Speaker 1: Now the COVID Relief bill, only nine percent of it
29:17
Speaker 1: was healthcare spending on COVID. They decided, okay, that was
29:20
Speaker 1: too much, so they're three point five trillion dollars infrastructure bill.
29:25
Speaker 1: Only five percent of it is roads and bridges. Like
29:30
Speaker 1: the reason they call it infrastructure because infrastructure is popular.
29:33
Speaker 1: People like roads and bridges. People think we ought to
29:35
Speaker 1: spend some money to have highways that don't have potholes
29:38
Speaker 1: in them, that have bridges that don't fall down. We
29:40
Speaker 1: ought to have airports that work. We ought to have
29:42
Speaker 1: ports that we can have commerce. So infrastructure spending is popular.
29:46
Speaker 1: It is popular with Democrats, popular with Republicans. But what
29:49
Speaker 1: you're saying is the infrastructure bill is not an infrastructure bill. Correct.
29:54
Speaker 1: It is purely a label because it pulls well, and
29:58
Speaker 1: it's a whole series of things, of childcare subsidies, of
30:03
Speaker 1: senior care subsidies, of expanding medicaid. Now, listen, expanding medicaid.
30:08
Speaker 1: You might think that's a good policy. We can debate
30:11
Speaker 1: about whether that's a good policy or not. But the
30:13
Speaker 1: one thing you ought agree it ain't infrastructure, Like it's
30:16
Speaker 1: not a frigging road. But Senator, this brings up what
30:21
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent talking points right now among
30:24
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party, which is that everything is infrastructure. And
30:27
Speaker 1: they've actually said this. I don't think I'm misrepresenting them.
30:29
Speaker 1: They'll say healthcare is infrastructure. You know, weightlifting is infrastructure.
30:34
Speaker 1: That might be a little hyperbolic, but they say basically,
30:36
Speaker 1: anything that they want they now reclassify as infrastructure because
30:41
Speaker 1: infrastructure polls well, and they know the media will not
30:44
Speaker 1: drill into anything they say and will just repeat their
30:46
Speaker 1: talking points, and so the media are their propagandists. So there,
30:51
Speaker 1: and by the way, this three point five trillion dollar
30:53
Speaker 1: infrastructure bill is paid for by trillions and new taxes.
30:58
Speaker 1: They want to have massive new tax So it's a
31:01
Speaker 1: terrible bill if and when it's taken up and voted on,
31:05
Speaker 1: it'll get zero Republican votes. No Republicans, even the squishiest
31:09
Speaker 1: Republican is not going to vote for trillions and new
31:11
Speaker 1: taxes and just out of control spending. So what did
31:14
Speaker 1: we do this week? Well, unfortunately, there was a group
31:17
Speaker 1: of ten or twelve Republicans who really, really really want
31:23
Speaker 1: to cut a deal, like desperately want to cut a deal.
31:26
Speaker 1: And so they've been negotiating with Democrats. What's what they're
31:30
Speaker 1: calling the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. And listen, on the face
31:34
Speaker 1: of it, the bill that they're negotiating, it's it's not
31:36
Speaker 1: a terrible bill. On the face of it. It's about
31:39
Speaker 1: one point two trillion dollars, so it's a lot of money,
31:42
Speaker 1: but it is directed much of it is directed at
31:45
Speaker 1: at real infrastructure. Much of it is directed at things
31:48
Speaker 1: like roads and bridges and airports and ports, not all
31:52
Speaker 1: of it. There's some garbage in it, but it is
31:54
Speaker 1: there's a much higher percentage of the bill that is
31:57
Speaker 1: actually infrastructure, and it doesn't have the massive tax increases
32:02
Speaker 1: that the Democrat proposal did. And so these Republicans they
32:06
Speaker 1: met on and on and on and on, and we're
32:08
Speaker 1: dancing the hokey pokey with the Democrats. And we've spent
32:13
Speaker 1: the last several weeks, if not the last month, in
32:17
Speaker 1: our Republican lunches with these these self declared bipartisan negotiators
32:21
Speaker 1: reporting to us on a regular basis about what's happening now.
32:26
Speaker 1: My view on it is, if they could actually negotiate
32:30
Speaker 1: a bipartisan deal, which was let's do the one point
32:35
Speaker 1: two trillion dollar bipartisan deal instead of the three point
32:40
Speaker 1: five trillion dollar monstrosity, that might be a good deal.
32:44
Speaker 1: Look like, if they did the one instead of the other,
32:48
Speaker 1: I think it would get a lot of Republicans. I
32:50
Speaker 1: might even support it. We actually haven't seen the details
32:52
Speaker 1: of the so called bipartisan bill, so I would want
32:55
Speaker 1: to actually see the details before I decided if I
32:57
Speaker 1: would support it. But if it were that instead of
33:01
Speaker 1: the other one that could make some sense. What are
33:06
Speaker 1: the Democrats doing. They're saying, hey, let's pass this one
33:08
Speaker 1: point two trillion, and then we're going to do the
33:11
Speaker 1: three point five trillion on top of it, so it's
33:13
Speaker 1: four point seven trillion minimum, and we're just going to
33:18
Speaker 1: do everything we want, massively blow out the budget, massively
33:23
Speaker 1: increased taxes, and we'll get a whole bunch of Republicans
33:27
Speaker 1: to get their fingerprints on at least part of this,
33:30
Speaker 1: so Joe Biden can go around the country and say, hey, look,
33:32
Speaker 1: this was bipartist and these Republicans are part of it.
33:35
Speaker 1: And by the way, among other things, we're seeing inflation
33:39
Speaker 1: going up in a very troubling way. We're seeing the
33:42
Speaker 1: price of gas going up, We're seeing the price of
33:44
Speaker 1: food going up. We're seeing the price of lumber going
33:47
Speaker 1: up a lot, We're seeing the price of homes going
33:49
Speaker 1: up a lot. And that inflation is being fueled in
33:52
Speaker 1: very significant part by this massive spending in debt spree
33:57
Speaker 1: that the Democrats are doing right now. It's one hundred
33:59
Speaker 1: percent the Democrats. It's all Biden and Schumer and Pelosi.
34:02
Speaker 1: They've done one hundred percent of it. Not a single
34:04
Speaker 1: Republican supported it with this bipartisan bill. Suddenly Republicans have
34:10
Speaker 1: their fingerprints on this inflation bomb that is exploding. And
34:15
Speaker 1: so I got to tell you, Michael, at our lunches
34:16
Speaker 1: we have had, you know, the term of art in
34:21
Speaker 1: Washington is candid discussions. The sort of way of putting
34:28
Speaker 1: it is, we've been yelling at each other, and there
34:31
Speaker 1: have been Republican senators yelling at these these the bipartisan negotiators.
34:36
Speaker 1: Why are you giving the Democrats everything they want? Like, like,
34:40
Speaker 1: what do we get in this deal if you sign
34:43
Speaker 1: on to part of their package and they get every
34:45
Speaker 1: other terrible part of the package and tax increases and
34:48
Speaker 1: trillions in debt, Like, what are we getting out of this? Unfortunately,
34:53
Speaker 1: we have anywhere from a third or more of the
34:58
Speaker 1: Republican conference that's so eager to cut a deal that
35:01
Speaker 1: they're willing to embrace at least part of the Democrats
35:04
Speaker 1: spending agenda. I think, I think that's really unfortunate and
35:07
Speaker 1: a bad mistake. Well, I think this is a very
35:10
Speaker 1: important tie ind that has not really been publicized I think,
35:14
Speaker 1: which is, yes, Democrats are going to spend a ton
35:17
Speaker 1: of money. Yes, Republicans don't have very much power right now. Yes,
35:20
Speaker 1: some moderate to liberal Republicans are going to want to
35:23
Speaker 1: cut a deal on anything. But it's not just pie
35:26
Speaker 1: in the sky. This is not just a well, we're
35:28
Speaker 1: spending money, but so what the debts a little higher now.
35:32
Speaker 1: This is directly tied to inflation, which is a major threat.
35:36
Speaker 1: It's not just a threat, it's actually happening right now,
35:38
Speaker 1: and it is affecting people's bottom lines on gas, on food,
35:41
Speaker 1: and it's about to affect us on a lot of
35:43
Speaker 1: other things too, that's right. And an inflation is a
35:48
Speaker 1: automatic tax that hurts. It hurts working families, it hurts seniors,
35:54
Speaker 1: you know, seniors who have saved their whole lives for retirement,
35:57
Speaker 1: but maybe on a fixed income. And when inflation kicks
36:00
Speaker 1: in and prices go up, it really hurts low income
36:06
Speaker 1: and moderate income people and seniors on fixed incomes. And
36:09
Speaker 1: look this is where Michael, you're and my age differential
36:13
Speaker 1: kicks in a little bit. You don't remember, Jimmy Carter,
36:18
Speaker 1: I do so. I was born in nineteen seventy My
36:22
Speaker 1: first political memory was the election in nineteen seventy six,
36:27
Speaker 1: and in particular, it was the fight that my parents
36:31
Speaker 1: had because my mother voted for Jimmy Carter. No, you're
36:35
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, I would never have guessed. Well, she
36:38
Speaker 1: just thought Ford was an idiot. She's like the guy
36:41
Speaker 1: as a bumbling moron. I don't like him. And Jimmy
36:43
Speaker 1: Carter seems like such a nice guy. And my dad,
36:47
Speaker 1: my dad at the time wasn't a US citizen. He
36:49
Speaker 1: was a Canadian citizen at the time, and so he
36:52
Speaker 1: didn't have a vote, and so my father viewed my
36:55
Speaker 1: mom's vote as like the family vote. And I remember
36:58
Speaker 1: my dad just apoplectic. How could you vote for Jimmy Carter.
37:03
Speaker 1: And when I tell this story now, my mom gets
37:05
Speaker 1: upset and she's like, I'm sorry I was wrong, like
37:08
Speaker 1: like she is not a Jimmy Carter family. Yeah, but look,
37:12
Speaker 1: with Jimmy Carter, we saw the same failed policies we're
37:21
Speaker 1: seeing right now, and we saw something called stagflation. What
37:23
Speaker 1: a stagflation. Stagflation is when the economy is stagnant, so
37:28
Speaker 1: there's not growth, plus you have super high inflation and
37:32
Speaker 1: it's a vicious like it was ugly under Jimmy Carter
37:36
Speaker 1: and inflation got so high. I mean, you were seeing
37:40
Speaker 1: home mortgages that were going up fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
37:44
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen percent on home mortgages. You know, we just
37:49
Speaker 1: refinanced our home mortgage. I think we pay two point
37:52
Speaker 1: six five percent. People have gotten used to insanely low
37:58
Speaker 1: interest rates. Imagine your home mortgage at let's not even
38:01
Speaker 1: say eighteen nineteen percent. Imagine your home mortgage at ten percent.
38:06
Speaker 1: You know what it means. It means you can buy
38:09
Speaker 1: basically a third as big a house as you can
38:12
Speaker 1: right now. It triples the cost of your mortgage just
38:14
Speaker 1: going from three percent to ten percent. That is a
38:18
Speaker 1: massive cost. And for seniors, it destroys their savings. I
38:23
Speaker 1: think Biden and Schumer and Pelosi they're repeating those same mistakes.
38:26
Speaker 1: And it's really hard to get out of when you've
38:28
Speaker 1: got inflation roaring. And by the way, one of the
38:31
Speaker 1: big problems with inflation also a huge part of our
38:34
Speaker 1: federal budget is interest on the debt. Now we are
38:37
Speaker 1: living in sort of the magical time that the land
38:40
Speaker 1: that time forgot because interest is so low that the
38:43
Speaker 1: cost of interest on the debt it is still massive
38:47
Speaker 1: in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But if interest
38:50
Speaker 1: rates go up a lot. Interest on the debt will
38:53
Speaker 1: become the single biggest element on the federal budget, and
38:55
Speaker 1: so it becomes this spiral where it keeps getting worse
39:01
Speaker 1: and worse and worse. And I think it's crazy that
39:04
Speaker 1: Republicans are complicit in any way. And that's certainly what
39:08
Speaker 1: I'm arguing to my colleagues, and most of my colleagues agree,
39:12
Speaker 1: but a significant chunk of them do not. Well. This
39:15
Speaker 1: is an important point because even forgetting the merits of
39:18
Speaker 1: the bill or the infrastructure spending or what have you,
39:21
Speaker 1: just the political ramifications here. It seems that a number
39:24
Speaker 1: of centrist Republicans think that they're going to get political
39:27
Speaker 1: pats on the back for looking as though they're compromising
39:31
Speaker 1: and conciliatory. But this could be a huge liability. Forget
39:36
Speaker 1: that it's a bad idea in the first place, this
39:38
Speaker 1: could be a huge, huge political liability. Before we go, Senator,
39:41
Speaker 1: I do have to get to the mail bag. There
39:44
Speaker 1: are some great mail back questions. Her first one is
39:46
Speaker 1: very simple from Michael, not me. Do you intend to
39:49
Speaker 1: wear a mask in the capital? Hell? No, I had
39:54
Speaker 1: a feeling I knew the answer to that question. Simple questions,
39:57
Speaker 1: simple answer, and absolutely a correct one. Matthew asks a
40:02
Speaker 1: tougher question, but it does get to what we're talking about.
40:05
Speaker 1: And by the way, let me throw a caveat on that.
40:07
Speaker 1: So I do still wear masks on airplanes because they
40:12
Speaker 1: make you. They'll throw you off the plane if you don't.
40:14
Speaker 1: And and I filed legislation to end that stupid policy.
40:18
Speaker 1: It's it makes no sense to require mask on air planes.
40:21
Speaker 1: And and it is it is the Biden administration being
40:25
Speaker 1: unreasonable that is putting that requirement in. And by the way,
40:29
Speaker 1: all right, so, just a couple of weeks ago, in
40:30
Speaker 1: the Commerce Committee, we had a vote on an amendment
40:35
Speaker 1: to end the requirement that you wear masks on airplanes.
40:39
Speaker 1: And there was an argument back and forth tween Republicans
40:41
Speaker 1: and Democrats, and every Democrat on the Commerce Committee voted no.
40:45
Speaker 1: Now at the time, one of those Democrats, Brian Shots,
40:48
Speaker 1: is a Democrat from from Hawaii. It's a nice guy.
40:50
Speaker 1: He and I get along well. Um, we played hoops together.
40:53
Speaker 1: I mean, he's nice enough fellow. Um he said at
40:58
Speaker 1: the hearing, he said, you know, if it didn't mandate
41:01
Speaker 1: that they changed the policy, but if the bill was
41:05
Speaker 1: simply a sense of the Senate that the FAA should
41:10
Speaker 1: change the policy and not require masks on airplanes. He said,
41:13
Speaker 1: then I would support it, and I stopped and said, okay,
41:16
Speaker 1: if we did a sense of the Senate, it has
41:18
Speaker 1: less teeth, but you'd support it. I'd be like, look,
41:19
Speaker 1: if we can actually get this done and get rid
41:21
Speaker 1: of the ridiculous mask requirement on planes, that'd be a
41:23
Speaker 1: good thing. He said yes, and unfortunately so it was
41:28
Speaker 1: Rick Scott's amendment. And I asked Rick at the hearing,
41:31
Speaker 1: I said, would you be willing to change your amendment
41:33
Speaker 1: to do what Shots wants to do, because that would
41:35
Speaker 1: get Democrats and it would pass. Rick said no, he
41:38
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that. He wanted to vote on
41:40
Speaker 1: the one with full force. I said okay. So we
41:43
Speaker 1: voted on it and it failed. Afterwards, Shots approached me
41:46
Speaker 1: and said, hey, let's do a bill that is the
41:49
Speaker 1: sense of the Senate that we should end masks on airplanes.
41:55
Speaker 1: I said great, So I said, I'll have my staff
41:57
Speaker 1: draft it, we'll get it to you tomorrow. Let's do it.
41:59
Speaker 1: This could be a big deal, you and me together, bipartisan.
42:03
Speaker 1: Let's end this ridiculous requirement. And by the way. The
42:05
Speaker 1: poor guy had just gotten off an airplane from Hawaii,
42:09
Speaker 1: which he would fly every week, and that's a long
42:11
Speaker 1: way to fly with a mask when you've already been vaccinated.
42:14
Speaker 1: So we drafted it. I showed it to him. Long
42:16
Speaker 1: and short of it is, he declined to sign on
42:20
Speaker 1: because when he talked to Democratic leadership, basically they cracked
42:24
Speaker 1: the whip and said you must obey, and we don't
42:28
Speaker 1: want you to do this. So he bailed. I filed
42:31
Speaker 1: it anyway, but I filed it with just Republicans. Now,
42:34
Speaker 1: by the way, I had even like Susan Collins as
42:36
Speaker 1: a co sponsor. There are not a lot of things
42:39
Speaker 1: that had me and Susan Collins together, but it was
42:43
Speaker 1: supposed to have Democrats, and none of the Democrats would
42:46
Speaker 1: do it. So fast forward to this week. One of
42:49
Speaker 1: the very first Democrats to be docily wearing his mask
42:53
Speaker 1: was Brian Shots and I just kind of had the
42:57
Speaker 1: laugh at weight. Two weeks ago, you knew this was ridicus.
43:01
Speaker 1: You still know it's ridiculous, But now the Democratic Party
43:05
Speaker 1: is such that you must obey, and so you you
43:08
Speaker 1: uniquely do so and gotta get in line. Well, so
43:12
Speaker 1: these tactical issues I think motivate this next question from Matthew.
43:17
Speaker 1: Trying to talk facts and logic with the left doesn't
43:20
Speaker 1: seem to be working, and being a jerk doesn't help either.
43:23
Speaker 1: What's another approach we can use to get along and
43:26
Speaker 1: have useful discourse? Or is the era of bipartisanship and
43:30
Speaker 1: common ground deader than disco? The only way to move
43:34
Speaker 1: forward is to beat them, is to beat them of
43:37
Speaker 1: the ballot box. And and you know, let me answer
43:41
Speaker 1: that by making a reference to a series of books
43:45
Speaker 1: that I read as a kid. So, when I was
43:47
Speaker 1: a kid, I was a big fan of It's a
43:48
Speaker 1: seven book series that's called The Great Brain. Or did
43:51
Speaker 1: you ever read The Great Brain? No? No, I didn't, Okay,
43:54
Speaker 1: So it's so it's it's by a guy named John
43:59
Speaker 1: John D. Fitzgerald, and it is about a family in
44:05
Speaker 1: Utah on the late eighteen hundreds, so at the turn
44:08
Speaker 1: of the century. And they're three brothers, John D. Fitzgerald,
44:13
Speaker 1: who's the youngest brother, Tom D. Fitzgerald, who's the middle
44:17
Speaker 1: of brother, and swend Fitzgerald, who is the oldest brother.
44:20
Speaker 1: And the middle brother, Tom D is the Great Brain,
44:23
Speaker 1: and he's a little con man he's basically a swindler,
44:26
Speaker 1: and you know, it's sort of like Tom Sawyer, but
44:28
Speaker 1: it's it's sort of clever cons And I read these
44:32
Speaker 1: when I was I think in junior high. I read them.
44:34
Speaker 1: They're great kids books I have. Unfortunately, I haven't been
44:37
Speaker 1: able to get either of my daughters to read them.
44:39
Speaker 1: But they're great kids books. But the opening chapter to
44:43
Speaker 1: the first book is John d the little brother, is
44:48
Speaker 1: the author of all of them, and he's telling the
44:49
Speaker 1: stories about his conman middle brother, Tom d And he said,
44:55
Speaker 1: he said, you know, we're growing up in Utah the
44:58
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds, and he said, virtually everyone in the
45:02
Speaker 1: town where we live as Mormon. And he said, we're
45:05
Speaker 1: not Mormon. And he said, but but they're very tolerant
45:10
Speaker 1: and it's okay. And he said, it was simply a
45:13
Speaker 1: matter of me learning to whip every boy my age,
45:17
Speaker 1: and Tom Dee learning to whip every boy his age,
45:20
Speaker 1: and Swende learning to whip every boy his age. And
45:24
Speaker 1: he said, they're very tolerant of us. Now, it's amazing
45:28
Speaker 1: how tolerant someone can be when you can whip them.
45:32
Speaker 1: And and that statement there's enormous wisdom in it. It's
45:37
Speaker 1: it's always I've always thought of that statement when I
45:39
Speaker 1: think about Israel's foreign policy. It's amazing how tolerant Israel's
45:43
Speaker 1: neighbors are when the fact is Israel can beat them militarily.
45:46
Speaker 1: In terms of dealing with the Democrats, we're not going
45:49
Speaker 1: to persuade Nancy Pelosi. What we will do, and I
45:54
Speaker 1: believe we will do it in twenty twenty two, is
45:57
Speaker 1: we can persuade the American people and we can beat
45:59
Speaker 1: them at the bottot box and retire Nancy Pelosi by
46:02
Speaker 1: taking the House back. And we can retire Chuck Schumer's
46:06
Speaker 1: majority leader by taking the Senate back. And we can
46:09
Speaker 1: retire Joe Biden, although not sure he would know it
46:12
Speaker 1: by winning in twenty four. But the only way they
46:17
Speaker 1: will not stop. The angry socialist, crazy left will not
46:21
Speaker 1: stop until they get trounced at the ballot box. And
46:25
Speaker 1: if and when they get trounced, then I think there's
46:29
Speaker 1: some realistic prospect that at least some reasonable Democrats will say, well, gosh,
46:35
Speaker 1: maybe we shouldn't have gone so crazy far left, maybe
46:39
Speaker 1: we should recalibrate. But that takes some time to have happened,
46:43
Speaker 1: and they ain't gonna do it until they lose. If
46:45
Speaker 1: they haven't lost, the chances of them shifting away from
46:50
Speaker 1: this radical agenda I think or zero. The only way
46:53
Speaker 1: they shift is after they lose, and hopefully lose resoundingly. Right.
46:58
Speaker 1: And it's not just because they're no good, awful, rotten,
47:01
Speaker 1: terrible democrats. I mean, we could talk about that at
47:03
Speaker 1: great length, but it's it's because they've got all the power.
47:07
Speaker 1: They've got all the power, and so it actually doesn't
47:09
Speaker 1: even make sense for them to try to give in
47:11
Speaker 1: on these thing. Didn't Lord Acton say something like that?
47:14
Speaker 1: You know, there's this strange coincidence here reminds me of
47:17
Speaker 1: a quote from Lord Acton. And absolutely, I am with
47:20
Speaker 1: your senator. The only way that we are going to
47:23
Speaker 1: reconcile and come back together is if we pull some
47:26
Speaker 1: of that power back from the people who have taken
47:28
Speaker 1: all of it. We've got to end it there. I'm
47:30
Speaker 1: Michael Knowls. This is verdict with Ted Cruz. We are
47:42
Speaker 1: going to be taking verdict on the road. We are
47:44
Speaker 1: partnering with the Young America's Foundation. We're going to multiple
47:48
Speaker 1: school I think we're going to six schools and universities
47:52
Speaker 1: with YAF. You can go to yaf dot org slash
47:55
Speaker 1: verdict right now to request that we come to your cool.
48:00
Speaker 1: The deadline is August eighteenth, Senator. Should we go to
48:04
Speaker 1: the really nice, wonderful conservative schools with the Young America's Foundation,
48:09
Speaker 1: or should we go to the crazy leftist, insane schools
48:12
Speaker 1: that are going to run us out of town on
48:13
Speaker 1: the rail. Well, it seems to me that should be
48:15
Speaker 1: up to the listeners of Verdict to decide. And so
48:17
Speaker 1: so you tell us if you're a student right now,
48:20
Speaker 1: you might be at one of the few havens of
48:23
Speaker 1: sanity and you say, hey, come, come cheer us on
48:27
Speaker 1: and and and reach out to us. On the other hand,
48:31
Speaker 1: you might be behind enemy lines, surrounded by Bolsheviks and
48:34
Speaker 1: Mensheviks and and and and looking for a Berlin airlift.
48:39
Speaker 1: You know, my guess is we're open to do it
48:42
Speaker 1: a little of both. But but it's really the incredible
48:44
Speaker 1: listeners a Verdict who are going to make that decision.
48:48
Speaker 1: We want to free the students on campus, We want
48:50
Speaker 1: to free all of us here in this country. So
48:52
Speaker 1: make sure you get those names in yaft dot org
48:55
Speaker 1: slash verdict. August eighteenth is the deadline. We're sitting here
48:58
Speaker 1: right now. It is too forty two in the morning.
49:01
Speaker 1: You've come here straight from the hill. Senator Ted Cruz
49:06
Speaker 1: was a nightly podcast called Verdict. AOC says I'm happy
49:12
Speaker 1: to work with Republicans, just not Ted Cruz, and then
49:15
Speaker 1: she called your murderer. Apparently I will continue my murderous
49:19
Speaker 1: rampage down in Miami. Can you just take us through
49:22
Speaker 1: this process a little bit. Those rules are designed so
49:24
Speaker 1: you don't have senators screaming at each other. The house
49:27
Speaker 1: has a lot of that. I still remember when they
49:29
Speaker 1: pulled up porn on the screen. Justice O'Connor just went,
49:31
Speaker 1: oh my, you're saying Ukraine and not Russia that logical
49:37
Speaker 1: construct x and not why they're engaging in lawyerly sleight
49:41
Speaker 1: of hand. The fact checkers declared it a lot if
49:44
Speaker 1: you said Biden was in fact that a band fractic.
49:46
Speaker 1: Right boom, what happens? He gets elected and now the
49:50
Speaker 1: fact checkers are saying it's a lot that he ever
49:52
Speaker 1: said he wasn't good a band fractic. The US government
49:56
Speaker 1: was funding the Chinese research at the hun Institute of Rologe.
50:01
Speaker 1: The Senate acquitted President Trump about four thirty in the afternoon.
50:06
Speaker 1: That's right, they're not done. This is released the hound
50:09
Speaker 1: that what can the hell are you frigging nuts on?
50:11
Speaker 1: As the casino, Joe Biden was saying, I'm not against fracking,
50:14
Speaker 1: I'm not against cole. Literally, what Biden is doing and
50:17
Speaker 1: what Kerry is doing is screwing the environment. You guys
50:20
Speaker 1: are not frigging overlord, get off your power trip. It
50:24
Speaker 1: still doesn't matter if there is a quid pro quo. Okay,
50:26
Speaker 1: you showed off your Latin into the episodes. There's been
50:29
Speaker 1: a real cynicism in this whole issue of the protests.
50:31
Speaker 1: Just a week ago we were told if you go
50:34
Speaker 1: outside to do anything, you're killing grandma. You're endangering people
50:38
Speaker 1: because of the coronavirus, and then this week we're told
50:41
Speaker 1: everybody should go out to protest. The world's number one
50:45
Speaker 1: podcast and number one in news. We passed Joe Rogan.
50:49
Speaker 1: We rose to number one. We are beating the New
50:52
Speaker 1: York Times. Okay, I'm sorry, could you say that again.
50:54
Speaker 1: We're taking Verdict on the road. We will be at
50:57
Speaker 1: Yaff's Freedom Timeference Miami. The novel one podcast and the entiretment.
51:04
Speaker 1: What is a podcast? This episode of Verdict with Ted
51:10
Speaker 1: Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and
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