Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Social Media Censorship

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Social Media Censorship · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: President Trump signs an executive order to stop big tech's
0:04
Speaker 1: censorship of conservatives. Luckily we can sit down with a
0:08
Speaker 1: guy who has been fighting that very censorship for many years.
0:12
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict
0:21
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, and the guy who's
0:24
Speaker 1: been fighting this for many years, coincidentally is Ted Cruz himself. Senator,
0:28
Speaker 1: nice to see you. Even though we still have to
0:30
Speaker 1: do this virtually digitally and hopefully without any censorship. Well
0:35
Speaker 1: let's hope so, but we'll see a big tech pulls
0:37
Speaker 1: this podcast down. That's right, Senator. I think everybody knows
0:41
Speaker 1: that big tech has been going after conservatives, and probably
0:45
Speaker 1: for a lot of people listening to this right now,
0:47
Speaker 1: they themselves have felt this kind of thing if their
0:49
Speaker 1: account has been suspended for sharing a conservative view. I mean,
0:52
Speaker 1: I think, frankly, it's probably happened to all of us
0:54
Speaker 1: at this point. So we know that there's a problem.
0:57
Speaker 1: But there's been some debate over how you solve the problem.
1:00
Speaker 1: Do you pass some new regulation, do you break them
1:03
Speaker 1: up like their monopoly with antitrust laws, or do you
1:06
Speaker 1: enforce laws that are already on the books. You focused
1:09
Speaker 1: in on something called section two thirty of the Communications
1:13
Speaker 1: Decency Act of nineteen ninety six. The President focused in
1:16
Speaker 1: on that as well in his executive order. Can you
1:19
Speaker 1: tell us what that is and how the argument applies
1:22
Speaker 1: to big tech censorship? Well? Sure, and an answer to
1:25
Speaker 1: your question about what you do you listed several options.
1:28
Speaker 1: By answers are yes, yes, and yes. Let's start with
1:32
Speaker 1: two thirty. What is two thirty? So nineteen ninety six
1:35
Speaker 1: Congress pass a law passes a law called the Communications
1:37
Speaker 1: Decency Act. It was actually mainly focused at trying to
1:41
Speaker 1: regulate Internet porn, but it included a portion in its
1:45
Speaker 1: section two thirty that gave a special immunity from liability
1:52
Speaker 1: for big, big tech companies. And here was the reasoning
1:55
Speaker 1: at the time. Remember this is early, This was right
1:57
Speaker 1: when the Internet is starting. In fact, one thing, Michael,
2:02
Speaker 1: you and I have talked about, I was clerking at
2:04
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court in nineteen ninety six nineteen ninety
2:08
Speaker 1: seven when one of the first challenges to congressional regulation
2:13
Speaker 1: came up, and I told a story in the book
2:16
Speaker 1: I wrote a few years ago about sitting with a
2:19
Speaker 1: Supreme Court librarian with my boss chief Justice William rynk
2:22
Speaker 1: Quist and was Santra Day O'Connor, and the librarian pulled
2:27
Speaker 1: up hardcore porn to show the justices, and all the
2:32
Speaker 1: law clerks are there and look, Justice O'Connor was in
2:34
Speaker 1: her seventies, and I still remember when they pulled up
2:37
Speaker 1: porn on the screen. Justice O'Connor just went, oh my,
2:42
Speaker 1: And we're all sitting there like the law clerks are
2:44
Speaker 1: in our twenties and we're looking at our shoes feeling
2:46
Speaker 1: really really awkward. And even more awkward is the fact
2:50
Speaker 1: that when they were last students at Stanford, Rinkquist and
2:53
Speaker 1: O'Connor were same class. They actually dated for a while.
2:57
Speaker 1: He was number one in the class, she was number three.
3:00
Speaker 1: So picture this, Michael, forty years from now, you're seventy
3:05
Speaker 1: eighty years old and you're standing in a room with
3:08
Speaker 1: an ex girlfriend from forty fifty years ago watching porn.
3:14
Speaker 1: Imagine how awkward it was for the two of that
3:16
Speaker 1: senator I know and the librarians where I know you've
3:19
Speaker 1: had a lot of strange experiences in politics. I just
3:21
Speaker 1: think I have to stop here for a moment to
3:23
Speaker 1: say that the strangest one I've ever heard from you
3:26
Speaker 1: is watching hardcore porn with Justice Sandrada O'Connor and her
3:30
Speaker 1: ex boyfriend William Brnquist. I think that one is absolutely
3:35
Speaker 1: the top of the list. It was surreal and I
3:38
Speaker 1: can still hear the oh my like echoing twenty plus
3:43
Speaker 1: years later. But this was right at the beginning of
3:47
Speaker 1: the Internet. So you gotta understand justices didn't know what
3:49
Speaker 1: the Internet was. This was librarians saying, okay, this is
3:52
Speaker 1: this internet thing. You type in things. I still remember.
3:55
Speaker 1: In fact, they turned off the filters and to get
3:58
Speaker 1: to porn, they typed in the world cantelope misspelled and cantalope.
4:03
Speaker 1: I use use your imagination, but I guess it pulled
4:07
Speaker 1: up porn and the librarians were trying to show them, Okay,
4:11
Speaker 1: look it's people can stumble into this accidentally all the time.
4:16
Speaker 1: Part of that bill, so it was section two thirty
4:20
Speaker 1: was designed. You had these little Internet startups and the
4:23
Speaker 1: idea was, listen, it's not fair to sue a tech
4:27
Speaker 1: company for something somebody posts on there. Because this is
4:31
Speaker 1: a forum. This is a public square. And so if
4:32
Speaker 1: somebody posts something and you sue the internet company, you
4:37
Speaker 1: could drive them out of business. And it's not the
4:39
Speaker 1: tech company that's speaking, it's whoever the users are. So
4:42
Speaker 1: if you post something, the users should be liable, but
4:46
Speaker 1: not the forums and the and the predicate for this,
4:49
Speaker 1: this is the policy predicate. Everyone understood big Tech what
4:55
Speaker 1: we're going to be what are called neutral public fora
4:57
Speaker 1: In other words, they were going to allow everyone to speak.
5:01
Speaker 1: It was going to be the new marketplace of ideas,
5:03
Speaker 1: and so Section two thirty past in the law. But
5:06
Speaker 1: what it means, you know, Google and Facebook and Twitter
5:09
Speaker 1: they've got an immunity from liability. Nobody else does you,
5:13
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles, if you go on the radio and you
5:16
Speaker 1: to fame someone, you can be sued. Yep, the New
5:19
Speaker 1: York Times. Do you know that Google and Facebook have
5:22
Speaker 1: an immunity from liability? The New York Times doesn't have
5:24
Speaker 1: Fox News, doesn't have everyone else, every American citizen, every
5:28
Speaker 1: American company. It is only big Tech that gets this
5:32
Speaker 1: special immunity from liability. So, Senators, this is the distinction
5:36
Speaker 1: we've heard about a little bit, which is the platform
5:39
Speaker 1: versus the publisher. Right, if you're a neutral platform, you
5:42
Speaker 1: get these protections. But if you're a publisher like the
5:44
Speaker 1: New York Times or the Daily Wire or Fox News
5:47
Speaker 1: or whatever. Then you don't get those protections. And the
5:50
Speaker 1: reason for it, of course, is if you could sue
5:53
Speaker 1: Twitter for every defamatory tweet that has ever been tweeted,
5:56
Speaker 1: Twitter would go out of business in approximately five seconds.
6:01
Speaker 1: That could well be true. But you know the interesting thing.
6:04
Speaker 1: Let's suppose I wrote an op ed that said, with apologies,
6:08
Speaker 1: that Michael Knowles has carnal relations with barnyard animals, and
6:19
Speaker 1: The New York Times published it. And let's assume, and
6:23
Speaker 1: I'm willing to assume for the sake of the podcast,
6:25
Speaker 1: that that is a totally false state, thank you, and
6:29
Speaker 1: that I have no basis that I am willfully being
6:31
Speaker 1: reckless making it up. You as a citizen, could sue.
6:36
Speaker 1: You could sue me for defamation, but you could sue
6:39
Speaker 1: the New York Times because by their choice to publish that,
6:42
Speaker 1: if they publish something that's defamatory about you, sue the
6:45
Speaker 1: hell out of them. I do the same thing on
6:48
Speaker 1: social media. You can't sue the hell out of them.
6:50
Speaker 1: And the reason is that Congress made a determination twenty
6:54
Speaker 1: years ago. These are special public form. Now Here's what's changed.
7:00
Speaker 1: Big Tech has decided and they've decided it only in
7:02
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. They don't want to be
7:04
Speaker 1: neutral anymore. Yeah, they want to be political players. They
7:08
Speaker 1: want to editorialize, they want to silence voices they don't like,
7:12
Speaker 1: and so they're deliberately amplifying lefty voices and silencing conservative voices.
7:18
Speaker 1: And it's okay, fine if they want to do that, fine,
7:22
Speaker 1: but one of the obvious steps is you don't get
7:25
Speaker 1: a special immunity from liability that nobody else gets. We're
7:29
Speaker 1: not going to treat you differently, because if you're going
7:31
Speaker 1: to behave like the New York Times, you should face
7:33
Speaker 1: the same risks the New York Times face. That makes sense.
7:39
Speaker 1: We've heard from some legal scholars on the left or
7:44
Speaker 1: jurists on the left that really Section two thirty shouldn't
7:48
Speaker 1: be applied this way. It's not about political stances and
7:51
Speaker 1: conservatives or abusing this. But but the argument you've just made,
7:54
Speaker 1: and that you've actually been making for quite some time now,
7:57
Speaker 1: is the argument that was made today by Attorney General
8:00
Speaker 1: William Barr. It's the argument that was made by President Trump.
8:03
Speaker 1: So it seems that Section two thirty is the key
8:06
Speaker 1: here to the conservatives argument. To stopping this big tech censorship.
8:11
Speaker 1: Can you just go into a little bit of the
8:13
Speaker 1: political debate or maybe how the Trump administration came to
8:16
Speaker 1: adopt this idea. Look, the simplest thing I have to
8:20
Speaker 1: say about as executive orders, it's about damn time. I
8:23
Speaker 1: have literally been urging this administration to do this for
8:26
Speaker 1: three and a half years. In the last three and
8:29
Speaker 1: a half years, you know, Look, I'm in the Senate.
8:32
Speaker 1: I'm a legislator. I can share hearings. I've shared hearings
8:34
Speaker 1: highlighting the rampant censorship and political bias. I can introduce legislation.
8:39
Speaker 1: I've advocated for legislation. But I'm not the executive. It's
8:43
Speaker 1: the executive that actually has enforcement ability, that that that
8:47
Speaker 1: actually has prosecutors and grand juries and subpoenas and can
8:51
Speaker 1: enforce the law. So so I have in the last
8:54
Speaker 1: three years, I have spent hours meeting with Bill Barr,
8:58
Speaker 1: the Attorney General, on this topic. I have spent hours
9:01
Speaker 1: with Jeff Rose and the Deputy Attorney General on this topic.
9:04
Speaker 1: I've spent hours with Makon del Raheem, the head of
9:07
Speaker 1: the Antitrust Division at the Department of Justice, on this topic.
9:10
Speaker 1: I've spent hours with Joe Simons, the head of the
9:12
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission, who I used to work with. I
9:14
Speaker 1: know Joe very well on this topic. I've spent hours
9:17
Speaker 1: with the President, with the Vice President, with the White
9:20
Speaker 1: House Chief of Staff, with the White House Council, urging them.
9:24
Speaker 1: And here's been the problem everybody. It's not quite in
9:29
Speaker 1: their jurisdiction. It doesn't quite fit in the neat So
9:32
Speaker 1: everyone says, yeah, yeah, it's a problem. They've agreed it's
9:34
Speaker 1: a problem. And by the way, Baron Rosen especially agreed
9:37
Speaker 1: it's a real problem. But it doesn't fit neatly in
9:41
Speaker 1: anyone's sort of traditional job description. And so the president Listen,
9:45
Speaker 1: the President has been frustrated and pissed off about this
9:48
Speaker 1: for a long time, but nobody on his team has
9:50
Speaker 1: been willing to do anything about it. Yeah, and so
9:53
Speaker 1: I do find it kind of ironic that Twitter decided
9:58
Speaker 1: to be such jackass. Yet, you know, look, my view
10:03
Speaker 1: has always been in the kind of hierarchy of big tech.
10:06
Speaker 1: The worst is Google and YouTube, which they own. You know, Google,
10:10
Speaker 1: their motto used to be don't be evil. Now their
10:12
Speaker 1: motto is just evil, Yeah, be evil? Right under Google
10:17
Speaker 1: has been Twitter, and then and then under that is Facebook.
10:20
Speaker 1: Facebook's pretty bad too, but there's tiny moments where they're trying.
10:24
Speaker 1: I think Jack Dorsey at Twitter decided, you know what,
10:27
Speaker 1: I'm tired of Google being the worst player on Earth.
10:30
Speaker 1: And so this whole thing was prompted because the idiots
10:34
Speaker 1: decided to fact check the president's tweet on voter fraud.
10:38
Speaker 1: And by the way, number one, they linked to CNN,
10:41
Speaker 1: which is so profoundly wrong on so many issues it's ridiculous.
10:45
Speaker 1: But but Twitter, I think just pissed off the president
10:48
Speaker 1: and thank god they did, because what I assume happened
10:52
Speaker 1: and I don't know this, but I assume he blew
10:55
Speaker 1: his top and told everyone, somebody get off your ass
10:58
Speaker 1: and do something about it, and it motivated them to
11:02
Speaker 1: finally do this. I'm glad they did. I think this
11:04
Speaker 1: is an incredible threat. Big tech censorship is the biggest
11:09
Speaker 1: threat to free speech and to fair elections and democracy.
11:13
Speaker 1: We got in the whole content, and to Facebook's credit, actually,
11:16
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg came out today and he said I don't
11:19
Speaker 1: think that big tech should be the arbiters of truth,
11:22
Speaker 1: basically directly contradicting Jack Dorsey, a Twitter so, I mean,
11:25
Speaker 1: that's a good move. You know, just what do we
11:28
Speaker 1: think the conclusion of this will be. It seems that
11:31
Speaker 1: the threat would be to get Twitter to back off,
11:33
Speaker 1: to not interfere in the presidential election, to not put
11:36
Speaker 1: their thumb on the scales of how information moves around
11:38
Speaker 1: the Internet. If they don't back off, are we looking
11:41
Speaker 1: at a world in which Twitter really does lose its
11:44
Speaker 1: protections and Twitter goes down? Look that I hope so,
11:48
Speaker 1: although listen, I say I hope so. But I love Twitter.
11:52
Speaker 1: Twitter is a vehicle to engage in public debates, to
11:56
Speaker 1: go back and forth. Twitter as a neutral public forum
11:59
Speaker 1: actually works quite well. It's only recently that they decided
12:02
Speaker 1: to let their crazy lefty go. And actually, Michael, I'll
12:06
Speaker 1: tell you Zuckerberg story. Yeah. So, as you know, Zuckerberg
12:10
Speaker 1: testified in front of the Senate. A lot of us
12:13
Speaker 1: pounded it. He and I went back and forth in
12:15
Speaker 1: a very public exchange when he was testifying. Well, last year,
12:20
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg came to DC and reached out to my office
12:24
Speaker 1: and asked if I'd be willing to sit down and
12:26
Speaker 1: get together. Ken I had dinner together, and it was
12:32
Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of interesting. We thought about
12:34
Speaker 1: actually going to a restaurant. But to be honest, if
12:36
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg and I sat down at a restaurant in DC,
12:40
Speaker 1: people would lose their minds. I mean, I mean, I
12:42
Speaker 1: think they'd started running around screaming and lighting their hair
12:44
Speaker 1: on fire. So we didn't do it in a restaurant.
12:47
Speaker 1: We did it at somebody's house and it was just
12:51
Speaker 1: it was Zuckerberg and me, and it was a couple
12:54
Speaker 1: of people on my staff, a couple of people in
12:55
Speaker 1: his staff. So it was a very small dinner and
12:58
Speaker 1: it was like three hours long, and it was actually, Look,
13:00
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. Listen, Zuckerberg comes across
13:03
Speaker 1: as he's a smart, geeky techie, and I'll give him
13:09
Speaker 1: some credit. Look, he's actually trying to wrestle through these issues.
13:13
Speaker 1: But look, and to be honest, we went round and
13:18
Speaker 1: round and round on just what I was advocating was, Look,
13:23
Speaker 1: how about some basic free speech. How about just let
13:27
Speaker 1: the marketplace of ideas? If you disagree with someone, lets
13:30
Speaker 1: something like, let people argue. Trump tweets all sorts of
13:34
Speaker 1: things I disagree with. I don't think the answer is
13:37
Speaker 1: to let some Silicon Valley billionaire silence him. If you
13:40
Speaker 1: disagree with him, say it, disagree with him, but Zuckerberg
13:46
Speaker 1: is trying. He actually, shortly after the dinner I had
13:50
Speaker 1: with him, he gave a speech I think it was
13:52
Speaker 1: a Georgetown maybe somewhere in DC, advocating principles of free speech. Now, look,
13:58
Speaker 1: Facebook has been bumpy on this, yeah, but compared to
14:02
Speaker 1: Twitter and Google, they've been much much better. And you
14:04
Speaker 1: can see them. Twitter doesn't care anymore. And and by
14:11
Speaker 1: the way, YouTube, Yeah, CEO of YouTube came by my
14:17
Speaker 1: office to talk about this, and her attitude was essentially well,
14:22
Speaker 1: I can't even say it, but it was. It was
14:25
Speaker 1: screw it. Although although it said more graphically than that yikes. Um,
14:30
Speaker 1: it was simply we had power and will use power.
14:33
Speaker 1: And you know what, she actually wanted credit because she said, well,
14:37
Speaker 1: you know, people on the left want us to completely
14:40
Speaker 1: silence people were so we're talking about Stephen Crowder as
14:43
Speaker 1: a friend of ours, um comedian, and and and YouTube
14:48
Speaker 1: demonetized him. Boy, talk about an Norwellian word. We will
14:51
Speaker 1: take away all your money. CEO wanted she wanted props
14:59
Speaker 1: because she said, well, we still allow him to post.
15:02
Speaker 1: We didn't. We didn't silence him altogether, like what the
15:05
Speaker 1: hell are you talking? Okay, And she's like, well, that's
15:07
Speaker 1: what the people that the left wanted us to do.
15:09
Speaker 1: I said, listen, the calls for censorship are only coming
15:12
Speaker 1: from the crazy leftists. I'm not asking you to silence
15:15
Speaker 1: Bernie Sanders right or AOC. God knows, they can prattle
15:19
Speaker 1: on forever. But let them talk. Their ideas are so bad,
15:22
Speaker 1: we'll engage with them on substance. Yep. But I am
15:27
Speaker 1: glad the administration has jumped in. By the way, there
15:30
Speaker 1: are other things they can do, and a trust agencies
15:32
Speaker 1: both DIGNFTC have been engaged in investigations. These are monopolies
15:36
Speaker 1: and their abusing monopoly power. Something else they can do
15:39
Speaker 1: that's in the executive Order. That's important. It's not just
15:42
Speaker 1: Section two thirty, but it's it's deceptive trade practices. I'm
15:46
Speaker 1: really glad the order tells the Attorney General to work
15:49
Speaker 1: with the state attorneys general. I've also talked at length
15:52
Speaker 1: with a Texas attorney general who's leading a state lawsuits
15:56
Speaker 1: about these deceptive practices. And Bill bar today in the
16:01
Speaker 1: Oval Office, he said it well, and actually he reflected
16:04
Speaker 1: a lot of what he and I talked about over breakfast.
16:07
Speaker 1: He said, Listen, these tech companies have built their platforms
16:11
Speaker 1: on a lie. They tell people if you come to
16:14
Speaker 1: our platform, you can speak, and if you sign up
16:17
Speaker 1: to follow someone, you watch them, you can see what
16:21
Speaker 1: they post, and if they sign up to follow you,
16:23
Speaker 1: they can see what you post. That's the fundamental promise,
16:26
Speaker 1: and that is a lie. We know Twitter shadow bands
16:29
Speaker 1: if they don't like you. People who say I want
16:32
Speaker 1: to follow to Michael Knowles, I care what Michael Knowles
16:35
Speaker 1: has to say. Twitter says no, no, no no, no, no,
16:37
Speaker 1: no no, We're just going to silently make it go away.
16:39
Speaker 1: That is a lie. That is fraud. And I'm glad
16:43
Speaker 1: this executive order takes a step towards real legal liability
16:47
Speaker 1: for defrauding consumers, which is what big tech is doing.
16:50
Speaker 1: That's a big key to this whole issue is the dishonesty,
16:53
Speaker 1: is the fraud, is the very very possible, and it
16:57
Speaker 1: seems likely violation of these laws. So it's very good.
17:00
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens from it. I mean sort of.
17:03
Speaker 1: The ball now is in the court of big tech.
17:05
Speaker 1: We'll see how they react to it. I want to
17:07
Speaker 1: get your opinion on something by the way directly related
17:10
Speaker 1: to this social media marketplace, which is a few incidents
17:14
Speaker 1: that have popped up over the last week or so,
17:17
Speaker 1: and they've really gained national attention because of social media.
17:20
Speaker 1: The most prominent one would be the killing of George
17:23
Speaker 1: Floyd in Minneapolis. The police officer who arrested this man.
17:28
Speaker 1: You've got a white officer, black perpetrator, I suppose, or
17:33
Speaker 1: alleged perpetrator, and the suspect ends up dead. That guy's
17:38
Speaker 1: got his knee on his neck. I mean, it looks
17:40
Speaker 1: really bad. And then this spreads on social media. Now
17:43
Speaker 1: there are riots erupting around the country, not even just
17:46
Speaker 1: in Minneapolis. Also in Los Angeles there is looting going on.
17:50
Speaker 1: I'd like to get your perspective on that video, from
17:54
Speaker 1: both a social media perspective, a social perspective, and also
17:58
Speaker 1: from the perspective of well, what happened in Minneapolis was horrific,
18:04
Speaker 1: it was wrong. I've watched that video and lest at
18:06
Speaker 1: anytime you have an incident with police, sometimes the social
18:13
Speaker 1: media mob is quick to demonize the police officer, and
18:16
Speaker 1: I've long advocated we should wait for the facts to
18:19
Speaker 1: play out. That being said, I watched that video and
18:25
Speaker 1: you had a man in handcuffs on his face and
18:28
Speaker 1: the pavement with an officer's knee in the back of
18:31
Speaker 1: his neck pushing it into the pavement. He's gasping for breath,
18:35
Speaker 1: he's pleading that he can't breathe, and the officer continues
18:38
Speaker 1: for eight minutes. That is, on the face of it,
18:43
Speaker 1: police brutality, and anyone who believes in liberty should not
18:49
Speaker 1: want to see authoritarianism and an authority abuse. The police
18:54
Speaker 1: officer has been fired and the Department of Justice is
18:56
Speaker 1: open an investigation of civil rights investigation. I'm glad they
18:59
Speaker 1: have watching. That pisses me off. And by the way,
19:05
Speaker 1: you know, the social media mob is quick to paint
19:09
Speaker 1: this as far as they're concerned, that was Donald Trump
19:12
Speaker 1: with his knee on the back of the neck. Let
19:15
Speaker 1: me be clear, this is Minneapolis, Minnesota. You've got a
19:19
Speaker 1: democratic mayor, you've got a democratic governor, you've got democratic
19:22
Speaker 1: senators that this is bright blue. And we keep seeing
19:26
Speaker 1: these things happen, this abusive power, often in democratic strongholds.
19:33
Speaker 1: Were people that claim to be interested in defending people's rights.
19:39
Speaker 1: They're not doing a good job of it, right. I
19:41
Speaker 1: mean that I think a little bit of perspective here
19:43
Speaker 1: is key, and it's why it's so good to get
19:46
Speaker 1: your opinion on this is you're not only somebody with
19:48
Speaker 1: a Twitter account, but you also happen to know quite
19:51
Speaker 1: a bit about the way the criminal justice system works,
19:54
Speaker 1: having worked in it for a long time. I think
19:55
Speaker 1: that perspective really helps. We saw a less tragic, much
20:00
Speaker 1: more frivolous example of this also just a few days earlier,
20:03
Speaker 1: which was this altercation that happened in Central Park. There
20:06
Speaker 1: was a man talking to this woman and basically said,
20:10
Speaker 1: put your dog on a leash. She said no. The man,
20:13
Speaker 1: for some reason had dog treats in his bag just
20:17
Speaker 1: for this sort of occasion when people don't know their
20:19
Speaker 1: dogs on a leash. As he lures them away with
20:21
Speaker 1: the treats. Then this woman sort of lost her temper
20:24
Speaker 1: and had a little bit of an emotional meltdown, and
20:27
Speaker 1: then he started filming it. And you know what was
20:29
Speaker 1: the end result of this. Nothing happened. I mean, after
20:32
Speaker 1: the videos went public, then this woman lost her job
20:35
Speaker 1: and lost her dog. But in the moment itself, it
20:37
Speaker 1: seemed a little bit like much much ado about nothing.
20:41
Speaker 1: The social media mob is what made it so much worse,
20:45
Speaker 1: so much more sensational. Is that is there a world
20:49
Speaker 1: in which we should perhaps hope that maybe social media
20:52
Speaker 1: takes it down a few notches because of this sort
20:54
Speaker 1: of emotion that it can gin up. Yeah, look, I
20:57
Speaker 1: gotta say I have a little bit different take on it.
21:00
Speaker 1: There's there's no doubt that that incident showed the power
21:02
Speaker 1: of social media and that that an iPhone video can
21:05
Speaker 1: suddenly get millions of views all across the world. Um,
21:09
Speaker 1: I have to admit the woman who involved, who was involved,
21:12
Speaker 1: her behavior was atrocious, of course. Yeah. Um, this was
21:17
Speaker 1: an individual, an African American individual who was there bird watching,
21:21
Speaker 1: who at least on the video we saw, didn't do
21:23
Speaker 1: anything remotely threatening to her. And to watch her be
21:28
Speaker 1: willing to listen, making a false accusation, yep, deliberately is
21:34
Speaker 1: an act of violence. And and and when when when
21:37
Speaker 1: this woman Amy Cooper, picks up her phone and calls
21:40
Speaker 1: nine one one and she says, an African American man
21:44
Speaker 1: is physically threatening me and my dog, and she she
21:46
Speaker 1: calls in what, by all appearances, is a totally false
21:50
Speaker 1: crime report, and it's a dangerous crime report. Listen, if
21:54
Speaker 1: you call the police and say someone is physically threatening me.
21:58
Speaker 1: You are asking for law enforcement to show up with guns,
22:00
Speaker 1: and the very real consequence of that could be that
22:05
Speaker 1: the person you're wrongly accusing gets shot and killed. Listen,
22:10
Speaker 1: when officers arrived to an assault in progress, that they
22:16
Speaker 1: there is a risk of something going really wrong. And
22:19
Speaker 1: she was in a very real sense in dangering his life. Now,
22:22
Speaker 1: I gotta say the fact that he had dog treats,
22:24
Speaker 1: it was trying to feed her dog. If I'm walking
22:26
Speaker 1: my dog, stay the hell away from my dog and
22:27
Speaker 1: don't get him dog treats. That that's a little out there.
22:31
Speaker 1: But the attitude she expressed were clearly racist. They were
22:36
Speaker 1: clearly wrong. And and by the way, the same point
22:39
Speaker 1: I made about Minneapolis holds here. You saw the Twitter
22:44
Speaker 1: mob saying, oh this is this is the age of
22:47
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They they blamed Donald Trump for it. Well,
22:50
Speaker 1: then the story comes out that, to the shock of nobody,
22:56
Speaker 1: she's apparently a liberal Democratic donor who's donated to Brocco
23:00
Speaker 1: bomb At, a Pete buddhag Edge and a John Kerry, Right,
23:03
Speaker 1: and of course she is. But you know, to be honest, well, look,
23:08
Speaker 1: actually there is racism on both sides of the aisle.
23:12
Speaker 1: But the left, many on the left love to jump
23:18
Speaker 1: on a soapbox and moralize that's right. And you bring
23:22
Speaker 1: up such a great point, because we shouldn't downplay and
23:25
Speaker 1: in the instance in Central Park, we shouldn't downplay the
23:27
Speaker 1: woman's atrocious behavior just because you point out that there's
23:30
Speaker 1: more to the story, for instance, than you know, she's
23:34
Speaker 1: totally wrong and he's totally right. I mean, maybe some
23:37
Speaker 1: of his behavior was a little odd too, Maybe it
23:39
Speaker 1: doesn't justify her behavior the same thing. Obviously, you can
23:42
Speaker 1: look at what is pretty clearly police brutality in Minneapolis
23:46
Speaker 1: and condemn that as being terrible and not therefore start
23:51
Speaker 1: defending looting and burning down businesses. You know, it seems
23:54
Speaker 1: that there's this knee jerk reaction on social media where
23:57
Speaker 1: we immediately have to take a side and say one
23:59
Speaker 1: person was totally wrong, one person was totally right, when
24:02
Speaker 1: really the situations are much more complex than that, and
24:06
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of perspective on the legal side,
24:09
Speaker 1: on the policing side, on the social side can help
24:11
Speaker 1: us to understand those things well. And listen, police brutality
24:15
Speaker 1: and it undermines not that just the community, but it
24:19
Speaker 1: undermines law enforcement as well. Right, I'm blessed to know
24:23
Speaker 1: a lot of men and women who are law enforcement officers,
24:26
Speaker 1: and they feel that whenever something happens, they the mob
24:32
Speaker 1: immediately assumes they're at fault. And there are instances a
24:37
Speaker 1: lot of instances where an officer is scared for his
24:39
Speaker 1: life and is protecting himself. And it's one thing I saw.
24:43
Speaker 1: I watch the video, and sometimes these videos don't capture
24:46
Speaker 1: everything that happened. There may have been something that happened
24:49
Speaker 1: before that's not on it. So you have to view
24:52
Speaker 1: all of this with skepticism. And so there are times
24:55
Speaker 1: when an officer has to use physical force and serious
24:58
Speaker 1: force to subdue a dangerous individual. What made this video
25:03
Speaker 1: so damning is it at last eight minutes and the
25:06
Speaker 1: guy is in handcuffs and his face is there, and
25:08
Speaker 1: he's gasping for breath and he's pleading saying I can't
25:11
Speaker 1: and and this officer doesn't do anything other than keep
25:14
Speaker 1: the knee pressing into his neck. That was grotesque and wrong,
25:20
Speaker 1: particularly there are multiple other officers around. It's very hard
25:23
Speaker 1: to look at that video and suggest there was any
25:26
Speaker 1: reason that officer believed was afraid for his safety as
25:29
Speaker 1: compared to just being brutalizing someone who was already immobilized.
25:34
Speaker 1: And that is not how law enforcement should operate, and
25:39
Speaker 1: that's how not how they usually do. And it's why
25:43
Speaker 1: it's good that the Department of Justice is looking into this,
25:48
Speaker 1: and I very much hope justice is served here. That's right,
25:52
Speaker 1: because the effect of this ultimately is going to be
25:55
Speaker 1: to undermine our faith in these very institutions that would
25:59
Speaker 1: be maintaining law in order, maintaining civil society. It is
26:02
Speaker 1: far wider reaching consequences than many many would admit. Before
26:06
Speaker 1: we go, we got to get to a little bit
26:07
Speaker 1: of mail bag. First question, you know, a really easy
26:11
Speaker 1: one to I'm sure you can answer this in ten
26:14
Speaker 1: or twenty seconds from Norman. How should pro American nationalists
26:18
Speaker 1: think about Hong Kong? You know, a really easy topic,
26:20
Speaker 1: like China and Hong Kong. So what China is doing
26:24
Speaker 1: is trying to take over Hong Kong completely, trying to
26:28
Speaker 1: subject it to the communist government's authoritarianism, trying to strip
26:33
Speaker 1: their rights of democracy, trying to strip their rights of
26:35
Speaker 1: free speech. It is a power grab, but it is wrong.
26:39
Speaker 1: And by the way, when Hong Kong Hong Kong used
26:42
Speaker 1: to be part of the British Empire, and then when
26:44
Speaker 1: it rejoined China, China agreed to have two separate systems
26:50
Speaker 1: and to protect freedom and democracy in China. China's now
26:54
Speaker 1: changed its mind and it's crushing freedom. There are a
26:57
Speaker 1: lot of consequences. We just saw this week the State
27:00
Speaker 1: Department to issue a report that Hong Kong is no
27:03
Speaker 1: longer autonomous from China. They did so because of legislation
27:07
Speaker 1: that I wrote. I authored legislation that was included in
27:10
Speaker 1: a bigger bill that directed the State Department to assess
27:13
Speaker 1: whether Hong Kong had real autonomy. We just got the
27:16
Speaker 1: report this week. I talked with the State Department this
27:18
Speaker 1: week right after they issued it. The consequences of that
27:22
Speaker 1: is significant. There are a lot of things that flow
27:24
Speaker 1: from that in terms of number one Treasury Department and
27:27
Speaker 1: sanctions that could easily flow. You know, China wants to
27:31
Speaker 1: use Hong Kong as this sort of free market bastion
27:33
Speaker 1: to get around the restrictions on China, but at the
27:37
Speaker 1: same time they want to trample freedom. There tariffs, the
27:40
Speaker 1: US Trade Representative, the teriffs we have against China, Hong
27:44
Speaker 1: Kong is exempt from that. I think given this determination,
27:48
Speaker 1: we will see I believe a determination from the President
27:51
Speaker 1: in the White House that will result in some very
27:53
Speaker 1: significant legal consequences, basically ending Hong Kong's special status because
28:01
Speaker 1: China is no longer honoring the agreement they had. That's
28:04
Speaker 1: very very good point, because I guess this gets back
28:07
Speaker 1: to what we're talking about with big tech. Some players
28:11
Speaker 1: in the world are trying to have it both ways.
28:13
Speaker 1: They're trying to get certain special protections when actually they're
28:16
Speaker 1: violating the very basis of those protections. Something to look
28:19
Speaker 1: at in China. Then, finally, maybe the most important question
28:23
Speaker 1: that we keep getting recurring here when it comes to
28:26
Speaker 1: criminal justice, what is Ted Cruz's stance on the legalization
28:31
Speaker 1: of marijuana? Leave it to the states, Listen. I have
28:38
Speaker 1: very libertarian instincts, and I have to admit on pot legalization.
28:43
Speaker 1: Over the course of my life, I've had different views
28:45
Speaker 1: at different times. There are times when I was for legalization. Personally,
28:50
Speaker 1: I'm not for legalization now, so if there were a
28:52
Speaker 1: referendum in Texas on it, i'd vote against it. I
28:54
Speaker 1: think there are some significant negative consequences that come from it.
28:59
Speaker 1: But I believe federalism. I believe we got fifty states
29:03
Speaker 1: and reasonable people can differ on this, and I think
29:06
Speaker 1: it's perfectly fine to let the states operate as laboratories
29:10
Speaker 1: of democracy to see what happens. And and so, I mean, listen,
29:16
Speaker 1: when I was when I was a teenager, I smoke pot.
29:20
Speaker 1: I wrote about that in my book. Also, you know,
29:21
Speaker 1: when I was in high school early on in college,
29:23
Speaker 1: I smoke pot a number of times. And it, um,
29:26
Speaker 1: it's not something I hope my kids don't. Thankfully they're
29:29
Speaker 1: nine and twelve. I'm pretty sure they haven't gone there yet.
29:31
Speaker 1: But you know, it was I wasn't much older than
29:35
Speaker 1: they were when when I first tried it, and it's
29:37
Speaker 1: not something I don't think it's good for kids to do.
29:40
Speaker 1: But I think we can leave it to the states
29:42
Speaker 1: and let the states sort out if and when it
29:45
Speaker 1: should be allowed or if not. So what I'm hearing,
29:47
Speaker 1: Senator is we're not going to get one of these
29:50
Speaker 1: Elon Musk Joe Rogan moments where you pull a joint
29:53
Speaker 1: from off camera and start puffing on screen. We're not
29:56
Speaker 1: going to get that. Well, I will say this, if
29:59
Speaker 1: you remember when Bill Clinton was running for office and
30:02
Speaker 1: he said he smoked pot, but he didn't inhale. Yeah,
30:06
Speaker 1: I have to admit I was even then. I was
30:10
Speaker 1: cracking up, laughing, say thinking, so you're saying you didn't
30:13
Speaker 1: do it right, like if you gotta do it actually
30:15
Speaker 1: like I mean, don't screw it up. Like listen, I
30:19
Speaker 1: still smoke cigars. Now you don't. You don't inhale cigars.
30:21
Speaker 1: That's actually not how and you and I have smoked cigars,
30:24
Speaker 1: that's right. But uh and there they're one does not
30:27
Speaker 1: but but no, I will be not be lighting up
30:31
Speaker 1: a spliff in this this particular podcast. It's fair enough.
30:34
Speaker 1: You know you you're You've reminded me when you mentioned
30:37
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton. Those Democrats wasting things so fiscally irresponsible even
30:42
Speaker 1: when it comes down to something such as that much
30:45
Speaker 1: more to get to. But a last we're right of time, Senator.
30:47
Speaker 1: We will have to pick it up again next time.
30:50
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This
31:00
Speaker 1: episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to
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Speaker 1: you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action
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Speaker 1: committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across
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Speaker 1: the country. In twenty twenty two jobs, Freedom and Security
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Speaker 1: Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress
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Speaker 1: and help the Republican Party across the nation.