Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Ep. 13 - The Stakes of 2020
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The impeachment is over. Now the real political risk begins.
- 0:05Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict
- 0:14Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles. Impeachment is over. Finally.
- 0:21Speaker 1: Now you can get a good night's sleep. Now we
- 0:22Speaker 1: can get a good night's sleep. But actually we were
- 0:25Speaker 1: talking about this a little bit last episode. Impeachment was
- 0:29Speaker 1: always going to end the way it was going to end.
- 0:30Speaker 1: It was never going to end in the removal of
- 0:31Speaker 1: the president. In some ways, I wonder if impeachment was
- 0:35Speaker 1: kind of the safe period for conservatives and politics, and
- 0:38Speaker 1: actually now the real threat begins. We are told every
- 0:42Speaker 1: single election cycle this is the most important election of
- 0:45Speaker 1: our lifetimes. Now everything is about twenty twenty. I want
- 0:49Speaker 1: to know, from your vantage on the inside in the Senate,
- 0:53Speaker 1: what is really at stake in twenty twenty. Look, I
- 0:57Speaker 1: think it is an unbelievably consequential election and on a
- 1:00Speaker 1: lot of fronts. But let's step back, take just the
- 1:04Speaker 1: meta level first reward and punishment. Look back over the
- 1:11Speaker 1: last year, over the last three years, do you like
- 1:15Speaker 1: the behavior of the Democrats? No? Do you like the nuttiness?
- 1:21Speaker 1: Do you like the gallop to the left. Do you
- 1:24Speaker 1: like the abuse of the Department of Justice and the
- 1:26Speaker 1: FBI and targeting the president and attacking the president and
- 1:30Speaker 1: impeaching it for partisan purposes? Do you like the squad
- 1:33Speaker 1: and NAOC attacking Israel, embracing socialism and going nuts? If
- 1:37Speaker 1: you do well, depending on what happens in November, we'll
- 1:42Speaker 1: either get a lot more of it or a lot
- 1:43Speaker 1: less of it. What I mean, obviously they've they've run
- 1:47Speaker 1: far to the left. What could happen though, I mean,
- 1:50Speaker 1: just beyond more crazy AOC tweets and speeches. If the
- 1:56Speaker 1: Democrats are rewarded November, if they have a good election, Yeah,
- 2:01Speaker 1: everything we've seen now gets amplified, and he gets amplified tenfold.
- 2:06Speaker 1: Politicians are not complicated creatures. They react to incentives. If
- 2:10Speaker 1: something works, they do it again, they do more. Works again,
- 2:12Speaker 1: they do more of it. They do more of it.
- 2:13Speaker 1: And by the way, if it doesn't work, they stop
- 2:16Speaker 1: doing it. If they get punished. Look, it's a little
- 2:19Speaker 1: bit like when your dog takes a crap on the
- 2:22Speaker 1: on the sofa. If you whack him with the newspaper,
- 2:26Speaker 1: he'll stop doing that. Politicians need to be whacked with
- 2:29Speaker 1: newspapers more Um, I think that's I think that's an
- 2:33Speaker 1: issue that everybody could get behind. I'm all for it, um,
- 2:38Speaker 1: Except the problem is the newspapers work for the Democrats,
- 2:41Speaker 1: so they're not going to whack them. And we could
- 2:46Speaker 1: take a total digression and go Joe Peshy good fellows
- 2:49Speaker 1: and whacking politicians. But that's a really bad idea. We're
- 2:52Speaker 1: going to get banned from Twitter. It's actually something I
- 2:55Speaker 1: want to ask you about too, But okay, I interrupt.
- 2:59Speaker 1: Let me get an example. Why do you think it
- 3:03Speaker 1: was that Barack Obama was never impeached because John Bayner
- 3:07Speaker 1: refused to do it. Yeah, but why, I don't know why.
- 3:12Speaker 1: Because the Bill Clinton impeachment didn't go well. Huh. So
- 3:15Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's president, Republicans impeach him. They got all energized,
- 3:20Speaker 1: they bring the impeachment and what happens. Bill Clinton's approval
- 3:24Speaker 1: rating goes up and Republicans approval rating goes down. Bill
- 3:30Speaker 1: Clinton loves it because the American people say, look, this
- 3:33Speaker 1: guy's actually focusing on what we care about, and who
- 3:36Speaker 1: are these crazy Republicans that are focused on just a
- 3:39Speaker 1: partisan fight. Well, so fast forward to the Obama administration. Listen,
- 3:47Speaker 1: there were grassroots activists asking all the time, impeach Obama. Now,
- 3:53Speaker 1: I'll be clear, I never thought we should impeach Obama,
- 3:55Speaker 1: but I would get asked. And this is sure. I
- 3:57Speaker 1: ran in twenty twelve. I've never been elected to anything thing.
- 4:00Speaker 1: I mean, the first thing I've ever been elected in
- 4:02Speaker 1: my life is Senate. So I'm running. I'd be with
- 4:04Speaker 1: activists and they'd say, why don't we impeach Obama? And
- 4:07Speaker 1: you know, I'd usually say I wouldn't necessarily argue with them,
- 4:09Speaker 1: just because it's not a bad idea. It's not a
- 4:10Speaker 1: good idea to get the fight with, like grassroots activists
- 4:14Speaker 1: for you, But I just the answer I would usually
- 4:17Speaker 1: give is, you know what it's better. The better solution
- 4:22Speaker 1: is beat him at the ballot box. That rather than
- 4:25Speaker 1: use impeachment, trust democracy or trust the democratic republic we have.
- 4:31Speaker 1: We're not a pure democracy, but trust the democratic checks. Now,
- 4:34Speaker 1: So what that means, and by the way, every Republican
- 4:38Speaker 1: had accepted in Congress, it was received wisdom. Impeaching Clinton
- 4:42Speaker 1: was a disaster. We don't want to do it again.
- 4:44Speaker 1: That's why that's why they didn't go down that road.
- 4:49Speaker 1: If the Democrats win, doing this every bad behavior gets amplified.
- 4:54Speaker 1: So that's the broader meta level, but it's a very
- 4:57Speaker 1: real level. That's an important point because what you're cigar,
- 5:00Speaker 1: you will get, and not just a little worse, a
- 5:02Speaker 1: lot worse like the vindictive, personal, nasty, abuse my power.
- 5:08Speaker 1: You use everything for partisan gain, ripped the State of
- 5:14Speaker 1: the Union speech. Look fast forward to to where they
- 5:20Speaker 1: go if this gets rewarded. I think it's really scared.
- 5:26Speaker 1: The point that is so interesting here is that I
- 5:28Speaker 1: thought we had the final impeachment vote last week, the
- 5:31Speaker 1: important impeachment vote. But actually what you're saying is the
- 5:34Speaker 1: really important impeachment vote, the vote that is going to
- 5:37Speaker 1: tell us what future impeachments will look like, or what
- 5:40Speaker 1: future behavior from the party that impeach will look like.
- 5:42Speaker 1: That actually didn't happen last week. That's going to happen
- 5:45Speaker 1: this November. In November, listen, the Senate acquitted President Trump
- 5:52Speaker 1: about four thirty in the afternoon, five and a half
- 5:56Speaker 1: hours earlier to eleven am. Jerry Adler announces there they're
- 6:01Speaker 1: they're subpoenaing John Bolton. That's right, They're not done. This
- 6:06Speaker 1: has released the hounds. This is attack, This is used
- 6:08Speaker 1: everything we've got and and if they win in November,
- 6:13Speaker 1: all of that gets amplified. Now let's talk specifics. You're right,
- 6:16Speaker 1: every politician says is the most important, and listen, if
- 6:20Speaker 1: it's your rear end on the important to you, they're
- 6:25Speaker 1: actually not not necessarily lying when they say that, it's
- 6:28Speaker 1: just very specific. Yeah. Look, do you remember what Reagan
- 6:31Speaker 1: said against against Jimmy Carter where he's where he said,
- 6:34Speaker 1: uh uh, you know, recession is when your neighbor loses
- 6:39Speaker 1: his job, Depression is when you lose your job, and
- 6:42Speaker 1: recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job. That's right. Um,
- 6:45Speaker 1: I mean all of that is is very real if
- 6:48Speaker 1: it impacts you. But if you look at substantively, I mean,
- 6:52Speaker 1: think back to the state of the Union. Think think
- 6:54Speaker 1: back to the President reciting all the incredible gains in
- 6:58Speaker 1: the economy that that frankly, if you had predicted three
- 7:01Speaker 1: years ago, no one would have believed you, right that,
- 7:03Speaker 1: the media would have mocked you. That will never happen.
- 7:05Speaker 1: It's impossible. No, we can't bring manufacturing jobs back. We
- 7:08Speaker 1: can't see wages rise, we can't see Nobody hates taxes
- 7:13Speaker 1: more than me. I despise. When taxes go up, I
- 7:16Speaker 1: think it'll kill jobs. I am worried about all of that.
- 7:20Speaker 1: That's not keep me up at night kind of fear.
- 7:23Speaker 1: What actually has me worried about twenty twenty are the
- 7:28Speaker 1: big changes, the changes that are more radical than we've
- 7:31Speaker 1: seen before, the changes that won't be so easy to undo.
- 7:36Speaker 1: Is there a real risk of that kind of stuff?
- 7:38Speaker 1: So listen, I think the very first priority Democrats will
- 7:41Speaker 1: have is stay in power forever. Yeah, So I think
- 7:47Speaker 1: they will look at structural changes. How do they structurally
- 7:52Speaker 1: make it so they can never lose? Can they do that?
- 7:56Speaker 1: I mean they haven't done that before. They haven't, but
- 7:59Speaker 1: they rarely had the majorities and you mean majorities in House, Senate, presidency,
- 8:09Speaker 1: and the ability to force it through. They've always been
- 8:12Speaker 1: checks on it. So for example, all right, we wake
- 8:15Speaker 1: up January twenty twenty one, Ernie Sanders is president. Yeah,
- 8:20Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer's majority leader, Nancy Pelosius Speaker of the House.
- 8:26Speaker 1: I think one of the first things that happens is
- 8:28Speaker 1: they end the filibuster. So the philip you know, the
- 8:31Speaker 1: filibuster is one of these terms that everybody kind of
- 8:34Speaker 1: knows what it means. But what is the what is
- 8:37Speaker 1: the meaning of the filibuster? What has it meant for
- 8:39Speaker 1: American politicals? So look, historically, the filibuster meant unlimited debate.
- 8:44Speaker 1: It meant you could stand up and talk as long
- 8:46Speaker 1: as you want, what I did in twenty thirteen in Obamacare.
- 8:49Speaker 1: And when people think of filibuster, they they think of
- 8:52Speaker 1: Jimmy Stewart standing up and you know, get doing this
- 8:55Speaker 1: long long filibuster. What it means is a practical matter
- 9:00Speaker 1: though in the Senate, is that to take up any
- 9:03Speaker 1: legislation you need sixty votes. What it means is the
- 9:06Speaker 1: minority has a veto even in you're not controlling the Senate,
- 9:11Speaker 1: but you've got enough votes that you can slow things down. Right,
- 9:16Speaker 1: That's how the Senate is operated on legislation. It has
- 9:20Speaker 1: been a tool over and over again to just slow
- 9:22Speaker 1: things down. Yeah, what's changed? So when Obama was president
- 9:28Speaker 1: that there was a period. So there was a brief
- 9:31Speaker 1: period where they had a Democratic supermajority, they had sixty votes,
- 9:35Speaker 1: and that's when they took up Obamacare. That's when they
- 9:37Speaker 1: were ramming things through when they had sixty votes. And
- 9:40Speaker 1: then you remember Ted Kennedy died. Yeah, and that's sixtieth vote.
- 9:44Speaker 1: You remember who got elected a Republican in massachusetto Scott Brown,
- 9:49Speaker 1: And it was a national election because it was holy cow,
- 9:54Speaker 1: we got to stop the sixtieth the vote and it
- 9:57Speaker 1: was basically a referendum on Obamacare. And the people of
- 9:59Speaker 1: Basset choose had said, give us a Republican. When is
- 10:02Speaker 1: that last happen? Right? Right, because it just opens the
- 10:06Speaker 1: door that doesn't happen a lot that one party controls
- 10:09Speaker 1: absolutely everything, and when it does happen, they can get
- 10:13Speaker 1: through major transformational legislation like Obamacare. So when they fell
- 10:17Speaker 1: to fifty nine, there were some old bull Democrats who
- 10:22Speaker 1: wouldn't head the filibuster. It was just it was a
- 10:25Speaker 1: different Democratic Party in two thousand and nine than it
- 10:28Speaker 1: is in twenty twenty. Oh. Yeah, absolutely, you can see
- 10:31Speaker 1: that the Democratic caucus in the Senate, every one of
- 10:36Speaker 1: them woud vote to end the filibuster. By the way,
- 10:38Speaker 1: we saw them do that with Harry Reid when they
- 10:40Speaker 1: ended the filibuster on judges. This is what makes me
- 10:43Speaker 1: very nervous about it because for so long the filibuster
- 10:47Speaker 1: was sacred because whatever party had the majority knew that
- 10:51Speaker 1: eventually one day they'd be in the minority. So all right,
- 10:54Speaker 1: let's assume you're Chuck Schumer's political strategist. Yeah, and your
- 10:58Speaker 1: objective is stay in power forever. What do you want
- 11:00Speaker 1: to do? You want to number one, change the electorate.
- 11:04Speaker 1: You want to change who's voting. What's the easiest way
- 11:07Speaker 1: to do that? Illegal immigration, but not just illegal immigration.
- 11:12Speaker 1: Make everyone here illegally citizens. Yes, the estimates vary, eleven million,
- 11:17Speaker 1: twelve million. I've seen estimates as high as eighteen twenty
- 11:20Speaker 1: million people here illegally. No one really knows. But I
- 11:25Speaker 1: think right at the top of the priority list is
- 11:27Speaker 1: make as many illegal aliens as possible citizens and voters instantaneously,
- 11:33Speaker 1: because those those new voters are much more likely to
- 11:37Speaker 1: vote for I think they're convinced they will vote Democratic.
- 11:39Speaker 1: And by the way, that's not true with Hispanic voters generally.
- 11:42Speaker 1: I mean in Texas, I get over forty percent of
- 11:45Speaker 1: the Hispanic vote in Texas. Yeah, I did in twenty twelve,
- 11:48Speaker 1: I did in twenty eighteen. But those are legal Hispanic citizens.
- 11:53Speaker 1: Those are people who followed the rules. The Democrats have
- 11:56Speaker 1: gone all in on gambling that illegal aliens are going
- 12:00Speaker 1: to vote demos. So that's a big structural change, ending
- 12:03Speaker 1: the filibuster, and then through that, if they control everything,
- 12:06Speaker 1: you get amnesty for maybe tens of millions of people.
- 12:09Speaker 1: And think about the voting consequences where illegal aliens concentrated. Florida, Yeah,
- 12:14Speaker 1: Florida turns bright blue and never votes Republican again. Texas,
- 12:18Speaker 1: Texas becomes a Democratic state, North Carolina, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico.
- 12:25Speaker 1: If Republicans lose Texas, we're never becoming prisoners. Game over.
- 12:29Speaker 1: If they just that, Let's assume they do nothing else.
- 12:32Speaker 1: They enact the filibuster and they make twelve million illegal
- 12:35Speaker 1: alien citizens. Game over for US at the national level.
- 12:39Speaker 1: And you don't think Chuck Schumer and Bernie Sanders want
- 12:42Speaker 1: to do that, right of course. So let's talk about
- 12:44Speaker 1: the Senate. If they take the Senate, let's assume they
- 12:47Speaker 1: have fifty one fifty two Democratic senators I think high
- 12:51Speaker 1: on their list. Get more Democratic senators. How do you
- 12:54Speaker 1: get you're going to annex Greenland. They won't do that.
- 12:59Speaker 1: Trump will, mostly because they made fun of Trump for us.
- 13:01Speaker 1: I have to admit it was a very interesting idea.
- 13:04Speaker 1: But but you know what they can do. They can
- 13:07Speaker 1: make the District of Columbia state Washington d C Washington DC.
- 13:11Speaker 1: And by the way, Washington DC is like an eighty
- 13:14Speaker 1: five percent democratic city. You want a state guaranteed to
- 13:19Speaker 1: elect Democrats for all eternity, DC as a state would
- 13:23Speaker 1: be the most liberal state. They've proposed it before. Joe
- 13:25Speaker 1: Lieberman proposed it right before you left the Senate. And
- 13:28Speaker 1: so if you're Chuck Schumer, you make DC a state
- 13:31Speaker 1: and suddenly you get two brand new Democratic senators that
- 13:36Speaker 1: will never lose. Right Puerto Rico becoming a state now,
- 13:41Speaker 1: it's interesting. There's some debate. You get debate whether if
- 13:44Speaker 1: Puerto Rico is a state, would they elect Republicans, would
- 13:47Speaker 1: they elect Democrats. I don't know the answer to that,
- 13:49Speaker 1: but I can tell you that the Democratic Party thinks
- 13:51Speaker 1: they'd elect Democrats, thinks it would be a win for them.
- 13:53Speaker 1: So you could have a situation with some real probability
- 13:58Speaker 1: that you add four Democratic senators and then suddenly you're
- 14:03Speaker 1: trying to say, how do you get the Senate back?
- 14:06Speaker 1: And instead of being down fifty one forty nine, you're
- 14:08Speaker 1: down fifty six forty nine. Yeahty nine, don't I did?
- 14:13Speaker 1: No one told me, they'd be maths um. Okay. So
- 14:18Speaker 1: so not only that, Let's take a big priority of
- 14:23Speaker 1: Democrats right now. And I think one of the first
- 14:25Speaker 1: bills they would pass if they take control, which is
- 14:28Speaker 1: national instantaneous voter registration. No, no, that look that sounds
- 14:32Speaker 1: kind of boring, Okay, right right, So right now it's
- 14:34Speaker 1: a voter registration is done by the states, and you've
- 14:37Speaker 1: got to sign up state for local level, and there
- 14:40Speaker 1: are a lot of state and local levels that combat
- 14:41Speaker 1: voter fraud. Yeah, the Democrats want a federal takeover. They
- 14:45Speaker 1: want to put the states and local governments out of
- 14:47Speaker 1: the election business. Why and make everyone immediately an eligible voter,
- 14:54Speaker 1: because they don't it's the same reason they fight photo ID.
- 14:58Speaker 1: They don't want to see y d on voting because
- 15:03Speaker 1: it's harder to steal election. It. You want to talk
- 15:08Speaker 1: about structurally ensuring they stay in past. You know, we're
- 15:12Speaker 1: seeing them do this at the local level where I
- 15:15Speaker 1: am in California, where I am when I'm not in Washington,
- 15:18Speaker 1: they pass these laws, motor voter laws, so you get
- 15:21Speaker 1: instantaneous registration at the DMV. You even see ballot harvesting.
- 15:25Speaker 1: So this idea. Oh and By the way, I wouldn't
- 15:28Speaker 1: put it past them to have electronic voting, to have
- 15:31Speaker 1: number one a holiday, a mandated federal holiday on election
- 15:34Speaker 1: day and electronic voting, because you know, we've we've seen
- 15:38Speaker 1: how well that worked in Iowa. They'll have the same guy,
- 15:42Speaker 1: Robbie Luke who what a name? Who worked for missus Clinton.
- 15:47Speaker 1: He was he was Hillary Clinton, I guess her campaign manager,
- 15:50Speaker 1: and he was behind that app that completely botched the
- 15:53Speaker 1: Iowa caucus. So instead we'll just have the entire elections
- 15:57Speaker 1: run through an app. But don't worry. If it's not
- 15:59Speaker 1: democratic operatives running the app, it'll be big tech. Because
- 16:04Speaker 1: we can trust big tech to be in charge. They
- 16:06Speaker 1: would never censor. Conservatives have a political bias, and as
- 16:11Speaker 1: bad as they are now, yeah, in a democratic, in
- 16:15Speaker 1: a Bernie Sanders administration, they would. I am not exaggerating
- 16:23Speaker 1: when I say this podcast could very well be off
- 16:25Speaker 1: the air well because social media, these big tech companies,
- 16:30Speaker 1: they go after conservatives even when the Republicans have the Senate,
- 16:35Speaker 1: when you can grill them, drag them to the Capitol,
- 16:37Speaker 1: which I've done a bunch of which you have, in particular,
- 16:39Speaker 1: you've done a lot and when Republicans have the White House,
- 16:43Speaker 1: so you're saying, and the Department of Justice and the
- 16:45Speaker 1: Executive branch, so they're nervous. Look big Tech right now
- 16:48Speaker 1: doesn't want DJ to break them up under the antitrust laws. Yeah,
- 16:51Speaker 1: you get Bernie Sanders in power, they're going to come in.
- 16:54Speaker 1: Look a lot of the Democrats. When do you remember
- 16:56Speaker 1: when Mark Zuckerberg testified the Senate and they were like
- 16:58Speaker 1: forty five senators. It was the Commerce Committee and Judiciary Committee.
- 17:01Speaker 1: I was one of them that grilled Mark Zuckerberg. Just
- 17:04Speaker 1: about every senator grilldon both Democrats and Republicans. It was
- 17:07Speaker 1: actually a fascinating moment, but if you listened, it was
- 17:10Speaker 1: like two ships passing in the night, because what the
- 17:12Speaker 1: Democrats were saying was why the hell did you let
- 17:16Speaker 1: Donald Trump win? So they weren't say. What the Republicans
- 17:19Speaker 1: were saying is why are you censoring people? What the
- 17:21Speaker 1: Democrats were saying as when Republicans were kind of meandering
- 17:24Speaker 1: around like, so what's this internet thinging? Again? As it was,
- 17:31Speaker 1: it was not the most effective cross examination in the
- 17:34Speaker 1: history of the Senate, but the Democrats were calling for
- 17:37Speaker 1: more censorship that they were saying, you let these crazy
- 17:41Speaker 1: conservatives speak and look what happened, and they'll put it
- 17:44Speaker 1: in the frame of let's stop lying, and so they'll
- 17:48Speaker 1: they'll tell big tech, big tech's already going down this road,
- 17:51Speaker 1: but but imagine it accelerated with the federal government. They
- 17:54Speaker 1: define as a lie anything they disagree with right Medicare
- 17:59Speaker 1: for all is is bad. That's a lie where we're
- 18:01Speaker 1: just going to say you can't you can't lie, and
- 18:03Speaker 1: that means you can't disagree. Dievery read nineteen eighty four.
- 18:08Speaker 1: I did, yeah, George, orwell, so I actually read nineteen
- 18:11Speaker 1: eighty four. In nineteen eighty four, I was in eighth grade.
- 18:16Speaker 1: I actually thought it was totally cool. Mister Waugh was
- 18:18Speaker 1: our teacher. He assigned nineteen eighty four. In nineteen eighty four,
- 18:21Speaker 1: We're all like, all right, that's that's kind of cool.
- 18:23Speaker 1: But but you remember the propaganda. We're at war with Eurasia.
- 18:26Speaker 1: We've always been at war with Eurasia. This is the
- 18:28Speaker 1: totalitarian government. They're always just saying we're at war with
- 18:32Speaker 1: your Asia. We've always But but then they switch it,
- 18:34Speaker 1: they switch it to it, and and suddenly what what
- 18:37Speaker 1: was said in the past is no longer operative, right,
- 18:40Speaker 1: Big tech has that kind of power. They control information,
- 18:44Speaker 1: They disappear you and and and then throw in our
- 18:50Speaker 1: economic policies, not just repealing the tax cuts, massive new taxes,
- 18:55Speaker 1: I mean crushing new taxes, regulatory Who do you think
- 19:05Speaker 1: who do you think will be epa administrator? I dread
- 19:11Speaker 1: your answer. How about AOC? Oh? No? Oh no, And
- 19:17Speaker 1: I'm not exaggerating it. If you have a President Sanders
- 19:21Speaker 1: or a President Warren, why wouldn't they put someone like
- 19:25Speaker 1: Alexandro Caja Cortez in So I when I asked you
- 19:29Speaker 1: what was at stake here? I was kind of hoping
- 19:31Speaker 1: you would just tell me they're going to raise your taxes.
- 19:33Speaker 1: And I'm gonna hate that, but I'll get over it.
- 19:35Speaker 1: This is sufficiently terrifying that before all of this happens
- 19:39Speaker 1: and they shut down everybody who writes into the mail bag.
- 19:42Speaker 1: Attorney General Kamala here, No, I don't, I can't hear anymore.
- 19:46Speaker 1: Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama, No, you don't mean that.
- 19:49Speaker 1: And by the way, not just one. Look, the Democrats
- 19:52Speaker 1: are talking about packing the Supreme Court, in other words,
- 19:55Speaker 1: expanding it from nine the number they're talking about. It's
- 19:57Speaker 1: to fifteen justices, so six brand new. I am terrified.
- 20:02Speaker 1: At the end of all, I am the thought of
- 20:05Speaker 1: Supreme Court Justice Barack Obama alone would be enough. So
- 20:08Speaker 1: before all of this happens, and before we have to go,
- 20:12Speaker 1: I want to get to a mail back question, before
- 20:14Speaker 1: all of our listeners are censored from Bill, what is
- 20:18Speaker 1: the most important thing for you to accomplish in the
- 20:20Speaker 1: Senate after all of this impeachment stuff blows over. Let's
- 20:26Speaker 1: take two phases between now an election day. We're going
- 20:29Speaker 1: to confirm judges, keep confirming good effective judge, pretty good.
- 20:34Speaker 1: And the most important thing I'll do is is defend
- 20:37Speaker 1: the principles of liberty. It's why we're doing this podcast.
- 20:39Speaker 1: It's why I'm trying to engage. Is take on socialism,
- 20:43Speaker 1: fight back on the forces that are trying to strip
- 20:45Speaker 1: our liberty, defend free enterprise, and defend the Constitution. More broadly,
- 20:51Speaker 1: in terms of policy, the legislation I'm most proud of
- 20:55Speaker 1: having passed is legislation that I introduced part of the
- 20:59Speaker 1: tax cut bill that expanded school choice. I think school
- 21:03Speaker 1: choice it is the most important civil rights issue facing
- 21:07Speaker 1: America now. For a lot of people, it's their only
- 21:09Speaker 1: ticket out of poverty. And you know, President Trump during
- 21:12Speaker 1: the State of the Union called on Congress to pass
- 21:14Speaker 1: my school choice legislation. That it's a hundred billion dollars
- 21:18Speaker 1: in federal tax credits for businesses and for individuals that
- 21:24Speaker 1: contribute to scholarship granting organizations that are giving scholarships to
- 21:28Speaker 1: kids K through twelve and also to adults in vocational training.
- 21:32Speaker 1: One hundred billion dollars. You want to talk about transformational, Yeah,
- 21:37Speaker 1: education is a gateway and if we empower kids to
- 21:41Speaker 1: choose the school that's best for them, that that has
- 21:45Speaker 1: the ability to change the world. But unfortunately, now the
- 21:48Speaker 1: Democrats have the House, the set that Republicans have the Senate,
- 21:50Speaker 1: so there's not going to be a lot of legislating.
- 21:52Speaker 1: Last question, that won't happen between now an election day.
- 21:55Speaker 1: But if we have a good, good election in twenty twenty,
- 21:58Speaker 1: I think it can and there's a chance we could
- 22:00Speaker 1: get I mean, and that I guess that gets to
- 22:01Speaker 1: the whole point of the show is there is so
- 22:03Speaker 1: much at stake here. Last question is just a personal
- 22:06Speaker 1: question from Alex. Does it bother you that the impeachment
- 22:11Speaker 1: vote could have been taken three minutes after the start
- 22:15Speaker 1: of all of this, and it would have produced the
- 22:16Speaker 1: same results. You know, it actually doesn't. There was a
- 22:22Speaker 1: lot of debate early on and online about should we
- 22:25Speaker 1: do a motion to dismiss at the outset? Yeah, and
- 22:29Speaker 1: I thought that was an ill advised strategy. Why a
- 22:32Speaker 1: couple of reasons. Number One, if we'd done a motion
- 22:35Speaker 1: to dismiss at the outset, I think we probably would
- 22:37Speaker 1: have lost it. I think some of the wobbly Republicans
- 22:41Speaker 1: that we had to work to get they weren't there
- 22:44Speaker 1: at the outset of this. We had to get them.
- 22:46Speaker 1: They wanted the process to play out. But number two,
- 22:50Speaker 1: we all saw that the House was a kangaroo court. Yeah.
- 22:54Speaker 1: I don't think it actually would have served the constitution
- 22:57Speaker 1: or the country for the Senate to be seen as
- 23:00Speaker 1: a kangaroo cord or in fact be one. And so
- 23:04Speaker 1: just throwing it out on day one, I think we
- 23:08Speaker 1: had a responsibility to say we're going to do a
- 23:10Speaker 1: fair trial. The House is voted that constitutionally is a
- 23:14Speaker 1: big deal. Even if you did it abusively, it's a
- 23:16Speaker 1: big deal when the House votes out articles of impeachment.
- 23:20Speaker 1: We're gonna have a fair trial. We're going to hear
- 23:21Speaker 1: from both sides. You can present your case, we will
- 23:23Speaker 1: listen to your case, and we're going to follow the law.
- 23:26Speaker 1: I think that was the right way to do it.
- 23:27Speaker 1: And the other reason why I like it just personally
- 23:30Speaker 1: is because by dragging it out, it actually was very instructive.
- 23:34Speaker 1: I guess that's the whole point of this podcast was
- 23:36Speaker 1: to be instructive on what is really happening, what impeachment means,
- 23:39Speaker 1: how it works. Unfortunately, this episode of the podcast has
- 23:43Speaker 1: instructed me of all the many horrors that could befall
- 23:46Speaker 1: us after November. So I'm probably not going to sleep
- 23:50Speaker 1: between now and our next podcast. But it's a lot
- 23:53Speaker 1: to think on and it's important to know what the
- 23:55Speaker 1: stakes really are. That's all the time we have. I'm
- 23:57Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz the m
- 24:02Speaker 1: Fort