Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Trump Victory on Deporting Students, Harvard Loses Serious Funding plus EPA Chief Zeldin on CA Wildfire Clean Up Week In Review

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Trump Victory on Deporting Students, Harvard Loses Serious Funding plus EPA Chief Zeldin on CA Wildfire Clean Up Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Center Ted Cruz, the week
0:03
Speaker 1: in Review, Ben Ferguson with you, and here are some
0:06
Speaker 1: of the big stories that you may have missed that
0:07
Speaker 1: we talked about this week. First up, a major victory
0:11
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump by immigration judge that has now said
0:14
Speaker 1: yes he can deport foreign students who come to America
0:18
Speaker 1: and advocate violence against Jews. And up next, Harvard has
0:24
Speaker 1: been receiving billions of dollars from US the taxpayers. Well,
0:28
Speaker 1: the Trump administration is now saying we're cutting off a
0:31
Speaker 1: lot of that money. I'll give you the details why
0:33
Speaker 1: as well. And finally, the EPA administrator Lee Zelden joined
0:37
Speaker 1: us to talk about the California wildfire cleanup that Trump
0:41
Speaker 1: inherited and how the Trump administration was able to get
0:44
Speaker 1: it done quickly. It's the weekend review and it starts
0:48
Speaker 1: right now. I want to move to this other big
0:50
Speaker 1: issue also that we mentioned earlier, and it was a
0:54
Speaker 1: massive victory for the Trump administration when it came to
0:57
Speaker 1: an immigration judge doing a major ruling on deporting students
1:03
Speaker 1: that are advocating for the death and destruction of students
1:06
Speaker 1: on campus that by the way, are Jewish, are advocating
1:09
Speaker 1: their support for terrorists organizations. And this all comes out
1:14
Speaker 1: of Columbia University, where it has become a major point
1:18
Speaker 1: of all, right, who's going to win this? Is the
1:20
Speaker 1: Trump administration going to win this or are the radicals
1:23
Speaker 1: on the left going to win? And it was a
1:24
Speaker 1: big win for Donald Trump this week.
1:26
Speaker 2: Well it was a win. I don't know that it
1:28
Speaker 2: was a massive victory because it's clearly right under the law.
1:32
Speaker 2: So it was a win that was going to happen,
1:34
Speaker 2: but I'm glad it did. And so listen, one of
1:37
Speaker 2: the things that President Trump is doing that is exactly
1:40
Speaker 2: right is the Trump administration is deporting those who engage
1:46
Speaker 2: in anti Israel, anti American protests who are foreign students,
1:50
Speaker 2: who are on student visas, who are non American citizens.
1:53
Speaker 2: You don't have an entitlement to be here. And look,
1:56
Speaker 2: we talked about during the Biden administration when these viciously
2:00
Speaker 2: how Israel anti Semitic protests were going on, that the
2:03
Speaker 2: Biden administration could do something about it, but they didn't
2:06
Speaker 2: want to because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Chuck Schumer,
2:09
Speaker 2: they agree with the pro Hamas protesters, they agree with
2:13
Speaker 2: the radicals, and so you didn't see the Department of
2:16
Speaker 2: Justice investigating them. You didn't see them following the money.
2:19
Speaker 2: You didn't see them trying to do anything really to
2:23
Speaker 2: protect the Jewish students on campus who were being targeted
2:26
Speaker 2: for harassment and threats of violence. Well, you and I,
2:30
Speaker 2: in fact, one of the very first pods we did
2:32
Speaker 2: in the new administration, as we interviewed Pam Bondy at
2:35
Speaker 2: SEAPAC and in that podcast with with then Attorney General
2:40
Speaker 2: Bondi right after she got confirmed, she made clear then
2:44
Speaker 2: they're gonna go after these radicals. And I will say
2:48
Speaker 2: immigration law gives considerable, considerable flexibility to the administration to
2:56
Speaker 2: decide who who that is here on a permissive visa
3:01
Speaker 2: can be sent home. And so in this case, you
3:04
Speaker 2: had Mahmoud Khalil, who was a Columbia anti Israel protester,
3:08
Speaker 2: who who the administration is in the process of deporting,
3:11
Speaker 2: and and he is challenging that in court and an
3:15
Speaker 2: immigration judge ruled that he can be deported due to
3:20
Speaker 2: his involvement in last year's pro Haamas protests at Columbia.
3:24
Speaker 2: And this is a judge, Judge Jamie Corman's comans rather
3:28
Speaker 2: uh and and he said said the government had met
3:32
Speaker 2: its its burden of proof. I think that's that's clearly right.
3:37
Speaker 2: And and the Department of Homeland Security laid out how
3:40
Speaker 2: Khalil misrepresented himself on his green card application, and in particular,
3:45
Speaker 2: he was not upfront about his involvement with organizations he's
3:50
Speaker 2: involved with. He he willfully failed to disclose his employment
3:55
Speaker 2: with the Syrian office in the British Embassy in Beirut
3:59
Speaker 2: when he applied for permanent US residency uh And what
4:04
Speaker 2: what what the federal government argued is that made him
4:07
Speaker 2: inadmissible at the time he was given his green card
4:11
Speaker 2: because of quote fraud or wilful misrepresentation of material fact.
4:16
Speaker 2: He also failed to disclose his work for UNRA uh
4:21
Speaker 2: And And you know UNRA we've talked about before, is
4:24
Speaker 2: the UN agency that that has literally been in bed
4:27
Speaker 2: with AMAS. You had multiple A Moss terrorists working at
4:30
Speaker 2: on Rah. UNRA has given significant material aid hamas terrorists.
4:37
Speaker 2: And and the court ruled that that look that that
4:42
Speaker 2: is is ample grounds to deport Uh, to deport him.
4:47
Speaker 2: I think that ruling is is clearly right. And if
4:53
Speaker 2: you looked at at at Khalil. You looked at his writings.
4:55
Speaker 2: This is someone who is viciously anti Israel and anti America.
5:00
Speaker 2: And in fact he's using the deportation to just rail
5:04
Speaker 2: against America and what a hostile environment it is. And
5:09
Speaker 2: in fact Khalil's argument, here's something he wrote. He wrote
5:17
Speaker 2: an op ed in Columbia, you know, attacking how dare
5:19
Speaker 2: you to port me? And he says something. He accuses
5:25
Speaker 2: the Columbia administrators of manufacturing quote public hysteria about anti
5:31
Speaker 2: Semitism without once mentioning the tens of thousands of Palestinians
5:36
Speaker 2: murdered under bombs made of your dollars. So understand, this
5:41
Speaker 2: guy's complaint is that the Columbia administrators stood too strongly
5:47
Speaker 2: against anti Semitism. They let their entire campus get taken over,
5:50
Speaker 2: that they let Jewish students be terrorized, they let campus
5:53
Speaker 2: buildings be taken over. They were weak and and effective,
5:57
Speaker 2: which is why the president of Columbia had to step down.
6:00
Speaker 2: And yet this guy's claim is Nope, no, they were
6:03
Speaker 2: too strong and against anti Semitism. They should have been
6:07
Speaker 2: effectively marching alongside me in favor of Hamas. This ruling
6:11
Speaker 2: is clearly right I'm glad it came down. There are
6:13
Speaker 2: going to be more rulings like this. If you are.
6:16
Speaker 1: Here, this will have precedent, right like this is.
6:19
Speaker 2: Going to be no no. This is a ruling of
6:22
Speaker 2: an immigration judge in this case. So it doesn't resolve
6:26
Speaker 2: the issue across the country, but the immigration law is
6:31
Speaker 2: quite clear that that. Look, Khalil's case was harder because
6:37
Speaker 2: he was a legal permanent resident. He has a green card,
6:39
Speaker 2: and legal permanent residents have greater legal protections than just
6:43
Speaker 2: somebody under student visa. Somebody under a student visa, they
6:46
Speaker 2: can have their visa revoked and sent back. It is
6:50
Speaker 2: not a high threshold to do that. To revoke a
6:53
Speaker 2: green card is a higher threshold. And so the ruling
6:56
Speaker 2: here is well that the Department Homeland Security gave evidence
7:00
Speaker 2: that he had lied when getting his green card and
7:03
Speaker 2: that was basis for deportation. And so that I think
7:06
Speaker 2: that's the right ruling here. It's a good ruling, and
7:09
Speaker 2: I think you're gonna see Listen, let me say to
7:12
Speaker 2: any anti American radicals who've come in on student visas,
7:17
Speaker 2: you are not welcome in America. And if you are
7:21
Speaker 2: going to use our hospitality to attack and threaten and
7:25
Speaker 2: harass fellow students. If you're going to use our hospitality
7:28
Speaker 2: to attack America, get the hell out and and we're
7:32
Speaker 2: going to help you get the hell out. And that
7:34
Speaker 2: is one of the best things that Trump administration is
7:37
Speaker 2: doing right now.
7:38
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
7:40
Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
7:43
Speaker 1: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two, which
7:47
Speaker 1: brings us to Harvard, and Trump has said we are
7:51
Speaker 1: freezing the funding going to Harvard. They have slashed over
7:55
Speaker 1: two point two billion in funding to Harvard after the
7:58
Speaker 1: school is defied federal law, and the White House says,
8:02
Speaker 1: we're not playing around. A lot of Americans, by the way,
8:05
Speaker 1: may not realize that two point two in fact, a
8:08
Speaker 1: lot more than that is going to Harvard of your
8:11
Speaker 1: tax dollurs.
8:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, Harvard gets roughly nine billion dollars in federal taxpayer dollars,
8:16
Speaker 2: so it gets an enormous amount. Now, it's a huge
8:19
Speaker 2: research institution, and it does some good research. It does
8:21
Speaker 2: medical research and scientific research, and some of that researches
8:24
Speaker 2: is valuable. But what the Trump administration is announced the
8:28
Speaker 2: Joint Task Force on combating anti semitism. Has announced that
8:32
Speaker 2: it's freezing over two billion dollars in multi year grants
8:36
Speaker 2: and contracts to Harvard. And that was following the school's
8:40
Speaker 2: president putting out a statement saying it would not comply
8:43
Speaker 2: with the Trump administration's demands on anti semitism. And I
8:49
Speaker 2: got to say, this is a battle that that Harvard
8:53
Speaker 2: and a lot of academic institutions are putting out statements
8:56
Speaker 2: in support of Harvard. So brave, so brave. And I
8:58
Speaker 2: will say most other institutions, when the Trump administration has
9:01
Speaker 2: threatened their funding, they've caved, and they've caved very quickly.
9:05
Speaker 2: But but the other institutions are happy to applaud Harvard
9:08
Speaker 2: and say, yes, yes, yes, lose your funds. You're you're
9:10
Speaker 2: so brave.
9:11
Speaker 3: Uh.
9:11
Speaker 2: And And what is striking is that Democrats, Barack Obama,
9:16
Speaker 2: the Democrat governor Massachusetts, are all lining up behind Harvard.
9:19
Speaker 2: And and and there is a reason when you look
9:22
Speaker 2: at the core basis of the Democrat Party.
9:25
Speaker 3: Uh.
9:26
Speaker 2: You know, there was a time in a prior generation
9:28
Speaker 2: when the Democrat Party was considered a blue collar party,
9:31
Speaker 2: and in the age of FDR, it was a party
9:33
Speaker 2: of union members and working class uh and and and
9:37
Speaker 2: In fact, one of the reasons that that FDR was
9:40
Speaker 2: was treated with contempt is because he was a very
9:42
Speaker 2: wealthy person, as many Democrats are. But but he was
9:46
Speaker 2: considered a quote traitor to his class because he was
9:48
Speaker 2: a rich man who became a historic Democrat leader. Well,
9:53
Speaker 2: that Democrat Party doesn't exist anymore. The Democrat Party no
9:57
Speaker 2: longer cares about the blue collar and in fact, they
9:59
Speaker 2: routinely to de stroy blue collar jobs. Today's Democrat Party
10:03
Speaker 2: is a party of coastal elites and and it is
10:05
Speaker 2: a party that is comprised of big universities and and
10:09
Speaker 2: and big business and big Tech and big Hollywood, all
10:15
Speaker 2: of whom have overlapping problems. All of them are are
10:17
Speaker 2: in bed with China and and and all of them
10:21
Speaker 2: have been taken over by by radical leftism, by cultural Marxism.
10:26
Speaker 2: As you know. The most recent book I wrote is
10:28
Speaker 2: entitled Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America, And
10:32
Speaker 2: each chapter breaks down a different major institution that's been
10:36
Speaker 2: captured by the radical left. The first chapter is entitled
10:40
Speaker 2: Universities the wuhan Lab of the Woke virus, and and
10:45
Speaker 2: and what I argue is that it is universities and
10:48
Speaker 2: sadly my alma mater, Harvard, where the woke virus was
10:53
Speaker 2: first created in a lab, and then it mutated and spread,
10:57
Speaker 2: and it spread throughout just about every other major institution
11:01
Speaker 2: in this country. And so Harvard has been the locusts
11:04
Speaker 2: of much of the radical leftism and cultural Marxism that
11:09
Speaker 2: has done enormous damage to our institutions. And Harvard is
11:13
Speaker 2: digging in, and they're claiming that they're digging in in
11:17
Speaker 2: defense of free speech. But what they're really digging in
11:20
Speaker 2: on is they don't want to change their policies Number one,
11:25
Speaker 2: that discriminate on race. They love discriminating on race, they
11:28
Speaker 2: love dei that they love putting race front and center,
11:32
Speaker 2: which by the way, is directly contrary to federal civil
11:34
Speaker 2: rights law. And they also want to continue admitting radical
11:39
Speaker 2: anti Semites. They want to continue looking the other way
11:41
Speaker 2: at Prohamas protesters who threaten Jewish students, who threaten violence,
11:46
Speaker 2: who threaten intimidation, who call for genocide, And they want
11:50
Speaker 2: to continue admitting and promoting anti American radicals. And that
11:54
Speaker 2: includes both students and faculty. And so when the administration
11:58
Speaker 2: put a series of demands in place that Harvard said, No.
12:03
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, Harvard thinks they want this fight.
12:06
Speaker 2: In my opinion, the Trump administration is eager for this
12:11
Speaker 2: fight with Harvard, and you could not ask Harvard has
12:13
Speaker 2: an endowment of over fifty billion dollars. And you know,
12:17
Speaker 2: one of my favorite responses to that, to Harvard's supposed
12:22
Speaker 2: stance on principle where they talked about standing for the
12:25
Speaker 2: First Amendment is Hillsdale College, which is a great college.
12:30
Speaker 2: It is a conservative college, a free market college. But
12:34
Speaker 2: one of the things they do is they don't take
12:36
Speaker 2: federal money. And Hillsdale actually twigted, well, you can say
12:38
Speaker 2: anything you like, just don't take federal money. And oddly enough,
12:42
Speaker 2: Harvard doesn't want to do that. They want the taxpayers
12:44
Speaker 2: to fund them, but they want to continue to be
12:47
Speaker 2: embracing racism and vitriolic anti American sentiment while at the
12:53
Speaker 2: same time being funded by American taxpayers.
12:57
Speaker 1: So when you look at this fight, I do think
13:00
Speaker 1: the very interesting parts of all of this that we're
13:02
Speaker 1: talking about is now Americans are really waking up and
13:05
Speaker 1: realizing like where their money has been going, how much
13:08
Speaker 1: of it is going, And you're right. There's some of
13:10
Speaker 1: this as research, and that's the thing we can be
13:12
Speaker 1: proud of, and that's a good thing. But a lot
13:14
Speaker 1: of this is going to indoctrinating kids with radical leftist ideals.
13:19
Speaker 1: And that's part of the reason why I think they
13:21
Speaker 1: need this money, right, They want the money for that reason.
13:24
Speaker 1: They've been doing a great job of doing that for
13:26
Speaker 1: the last several decades. So if the money does dry
13:29
Speaker 1: up at places like Harvard and then we start to
13:32
Speaker 1: see more questions being asked about other money, not only
13:35
Speaker 1: could this change universities in a positive way, I think
13:38
Speaker 1: for free speech and not having one set of views
13:41
Speaker 1: that are indoctrinated, but it could also say the taxpayers
13:45
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of money because it's not
13:46
Speaker 1: just Harvard that's getting cash.
13:49
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, but Harvard is the perfect test subject. And
13:52
Speaker 2: our universities right now have become indoctrination labs. They've become
13:57
Speaker 2: places that enforce rigid orthodox and if you say something
14:01
Speaker 2: that is contrary to the radical leftist view, you risk
14:05
Speaker 2: being disciplined, you risk being having your grades, and you
14:09
Speaker 2: also risk just not being admitted. And look, some of
14:12
Speaker 2: the question comes down to a very simple what is
14:16
Speaker 2: it that the administration was requesting. Because if the administration
14:21
Speaker 2: was demanding, Harvard must teach in every class that Donald
14:24
Speaker 2: Trump is the greatest president who have ever lived. I
14:27
Speaker 2: would agree with Harvard that no university could give in
14:30
Speaker 2: to a government demand about a specific position like that,
14:35
Speaker 2: particularly if it's one they disagree with. But that's not
14:37
Speaker 2: what the Trump administration said. And I have in front
14:40
Speaker 2: of me the letter that the Trump administration said. It's
14:44
Speaker 2: five pages. I'm not going to read it all, but
14:45
Speaker 2: I'm going to read some of the portions of it.
14:48
Speaker 2: So it is addressed both to Alan Garber, who is
14:52
Speaker 2: the president of Harvard University, and Penny Prisker, who is
14:55
Speaker 2: the lead member of the Harvard Corporation. Penny Pritzker, by
14:58
Speaker 2: the way, was a cabinet member under Barack Obama. And
15:00
Speaker 2: the Harvard Corporation runs all of Harvard. And it's this
15:04
Speaker 2: privately held corporation of all Democrats that run Harvard as
15:08
Speaker 2: this left wing bastion. Here's how the letter begins, Dear
15:12
Speaker 2: doctor Garber, the United States has invested in Harvard University's
15:16
Speaker 2: operation because of the value to the country of scholarly
15:18
Speaker 2: discovery and academic excellence. But an investment is not an entitlement.
15:24
Speaker 2: It depends on Harvard upholding federal civil rights law, and
15:27
Speaker 2: it only makes sense if Harvard fosters the kind of
15:29
Speaker 2: environment that produces intellectual creativity and scholarly rigor, both of
15:34
Speaker 2: which are antithetical to ideological capture. Harvard has in recent
15:39
Speaker 2: years failed to live up to both the intellectual and
15:42
Speaker 2: civil rights conditions that justify federal investment, but we appreciate
15:46
Speaker 2: your expression of commitment to repairing those failures and welcome
15:49
Speaker 2: your collaboration in restoring the university to its promise. We
15:53
Speaker 2: therefore present the below provisions as the basis for an
15:56
Speaker 2: agreement in principle that will maintain Harvard's financial relationship with
15:59
Speaker 2: the government. Here's the first governance and leadership reforms. By
16:06
Speaker 2: August twenty twenty five, Harvard must make meaningful governance reform
16:10
Speaker 2: and restructuring to make possible major change consistent with this letter,
16:15
Speaker 2: including fostering clear lines of authority and accountability. Apparently that
16:19
Speaker 2: was objectionable, empowering tenured professors and senior leadership, and from
16:24
Speaker 2: among the tenured professorate and senior leadership, exclusively those most
16:29
Speaker 2: devoted to the scholarly mission of the university and committed
16:32
Speaker 2: to the changes indicated in this letter. Reducing the power
16:36
Speaker 2: held by students and untenured faculty, reducing the power held
16:40
Speaker 2: by faculty, whether tenured or untenured, at administrators more committed
16:45
Speaker 2: to activism than scholarship. Now, again, this is something Harvard
16:49
Speaker 2: found unacceptable. We're not willing to focus on scholarship instead
16:53
Speaker 2: of activism. Note that's a violation of what we want
16:56
Speaker 2: to do. And reducing forms of governance bloat, duplication, or
17:00
Speaker 2: decentralization that interfere with the possibility the reforms indicating this letter.
17:05
Speaker 2: So that's the first one. Apparently something was objectionable about that.
17:09
Speaker 2: What's the next one? Merit based hiring reform. By August
17:14
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, the university must adopt and implement merit
17:17
Speaker 2: based hiring policies and ceased all preferences based on race, color, religion, sex,
17:22
Speaker 2: or national origin throughout its hiring, promotion, compensation, and related
17:26
Speaker 2: practices among faculty, staff, and leadership. Now, mind you, that
17:30
Speaker 2: is existing federal civil rights law. You cannot discriminate against
17:34
Speaker 2: based on race, and yet for Harvard that is is outrageous.
17:40
Speaker 2: Of course, they want to discriminate based on race. It's
17:43
Speaker 2: an ideological commitment. What's the next one? Merit based admissions reform?
17:47
Speaker 2: By August twenty twenty five, the university must adopt and
17:50
Speaker 2: implement merit based admission policies and ceased all preferences based
17:54
Speaker 2: on race, color, national origin, or proxies thereof, throughout its
17:58
Speaker 2: undergraduate program, each graduate program, individual, each of its professional schools,
18:02
Speaker 2: and other programs. Again, the idea of actually admitting students
18:06
Speaker 2: based on merit rather than discriminating based on race, which
18:09
Speaker 2: minds you? Discriminating based on race as illegal under federal
18:12
Speaker 2: civil rights law. To Harvard is anathema. What's the next one?
18:18
Speaker 2: International admissions reform? By August twenty twenty five, the university
18:22
Speaker 2: must reform its recruitment, screening, and admission of international students
18:27
Speaker 2: to prevent admitting students hostile to the American values and
18:33
Speaker 2: institutions inscribed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence,
18:38
Speaker 2: including students supportive of terrorism or anti Semitism. Again, apparently,
18:45
Speaker 2: that is outrageous and unacceptable. The next one viewpoint, diversity
18:50
Speaker 2: and admission and hiring. By August twenty twenty five, the
18:53
Speaker 2: university shall commission an external party which will satisfy the
18:58
Speaker 2: federal government as to its competence and good faith to
19:00
Speaker 2: audit the student body, faculty, staff, and leadership for viewpoint diversity,
19:06
Speaker 2: such that each department, field, or teaching unit must be
19:09
Speaker 2: individually viewpoint diverse. Now, notably, they're not saying higher conservatives.
19:13
Speaker 2: They're not saying higher Trump supporters. They're saying, you cannot
19:17
Speaker 2: have a faculty that is universally orthodox and indoctrinating that
19:23
Speaker 2: all have the same view that.
19:25
Speaker 3: You know, the.
19:26
Speaker 2: Left loves to prattle on about diversity as our strength,
19:29
Speaker 2: and by diversity they mean we must all be leftist
19:32
Speaker 2: to believe the same thing, but saith though with different
19:35
Speaker 2: skin colors. Now, I actually think diversity means having different ideas,
19:40
Speaker 2: confronting ideas you disagree with. Look I go through these
19:45
Speaker 2: to give an example. I think each of those demands
19:47
Speaker 2: are very reasonable. They're saying, comply with federal law. Be
19:51
Speaker 2: an institution that actually does what you say, what you
19:54
Speaker 2: claim to be doing. And yet Harvard is outraged. How
19:59
Speaker 2: dare you hold us to the terms of federal law.
20:03
Speaker 2: We cannot comply with.
20:05
Speaker 1: That as before, If you want to hear the rest
20:07
Speaker 1: of this conversation on this topic. You can go back
20:10
Speaker 1: and now the podcast from earlier this week to hear
20:13
Speaker 1: the entire thing. I want to get back to the
20:16
Speaker 1: big story number three of the week. You may have missed.
20:19
Speaker 2: You told a story earlier today about the EPA's involvement
20:23
Speaker 2: in cleaning up the California wildfires, and it's a good
20:26
Speaker 2: example of how it impacts people's lives. Like you wouldn't
20:29
Speaker 2: necessarily think the EPA is involved in dealing with wildfires,
20:32
Speaker 2: but you guys are deeply involved.
20:34
Speaker 4: As soon as the wildfires hit Los Angeles, over thirteen
20:37
Speaker 4: thousand properties destroyed, President Trump comes into office. He inherits
20:41
Speaker 4: it happened a few days before he got there. He
20:43
Speaker 4: signs an executive order. He says, EPA, you have thirty
20:47
Speaker 4: days to do your entire Phase one hazardous material removal
20:52
Speaker 4: before Phase two starts, which is the Army Corps of
20:54
Speaker 4: Engineers doing their debris removal.
20:56
Speaker 2: And like with the wildfires, you have people's homes that
20:58
Speaker 2: burn to the ground. There's a lot of toxic sludge.
21:01
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a mess. It's dangerous. Like fires produce
21:04
Speaker 2: bad stuff, and you guys had to figure out how
21:06
Speaker 2: to clean it up, but do it in thirty days?
21:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
21:09
Speaker 4: First the response was that's impossible. This is going to
21:12
Speaker 4: take you until the summer at best. It's going to
21:15
Speaker 4: take a few months for sure. The lithium ion batteries
21:18
Speaker 4: were all over this particular area. We got it done
21:21
Speaker 4: in less than thirty days after ramping up to fifteen
21:24
Speaker 4: hundred workers. Proud of the effort from EPA. We do
21:27
Speaker 4: a lot like this that the American public might not
21:29
Speaker 4: know about. And that's why in just a couple of days,
21:31
Speaker 4: we're heading to the Tijuana area in southern California, where
21:34
Speaker 4: a lot of Mexican raw sewage is entering for decades.
21:37
Speaker 3: We need to end it.
21:38
Speaker 1: Number one about you guys dealing with water issues and
21:42
Speaker 1: Tijuana and I also and there's another one that a
21:45
Speaker 1: lot of Americans will remember, and that was the trained derailment,
21:49
Speaker 1: and it seemed like the government was picking winners and
21:51
Speaker 1: losers with that cleanup or lack thereof. You guys have
21:55
Speaker 1: also gotten involved with that because what you did in
21:57
Speaker 1: the wildfires in California is incredible. That's what every American
22:01
Speaker 1: should get, no matter where they live, and politics shouldn't
22:03
Speaker 1: come into it.
22:06
Speaker 4: This is something that really showed then Junior Senator JD
22:10
Speaker 4: Vance as someone who understands leadership in a time of crisis,
22:14
Speaker 4: when disaster strikes, your instinct as a leader should be
22:18
Speaker 4: to show up at that site and to be the
22:20
Speaker 4: voice of the people. And what was wild was JD
22:23
Speaker 4: was like the only one there. I think that might
22:26
Speaker 4: be Congressman Bill Johnson's district.
22:28
Speaker 2: Well, to be fair, Donald Trump came to.
22:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, well and it was j and JD.
22:33
Speaker 2: Not Joe Biden, not Pete boudhage Edge, but Donald Trump came.
22:37
Speaker 3: That's right.
22:37
Speaker 4: And I remember the conversations where JD was engaging with
22:42
Speaker 4: President Trump to make sure that President Trump was there.
22:45
Speaker 4: And this was all in the initial days and weeks
22:49
Speaker 4: after disaster struck. Yes, and a lot of people were wondering, well,
22:53
Speaker 4: where is this person, where is that person, Where is
22:56
Speaker 4: this agency, where's that agency? It should be This is
22:59
Speaker 4: the ultimate gut check and an instinct check of just
23:03
Speaker 4: when it's amazing.
23:04
Speaker 2: Because Biden and the Democrats they really like Palestinians, you
23:07
Speaker 2: would think they would have gone, oh my.
23:09
Speaker 3: Gosh, you know, all right.
23:12
Speaker 2: For the record, Lezelden is officially speechless. He doesn't know
23:15
Speaker 2: what to do with that smart ass comment.
23:18
Speaker 4: I'll tell you it was a it was such a
23:20
Speaker 4: missed opportunity to lead and that EPA. Over the course
23:25
Speaker 4: of time, they ended up being two hundred and twenty thousand.
23:29
Speaker 2: Uh.
23:30
Speaker 4: We saw a two hundred and twenty thousand tons of
23:32
Speaker 4: contaminated soil removed, We saw tens of millions of gallons
23:35
Speaker 4: of water removed. They ended up becoming a massive EPA
23:39
Speaker 4: effort that actually is still ongoing and in a way
23:43
Speaker 4: for the environmental and human impacts. There's gonna be testing
23:46
Speaker 4: going on for a long time to come. And I
23:49
Speaker 4: would encourage anyone who's out there listening, who is in
23:53
Speaker 4: that community, in the in the area, that that maybe
23:56
Speaker 4: you used to go to East Palestine, but now you
23:58
Speaker 4: take a detour, you go somewhere else. We all need
24:00
Speaker 4: to do our part to help bring East Palastine, Ohio back,
24:03
Speaker 4: and very important to the Vice President, but unfortunately too
24:07
Speaker 4: many of these cases have shown that lack of leadership.
24:11
Speaker 2: Well and tell us what you're doing in Tijuana, because
24:13
Speaker 2: it's an amazing here.
24:14
Speaker 4: You have an issue where for decades Mexican ros sew
24:17
Speaker 4: which has been coming across the border. It's been poured
24:20
Speaker 4: into the Tijuana River. It ends up contaminating water and air.
24:25
Speaker 4: We have Navy seals getting sick. They have to do
24:28
Speaker 4: training somewhere else. So we have decided enough is enough.
24:31
Speaker 4: We're going to Tijuana in the coming days. I can't
24:34
Speaker 4: wait to get there. We're gonna be on the US
24:36
Speaker 4: side of that border. We have a whole plan of action.
24:39
Speaker 2: I'm just warning you when you're in the cabinet, what
24:42
Speaker 2: happens in Tijuana does not stay in Tijuana.
24:46
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, sir, great advice.
24:49
Speaker 4: And especially if you drink the water, you'll be bringing
24:52
Speaker 4: that back to you, back with you to DC. So listen,
24:55
Speaker 4: it's something that we're going to step up on and
24:58
Speaker 4: tackle and we're proud of that. EPA wants to assist.
25:02
Speaker 4: And these are Americans that we see over there California.
25:06
Speaker 3: Do they vote red or blue? All your listeners know
25:08
Speaker 3: the answer to that one doesn't matter.
25:10
Speaker 2: But look, you're you're you're cleaning that crap up literally.
25:13
Speaker 2: I mean that that is valuable. That's what we want
25:17
Speaker 2: the EPA to be doing. That's important. Let me let
25:21
Speaker 2: me ask you so, so you and I are in
25:22
Speaker 2: in Midland, Texas. We spent the day We started by
25:25
Speaker 2: going to a rig that was drilling an oil well.
25:28
Speaker 2: We then had a roundtable. And actually, when you were
25:30
Speaker 2: being confirmed and you came by my office, you and
25:33
Speaker 2: I have been good friends for over a decade, but
25:35
Speaker 2: when you were being confirmed, I said, I want to
25:37
Speaker 2: ask you to commit to come the Midland Texas and
25:41
Speaker 2: sit down with with oil and gas leaders, with entrepreneurs,
25:45
Speaker 2: with people that are producing energy and hear from them.
25:49
Speaker 2: And it's amazing. You're the first EPA administrator in history
25:54
Speaker 2: to come the middle of Odessa, which is astonishing. It's
25:57
Speaker 2: like saying an ag secretary never been to Iowa. It's
26:01
Speaker 2: like saying a secretary of State had never been to
26:03
Speaker 2: the United Kingdom or never been to Israel. Like like
26:06
Speaker 2: your job, every EPA administrator should be in the Permian base.
26:10
Speaker 2: And given the importance of it, and and and the involvement.
26:13
Speaker 3: Of the e p A.
26:14
Speaker 2: So so tell us about you met with wildcatters and
26:18
Speaker 2: business leaders, a lot of people that are good friends
26:20
Speaker 2: of mine. Give us your impression of of of the
26:23
Speaker 2: folks you met, and and and what you learned on
26:25
Speaker 2: this trip?
26:25
Speaker 3: Was it valuable salt of the earth? Job creators?
26:29
Speaker 4: You could just imagine how much sweat equity was around
26:33
Speaker 4: that table of people who have poured their lives, their heart, blood, tears,
26:41
Speaker 4: creating jobs, providing energy to Texans and beyond.
26:45
Speaker 3: And these people need us to.
26:48
Speaker 4: Be thanking them, to be to be praising them for
26:50
Speaker 4: their good work, to be supporting them as opposed to
26:53
Speaker 4: using our power to try to make it more difficult
26:56
Speaker 4: for them.
26:56
Speaker 3: We shouldn't be trying to so by them.
26:57
Speaker 2: By the way, these guys are all close friends and
27:00
Speaker 2: buddies of mine. I have had great joy in recent
27:04
Speaker 2: weeks and months asking them how much they're like Billy
27:07
Speaker 2: Bob Thornton. Have they ever been tied up and had
27:09
Speaker 2: a mask over their head? Have they been covered in
27:11
Speaker 2: gasoline by cartels? Our host Bill Holmes, great great, great friend, Landman,
27:19
Speaker 2: very successful businessman. I asked him so. By the way,
27:23
Speaker 2: if you haven't watched Landman, you should. It's the best
27:24
Speaker 2: show on television. I did play for President Trump in
27:29
Speaker 2: the Oval Office last week. The segment from Landman where
27:33
Speaker 2: Billy Bob Thornton talks to the left wing environmental lawyer
27:38
Speaker 2: about windmills. It's the best three minutes on television of
27:41
Speaker 2: our lifetime. And I will say at least the landman
27:44
Speaker 2: I know in Midland tell me that that they murder
27:46
Speaker 2: fewer people than they do in the show. It's still
27:48
Speaker 2: a great show.
27:49
Speaker 4: And for Billy Bob, if you're out there listening, that
27:52
Speaker 4: was some that was a free sponsorship from Senator Ted Cruz.
27:54
Speaker 4: So you're lucky that you have that fan playing it
27:57
Speaker 4: for President Trump in the Oval, bringing a great a
28:01
Speaker 4: great show to the people, and listen, we need to
28:04
Speaker 4: get smart with energy policy. There are people promoting win
28:07
Speaker 4: as an intermittent sources if that's a substitute for base
28:09
Speaker 4: load power.
28:10
Speaker 3: For all of you out there listening.
28:12
Speaker 4: Let's let's get smart, educate, advocate the people who are
28:16
Speaker 4: around all the policy.
28:18
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center
28:22
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to down
28:24
Speaker 1: with my podcast and you can listen to my podcasts
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28:33
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