Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Congress Grills NPR, a Filibuster Showdown & Behind the Tariffs Week In Review

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Congress Grills NPR, a Filibuster Showdown & Behind the Tariffs Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz a week in Review,
0:03
Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson with you, and here are the big stories
0:05
Speaker 1: that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
0:07
Speaker 2: First up, NPR.
0:09
Speaker 1: Was in front of Congress having to answer questions about
0:13
Speaker 1: all the government funds that are going to their organization.
0:17
Speaker 1: You're going to be shocked what the CEO had to
0:19
Speaker 1: say and how out of touch they were with reality. Also,
0:23
Speaker 1: you had a filibuster that happened this week. But what
0:26
Speaker 1: was it over, Well, that's the funny part. We'll give
0:29
Speaker 1: you the details of one senator that decided to stay
0:32
Speaker 1: up all day and all night to philipbuster your vote.
0:36
Speaker 1: And finally, Senator Cruz takes you behind the scenes so
0:39
Speaker 1: you understand exactly what's going on with his colleagues when
0:43
Speaker 1: it comes to the tariff situation. It's the weekend review
0:46
Speaker 1: and it starts right now, which brings us to another
0:50
Speaker 1: aspect of this and that was what happened in Congress
0:53
Speaker 1: last week with MPR CEO and PBSS CEO there in
0:59
Speaker 1: front of Congress having to deal with what DOGE is doing,
1:03
Speaker 1: which is cutting waste, fraud and abuse, and it did
1:07
Speaker 1: not go very well for those CEOs. It reminded me
1:10
Speaker 1: an awful lot Cenator of when the presidents of the
1:15
Speaker 1: Ivy League schools had to come and answer questions about
1:18
Speaker 1: anti Semitism on college campuses after the attacks on Israel,
1:23
Speaker 1: and people were just in shock how radical they were
1:26
Speaker 1: and how they were not stopping it.
1:28
Speaker 2: That was very reminiscent of that.
1:30
Speaker 1: With NPR CEO very arrogant, pbsco very arrogant, like, this
1:35
Speaker 1: is what we do. We take your money, we put
1:37
Speaker 1: out propaganda, so sue us. That's what we've been doing forever.
1:41
Speaker 3: Well, and Catherine Maher who's the CEO of NPR, is arrogant,
1:47
Speaker 3: drippingly arrogant. She is hard left, and it was exactly
1:52
Speaker 3: like you're right. The president of Harvard, the president of
1:55
Speaker 3: Penn both of them lost their jobs over their arrogant,
1:58
Speaker 3: out of touch testimony before the House. Where where she
2:03
Speaker 3: is look she she's a member of the Council on
2:05
Speaker 3: Foreign Relations. She worked for UNISEF, She worked for the
2:08
Speaker 3: National Democratic Institute, She worked for the World Bank and
2:11
Speaker 3: Access Now. She worked for Wikimedia Wikimedia Foundation. She joined
2:16
Speaker 3: the Atlantic Council. She was part of the Department of States,
2:19
Speaker 3: Foreign Affairs Policy Board. She she is a hard leftist.
2:23
Speaker 3: But look, don't take my word for it. Listen to
2:26
Speaker 3: it out of out of, out of her own mouth.
2:28
Speaker 3: And I want you to listen, in particular for this
2:32
Speaker 3: back and forth with Brandon gil Brandon Gill is a
2:36
Speaker 3: freshman House member from Texas. He's a good friend. I
2:40
Speaker 3: campaigned hard for Brandon. I endorsed him in the primary.
2:43
Speaker 3: Brandon is a rising star in the House. And and
2:46
Speaker 3: just listen to this back and forth as he questions her,
2:49
Speaker 3: and and and and hangs her on her own petard
2:51
Speaker 3: with her own words. Give a listen.
2:53
Speaker 4: Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?
2:57
Speaker 5: I believe that I tweeted that.
2:59
Speaker 6: And I, as I've said earlier, I believe much of
3:01
Speaker 6: my thinking has evolved over the last half decade.
3:04
Speaker 2: It is okay, stop stop, stop stops.
3:07
Speaker 3: I want you to notice something she says there, much
3:09
Speaker 3: of my thinking has evolved over the last half decade. Ben,
3:14
Speaker 3: what's a half decade?
3:16
Speaker 2: Five years?
3:17
Speaker 3: That would be five years. Doesn't that half decades sound long?
3:20
Speaker 3: I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the
3:22
Speaker 3: last half decade. Oh crap, what I said five years ago.
3:26
Speaker 3: Oh no, that's a real problem. Run away, run away,
3:28
Speaker 3: all right, go back to what he's playing with has evolved.
3:30
Speaker 3: I just like that that that comment. Her idiocy only
3:33
Speaker 3: gets me laugh.
3:34
Speaker 2: As soon as I heard, I was like, this is
3:36
Speaker 2: not going well. Keep listening, it gets evolved.
3:38
Speaker 7: Why did you tweet that?
3:40
Speaker 6: I don't recall the exact context, sir, so I wouldn't
3:42
Speaker 6: be able to say.
3:43
Speaker 4: Okay, do you believe that America believes in black plunder
3:47
Speaker 4: and white democracy?
3:49
Speaker 5: I don't believe that, sir. You tweet it.
3:52
Speaker 4: It's reference to a book you were reading at the time,
3:55
Speaker 4: apparently The Case for Reparations.
3:57
Speaker 5: I don't think I've ever read that book, sir.
4:00
Speaker 7: You tweeted about it.
4:02
Speaker 4: You said you took a day off to fully read
4:04
Speaker 4: The Case for Reparations.
4:06
Speaker 7: You put that on Twitter in January of twenty twenty.
4:09
Speaker 5: I apologies. I don't recall that I did. I don't okay.
4:12
Speaker 6: I'd no doubt that your tweet there is correct, but
4:15
Speaker 6: I don't recall.
4:16
Speaker 4: Okay, do you believe that white people and inherently feel
4:19
Speaker 4: superior to other races?
4:21
Speaker 5: I do not.
4:22
Speaker 4: You tweeted something to that effect. You said I grew
4:25
Speaker 4: up feeling superior. Ha, how wide of me. Why did
4:28
Speaker 4: you tweet that?
4:30
Speaker 6: I think I was probably reflecting on what it was
4:33
Speaker 6: to be to grow up in an environment where I
4:35
Speaker 6: had lots of advantages.
4:37
Speaker 4: It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.
4:40
Speaker 6: I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I
4:43
Speaker 6: was just reflecting on my own experience.
4:45
Speaker 7: Do you think the white people should pay reparations?
4:47
Speaker 5: I have never said that, sir.
4:49
Speaker 7: Yes you did.
4:50
Speaker 4: You said it in January of twenty twenty. You tweeted, yes,
4:53
Speaker 4: the North, yes, all of us, yes, America, yes, our
4:56
Speaker 4: original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparation, yes on
5:00
Speaker 4: this day.
5:01
Speaker 6: I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal referations, sir.
5:04
Speaker 7: What kind of reparations was it a reference to.
5:06
Speaker 6: I think it was just a reference to the idea
5:08
Speaker 6: that we all owe much to the people who came
5:10
Speaker 6: before us.
5:11
Speaker 4: That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted. Okay,
5:17
Speaker 4: how many How much reparations have you personally paid, sir?
5:21
Speaker 6: I don't believe that I've ever paid reparations.
5:24
Speaker 7: Okay, just for everybody else.
5:26
Speaker 5: I'm not asking anyone seems to.
5:28
Speaker 4: Be what you're suggesting. Do you believe that looting is
5:31
Speaker 4: morally wrong?
5:32
Speaker 6: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to
5:34
Speaker 6: it as counterproductive.
5:35
Speaker 5: I think it should be prosecuted.
5:36
Speaker 7: Do you believe it's morally wrong though?
5:38
Speaker 5: Of course?
5:39
Speaker 4: Of course, then why did you refer to it as
5:41
Speaker 4: counter productive? Very different, very different way to describe it.
5:45
Speaker 6: It is both morally wrong and counterproductive as well as.
5:48
Speaker 4: Being be tweeted, it's hard to be mad about protests.
5:51
Speaker 4: In reference to the BLM protests not prioritizing the private
5:55
Speaker 4: property of a system of oppression, you didn't condemn the lout.
6:00
Speaker 4: You said that it was counter productive. NPR also promoted
6:05
Speaker 4: a book called in Defensive Looting. Do you think that
6:07
Speaker 4: that's an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?
6:10
Speaker 6: I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe
6:12
Speaker 6: that was at my tweeted that you read that book,
6:15
Speaker 6: But I don't believe that I did read that book.
6:17
Speaker 1: It's amazing she tweeted that she read the book. She's like,
6:21
Speaker 1: I don't believe that I ever read that book. So
6:23
Speaker 1: you're either lying now or you're lying. What a half
6:26
Speaker 1: half a decade ago is she likes.
6:28
Speaker 3: To describe it, right, Senator, Look, that is a crushingly
6:33
Speaker 3: effective cross examination. And if you look at at she
6:40
Speaker 3: is running away from everything she's ever said, everything she's
6:43
Speaker 3: ever believed, because it is indefensible when she says. You know,
6:48
Speaker 3: she claimed on Twitter she took an entire day off
6:51
Speaker 3: to read a book on reparations. It was so important
6:53
Speaker 3: that she devoted a day of her and now she
6:54
Speaker 3: has no recollection. I'm sorry, I you know this. This
6:58
Speaker 3: will be before you were watching TV, but there was
7:00
Speaker 3: an old series. You ever watch Hogan's Heroes? Yeah, gosh, yes, okay,
7:04
Speaker 3: Well do you remember Sergeant Schultz. Yes, Sergeant Schultz would
7:07
Speaker 3: say I see nothing, I hear nothing. That is that's
7:11
Speaker 3: that is Catherine Marr. She sees nothing, she hears nothing.
7:15
Speaker 3: Uh and and yet this is someone charged with spending
7:20
Speaker 3: millions of taxpayer dollars running what is a left wing
7:24
Speaker 3: propaganda network. You know her statement, I've never called for reparations.
7:30
Speaker 3: I gotta say, Brandon, I think does a fabulous shop.
7:32
Speaker 2: Well yes you did.
7:33
Speaker 3: Let me read you the tweet and she says reparations yes,
7:36
Speaker 3: oh oh well, well other than when I called for reparations.
7:39
Speaker 3: But I haven't called for it other than when I've
7:40
Speaker 3: called for it. But but but no, no, it's not
7:43
Speaker 3: fiscal reparations. It's it's I mean, I mean, I mean
7:46
Speaker 3: repairing the tires on their cars. That's that, those are
7:49
Speaker 3: the reparations.
7:49
Speaker 2: I mean.
7:52
Speaker 3: She has no answer because her answer is she desperately
7:58
Speaker 3: wants to run away from everything she is ever said
8:00
Speaker 3: or done. But but let me actually, let's actually go
8:05
Speaker 3: to something else that that that that she said and did,
8:08
Speaker 3: which is what do you think she has cited as
8:12
Speaker 3: the number one challenge?
8:14
Speaker 7: Uh?
8:15
Speaker 3: That it that that is facing uh that that is
8:19
Speaker 3: facing journalism right now, knowing this woman have no idea. Okay,
8:27
Speaker 3: here here is a quote from her at a panel
8:29
Speaker 3: at the Atlantic Council Research Lab.
8:32
Speaker 2: Quote.
8:32
Speaker 3: The number one challenge that we see here is, of course,
8:36
Speaker 3: the First Amendment in the United States.
8:39
Speaker 1: It's it's so like, it's so on Brandford, that's almost unbelievable. Though,
8:44
Speaker 1: like a woman who says that she believes in in
8:47
Speaker 1: the public and radio and free speed says that's the
8:51
Speaker 1: real problem is is the First Amendment? In fact, Sedor
8:55
Speaker 1: here's the NPR CEO in her own words, saying exactly
8:58
Speaker 1: that the.
8:59
Speaker 8: Number one challenge here that we see is, of course,
9:02
Speaker 8: the First Amendment in the United States is a fairly
9:05
Speaker 8: robust protection of rights, and that is a protection of
9:11
Speaker 8: rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very
9:13
Speaker 8: important that platforms have those rights to be able to
9:15
Speaker 8: regulate what kind of content they want on their sites.
9:18
Speaker 8: But it also means that it is a little bit
9:20
Speaker 8: trick really addressed some of the real challenges of where
9:24
Speaker 8: does bad information come from and sort of the influence
9:27
Speaker 8: peddlers who have made a real market economy around it.
9:29
Speaker 2: I mean, you listen to her, and it's just amazing.
9:32
Speaker 1: If we could just do what we want and get
9:35
Speaker 1: rid of everything we don't want and silence anybody that
9:38
Speaker 1: says the thing that is disagreeing with us, and everything
9:42
Speaker 1: would be fine in media and with our government, right,
9:45
Speaker 1: we could just control everybody and shut everybody down.
9:48
Speaker 2: We don't like that, is the NPR CEO saying it.
9:51
Speaker 3: Look, the left believes in censorship, that they don't believe
9:55
Speaker 3: in journalism, they don't believe in media, they believe in propaganda.
9:58
Speaker 3: And you and I on this podcast covered last year
10:02
Speaker 3: a story that was written in the Free Press by
10:05
Speaker 3: Yuri Berliner, and it was in April of twenty four
10:08
Speaker 3: and it was entitled I've been at NPR for twenty
10:11
Speaker 3: five years. Here's how we lost America's trust. And I
10:14
Speaker 3: just want to read the beginning of it again because
10:16
Speaker 3: we did a good chunk of a podcast just on
10:18
Speaker 3: this story. But it really sets up the absolute disaster
10:21
Speaker 3: that is NPR today. How Uri Billinner began. You know
10:26
Speaker 3: the stereotype of the NPR lister, an ev driving, wordle playing,
10:30
Speaker 3: tote bag carrying, coastal elite. It doesn't precisely describe me,
10:34
Speaker 3: but it's not far off. I'm Sarah Lawrence, educated, was
10:37
Speaker 3: raised by a lesbian peace activist mother. I drive a
10:40
Speaker 3: super room and Spotify says my listing habits are most
10:44
Speaker 3: similar to people in Berkeley. I fit the NPR mold.
10:48
Speaker 3: I'll cop to that. So when I got a job
10:50
Speaker 3: here twenty five years ago, I never looked back. As
10:52
Speaker 3: a senior editor on the business desk, where news is
10:54
Speaker 3: always breaking, we've covered up peebles in the workplace, supermarket prices,
10:58
Speaker 3: social media, and AI. It's true NPR always had a
11:01
Speaker 3: liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an
11:04
Speaker 3: open minded curious culture prevailed. We were nerdy, not knee
11:08
Speaker 3: jerk activists or scolding. In recent years, however, that has changed. Today,
11:13
Speaker 3: those who listen to NPR or read its coverage online
11:16
Speaker 3: find something different the distilled worldview of a very small
11:21
Speaker 3: segment of the US population. If you are a conservative,
11:25
Speaker 3: you will read this and say, duh, it's always been
11:28
Speaker 3: this way, but it hasn't.
11:31
Speaker 2: For decades.
11:31
Speaker 3: Since its founding in nineteen seventy, a wide swath of
11:34
Speaker 3: America turned into NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio
11:38
Speaker 3: pieces with birds singing in the Amazon. Millions came to
11:41
Speaker 3: us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country,
11:44
Speaker 3: in the world radically different from our own, engaging precisely
11:48
Speaker 3: because they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more
11:52
Speaker 3: pride within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition
11:56
Speaker 3: from his or her tractor at sunrise back in twenty eleven.
12:00
Speaker 3: Although NPR's audience is tilted a bit to the left,
12:04
Speaker 3: it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty
12:08
Speaker 3: six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, twenty three
12:11
Speaker 3: percent as middle of the road, and thirty seven percent
12:14
Speaker 3: as liberal. By twenty twenty three, the picture was completely different.
12:19
Speaker 3: Only eleven percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative,
12:23
Speaker 3: twenty one percent as middle of the road, and sixty
12:26
Speaker 3: seven percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal.
12:29
Speaker 3: We weren't just losing conservatives, we were also losing moderates
12:33
Speaker 3: and traditional liberals. An open minded spirit no longer exists
12:37
Speaker 3: within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience
12:41
Speaker 3: that reflects America.
12:43
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
12:46
Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
12:48
Speaker 1: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two. All right, Senator,
12:53
Speaker 1: so let's move to another very interesting moment. One of
12:56
Speaker 1: your colleagues in the Senate decided he was going to
12:59
Speaker 1: take away your record on a philibuster. You guys were
13:04
Speaker 1: very different and why you were philibustering. But he did
13:07
Speaker 1: beat your record today, and you even posted something that
13:11
Speaker 1: was hilarious online as well.
13:13
Speaker 2: Well.
13:13
Speaker 3: Corey Booker, Democrat from New Jersey, has now set the
13:17
Speaker 3: record for the longest speech in history on the Senate floor,
13:20
Speaker 3: and he spoke for twenty five hours and four minutes.
13:24
Speaker 7: And so it was.
13:26
Speaker 3: It was incredibly long. It surpassed the record had been
13:32
Speaker 3: held by strom Thurman, who spoke for twenty four hours
13:36
Speaker 3: and eighteen minutes in nineteen fifty seven. And he was
13:41
Speaker 3: he was philibustering strom Thurman was philibustering the nineteen fifty
13:44
Speaker 3: seven Civil Rights Act. And that that had been been
13:47
Speaker 3: the record until until last night, when when Corey Booker
13:51
Speaker 3: broke it. Now fourth all time, it is yours.
13:57
Speaker 7: Truly.
13:57
Speaker 3: I used to be third all time, but but Corey
14:01
Speaker 3: knocked me down. And and so so my record in
14:06
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, I spoke on the Senate floor for twenty
14:08
Speaker 3: one hours and nineteen minutes. Uh and and so Corey,
14:13
Speaker 3: Corey just beat me. I will I will say I
14:15
Speaker 3: tweeted out right before he broke my record. And so
14:21
Speaker 3: I took to Twitter and tweeted out, as Corey Booker
14:24
Speaker 3: approaches my twenty one hour filibuster record, I'm contemplating pulling
14:29
Speaker 3: the fire alarm hat tip Jamal Bowman, and I sent
14:32
Speaker 3: out a picture of Jamal and but Bowman, the Democrat congressman,
14:35
Speaker 3: pulling the fire alarm in the Capitol to avoid a vote.
14:39
Speaker 3: And and and I will say that that that that
14:41
Speaker 3: tweet went viral, and in fact, Corey ended up at
14:44
Speaker 3: the end of his twenty five hour filibuster reading that
14:48
Speaker 3: tweet on the Senate floor, which which was which I
14:55
Speaker 3: enjoyed it. I actually like Corey, and he and I
14:57
Speaker 3: are friends, and so I'm glad he read it, and
14:59
Speaker 3: I will. In my twenty thirteen filibuster, I read a
15:05
Speaker 3: number of tweets on the Senate floor, and I believe
15:07
Speaker 3: that was the first time in history a tweet had
15:11
Speaker 3: ever been read on the Senate floor, and I read
15:13
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of them. Now, there is a significant
15:17
Speaker 3: difference between what I was filibustering over and what Corey
15:22
Speaker 3: Booker was philibustering over. What I was filibustering over was Obamacare,
15:27
Speaker 3: and I was doing so because it was right what
15:30
Speaker 3: Obamacare was going into effect, and I was trying to
15:34
Speaker 3: stop it from going into effect because the American people
15:37
Speaker 3: it was having the effect of driving up premiums dramatically
15:40
Speaker 3: reducing choices. Barack Obama famously said, if you like your doctor,
15:45
Speaker 3: you can keep your doctor, and millions of Americans discovered
15:47
Speaker 3: that was not the case.
15:48
Speaker 2: That was a lie.
15:49
Speaker 3: In fact, PolitiFact named Barack Obama's if you like your doctor,
15:53
Speaker 3: you can keep your doctor the lie of the year,
15:56
Speaker 3: and for them to admit a Democrat is lying is
15:58
Speaker 3: really quite remarkable because effect lies for a living. And
16:02
Speaker 3: so that filibuster, when I did it in twenty thirteen,
16:07
Speaker 3: I was a brand new baby freshman, and it was
16:11
Speaker 3: the theme of the filibuster was make DC listen. And
16:15
Speaker 3: I will tell you it had. It had a significant effect,
16:22
Speaker 3: and in fact, it energized people across the country. And
16:27
Speaker 3: I'll point to what the effect was in twenty fourteen.
16:31
Speaker 3: The next year, we had an election, and it was
16:34
Speaker 3: a tsunami election. Republicans ended up winning nine Senate seats,
16:41
Speaker 3: we retired Harry Reid as majority leader, and we ended
16:45
Speaker 3: up winning the biggest majority in the House of Representative
16:47
Speaker 3: since nineteen twenty eight. And if you look at exit
16:50
Speaker 3: polling in that twenty fourteen election, the number one issue
16:55
Speaker 3: in the country, according to the voters that were turning
16:58
Speaker 3: out in massive numbers, was Obamacare, and they were saying, finally, finally,
17:02
Speaker 3: you're fighting. Finally, Republicans are not rolling over. And so
17:05
Speaker 3: that had I think a very significant effect on election
17:08
Speaker 3: day and helped win back both the Senate and House
17:12
Speaker 3: for Republicans. I don't think Corey Bookers is going to
17:15
Speaker 3: have that same effect. And in fact, listen, I don't
17:19
Speaker 3: know how many people watched it. I suspect like that
17:23
Speaker 3: CNN and MSNBC was probably gushing about it, but I'll
17:26
Speaker 3: confess I didn't turn on cn N or MSNBC, so
17:29
Speaker 3: I don't know one where the other. I don't particularly care.
17:32
Speaker 3: The seven Rabbid partisans who watched those networks probably were
17:36
Speaker 3: quite happy with it. But at the end of the day,
17:40
Speaker 3: look what was Cory Booker talking about, As best I
17:43
Speaker 3: can tell, it was I hate Donald Trump. I'm a Democrat,
17:47
Speaker 3: Trump bad, Orange Van bad. I'm mad at the voters.
17:50
Speaker 3: Why did the voters elect Trump? Whye did the voters
17:53
Speaker 3: elector Republican Senate? Why did the voters elected Republican House? Gosh,
17:57
Speaker 3: I'm mad at the voters. Gosh, I hate Trump. I'm
18:00
Speaker 3: not sure there's anything new there. I'm not sure was
18:04
Speaker 3: there a person in America who was confused yesterday and
18:10
Speaker 3: didn't know that that that that saidate Democrats hate Donald Trump?
18:13
Speaker 3: Like like, was there any new information in it? And
18:17
Speaker 3: and and so I've got to say I'm skeptical, uh
18:21
Speaker 3: that that it's going to have a meaningful impact. And
18:23
Speaker 3: I'll point out it's not just me who's who says
18:26
Speaker 3: said that. Take a listen to what Joe Biden's communications director,
18:32
Speaker 3: UH Kate Bettingfield uh said about Corey booker speech.
18:37
Speaker 9: The Democratic base and Democratic donors are looking for signs
18:41
Speaker 9: of life, and so I think what Senator Booker is
18:44
Speaker 9: giving them here are some signs of life. Is it
18:46
Speaker 9: going to have a tangible impact on business?
18:49
Speaker 5: I mean.
18:51
Speaker 9: I have a tangible impact on Booker, but I won't
18:55
Speaker 9: have a tangible impact on business in Washington.
18:57
Speaker 2: I mean, that's CNN saying it, Senator. And look it
19:00
Speaker 2: was they changed and that's Biden's communications director.
19:04
Speaker 3: It's Biden's communication director, amazingly enough. And so so look
19:09
Speaker 3: Corey's that that's fine. Now now I will tell you.
19:12
Speaker 3: So it was funny as Booker was giving his filibuster,
19:16
Speaker 3: reporters were all rotting up to be and then they
19:18
Speaker 3: all knew that he was. He was aiming to beat
19:22
Speaker 3: my records. So they were asking me about it, and
19:23
Speaker 3: they said, did you have any advice? And I will
19:26
Speaker 3: I will admit Corey didn't ask me for any advice.
19:28
Speaker 3: So now I did not give him any advice on this,
19:31
Speaker 3: but I did share a story. So when I did
19:34
Speaker 3: the filibuster in twenty thirteen, I had gotten some advice
19:39
Speaker 3: from Rand Paul. So Rand Paul had done a thirteen
19:42
Speaker 3: hour filibuster and I was planning to do mine and
19:47
Speaker 3: Rand I asked him, Hey, Rand, you got any advice
19:50
Speaker 3: because he'd just done thirteen hours, and he said, yeah.
19:52
Speaker 5: Two things.
19:54
Speaker 3: He said, Number one, wear comfortable shoes, because he said,
19:58
Speaker 3: your feet and your legs will be killing you.
20:01
Speaker 8: Uh.
20:02
Speaker 3: And I will confess. I I as you know, every
20:04
Speaker 3: day in the Senate, I wear black cowboy boots, the
20:07
Speaker 3: boo boots. I wear alligator boots, and and they have
20:11
Speaker 3: the Senate seal on the front and on the back
20:14
Speaker 3: of it they have the come and Take It flag
20:16
Speaker 3: and and so that's that's that's my standard foot wear
20:19
Speaker 3: in the Senate. But for the filibuster, I went to
20:22
Speaker 3: the store and I bought some some black tennis shoes.
20:25
Speaker 7: Uh.
20:25
Speaker 3: And in the middle of the filibuster, at like two
20:27
Speaker 3: or three in the morning, I confess to the people
20:29
Speaker 3: of Texas. I said, look, I have to I just
20:32
Speaker 3: have to apologize to the people of Texas. I'm sorry
20:35
Speaker 3: I didn't have the courage of my convictions to wear
20:38
Speaker 3: my boots. I I I weaned out and got black
20:41
Speaker 3: tennis shoes. But but I was planning on standing here
20:43
Speaker 3: for a really long time. And and so I will
20:46
Speaker 3: admit the tennis shoes are are are are more comfortable
20:48
Speaker 3: for for the marathon time. The second bit of advice
20:51
Speaker 3: ran game, I gotta ask you.
20:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got to ask you though, when you were
20:54
Speaker 1: picking out the tennis shoes, did you buy brand new
20:56
Speaker 1: or did you wear them a little bit beforehand?
20:58
Speaker 6: Yeah?
20:59
Speaker 3: I didn't break them in and they were fine, and
21:01
Speaker 3: and I don't think I've ever worn them since then.
21:03
Speaker 3: Like I literally they wore them for the filibuster and
21:05
Speaker 3: that was it. But but fortunately, even though they were new,
21:12
Speaker 3: they were they were pretty comfortable. They were not bad
21:14
Speaker 3: at all. The second bit of advice Rand gave me
21:18
Speaker 3: was was if anything even more important? He said, drink
21:22
Speaker 3: very little water. And in fact, Rand said when he
21:26
Speaker 3: ended at thirteen hours, he said, my legs didn't take me.
21:29
Speaker 3: It didn't make me give in. My bladder did. And
21:32
Speaker 3: the most common question that that that I would get
21:36
Speaker 3: about the filibuster is okay, what do you do about
21:38
Speaker 3: going to the bathroom? And the real simple answer is
21:40
Speaker 3: you don't. So the rules of a filibuster, you have
21:45
Speaker 3: to stand, you cannot sit, and you have to stay
21:48
Speaker 3: on the Senate floor. If if you sit, or if
21:50
Speaker 3: you leave the Senate floor, you relinquish the floor, and
21:53
Speaker 3: and and so, and that's why comfortable shoes matter, because
21:58
Speaker 3: you're not allowed. You're technically not even allowed to lean
22:00
Speaker 3: on the desk, although that that rule is not not
22:03
Speaker 3: heavily enforced. You you can lean a little bit.
22:05
Speaker 2: But you can't.
22:06
Speaker 3: Uh but but you can't can't sit. And and legend
22:11
Speaker 3: has it that during strong thermons UH filibuster that that
22:17
Speaker 3: that he had an aid hold a bucket in in
22:20
Speaker 3: in in the Senate cloak room, and and and and
22:23
Speaker 3: he he took a leak while filibustering while standing on
22:28
Speaker 3: the Senate floor. I figured, in the in the era
22:31
Speaker 3: of of uh C span that probably wasn't the best idea.
22:35
Speaker 3: So I was not going to do that. And so
22:38
Speaker 3: for the entire course of of twenty one plus hours,
22:41
Speaker 3: I drank one tiny little glass of water and that
22:44
Speaker 3: that's all. I basically would take a little sip just
22:47
Speaker 3: to just to moisten my throat, and and I got
22:51
Speaker 3: to say, look, I've never gone twenty one hours with
22:53
Speaker 3: going to without go to the bathroom, and and uh,
22:56
Speaker 3: you know, I discovered a very simple principle which is
22:58
Speaker 3: nothing in, nothing out. And so it was fine. But
23:01
Speaker 3: that was excellent advice.
23:03
Speaker 1: All right. So final question on this, and this is
23:06
Speaker 1: I'm sure something that was going through your mind, Corey
23:08
Speaker 1: Booker's mind. When did you know you were just going
23:12
Speaker 1: to end it? How do you decide? Are you looking
23:15
Speaker 1: at a certain time in your mind where you're like,
23:17
Speaker 1: I gotta make it to X, and then as soon
23:19
Speaker 1: as it hits I'm done.
23:21
Speaker 2: What is the process of that as well?
23:24
Speaker 3: Well? Actually I could have gone longer, and the problem
23:28
Speaker 3: was in order to do the filibuster. A pure filibuster
23:33
Speaker 3: is when the Senate floor is wide open and you
23:36
Speaker 3: take control of the filibuster, and it is the prerogative
23:40
Speaker 3: of every senator have unlimited debate, and so if you
23:42
Speaker 3: take control of the floor, you can hold it for
23:45
Speaker 3: as long as you are able to hold it. When
23:48
Speaker 3: I started the filibuster, unfortunately Harry Reid, then the majority leader,
23:53
Speaker 3: the Democrats were in charge had locked in a unanimous
23:58
Speaker 3: consent resolution that the next day there was a vote
24:03
Speaker 3: scheduled I think at noon, and it was locked in,
24:08
Speaker 3: which meant I had an endpoint. I had an endpoint
24:11
Speaker 3: that was a wall because that unanimous consent had been
24:14
Speaker 3: locked in, and so it trumps it is it's effectively
24:21
Speaker 3: a Senate rule. And so when I was north of
24:24
Speaker 3: twenty one hours, I had plenty of strength. I could
24:27
Speaker 3: have kept going, and I really wanted to break strom
24:30
Speaker 3: Thurman's record, and I actually sent one of my staffers
24:34
Speaker 3: to ask Harry Reid if he would consent. I could
24:38
Speaker 3: have asked unanimous consent to be allowed to complete my
24:42
Speaker 3: speech and if read it aloud and I would have
24:45
Speaker 3: been able to. So I asked my staffer, I'm like, look,
24:48
Speaker 3: do you really want the record for the longest filibuster
24:51
Speaker 3: to be to be held by a segregationist who was
24:55
Speaker 3: filibustering against the civil rights laws? Like I'd really love
25:00
Speaker 3: to break it? And Harry Reid, being Harry Reid, he
25:03
Speaker 3: just said no, and so I was forced to end.
25:07
Speaker 3: When when I did, Corey Booker that there was not
25:10
Speaker 3: a unanimous consent in place, locking up the time and
25:13
Speaker 3: so Corey was able to go long enough as long
25:16
Speaker 3: as he wanted, and and then and he was able
25:18
Speaker 3: to break the.
25:18
Speaker 2: Record as before.
25:20
Speaker 1: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
25:22
Speaker 1: on this topic, you can go back and dow the
25:25
Speaker 1: podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
25:29
Speaker 1: I want to get back to the big story number
25:31
Speaker 1: three of the week.
25:32
Speaker 2: You may have missed.
25:33
Speaker 1: All right, So then I got to ask you this
25:34
Speaker 1: question behind the scenes. What are the conversations with your
25:41
Speaker 1: colleagues are on a scove one to ten, how concerned
25:44
Speaker 1: are they over the scenario that you just described forty two?
25:49
Speaker 3: Okay, Look, there's another point that I think is important
25:53
Speaker 3: to understand. So you and I did a podcast I
25:55
Speaker 3: think last week where we talked about tariffs, and I
25:58
Speaker 3: talked about I said, listen, the present uses tariffs for
26:02
Speaker 3: two principal purposes. One is leverage as an incentive to
26:07
Speaker 3: incentivize other countries to enact policies that benefit America. And
26:11
Speaker 3: the clearest example of that is the threatened tariffs against
26:14
Speaker 3: Mexico and Canada unlessen until they help US secure the border. Now,
26:18
Speaker 3: using tariffs's leverage for something like that is very effective.
26:22
Speaker 3: The President uses it really well, and particularly using them
26:26
Speaker 3: to push securing the border. I am emphatically in favor
26:31
Speaker 3: of that. Is it has proven successful. It worked incredibly
26:35
Speaker 3: well in the first term. It produced to remain in
26:38
Speaker 3: Mexico agreement with Mexico. It produced the lowest rate of
26:41
Speaker 3: illegal immigration in forty five years, stopping the border invasion
26:45
Speaker 3: of the last four years. As an acute national security
26:48
Speaker 3: and public safety imperative, it is a mandate from the
26:52
Speaker 3: last election. It is massively important for Texas. So I'm
26:55
Speaker 3: all for using the thread of tariffs's leverage to get
26:58
Speaker 3: good policy that benefits America. But there's a second component,
27:02
Speaker 3: and this is an important thing to understand, which is
27:04
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and much of his administration believes in tariffs
27:08
Speaker 3: as an economic policy. We've all heard Donald Trump say
27:12
Speaker 3: tariff is the most beautiful word in the English language.
27:15
Speaker 3: And I do think the business community so look, look,
27:20
Speaker 3: we had the stock market plummeted, we saw massive losses
27:25
Speaker 3: in the stock market. We may well see more massive
27:28
Speaker 3: losses than the stock market. I think the business community
27:32
Speaker 3: was shocked by the magnitude of these communities, of these tariffs,
27:36
Speaker 3: by the breadth of them. Look as we talked about
27:39
Speaker 3: in our earlier podcast on tariffs, what I've urged the
27:43
Speaker 3: President is two things. Number One, focus on China, because
27:46
Speaker 3: delinking our economy from China is emphatically an America's national
27:50
Speaker 3: security interests and economic security interests. And number two, focus
27:54
Speaker 3: on reciprocity. And the reason I've said focus on reciprocity
27:57
Speaker 3: is the upside scenario I just talked about, which is,
28:00
Speaker 3: by focusing on reciprocity, if you incentivize other countries to
28:03
Speaker 3: lower their tariffs and we lower ours, that's a win
28:06
Speaker 3: win for America. But the thing to understand, I believe
28:10
Speaker 3: the business community has systematically underestimated how much President Trump
28:16
Speaker 3: and the Trump administration views tariffs as an ongoing, permanent
28:20
Speaker 3: feature of our economic policy. I can tell you virtually
28:23
Speaker 3: every time I talk with the President, I talk with
28:25
Speaker 3: the President frequently, he goes on at length. Have you
28:29
Speaker 3: seen the billions of dollars, the hundreds of billions of dollars,
28:33
Speaker 3: the trillions of dollars we are raising and are going
28:35
Speaker 3: to raise from tariffs? Now, I think a lot of
28:38
Speaker 3: people said, oh, he's going to threaten these tariffs, but
28:40
Speaker 3: he's going to lift them very quickly. If he does that, great.
28:44
Speaker 3: If he leaves them in place and we just have
28:46
Speaker 3: constant tariffs, that is a massive tax increase on the
28:49
Speaker 3: American people. And I think many people are underestimating that.
28:54
Speaker 3: The President believes and many members of his administration believe
29:00
Speaker 3: that tariffs are just a fabulous feature of the American economy.
29:04
Speaker 3: They harken back to William McKinley when he was president. Now,
29:08
Speaker 3: now look we used to have before the income tax,
29:10
Speaker 3: tariffs were the main source of revenue for the federal government,
29:13
Speaker 3: and they want to go back to that scenario. And
29:17
Speaker 3: I got to say, we're going to find out because listen,
29:19
Speaker 3: President Trump believes in this. I think in the first
29:22
Speaker 3: term he wanted to impose policies like this, and I
29:28
Speaker 3: think many Republican senators talked him out of it, pressed
29:32
Speaker 3: him back and said, look, their real risk, don't do this.
29:35
Speaker 3: I think of the second term, Trump feels unchained, he
29:38
Speaker 3: feels unburdened. He's like, screw it, let's go, and he
29:41
Speaker 3: believes it.
29:41
Speaker 1: I do know, by the way, that's where the threat
29:44
Speaker 1: could actually work, right, because every other country's looking at saying, hey,
29:48
Speaker 1: like this is surely he's not going to do it.
29:50
Speaker 1: He does it like he's going to finch quickly. There's
29:53
Speaker 1: no indicasion, he's going to finch per se quickly.
29:56
Speaker 3: Right.
29:56
Speaker 1: I think the real threat of it is the fact
29:59
Speaker 1: that he's actually willing to go through with it.
30:01
Speaker 3: Look, I want this to succeed. I wanted to succeed,
30:04
Speaker 3: But my definition of succeed may be different than the
30:07
Speaker 3: White Houses. My definition of succeed is dramatically lower tariffs
30:12
Speaker 3: abroad and result in dramatically lowering tariffs here. That's success
30:17
Speaker 3: for the American workers, American businesses, American growth, American prosperity.
30:21
Speaker 3: That's a great outcome. But look, I think we're going
30:27
Speaker 3: to find out one hundred years ago the US economy
30:30
Speaker 3: didn't have the leverage to have the kind of impact
30:35
Speaker 3: we do now. But I worry there are voices within
30:39
Speaker 3: the administration that want to see these tariffs continue forever
30:44
Speaker 3: and ever and ever. They don't want a lower of them.
30:47
Speaker 3: They think they're great. And what is particularly I think
30:51
Speaker 3: has has startled some observers. It wasn't just directed at China,
30:54
Speaker 3: it wasn't just directed at bad actors. It was directed
30:57
Speaker 3: against everybody that Yeah, that is the breadth of it
31:01
Speaker 3: is enormous and it carries it carries upside, but it
31:06
Speaker 3: also carries real risk.
31:07
Speaker 1: All right, let's talk timeline in your definition of short
31:11
Speaker 1: term or long term. What does that timeline look like,
31:15
Speaker 1: because obviously people are trying to figure out weathering the storm. Right,
31:18
Speaker 1: you talked about supply chain and the car is a
31:20
Speaker 1: great example. You don't feel the pain till let's say June.
31:24
Speaker 1: All right, so give us a few months for things
31:27
Speaker 1: to kind of work its way through, work it out.
31:29
Speaker 2: Is that a.
31:30
Speaker 1: Timeline of short term and then after that it's it's considered.
31:33
Speaker 1: All right, this is long term? What is that timeline
31:35
Speaker 1: in your opinion?
31:36
Speaker 3: Well, let's be clear, the timeline was immediate. So so
31:39
Speaker 3: let me read from the Wall Street Journal headline Trump
31:44
Speaker 3: tariff send out to sixteen hundred point decline, dollar slumps
31:47
Speaker 3: Asian stocks hit for a second day, fear as a
31:50
Speaker 3: recession rise. And here's what the Wall Street Journal reports quote,
31:53
Speaker 3: US markets suffer their steepest decline since twenty twenty on
31:56
Speaker 3: fears President Trump's new terift's plan will trigger a global
31:59
Speaker 3: trid war and dragged the US economy into recession. Major
32:03
Speaker 3: stock indexes dropped as much as six percent. On Thursday,
32:06
Speaker 3: stocks lost roughly three point one trillion dollars in market value,
32:11
Speaker 3: their largest one day decline since March twenty twenty. Stock
32:14
Speaker 3: index futures drifted lower Thursday evening in stocks in Japan
32:18
Speaker 3: were hit for a second day as Friday training began.
32:20
Speaker 3: In Thursday's market plunge, the Dow Industrials dropped sixteen one
32:25
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy nine points, or four percent. The tech
32:27
Speaker 3: heavy NAGS deck, which powered the market higher for years,
32:30
Speaker 3: was down six percent, pulled lower by big declines at Nvidia, Apple,
32:34
Speaker 3: and Amazon dot Com. The S and P five hundred,
32:37
Speaker 3: which fell four point eight percent, and the other benchmark
32:39
Speaker 3: suffered their sharpest decline since the early days of the
32:42
Speaker 3: COVID nineteen pandemic. The dollar meanwhile tumbled, with a Wall
32:46
Speaker 3: Street Journal Dollar Index suffering at sharpest decline since twenty
32:49
Speaker 3: twenty three. Now those are immediate hits, and understand, look,
32:53
Speaker 3: it's easy to say, okay, fine, you know, that's just
32:56
Speaker 3: rich people. Look at this point, a majority of Americans
32:59
Speaker 3: have money invested in four O one ks and iras,
33:02
Speaker 3: and so that's impacting everyone. And people don't necessarily follow
33:06
Speaker 3: their four a one K on a daily basis. Many
33:08
Speaker 3: people see their four A one K statement when it
33:11
Speaker 3: comes out at the end of the quarter. A whole
33:13
Speaker 3: lot of people are looking at that and we'll see
33:15
Speaker 3: if that's a temporary one day hit, but if it
33:18
Speaker 3: continues to slide over the next few days, that's not
33:21
Speaker 3: waiting for six months to see the impact. That's freaking
33:25
Speaker 3: people out now. And so the consequences of this are real,
33:31
Speaker 3: and I want to be clear about something. Look, it
33:33
Speaker 3: used to be conventional wisdom in Republican politics that free
33:38
Speaker 3: trade is wonderful and we should just have no tariffs
33:40
Speaker 3: and lower teriffs.
33:41
Speaker 2: And that was almost everyone to ask you. This is
33:45
Speaker 2: a question. I'm just going to ask it because I
33:47
Speaker 2: know there's people listening.
33:48
Speaker 1: They want to know what the definition your definition of
33:52
Speaker 1: free trade is.
33:54
Speaker 3: That used to be conventional wisdom. And I want to
33:57
Speaker 3: give Donald Trump credit for something really signific again, which
34:00
Speaker 3: is he's changed the debate on trade fundamentally. And so
34:05
Speaker 3: I believe in free trade, but I also believe in
34:07
Speaker 3: fair trade, and so when I talk about reciprocity, Donald
34:12
Speaker 3: Trump has made a very clear point, and it's a
34:14
Speaker 3: powerful point, which is many countries on Earth have been
34:17
Speaker 3: taking advantage of the United States and have been imposing
34:20
Speaker 3: really high tariffs and barriers to US goods while having
34:24
Speaker 3: free access to the American markets. And that is unfair.
34:27
Speaker 3: And so I love that President Trump is willing to
34:31
Speaker 3: use leverage to lower tariffs. I think that's great and
34:34
Speaker 3: that really is a change in the debate. Ten years
34:36
Speaker 3: ago there was nobody in the Republican Party making that argument,
34:40
Speaker 3: and that is the direct result of President Trump's leadership.
34:45
Speaker 3: That's a good thing. Saying we should be treated fairly,
34:49
Speaker 3: that is a good thing. That is a very different
34:51
Speaker 3: proposition from saying it doesn't matter if other countries lower
34:56
Speaker 3: their tariffs. We're going to impose tariffs on everybody because
34:59
Speaker 3: we think r should be the principal vehicle of funding
35:02
Speaker 3: the economy. If the outcome of this is a multi
35:06
Speaker 3: trillion dollar tax increase on American consumers, I think that
35:11
Speaker 3: that is really consequential and really really harmful.
35:15
Speaker 2: So let me ask you one other question, and that
35:17
Speaker 2: is if these tariffs don't change center, then what would
35:21
Speaker 2: the impact be.
35:23
Speaker 3: Well, let me share an analysis that a group called
35:26
Speaker 3: the Tax Foundation did. Now, the tax Foundation is a
35:30
Speaker 3: think tank based in Washington, they're very good. They're they're
35:33
Speaker 3: economic experts. They analyze tax policies. They have proven to
35:38
Speaker 3: be incredibly accurate in terms of measuring the impact of taxes.
35:42
Speaker 3: Here's what the Tax Foundation has assessed from the announcement
35:45
Speaker 3: this week. They say, if these stay in effect, the
35:48
Speaker 3: average tariff rate on all imports will rise from two
35:53
Speaker 3: point five percent in twenty twenty four to eighteen point
35:57
Speaker 3: eight percent, the highest average rate since nineteen thirty three,
36:01
Speaker 3: under the tariffs announced for twenty twenty five. The consequence
36:04
Speaker 3: of those tariffs, they will cause imports to fall by
36:08
Speaker 3: slightly more than nine hundred billion dollars in twenty twenty five,
36:13
Speaker 3: or twenty eight percent. So that's what they're predicting, is
36:15
Speaker 3: that imports drop nine hundred billion dollars twenty eight percent
36:19
Speaker 3: this year. They also say the newly announced tariffs on
36:23
Speaker 3: April second will raise one point eight trillion dollars in
36:27
Speaker 3: revenue over the next decade and will shrink US GDP
36:33
Speaker 3: by zero point five percent. The April second escalation, they note,
36:38
Speaker 3: comes in addition to the previously announced tariffs, which will
36:41
Speaker 3: raise another one point three trillion dollars in revenue over
36:46
Speaker 3: the next decade and shrink US GDP by zero point
36:49
Speaker 3: three percent. Altogether, Trump's tariffs will raise nearly three point
36:54
Speaker 3: two trillion dollars in revenue over the next decade and
36:59
Speaker 3: reduce US GDP by zero point eight percent. They further
37:03
Speaker 3: project the tariffs will reduce after tax income by an
37:08
Speaker 3: average of two point one percent, an amount to an
37:11
Speaker 3: average tax increase of more than two one hundred dollars
37:16
Speaker 3: per US household in twenty twenty five. Now, to be clear,
37:22
Speaker 3: that's a prediction. If these tariffs stay in place, If
37:25
Speaker 3: they don't change, if the upside that I described happens,
37:29
Speaker 3: if foreign countries slash their tariffs and Trump in turn
37:33
Speaker 3: slash these tariffs, none of those numbers hold. Instead, I
37:37
Speaker 3: think we see an enormous economic boom. But if that
37:41
Speaker 3: doesn't happen, if these tariffs stay in place as an
37:44
Speaker 3: ongoing economic policy, we're facing very real and I think
37:49
Speaker 3: very detrimental consequences.
37:51
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Center,
37:54
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
37:57
Speaker 1: with my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast
37:59
Speaker 1: every other day. You're not listening to Verdict or each
38:01
Speaker 1: day when you listen to Verdict afterwards, I'd love to
38:04
Speaker 1: have you as a listener to again the Ben Ferguson Podcasts,
38:07
Speaker 1: and we will see you back here on Monday morning.