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A Day In The Life · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The Senate is heading for a nailbiter vote on whether
0:03
Speaker 1: to call additional witnesses or to end this impeachment trial
0:07
Speaker 1: once and for all. The Senator and I sit down
0:09
Speaker 1: in daylight for a change to get his strategy before
0:13
Speaker 1: he heads to Capitol Hill. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator.
0:28
Speaker 1: I don't remember the last time I saw you in daylight. Well,
0:31
Speaker 1: hopefully the sunshining indicates we're near the end of this journey.
0:35
Speaker 1: I want to get your thoughts on the likelihood of that.
0:39
Speaker 1: I want to get your strategy on the last day
0:41
Speaker 1: of questions today. There are some reports coming out that
0:45
Speaker 1: John Barrasso, the number three Republican in the Senate, says
0:49
Speaker 1: that the momentum is heading in the direction of not
0:52
Speaker 1: calling additional witnesses. There are other reports that we might
0:55
Speaker 1: get a fifty fifty vote perfectly split, in which case
0:59
Speaker 1: I want to know who breaks the tie. You know,
1:02
Speaker 1: it's an open question. It is close right now. We
1:06
Speaker 1: need fifty one votes to definitively say the trial is done.
1:10
Speaker 1: Don't need additional witnesses. Let's move on to final judgment.
1:14
Speaker 1: If we have fifty one votes, we can wrap this
1:16
Speaker 1: up in the next couple of days. If we don't,
1:19
Speaker 1: and I hope the momentum's going that way. As we
1:21
Speaker 1: talked about in the last podcast, I think they're at
1:23
Speaker 1: least two Republicans who are pretty clearly going to vote
1:26
Speaker 1: with the Democrats, Mitt Romney and Susan Collins. That means
1:29
Speaker 1: they have forty nine votes. There are the two next
1:34
Speaker 1: most likely or Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander. I don't
1:37
Speaker 1: know where they're going to be. They're very They're holding
1:39
Speaker 1: their cards very close to the vest. They could end
1:42
Speaker 1: up on either side of that, and I think they're
1:44
Speaker 1: considering it carefully. They seem to be genuinely struggling with
1:47
Speaker 1: this decision. If it ends up fifty fifty, we're in
1:52
Speaker 1: a little bit of uncharted territory under the scheduling order
1:56
Speaker 1: we adopted. I think Republican leadership argument would be fifty
2:01
Speaker 1: fifty means witnesses or not in order. In other words,
2:04
Speaker 1: let's move on. I can't have additional witnesses, okay. I
2:07
Speaker 1: am certain that the Democrats will argue if it's fifty fifty,
2:11
Speaker 1: it means witnesses are in order, so who decides them?
2:15
Speaker 1: Who knows. Look, look, there's not a whole lot of
2:18
Speaker 1: precedent here. There's under the Senate rules, it's not I
2:21
Speaker 1: can make the arguments on both sides of that. I
2:24
Speaker 1: understand the arguments on both sides of that. It is
2:27
Speaker 1: possible the Chief Justice will have of you. It is
2:31
Speaker 1: not clear. So the Chief Justice doesn't play the role
2:33
Speaker 1: of the Vice president. You know, normally in the Senate,
2:35
Speaker 1: the vice President breaks ties. That's not the Chief Justice's role.
2:39
Speaker 1: The Chief Justice's role is to preside. Now, there's some
2:42
Speaker 1: historical precedent for the Chief Justice breaking a fifty fifty tie.
2:46
Speaker 1: That happened in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson twice. But
2:50
Speaker 1: then the Senator's got unhappy with that, and the Chief
2:54
Speaker 1: Justice receded and said, Okay, I'm not going to do
2:56
Speaker 1: that anymore. So, as with so many aspects of this trial,
3:00
Speaker 1: we really don't have a lot of precedent to go on.
3:03
Speaker 1: We are in on charted territory. If if Chief Justice
3:07
Speaker 1: Roberts decided to vigorously assert himself and make a ruling,
3:10
Speaker 1: I don't know what would happen. I don't think that's
3:12
Speaker 1: all that likely. I think, you know, you may recall
3:16
Speaker 1: it as confirmation hearing. He used the analogy of wanting
3:18
Speaker 1: to be an umpire in baseball. I think that's what
3:21
Speaker 1: he wants to do. And so one of the nice
3:24
Speaker 1: things he did, which he didn't have to do. But
3:26
Speaker 1: but yesterday he enforced a five minute time limit on
3:30
Speaker 1: answers to question. That was the same thing Ranquist had done.
3:34
Speaker 1: There's nothing the rules that makes him do five minutes. Yeah,
3:37
Speaker 1: but I think every senator was grateful because if it
3:39
Speaker 1: hadn't been a five minute time limit, he would have
3:41
Speaker 1: just seen the lawyers on both sides filibuster forever and so,
3:43
Speaker 1: and you would have only gotten into a handful of
3:45
Speaker 1: questions instead of all okay. But that's an example where
3:48
Speaker 1: that was within his discretion. Although that being said, if
3:52
Speaker 1: enough senators disagreed, fifty one of us could have overruled it. Right,
3:55
Speaker 1: So it's it's that sort of ruling is a perfect
3:58
Speaker 1: example of everyone agreed with it. So it was fine.
4:02
Speaker 1: But where it runs into problems if the chief Justice
4:05
Speaker 1: is is disagreeing with the majority. By the way, you
4:09
Speaker 1: saw the House managers suggest something last night. They said,
4:14
Speaker 1: we're perfectly fine with the Chief Justice deciding everything, deciding
4:17
Speaker 1: evidentry emotions, deciding everything. Now, look, you gotta understand that
4:21
Speaker 1: argument makes perfect sense when you're in the minority. They're
4:27
Speaker 1: forty seven Democrats. On any party line vote, they're gonna lose.
4:31
Speaker 1: They know that. Remember we had eleven motions on day one.
4:33
Speaker 1: They'll host all eleven. They understand that. So if you're
4:36
Speaker 1: going to lose on any party line vote, it's in
4:39
Speaker 1: your interest to find any other decision maker. Give the
4:42
Speaker 1: power away, let somebody else make them. Even if they
4:44
Speaker 1: think they're not going to win with the Chief, they
4:47
Speaker 1: got a better chance if they know that they're outvoted.
4:50
Speaker 1: It's sort of like, all right, an election recounts. Have
4:54
Speaker 1: you noticed that when an election is close, the prevailing
4:58
Speaker 1: party never calls for a recount, right like whoever has
5:01
Speaker 1: been declared the winner, even if by one vote. You
5:03
Speaker 1: don't see that person saying we need a recount. It's
5:06
Speaker 1: always the guy who's lost. Yes, because if you've lost,
5:11
Speaker 1: recount is the only thing that can benefit you. That's
5:13
Speaker 1: a little bit the same as what's going on here.
5:15
Speaker 1: So obviously then today is going to matter a lot
5:19
Speaker 1: before we get to this vote. The reason I wanted
5:21
Speaker 1: to sit down today before we get to the impeachment
5:24
Speaker 1: trial is I want to hear a little bit about
5:26
Speaker 1: your strategy, how you prepare when you're going in, when
5:29
Speaker 1: you're writing these questions, What are you trying to accomplish?
5:33
Speaker 1: What are you going to ask today when you get
5:34
Speaker 1: to the hill. Well you're looking at all, right, what
5:37
Speaker 1: parts of the story haven't been told, What hasn't been
5:39
Speaker 1: told as effectively as it should, What additional facts need
5:43
Speaker 1: to be brought out? What weaknesses in the defenses or
5:47
Speaker 1: the house manager's case. Should you shine a light on
5:52
Speaker 1: some of what I'm looking at some of the areas
5:55
Speaker 1: that there are still aspects of the evidence of corruption,
5:59
Speaker 1: the evidence of corruption a bearisma the Ukrainian Natural Gas
6:02
Speaker 1: company of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden that that still
6:06
Speaker 1: haven't been fleshed out. And then I think need to
6:10
Speaker 1: um so for example, uh, there there is an email
6:16
Speaker 1: exchange that that happened when when Chris Hines. So, Chris
6:19
Speaker 1: Hines is the stepson of John Kerry. John Kerry was
6:23
Speaker 1: was Obama's Secretary of State. Chris Hines was business partners
6:28
Speaker 1: with Hunter Biden and with this guy Devin Archer, who
6:31
Speaker 1: was Chris Hines's college roommates. Three of them were business partners.
6:35
Speaker 1: First Devin Archer and then Hunter Biden both joined the
6:38
Speaker 1: board of Barisma. They both are getting paid a million
6:40
Speaker 1: bucks a year. And Chris Hines does a couple of things.
6:44
Speaker 1: Number One, he sends an email to the to his
6:47
Speaker 1: stepfather's chief of staff, to John Kerry's chief of staff,
6:50
Speaker 1: and and and he says, apparently Devin and Hunter both
6:54
Speaker 1: joined the board of Barisma and made a press and
6:57
Speaker 1: a press release went out today. I can speak to
7:01
Speaker 1: why they decided to do so, but there was no
7:04
Speaker 1: investment by our firm in that company. Trying to clear
7:07
Speaker 1: his name, to associate himself, It's fascinating that he sends
7:11
Speaker 1: this email. It's also fascinating John Kerry's chief of staff.
7:14
Speaker 1: Notice he doesn't say Devin Archer and Hunter Biden. He
7:17
Speaker 1: says Devin and Hunter. So the chief of staff knows
7:19
Speaker 1: exactly who these guys are. He knows what Barisma is.
7:22
Speaker 1: He doesn't explain Barisma is this Ukrainian company. You may
7:26
Speaker 1: not know it. Chief of staff knew exactly what Barisma was,
7:30
Speaker 1: knew exactly who Devin and Archer was, and what did
7:32
Speaker 1: Chris Hines do? He went on to say he terminated
7:35
Speaker 1: his business relationships with Hunter and Biden, and he said
7:39
Speaker 1: it was unacceptable to work for Barisma. Now, the White
7:44
Speaker 1: House Defense team briefly got into this, but the House
7:48
Speaker 1: managers have never had to ask a question and answer
7:50
Speaker 1: a question on this. They've they've never had to address. Now,
7:53
Speaker 1: wait a second. If Chris Hines thought it was unacceptable
7:58
Speaker 1: to work for Barisma, did John Kerry think that? Did
8:01
Speaker 1: his stepfather think that? And did Joe Biden that? And Look,
8:08
Speaker 1: one of the things to keep in mind also what
8:11
Speaker 1: really matters legally? We've talked about in any litigation, you
8:17
Speaker 1: want to simplify. Your enemy is getting so complicated and
8:21
Speaker 1: you get bogged down in the weeds. You want to
8:23
Speaker 1: simplify the question that matters. You know, I did Sean
8:25
Speaker 1: Hannay a couple of days ago, and he had five
8:27
Speaker 1: points that are critical. Remember, look, that's fine, I said, Sean,
8:29
Speaker 1: there's one you want to simplify to what matters? What
8:33
Speaker 1: matters legally? As does a president have the authority to
8:36
Speaker 1: investigate corruption and credible evidence of corruption? If the answer
8:39
Speaker 1: is yes, that's game over. This this case is done now.
8:42
Speaker 1: And on the fact side, it's worth remembering that. Listen,
8:49
Speaker 1: the question is not really whether Hunter Biden is corrupt.
8:53
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden, by all appearances, has led a troubled life.
8:58
Speaker 1: This is someone with who's made some unfortunate decisions in
9:02
Speaker 1: his life. The question is whether Joe Biden made decisions
9:07
Speaker 1: that made him part of that corruption. And I don't
9:10
Speaker 1: think so far the connection as to why this is
9:13
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's decision. I'll give you another example. So there
9:17
Speaker 1: was a question and I joined it. It was a
9:19
Speaker 1: question that Josh Holly asked that I joined, and the
9:22
Speaker 1: two of us asked together, and it was about did
9:24
Speaker 1: Joe Biden never seek an opinion from the White House
9:27
Speaker 1: Counsel's office if he could keep being the point man
9:30
Speaker 1: on Ukraine while his son was getting paid a million
9:33
Speaker 1: bucks a year from Barisma. And the White House team said,
9:36
Speaker 1: not that we know it, We have no you know,
9:39
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things one does in government,
9:41
Speaker 1: if one has a potential conflict, you should go to
9:43
Speaker 1: the lawyers and say, hey, do I got a conflict here?
9:46
Speaker 1: And you get an opinion and they tell you what
9:47
Speaker 1: to do, and sometimes they tell you recuse yourself, don't
9:52
Speaker 1: be involved. So Joe Biden could have said, you know what,
9:55
Speaker 1: this doesn't look good a ton of countries on planet Earth.
9:59
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stay to Ukraine stuff. I'll worry about
10:01
Speaker 1: all the other countries. I'm not going to get involved
10:04
Speaker 1: in Ukraine because my son's getting rich off of Ukraine
10:06
Speaker 1: and maybe it's not right for me to do this.
10:09
Speaker 1: So the house managers, the Democrats did not have to
10:13
Speaker 1: answer this question yesterday, and you're going to ask it today.
10:17
Speaker 1: That's exactly. Are you worried that Adam Schiff listens to
10:19
Speaker 1: this podcast and he's going to get a heads up?
10:22
Speaker 1: You know? No? Um and And look, I will say
10:27
Speaker 1: this though Schiff is talented, he's good on his feet,
10:32
Speaker 1: but it's interesting the questions that rattle him. The questions
10:37
Speaker 1: that rattle him are when you're getting close to the target.
10:40
Speaker 1: So you're going to ask this question, are you going
10:43
Speaker 1: are there going to be questions on the same topic
10:45
Speaker 1: you're hitting, or are you going to change it up
10:47
Speaker 1: and go after another angle in question time today as well? Well, Look,
10:51
Speaker 1: I'll give you another example. So Joe Biden told reporters
10:55
Speaker 1: that he's never discussed his son's business dealings with him
10:58
Speaker 1: and that it was discussed yesterday. But what wasn't discussed
11:04
Speaker 1: is there somebody who disagrees with that. And that's somebody
11:08
Speaker 1: who disagrees with that is Hunter Biden. And Hunter Biden
11:15
Speaker 1: said that he talked to his dad about his serving
11:18
Speaker 1: on the Barisma board and Hunter said, quote, dad said,
11:23
Speaker 1: I hope you know what you're doing. So one of
11:25
Speaker 1: the guys said I do. So why is it that
11:29
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are telling different stories that
11:31
Speaker 1: Joe says he's never talked to about it and Hunter's like, oh, yeah,
11:33
Speaker 1: I talked to you about it. One of these guys
11:35
Speaker 1: is lying, Joe Biden or Hunter Biden, They're not telling
11:38
Speaker 1: the truth another way to put it so, well, this
11:41
Speaker 1: sounds very interesting. I mean, I assume that the Democratic
11:45
Speaker 1: House managers are going to just try to evade the
11:46
Speaker 1: question and filibuster, but it sounds like you've got a
11:49
Speaker 1: couple different angles to come at today. I want to know,
11:52
Speaker 1: beyond the impeachment trial you have, you have more work
11:56
Speaker 1: to do than just sit on this impeachment trial. What
11:59
Speaker 1: is is a day in the life waking up doing
12:03
Speaker 1: whatever you do in the morning, then going to the
12:05
Speaker 1: impeachment trial. I know what you do from ten pm
12:08
Speaker 1: until about two in the morning. But what does a
12:10
Speaker 1: day in the life look like? All right, So let's
12:12
Speaker 1: take yesterday. Yeah, yesterday I got up. First meeting I
12:15
Speaker 1: had was at nine was a meeting with Benjamin nah
12:20
Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Israel. And so he's staying at Blair House,
12:23
Speaker 1: which is the residence right next to the White House.
12:25
Speaker 1: So I went over to Blair House and met with
12:27
Speaker 1: him from nine to nine thirty. And I know Babie
12:30
Speaker 1: quite well. I've met with him many times in Israel
12:33
Speaker 1: and in the US. We're friends. When he and I meet,
12:37
Speaker 1: it's it's nice because they're one on once. We don't
12:40
Speaker 1: have staff in there, just the two of us. We
12:41
Speaker 1: sat and had a cup of coffee. We talked. We
12:44
Speaker 1: talked some politics. Look, he's in a crazy situation in Israel.
12:48
Speaker 1: They keep having elections that he hasn't been able to
12:50
Speaker 1: form a government, and so I was getting his thoughts
12:53
Speaker 1: on what's going on on that and what the dynamics are.
12:58
Speaker 1: We also talked a lot about Iran. I think Beebe's
13:01
Speaker 1: leadership when it comes to stopping a rand from getting
13:05
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons has been extraordinarily important, particularly when Obama was president,
13:10
Speaker 1: and when Net and Yahoo we invited him to speak
13:13
Speaker 1: on the Joint Session of Congress and he called out
13:17
Speaker 1: the danger of the Ayatola Kamayee with nuclear weapons, and
13:21
Speaker 1: the adjective I've used a bunch of times for Net
13:23
Speaker 1: and Yahoo is church Chillian, because it was like Winston
13:27
Speaker 1: Churchill when the Nazis were a gathering storm that he
13:31
Speaker 1: spoke out. He spoke out with a clarity, spoke out
13:33
Speaker 1: with a gravity and a weight, and it helped stiffen
13:37
Speaker 1: the spine, frankly of a lot of members of Congress.
13:41
Speaker 1: One of the reasons Trump pulled out of the Obama
13:45
Speaker 1: nuclear deal is because Beebe was so strong that he
13:48
Speaker 1: had that. You didn't have Republicans in Congress just to
13:54
Speaker 1: give up on it, say oh well, this is this
13:56
Speaker 1: is done. Let's move on. And so I think that
13:58
Speaker 1: was very important. So I started the day meeting with Beebe,
14:02
Speaker 1: met with him from nine to nine thirty, then went
14:05
Speaker 1: and met with my staff, my team, and we talked
14:09
Speaker 1: strategy for the impeachment hearing. We worked on questions for
14:13
Speaker 1: the impeachment hearing. We just went back and forth. Okay,
14:16
Speaker 1: where do we want to press and spend about an
14:17
Speaker 1: hour doing that. Then I went back back to the
14:20
Speaker 1: White House and and was there we talked yesterday about
14:23
Speaker 1: the signing of the USMCA, the US Mexico Canada trade agreement,
14:28
Speaker 1: that was out on the south lawn of the White House.
14:32
Speaker 1: President was there, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, was there.
14:35
Speaker 1: A bunch of senators, a bunch of House members were there.
14:39
Speaker 1: You know, wait, look, it was fun. We heard heard speeches.
14:41
Speaker 1: The President gave him, gave a pretty good speech. He
14:43
Speaker 1: was He was pretty funny. Actually, he was almost like
14:46
Speaker 1: a stand up comedian. He was spending a lot of
14:48
Speaker 1: times sort of almost tongue in cheek, kissing up to
14:51
Speaker 1: the senators and saying, hey, I need your votes, guys,
14:53
Speaker 1: my fate is in your hands. And what was amusing
14:56
Speaker 1: is he said, House members, I don't need you, guys.
14:57
Speaker 1: You already voted. So you're like, yeah, I can ignore you.
15:00
Speaker 1: But hey, the senators, you know, I mean it was
15:03
Speaker 1: and so he signed it. He was giving out signing pens.
15:05
Speaker 1: I've got a sighting pen from USMCA. So that was fun.
15:10
Speaker 1: And then from there went back to the back to
15:13
Speaker 1: the Capitol and we went into the trial. Trial started
15:16
Speaker 1: at one o'clock and the trial went from one o'clock
15:19
Speaker 1: till about eleven fifteen at night. Yeah, stayed in the
15:24
Speaker 1: cloak room for about forty five minutes trying to see
15:26
Speaker 1: if we could find a deal to get us to
15:30
Speaker 1: fifty one and end this trial. So it was negotiating
15:33
Speaker 1: with other senators. Got in the truck headed over here.
15:36
Speaker 1: We recorded the podcast. I got home, oh, probably about
15:41
Speaker 1: two in the morning last night, turned on the DVR,
15:44
Speaker 1: and watched about a quarter of the Rockets Jazz game.
15:48
Speaker 1: Don't tell me who won. I only watched the quarter
15:51
Speaker 1: and then although if I will be amazed if the
15:54
Speaker 1: Rockets won, because we're so shorthanded, we're missing Harden and
15:57
Speaker 1: Westbrook and Capella, so if we want to it's a miracle.
16:00
Speaker 1: But I have to believe in miracles. I have to
16:02
Speaker 1: admit I missed the Rockets Jazz game last night. I'll
16:05
Speaker 1: try to catch it tonight. And then went to sleep
16:10
Speaker 1: about two thirty. Woke up this morning. First thing I
16:14
Speaker 1: had this morning was a text for my scheduler saying, Hey,
16:16
Speaker 1: Lindsay grit Graham, Ney's talk to you on impeachment. So
16:19
Speaker 1: I called Lindsay. Lindsay had just gotten off the phone
16:22
Speaker 1: with the President, and so we talked about he and
16:26
Speaker 1: I are both working to see is there a way
16:28
Speaker 1: to get the senators who are not sure where they
16:32
Speaker 1: are on additional witnesses, to get them, get them to yes,
16:38
Speaker 1: to get them to ending this trial now. And so
16:41
Speaker 1: we're continuing to negotiate and discuss that. And then I
16:44
Speaker 1: headed back to see you. Then you came here. We
16:46
Speaker 1: had a cup of coffee and did the show. This
16:48
Speaker 1: brings up a fascinating point because in the way that
16:51
Speaker 1: I was imagining how impeachment goes, and I think for
16:53
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans, it's all kind of pre planned.
16:56
Speaker 1: It's all scripted. Nothing is happening in the moment. Nobody
16:59
Speaker 1: needs to wake up and call the White House and
17:01
Speaker 1: then call your other senator friend and this and yet,
17:04
Speaker 1: from what you're describing to me, running into the cloakroom,
17:07
Speaker 1: hearing something, writing down a new question, calling Lindsey Graham,
17:10
Speaker 1: he's on the phone with the President. A lot of
17:12
Speaker 1: this is happening in real time. It's not inevitable. We
17:15
Speaker 1: don't really know how this story ends. But look, I
17:17
Speaker 1: think that's very much right and that's not true of
17:21
Speaker 1: every senator. There are a lot of senators who are
17:24
Speaker 1: just kind of sitting there listening. They're going to cast
17:27
Speaker 1: their vote and that's it. I like to be active,
17:32
Speaker 1: I like to be engaged. As as as I told
17:35
Speaker 1: Lindsey this morning, I have to admit I'm I'm having
17:38
Speaker 1: a hell of a lot of fun now. It's not
17:40
Speaker 1: good for the country. I don't want to see it
17:41
Speaker 1: dragged on. I'd like to see it ended. But but
17:44
Speaker 1: it is. These are complicated, tough, strategic, legal, political factual
17:52
Speaker 1: questions that are there nuanced. They're difficult, and and I
18:00
Speaker 1: think we're going to end up in the right place,
18:04
Speaker 1: which is the president being acquitted. But how long that takes,
18:08
Speaker 1: how long that takes and how we get there is
18:10
Speaker 1: a different story. Could you just take us really quickly through.
18:14
Speaker 1: You're going to get this vote tomorrow, I guess, And
18:16
Speaker 1: whether to call additional witnesses. If they vote no no
18:19
Speaker 1: additional witnesses, what do the next two weeks look like?
18:22
Speaker 1: So if we vote no additional witnesses, if we get
18:24
Speaker 1: fifty one who say no additional witnesses, that we've heard enough.
18:28
Speaker 1: I expect that the Democrats will have kind of paroxysms
18:32
Speaker 1: of rage. So we'll see several motions. Then the motions
18:38
Speaker 1: will kind of be screw you. It'll be there's something like,
18:40
Speaker 1: I can't believe you did this to me, so I
18:42
Speaker 1: have another motion, I have another motion. And some of
18:44
Speaker 1: it is the Democrats will just need to get that
18:46
Speaker 1: out of their system. And one of the strategies Mitch
18:50
Speaker 1: McConnell is employed, which I actually think is has been
18:53
Speaker 1: wise and the right thing is to make this long
18:57
Speaker 1: and brutal and painful to all one hundred senators. Mitch
19:01
Speaker 1: just told us a hundred times this is not going
19:03
Speaker 1: to be pleasant because he wants the senators to want
19:07
Speaker 1: to end this. That's exactly right, and there are a
19:10
Speaker 1: few things more motivating. This is a strange place. So
19:13
Speaker 1: typically we fly out Thursday afternoons to get back home,
19:16
Speaker 1: and we're in our home states Fridays through the weekends.
19:20
Speaker 1: Often how things get done in the Senate is is
19:23
Speaker 1: you're getting to Thursday, everything's at an impass. People are
19:25
Speaker 1: there's a roadblock, and then people want to get out.
19:28
Speaker 1: They've got a plane flight. And so the phrase is
19:30
Speaker 1: jet fumes are in the air, and when jet fumes
19:33
Speaker 1: are in the air. You got a bunch of senators
19:35
Speaker 1: and some of them are in their seventies and eighties.
19:37
Speaker 1: They're looking to get out of here, and they'll agree
19:41
Speaker 1: to damn near anything to get out of here. Some
19:44
Speaker 1: of the angriest I've ever made my colleagues is on
19:47
Speaker 1: fights trying to limit out of control spending when I've
19:50
Speaker 1: ended up saying no, I'm going to object, and it's
19:53
Speaker 1: ruined their weekend plans. And I mean, you cannot overstate
19:57
Speaker 1: how I mean how screaming and in race you're joking,
20:01
Speaker 1: I am not at all, I mean literally screaming at
20:04
Speaker 1: the top of their lungness. Mitch knows that that's being
20:11
Speaker 1: used right now. By having these be long, grueling days,
20:15
Speaker 1: what he is counting on his senators, both wobbly Republicans
20:20
Speaker 1: and Democrats, will say I gotta get out of here
20:23
Speaker 1: enough already that they won't want to extend things forever. Tomorrow,
20:28
Speaker 1: if we have a vote no additional witnesses, I think
20:31
Speaker 1: you'll see several Democratic motions. By the way, each motion
20:35
Speaker 1: you've got an hour on each side to argue it,
20:36
Speaker 1: so it will be I expect tomorrow is likely to
20:39
Speaker 1: be a long night, but then I think we we
20:44
Speaker 1: will move to the final judgment, so that would be
20:47
Speaker 1: that would be Saturday. You would say, yeah, there's there's
20:49
Speaker 1: a period of deliberation, and that deliberation is in close session,
20:53
Speaker 1: so the TV cameras are off, the reporters are thrown out,
20:56
Speaker 1: and it's just senators giving speeches and talking to each other,
21:00
Speaker 1: and then we vote. I'm not sure the exact timing
21:04
Speaker 1: of a vote, but but if we if we conclude
21:07
Speaker 1: that the additional witnesses are not needed, I am confident
21:11
Speaker 1: that that by Monday, this will be Stay of the
21:15
Speaker 1: Union is Tuesday, right, and and so if if we
21:18
Speaker 1: conclude there are no additional witnesses, I have full confidence
21:21
Speaker 1: we will push through whatever is necessary to get this
21:24
Speaker 1: resolved before the State of the Union. And it will
21:26
Speaker 1: be a very funny State of the Union if this
21:28
Speaker 1: is all resolved before then what if it's not What
21:31
Speaker 1: if they vote to call more witnesses, what are the
21:33
Speaker 1: next two, three, four weeks look like? Nobody knows. I
21:36
Speaker 1: mean it is presumably you'll have a motion from the
21:39
Speaker 1: Democrats to call John Bolton. If they're fifty one who
21:43
Speaker 1: just voted for more witnesses, you have to assume they're
21:45
Speaker 1: fifty one for that, presumably you'll have a motion on
21:48
Speaker 1: the other side to call Hunter Biden. I am very
21:53
Speaker 1: confident we'll get fifty one for that. You know, Chuck
21:55
Speaker 1: Schumer's telling reporters there will never be fifty one to
21:57
Speaker 1: call Hunter Biden. He is full of it, really, I
22:00
Speaker 1: mean it is total spin because he's saying, well, our
22:04
Speaker 1: Democrats will vote. Now, we'll look even if four Republicans
22:08
Speaker 1: join with the Democrats in calling Bolton, those four are
22:14
Speaker 1: not going to say we will only call prosecution witnesses
22:17
Speaker 1: and not defense witnesses. I'm confident if we're calling witnesses,
22:23
Speaker 1: if John Bolton is getting called, that we'll have at
22:25
Speaker 1: least fifty three votes to call Hunter Biden. By the way,
22:28
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion also said he might vote Democrat from West Virginia.
22:31
Speaker 1: He might vote for Hunter Biden. The point is, if
22:33
Speaker 1: we go down this road, we'll have at least those
22:38
Speaker 1: two witnesses. An interesting bit of speculation. I've heard several
22:41
Speaker 1: Senators say this in the cloak room, that they think
22:44
Speaker 1: the Democrats are voting for more witnesses but hoping, desperately
22:49
Speaker 1: hoping they lose that vote because a lot of these
22:53
Speaker 1: Democrats are terrified if we open the door to more
22:56
Speaker 1: witnesses and we bring in, say Hunter Biden, or we
22:59
Speaker 1: bring in Joe Bide, or we bring in the whistleblower,
23:02
Speaker 1: that things get really bad because what they've managed to
23:05
Speaker 1: do in the House proceedings is cover up all of
23:08
Speaker 1: the evidence of corruption. We start bringing in witnesses and
23:11
Speaker 1: suddenly that corruption. You know, it's going to be real
23:15
Speaker 1: interesting seeing Hunter Biden on the floor of the Senate
23:17
Speaker 1: be asked million bucks a year? What'd you do for that?
23:21
Speaker 1: What services did you provide for a million bucks a year?
23:26
Speaker 1: And what'd your dad do to help you out that?
23:29
Speaker 1: This almost has me hoping for more witnesses. But I
23:32
Speaker 1: just want to be clear. If more witnesses are called,
23:35
Speaker 1: this is not going to continue to be in every
23:37
Speaker 1: single day, ten hours a day now. I think that's right.
23:39
Speaker 1: So if the Senate votes to subpoena let's say that
23:43
Speaker 1: we subpoena both John Bolton and Hunter Biden, that's going
23:47
Speaker 1: to take some time to shake out. Then those subpoenas
23:49
Speaker 1: will be served. I think it's likely you'll see litigation,
23:52
Speaker 1: at least on the John Bolton side with the White
23:54
Speaker 1: House asserting executive privilege try to block his testimony. That
23:58
Speaker 1: could take weeks or even months. And so I think
24:01
Speaker 1: what is likely as the Senate would go back to
24:03
Speaker 1: regular business for a period of time until such time
24:07
Speaker 1: as those witnesses can come. And by the way, usually
24:09
Speaker 1: with witnesses, you have a deposition first, and then you
24:13
Speaker 1: have trial testimony. So if we go down the road
24:16
Speaker 1: of more witnesses, I would anticipate that being sometime in
24:19
Speaker 1: the future minimum of a couple weeks. Okay, so we'll
24:24
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a break, and then the
24:25
Speaker 1: Senate has to go from this very intense trial back
24:28
Speaker 1: into the normal business of the Senate, back into possibly
24:31
Speaker 1: removing the president from office. Yep, that seems like a
24:34
Speaker 1: lot of whiplash. It is. And listen, I think there
24:41
Speaker 1: are a lot of Democrats really nervous about the direction
24:45
Speaker 1: these facts are going. I'll give it example. Yesterday, in
24:48
Speaker 1: questioning Adam Schiff said early on he said, if any
24:53
Speaker 1: part of the president's motivation is corrupt, then that's enough
24:59
Speaker 1: to convict Hi. No, does this mean there is a
25:02
Speaker 1: big angle on this Yesterday, which was the difference between
25:06
Speaker 1: a private motive and a public motive you know, private
25:09
Speaker 1: interest or the national good. So and I think actually
25:12
Speaker 1: Dershowitz did a really good job of sort of breaking
25:15
Speaker 1: out three scenarios. Yeah, there is one scenario, which is
25:18
Speaker 1: the sort of mother Teresa that you're making a decision
25:21
Speaker 1: because of love of humanity and the greater good, no selfishness,
25:24
Speaker 1: no selfishness. And he said, look, there are not a
25:27
Speaker 1: lot of people in politics making a lot of decisions
25:29
Speaker 1: like that. And he is right in that, right, he said,
25:31
Speaker 1: there's the other scenario that is the corrupt and venal
25:34
Speaker 1: that your motive is purely selfish. Look it's give me
25:38
Speaker 1: a bag of cash. It's bribery or for that matter,
25:42
Speaker 1: look that's what's alleged about Joe Biden. Give my son
25:45
Speaker 1: a bag of cash. I mean it is. You want
25:47
Speaker 1: to talk about the three scenarios. The Biden allegations at
25:52
Speaker 1: a minimum are in category three, and then category two
25:56
Speaker 1: is the big one, and it's mixed motives where you
25:58
Speaker 1: have some public interest, you want to do good, but
26:01
Speaker 1: you're also looking to political self interest. And one thing
26:04
Speaker 1: to keep in mind, listen with elected politicians, just about
26:07
Speaker 1: everything you do, one of the considerations you're thinking about
26:12
Speaker 1: is will the folks back home like it, and will
26:16
Speaker 1: this help me get reelected? And that Look, I think
26:19
Speaker 1: politicians think about that far too often. I'm a big
26:22
Speaker 1: believer in the proposition that good policy is good politics.
26:25
Speaker 1: If you do the right thing substantively, it'll play well back.
26:29
Speaker 1: But you see, you know, we just passed the USMCA.
26:33
Speaker 1: A bunch of senators, a bunch of House members voted
26:35
Speaker 1: for that. A big reason they voted for that is
26:36
Speaker 1: their constituents want them to. It's good politics just about everything.
26:43
Speaker 1: All right, let me ask this, Let's apply the Adam
26:46
Speaker 1: Schift test. If any part of the motive is corrupt,
26:51
Speaker 1: and by corrupt he means thinking it will advance his
26:53
Speaker 1: partisan interest, that it's impeachable and you should remove him
26:56
Speaker 1: from office. Me ask you a question, Michael, do you
27:00
Speaker 1: believe any part of Adam Shift's motivation is partisan? Oh?
27:05
Speaker 1: It couldn't possibly be, not at it? Well? Maybe yes,
27:08
Speaker 1: I think we would all have to say, of course,
27:11
Speaker 1: part of Adam Shift's motivation is partisan. What a ludicrous standard, right?
27:17
Speaker 1: He literally argued if the president had even the tiniest
27:21
Speaker 1: bit of political motivation, he should be impeached and removed
27:25
Speaker 1: for office. For high crimes and misdemean So if the
27:27
Speaker 1: politician had a political motivation at all, in any degree,
27:31
Speaker 1: then he's got to be thrown out. A look, it
27:34
Speaker 1: shows this is a game. They know it's a game.
27:37
Speaker 1: They know that standard. You know, no politician could survive
27:41
Speaker 1: that stage. Look, I'm shocked, shocked, there's gambling in Casablanca.
27:45
Speaker 1: But I mean that. Do you remember the compliment that
27:50
Speaker 1: was made of Bill Clinton that he's an exceptionally good liar? Yeah? Yes,
28:01
Speaker 1: I'm just going to leave it at that. I'm ready.
28:03
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to connect that thing. We'll just
28:06
Speaker 1: leave it at that. And it seems as though you
28:08
Speaker 1: might be paying somebody a compliment. We have got to
28:10
Speaker 1: get you to Capitol Hill. We've run a little late anyway,
28:13
Speaker 1: and we need to make sure that you ask all
28:15
Speaker 1: of those questions of the House impeachment managers, and then
28:18
Speaker 1: we will be right back tomorrow to see how it
28:20
Speaker 1: all turns out. I do have to make one point. Okay,
28:23
Speaker 1: we talked before about milk. This is the most important point.
28:26
Speaker 1: Two liquids are allowed on the Senate floor. I need
28:30
Speaker 1: to tell you a major landmark currents this week. Please
28:34
Speaker 1: go on, let's make some news. Yesterday, I was looking
28:37
Speaker 1: over at Richard Burr from North Carolina, and I looked
28:39
Speaker 1: over at his desk. On his desk, a page brought
28:42
Speaker 1: him chocolate milk. Chocolate milk, What what is the well?
28:49
Speaker 1: So I took one of the witness cards, the question
28:51
Speaker 1: cards that you write to the Chief Justice, and I
28:53
Speaker 1: wrote out a question from Senator Cruz, Mister Chief Justice,
28:58
Speaker 1: is is it the case that Senator Burr is the
29:00
Speaker 1: first Senator in the history of the US Senate to
29:02
Speaker 1: have chocolate milk at his desk? And I didn't send
29:05
Speaker 1: it to the Chief Justice, but I did pass it
29:07
Speaker 1: over to Richard, who cracked up laughing. So we have
29:11
Speaker 1: apparently made a new precedent that I don't think has
29:14
Speaker 1: ever occurred, and the Nestle's precedent has been set. When
29:19
Speaker 1: the historians look at this moment, they might say, third
29:22
Speaker 1: time ever that a president was impeached, first time ever
29:25
Speaker 1: a president was impeached without being accused of a crime.
29:27
Speaker 1: That's going to be a footnote because the big precedent
29:31
Speaker 1: is the first time ever chocolate milk was drunk on
29:35
Speaker 1: the Senate floor. And next podcast asked me about what
29:38
Speaker 1: John Thune and I are planning to do about this, Khalua.
29:42
Speaker 1: We'll have to wait and see to find out. I'm
29:45
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode
29:56
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