Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Biden Lied About Laptop from Hell, Catch and Release but w Terrorists at the Border plus Trump Luncheon-What's Next w GOP Week In Review

Transcript

Biden Lied About Laptop from Hell, Catch and Release but w Terrorists at the Border plus Trump Luncheon-What's Next w GOP Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Ted Cruz week in Review, Ben
0:04
Speaker 2: Ferguson with you, and we've got a lot of major
0:06
Speaker 2: stories that you may have missed that we talked about
0:08
Speaker 2: this week.
0:09
Speaker 1: First up, Joe Biden.
0:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's now been busted line to the American people
0:14
Speaker 2: along with the intelligence community. They knew when they gave
0:18
Speaker 2: him that letter to get him through the President of
0:20
Speaker 2: debate claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation
0:25
Speaker 2: the entire time they knew they were lying to the
0:27
Speaker 2: American people. Will there be accountability for that? We're going
0:30
Speaker 2: to talk about it. Also, terrorists are coming across the
0:33
Speaker 2: southern border and we're catching them and the Biden administration
0:37
Speaker 2: is letting them go. Now we have multiple terrorists that
0:40
Speaker 2: are connected with isis K who have been arrested in
0:44
Speaker 2: this country. And finally, Donald Trump has closed door meetings
0:49
Speaker 2: with House Republicans and the GOP in the Senate, and
0:54
Speaker 2: what they have planned next if he wins, is going
0:57
Speaker 2: to be huge for this country. We'll break all that
0:59
Speaker 2: down for you. It's the weekend Review and it starts
1:03
Speaker 2: right now. Oh, let's forget this. Let's remind people why
1:08
Speaker 2: that letter was so important. It was before a president
1:10
Speaker 2: of debate and they needed to get out of jail free.
1:12
Speaker 3: Excuse Yeah, and Biden cited the letter in the debate.
1:17
Speaker 3: He relied on it. Here, take a listen.
1:20
Speaker 4: Then we're going.
1:20
Speaker 5: To have it's true about Russia, Ukraine, China, other countries, Iraq.
1:25
Speaker 5: If this is true, then he's a corrupt politician. Right,
1:28
Speaker 5: So don't give me the stuff about how you're this
1:31
Speaker 5: innocent baby Joe.
1:32
Speaker 6: They're calling you a corrupt politician.
1:35
Speaker 1: Nobody.
1:36
Speaker 6: I want to stay on the issue of race.
1:38
Speaker 4: We're talking about from hill, President Trump.
1:41
Speaker 7: We're talking about race right now, and I do want
1:43
Speaker 7: to stay on the issue of race. President Trump, you
1:45
Speaker 7: have to respond to that.
1:46
Speaker 1: Please look very cool.
1:47
Speaker 7: Are fifty former national intelligence folks who said that what
1:52
Speaker 7: this he's accusing me of is a Russian plant.
1:56
Speaker 1: They have said that this has all the care.
1:58
Speaker 7: Four five former heads of the c i A both
2:01
Speaker 7: parties say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage.
2:05
Speaker 7: Nobody believes it except them his and his good friend
2:08
Speaker 7: Rudy Jolly.
2:09
Speaker 5: You mean the laptop is now another Russia Russia Russia hoax?
2:13
Speaker 7: You that's exactly what this is, way exactly what.
2:16
Speaker 1: This is where he's going. I want to stay on
2:21
Speaker 1: the issue of race. You have to be here we
2:23
Speaker 1: go again with the Russia. We're going to I will.
2:26
Speaker 2: By the way, how the whole time, the moderator's like,
2:28
Speaker 2: we got to move on from this. We gotta, we
2:30
Speaker 2: gotta move on as fast as we can.
2:31
Speaker 3: We don't get about any topic about this. Look, I
2:35
Speaker 3: mean the moderators that they might as well wear Biden
2:38
Speaker 3: campaign hats uh and that that that is just where
2:41
Speaker 3: the press is and they're even worse now. But but
2:45
Speaker 3: every word Biden said there was a deliberate lie. And
2:47
Speaker 3: by the way, Hunter Biden knew is an absolute fact.
2:51
Speaker 3: The laptop was accurate then, which means either Joe Biden
2:56
Speaker 3: knew as a fact that it was accurate, or if
2:58
Speaker 3: he didn't know, it's because he didn't want to know
3:00
Speaker 3: it he didn't ask his son. Those are the two options.
3:03
Speaker 3: So he was lying, and he was he was lying
3:06
Speaker 3: because it helped him politically. And and the person who
3:11
Speaker 3: organized that letter was Tony Blincoln. The reward for doing
3:14
Speaker 3: that b Lincoln becomes the US Secretary of State. That's
3:17
Speaker 3: how important it was.
3:18
Speaker 2: That letter saved him. I mean, let's be queer. I
3:20
Speaker 2: don't think he would have been Joe Biden would be
3:22
Speaker 2: president now if it wasn't for.
3:23
Speaker 3: That letter, and and it was a flat out lie
3:27
Speaker 3: and and and you look at the press, all right.
3:30
Speaker 3: Take a listen to Leslie Stall when she's interviewing Trump
3:35
Speaker 3: and and and she's making very much the same point.
3:38
Speaker 6: It's I think it's one of the biggest scandals I've
3:40
Speaker 6: ever seen. And you don't cover him. You want to
3:44
Speaker 6: talk about it because it can't You want to talk
3:46
Speaker 6: about insignificant things. I'm telling you. Of course, it can
3:50
Speaker 6: be verified. They found the laptop, Leslie, listen. Verify can't
3:55
Speaker 6: be verified the laptop. Well, you said it. Even the
3:59
Speaker 6: family hasn't the family on the LEFTO. He's gone into
4:05
Speaker 6: hiding for five days. He's gone and die and he's
4:08
Speaker 6: prepared for your debate mods taking them five days to prepare.
4:11
Speaker 6: I doubt it.
4:12
Speaker 8: I did.
4:12
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's get back to the name I will.
4:16
Speaker 1: So let's let's just get back to the name calling.
4:18
Speaker 4: Here.
4:18
Speaker 2: We're gonna move on. We can't talk about it because
4:20
Speaker 2: I've got an agenda.
4:22
Speaker 3: I've got an agenda, and and facts can't get in
4:25
Speaker 3: the way. Look, Leslie Stall pretends she's a journalist. That's
4:28
Speaker 3: sixty minutes. That's CBS, and what she's saying it can't
4:32
Speaker 3: be verified as a flat out live of course it
4:34
Speaker 3: could be verified. It's called journalism. But CBS had no
4:38
Speaker 3: interest in doing journalism, nor do they now. You know,
4:41
Speaker 3: if Leslie.
4:42
Speaker 1: Stall excuse she said there, well he's been.
4:45
Speaker 3: Well, they're busy, they're preparing for the debate. So so
4:47
Speaker 3: you can't expect them to respond to the overwhelming evidence
4:52
Speaker 3: of corruption because you know, let's get back to the
4:54
Speaker 3: name calling. I'm busy attacking you, Donald Trump. So so
4:57
Speaker 3: so don't you bring up anything that that that that
4:59
Speaker 3: Biden is doing. And you know, look, if Leslie Stall,
5:03
Speaker 3: if any journalist had a shred of integrity, they would
5:06
Speaker 3: stand up and say I was totally wrong. What I
5:09
Speaker 3: said was false. I didn't do my job, and I apologize.
5:13
Speaker 3: She's not going to do that. None of them are.
5:15
Speaker 3: And by the way, the people who have signed this letter,
5:18
Speaker 3: they're not coming back and admitting, Okay, I was completely
5:22
Speaker 3: full of crap and I lied to the American people
5:26
Speaker 3: right before an election, and it influenced the election profoundly.
5:29
Speaker 2: Not just that James Clapper, Tod Fox it is and
5:33
Speaker 2: he stands by the letter of the laptop.
5:37
Speaker 3: You know, the Biden intelligence and the Obama intelligence hardcore partisans.
5:47
Speaker 3: Facts have no bearing for them. They are so partisan
5:50
Speaker 3: they will stick to their lie no matter what.
5:53
Speaker 1: Senator.
5:54
Speaker 2: One other question I want to ask you about your
5:56
Speaker 2: trip before we wrap things up is met with a
6:00
Speaker 2: guy by the names Zelenski. Now, what matters the most
6:03
Speaker 2: to me was was he wearing a suit or was
6:06
Speaker 2: he still wearing the military fatigues.
6:08
Speaker 1: I just I got to know.
6:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, he was in the military fatigues. That's what
6:12
Speaker 3: he wears every day.
6:13
Speaker 1: Oh man.
6:13
Speaker 2: I mean back in the good old days when he
6:15
Speaker 2: was meeting with Trump and you guys, he was wearing
6:17
Speaker 2: a suit when he came to ask for money.
6:19
Speaker 6: Yeah.
6:19
Speaker 3: Ever since the war started, he's in the fatigues every day,
6:23
Speaker 3: and so he was in kind of an olive green sweatshirt.
6:28
Speaker 2: So you meet with him and he's got a bunch
6:31
Speaker 2: more money, a couple, you know, a couple of hundred
6:32
Speaker 2: million dollars more two hundred and something I think is
6:35
Speaker 2: is what Biden said during this trip that he was
6:38
Speaker 2: going to give to them again. You guys met with him,
6:42
Speaker 2: What was it like this time and what did he
6:44
Speaker 2: have to say?
6:45
Speaker 3: So, well, there was a group of senators that went
6:48
Speaker 3: to D Day for the eightieth anniversary of D Day,
6:51
Speaker 3: went to Normandy and there were nineteen senators. It was
6:54
Speaker 3: a big, big trip, and there were I think fifty
6:57
Speaker 3: three House members. So it was a signific get percentage
7:00
Speaker 3: of the United States Congress. And so Zelensky sat down
7:03
Speaker 3: had a meeting with all the senators and then after
7:05
Speaker 3: that he had a meeting with the House members. So
7:07
Speaker 3: both sides sat down and met with him. We met
7:10
Speaker 3: in in the historic Talleyrand Hotel, which is this beautiful
7:14
Speaker 3: hotel in Paris that actually the US government now owns.
7:17
Speaker 3: It's no longer a hotel, and it is where the
7:20
Speaker 3: Marshall Plan was signed. And so there's a big room
7:23
Speaker 3: that has gold, you know, gold on the ceiling. It's
7:27
Speaker 3: very elaborate and and it it's a historic, historic meeting space.
7:32
Speaker 3: So that's where we met and it was a good discussion. Look,
7:36
Speaker 3: Zelensky was there with several of his aides and he
7:38
Speaker 3: was describing what is happening, and he was you know,
7:42
Speaker 3: he is a a wartime leader and listen there that
7:46
Speaker 3: there are some there are some who are big critics
7:50
Speaker 3: of Zelensky. I don't put myself in that camp. I
7:52
Speaker 3: think he is trying to defend his nation from an invasion,
7:56
Speaker 3: and an invasion from Russian Vladimir Putin is a bad guy.
8:00
Speaker 3: And so Zelensky is doing what what you would hope
8:03
Speaker 3: any leader when his country is at war is doing,
8:05
Speaker 3: which is trying to defend his country and trying to
8:07
Speaker 3: get help wherever you can get it. And so he's
8:09
Speaker 3: coming in and he's asking for American help. Uh and
8:13
Speaker 3: and he's laying out his goals in the war. And
8:16
Speaker 3: so he laid them out, and then then each of
8:19
Speaker 3: us had the opportunity to ask ask questions. My principal
8:23
Speaker 3: question I asked him, I said, how would you define victory?
8:30
Speaker 3: What does victory mean? And what is the path to
8:35
Speaker 3: getting there? Look, I want Russia to lose the difficulty,
8:41
Speaker 3: and I got to say that question that I asked.
8:43
Speaker 3: He didn't really answer me on how he would define victory.
8:46
Speaker 3: He has another context, define victory as as Ukraine winning
8:51
Speaker 3: back essentially every square inch of territory that Russia has taken.
8:56
Speaker 3: I understand why Zelensky would say that's victory. If if
9:00
Speaker 3: you were Zelenski, you'd probably say the same thing. But
9:04
Speaker 3: but that doesn't mean it is in the United States's
9:07
Speaker 3: interest to demand every square inch of territory be taken back.
9:11
Speaker 3: The reason we have an interest in this war is
9:14
Speaker 3: that we want we do not want our enemy Russia
9:17
Speaker 3: to win and get stronger, uh and and instead we
9:22
Speaker 3: want Russia to be weaker so that they're less able
9:26
Speaker 3: to pose a threat to America. They're also, by the way,
9:30
Speaker 3: very very significant resources, in particular rare earth minerals in
9:35
Speaker 3: Ukraine that are critical for the economy going forward. One
9:40
Speaker 3: of the reasons Russia's invading Ukraine is is to get
9:43
Speaker 3: a stranglehold on those rare earth minerals. We don't want
9:46
Speaker 3: putin to have those those those that would not be
9:50
Speaker 3: good for America. Uh and and and so. But but
9:55
Speaker 3: you know what was really striking Ben is in the
9:58
Speaker 3: meeting with Zelensky and we all so had a classified
10:01
Speaker 3: meeting with senior leaders of the Pentagon talking about details
10:05
Speaker 3: of what exactly is happening in the war, where the
10:07
Speaker 3: battles are, where the victories are, where the losses are.
10:11
Speaker 3: And it was a very interesting and worthwhile briefing, but
10:17
Speaker 3: the question of what does victory mean? This administration is
10:22
Speaker 3: not asking that question. No Democrat in that room is
10:26
Speaker 3: asking that question. What is victory? And I got to
10:29
Speaker 3: say it really, you know, when it struck me is
10:32
Speaker 3: we went out to lunch two days ago at a
10:35
Speaker 3: little Paris cafe in between meetings, and we're sitting there
10:38
Speaker 3: at lunch talking and I was most of the senators
10:44
Speaker 3: there at the lunch table were Democrats, and they were
10:47
Speaker 3: all talking about Vietnam. And it struck me looking around
10:50
Speaker 3: the table that they're all baby boomers, They're all children
10:53
Speaker 3: of Vietnam. They all kind of got their start in
10:56
Speaker 3: politics protesting against Vietnam. And look for you and me,
11:02
Speaker 3: I mean, neither of us were alive when Vietnam was
11:04
Speaker 3: a thing. You weren't alive at all. And I was
11:08
Speaker 3: like two when the Vietnam War ended, so I have
11:11
Speaker 3: no memories. Vietnam did not impact my awareness of the world.
11:15
Speaker 3: It was done by the time I was learning about
11:19
Speaker 3: the world. And so I got to say a lot
11:25
Speaker 3: of the boomers, particularly the Democrat boomers, they took the
11:28
Speaker 3: wrong lesson from Vietnam. And I think there are lots
11:32
Speaker 3: of lessons to take from Vietnam. But one of the
11:34
Speaker 3: central ones is that you should have a clear, defined
11:38
Speaker 3: objective that you know what it is that is directly
11:41
Speaker 3: related to your national security that is achievable. You should
11:44
Speaker 3: have a plan to achieve it, and then you should
11:46
Speaker 3: get the hell out. And Vietnam, we just let it
11:49
Speaker 3: go on and on and on and be a quagmire
11:51
Speaker 3: and just kept pouring money and American soldiers and lives
11:55
Speaker 3: into it without a clear objective that we were willing
11:59
Speaker 3: to use overwhelming force to accomplish. This administration has no objective.
12:03
Speaker 3: They can't articulate one. They're not even asking that question.
12:07
Speaker 3: That is infuriating.
12:09
Speaker 2: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
12:12
Speaker 2: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
12:14
Speaker 2: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two center.
12:20
Speaker 2: As I said at the beginning, shocking how crazy the
12:23
Speaker 2: news cycle is in the last twenty four hours. Hunter
12:25
Speaker 2: Biden trials a big story, yes, being found guilty, but
12:29
Speaker 2: there is an even bigger story that we have been
12:32
Speaker 2: warning about for months on this show, and that is
12:36
Speaker 2: perspective terrorists. Those that are on the terrorists watch list,
12:40
Speaker 2: hundreds that have been caught a lot of gotaways that
12:43
Speaker 2: have not been caught, and even when terrorists are getting caught,
12:47
Speaker 2: we're letting them go. This is the second story of
12:50
Speaker 2: this happening, and now we have multiple arrests of isis
12:54
Speaker 2: K coming across our southern border. Here is how CBS
12:59
Speaker 2: News broke the story.
13:00
Speaker 8: Last night, eight individuals, all from the Central Asian country
13:04
Speaker 8: of Tajikistan, were arrested in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.
13:10
Speaker 8: They entered the United States this year and in twenty
13:13
Speaker 8: twenty three, crossing the Mexican border. They were vetted and
13:17
Speaker 8: allowed to remain in the country. CBS News has learned
13:21
Speaker 8: further investigation uncovered the men had possible ties to isis K,
13:27
Speaker 8: the terror group which claimed responsibility for an attack at
13:30
Speaker 8: a Moscow concert hall that killed more than one hundred
13:33
Speaker 8: and forty people earlier this year.
13:36
Speaker 2: Center that's eight across the entire country, from the extreme
13:41
Speaker 2: west coast to the east coast in Philadelphia, and these
13:46
Speaker 2: are just the ones that we've caught that had been arrested.
13:50
Speaker 2: You've been warning about this open border, and we've had
13:53
Speaker 2: the numbers to back it up. Of those on the
13:55
Speaker 2: terrorists watch lists and the administration is saying we're willing
13:58
Speaker 2: to roll the dice and taste that rip to bring
14:00
Speaker 2: in illegal immigrants.
14:02
Speaker 3: Well, sadly, that's exactly right. This story is a big
14:06
Speaker 3: damn deal. We have eight suspected terrorists with isis K
14:12
Speaker 3: who've been arrested. They've been arrested in Los Angeles, in
14:15
Speaker 3: New York, and in Philadelphia. Now they came into this
14:19
Speaker 3: country illegally at our southern border. The Biden administration apprehended
14:24
Speaker 3: them and then they let them go. They let terrorists go.
14:28
Speaker 3: And I've been saying for a long time we are
14:30
Speaker 3: at a greater risk of a major terrorist attack in
14:34
Speaker 3: the United States right now than we have been any
14:38
Speaker 3: time since September eleventh, and let's go. So the first
14:44
Speaker 3: outlet to break this story was the New York Post,
14:47
Speaker 3: and the New York Post announced that these people had
14:51
Speaker 3: been arrested, and they were arrested in the coordinated sting
14:54
Speaker 3: operation that occurred in three cities, Los Angeles, New York,
14:58
Speaker 3: and Philadelphia. Two ICE sources confirmed to the Posts that
15:04
Speaker 3: they arrested six people from Tajikistan over the last week
15:08
Speaker 3: after the FBI contacted the agency to warn them. Two
15:12
Speaker 3: others who were part of the same group, were also
15:14
Speaker 3: arrested after being under surveillance for several months by the
15:18
Speaker 3: multi agency Joint Terrorism Task Force. Part of the investigation
15:23
Speaker 3: featured a wire tap which revealed one of the now
15:27
Speaker 3: arrested individuals was talking about bombs. And here's a quote
15:33
Speaker 3: quote remember the Boston marathon bombing. I'm afraid something like
15:38
Speaker 3: that might happen again or worse, one of the sources
15:41
Speaker 3: told the Post. The subject the target was the subject
15:45
Speaker 3: to the wire tap was previously released by federal authorities
15:50
Speaker 3: at the southern border with a court date next year,
15:55
Speaker 3: but it has since emerged that he has potential ties
15:57
Speaker 3: to ISIS. And by the way, it is worth noting
16:01
Speaker 3: who is isis K. So isis K IS is a
16:04
Speaker 3: splinter group, but it is the group that carried out
16:10
Speaker 3: the terror attack that that we just saw, the terror
16:14
Speaker 3: attack that that happened in the concert hall in Moscow,
16:18
Speaker 3: and that was carried out by terrorists from Czech Tajikistan.
16:22
Speaker 3: So the same country these folks are from the same
16:25
Speaker 3: terror group isis K. And remember what they did. They
16:28
Speaker 3: killed one hundred and forty five people in that Moscow
16:33
Speaker 3: terror terror attack, And so the Biden administration has an
16:38
Speaker 3: open border. It is effectively a red carpet. If you're
16:40
Speaker 3: a terrorist, come to America and we, the idiot Democrats,
16:44
Speaker 3: will let you in if we catch you. And by
16:47
Speaker 3: the way, they catch all these guys because and what
16:50
Speaker 3: happens they turn around and let them go. How many
16:52
Speaker 3: terrorists are Joe Biden the Democrats gonna let go? And
16:55
Speaker 3: by the way, is anyone in the news covering this,
16:58
Speaker 3: is anyone asking Joe by this? Is anyone asking any
17:01
Speaker 3: other Democrat? You know, I've got fifty one Democrat colleagues.
17:04
Speaker 3: How many of them in Capitol Hill are being asked?
17:07
Speaker 3: Why does your party keep releasing terrorists into America? And
17:11
Speaker 3: why are you endangering the lives of American families across
17:14
Speaker 3: this country?
17:15
Speaker 2: And this goes back to another story that happened in April,
17:18
Speaker 2: and we talked about it here. There was a man
17:20
Speaker 2: on the terror watch list that was released also by
17:23
Speaker 2: border patrol. With security funding blocked in Congress, this became
17:29
Speaker 2: an issue and they said, quote, the case illustrates the
17:32
Speaker 2: challenges US officials face and identifying migrants who posed national
17:37
Speaker 2: security threats because we're being overrun at the border. NBC
17:42
Speaker 2: News at the time, and we played this, and I
17:44
Speaker 2: just think it's important to remind them it's not just
17:46
Speaker 2: these eight isis K But go back just to April eleventh, NBC.
17:51
Speaker 3: Is happening over and over and again.
17:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, listen to what they said back in April.
17:55
Speaker 4: An alarming development and the border crisis. Among the record
17:58
Speaker 4: number of migrants crossing the southern border was a member
18:01
Speaker 4: of an Afghan terror organization who was released into the
18:05
Speaker 4: US by border agents. According to US officials, forty eight
18:08
Speaker 4: year old Mohammed Harwin illegally crossed into California in March
18:12
Speaker 4: of last year. His name is on a US terror
18:15
Speaker 4: watch list identifying him as a member of HIG, a
18:18
Speaker 4: terror group that's killed Americans in Afghanistan.
18:21
Speaker 2: I mean center, This is another story that is completely unrelated.
18:26
Speaker 2: A month before that, we found out that another man
18:29
Speaker 2: on a terrorist watch list was released and they had
18:31
Speaker 2: to go grab him up and upstate I think it
18:34
Speaker 2: was upstate New York.
18:35
Speaker 1: So you have these.
18:38
Speaker 2: Headlines that keep happening. We are catching some of these
18:41
Speaker 2: people and we're releasing them because we're overrun.
18:46
Speaker 3: So and it's worth remembering that the FBI Director Chris
18:50
Speaker 3: Ray has repeatedly testified before Congress about possible ISIS terror
18:55
Speaker 3: plots being carried out on US soil and the groups
19:00
Speaker 3: potential for using the southern border to get into this
19:03
Speaker 3: country illegally. And Chris Ray has warned about a possible
19:07
Speaker 3: quote coordinated attack that could take place of the United
19:11
Speaker 3: States from ISIS case, so they know this risk is there.
19:14
Speaker 3: And I want to point out also, you know, we
19:16
Speaker 3: had a couple of months ago, we had the impeachment
19:19
Speaker 3: of Alejandro Mayorcis, and it came over to the Senate,
19:21
Speaker 3: and I and many others on the Republican side wanted
19:24
Speaker 3: to lay out the facts that this administration that may
19:28
Speaker 3: Orcus's lawless refusal to follow federal federal immigration law, on
19:33
Speaker 3: his his releasing of millions and millions and millions, over
19:37
Speaker 3: eleven million illegal immigrants that have come into this country,
19:39
Speaker 3: and are Joe Biden that a major threat from that
19:42
Speaker 3: are the terrorists that they keep releasing over and over
19:45
Speaker 3: and over again. And it's worth noting Ben every single
19:49
Speaker 3: Democrat voted not to hear the case, to throw it out,
19:52
Speaker 3: to dismiss it at the outset. They didn't want to
19:55
Speaker 3: hear the evidence of terrorists being released in the country.
19:58
Speaker 3: They didn't want to allow the house house managers to
20:00
Speaker 3: present that evidence. They didn't want the American people to
20:03
Speaker 3: hear that evidence, and we are on borrowed time. It
20:07
Speaker 3: is not complicated that if you continue to invite terrorists
20:11
Speaker 3: from all over the world, whether Hamas or Hesbel or
20:13
Speaker 3: Palestinian Islamic Jahad or isis K or anybody else. If
20:17
Speaker 3: you invite terrorists from all over the world come into
20:20
Speaker 3: this country, if when you catch them you release them
20:24
Speaker 3: and allow them to continue planning terror attacks, it is
20:28
Speaker 3: only a matter of time before tragically Americans are going
20:32
Speaker 3: to die.
20:33
Speaker 2: March the eleventh, Christopher Ray, in his own words before Congress.
20:37
Speaker 9: From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array
20:41
Speaker 9: of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border. There
20:44
Speaker 9: is a particular network that has where some of the
20:49
Speaker 9: overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that
20:54
Speaker 9: we're very concerned about. And then we've been spending an
20:57
Speaker 9: enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating.
21:00
Speaker 2: That's at least his second, if not third warning to Congress.
21:04
Speaker 2: I think in the last six to seven month, Senator,
21:07
Speaker 2: does this give you guys leverage to now say we've
21:11
Speaker 2: got these eight isis k isis k is the same
21:14
Speaker 2: group that had the spinoff that had the attack in Russia.
21:17
Speaker 2: The FBI director has now warned us a couple of times,
21:19
Speaker 2: why are you guys not changing the policy at the
21:22
Speaker 2: southern border as president? And clearly you should know now
21:26
Speaker 2: from all of these warnings that this policy is a
21:28
Speaker 2: disaster and there are multiple terrorists that are already in
21:31
Speaker 2: this country that we don't know where they are.
21:33
Speaker 3: So frankly, the only leverage we have is what I'm
21:35
Speaker 3: doing right now is shining a light and informing the
21:39
Speaker 3: American people. Why is that because not a single Democrat
21:42
Speaker 3: in the United States Congress cares. Look the Mayorcis impeachment.
21:48
Speaker 3: Every single Democrat, all fifty one of them, they voted.
21:51
Speaker 3: Note we don't want to hear the evidence. We don't care.
21:53
Speaker 3: I sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee. In three and
21:56
Speaker 3: a half years of Biden's presidency, we have had zero
22:00
Speaker 3: hearings on the risk of terrorism from illegal immigrants coming
22:04
Speaker 3: into this country that Joe Biden and the Democrats they
22:08
Speaker 3: don't want to hear it, Which means as long as
22:11
Speaker 3: Chuck Schumer is the majority leader, and the Democrats have
22:13
Speaker 3: control over the Senate. The Senate is not going to
22:15
Speaker 3: do anything, and they're forty nine of us. We can
22:17
Speaker 3: jump up and down and yell, but forty nine cannot
22:20
Speaker 3: out vote fifty one and so fundamentally, the Senate will
22:24
Speaker 3: do nothing as a matter of law to hold Joe
22:27
Speaker 3: Biden to the Democrats accountable, and the media will do nothing.
22:31
Speaker 3: It's why you and I do this podcast because the
22:34
Speaker 3: only solution is the ballot box is throwing Joe Biden
22:39
Speaker 3: the Democrats out of office. And then listen in January
22:44
Speaker 3: in a Trump administration that we're going to secure the
22:46
Speaker 3: damn border. But you've got to have a president willing
22:49
Speaker 3: to follow the law, and Joe Biden refuses to follow
22:52
Speaker 3: the law as before.
22:54
Speaker 2: If you want to hear the rest of this conversation
22:56
Speaker 2: on this topic, you can go back and dow the
22:59
Speaker 2: podcasts from Earthly this week to hear the entire thing.
23:03
Speaker 2: I want to get back to the big story number
23:05
Speaker 2: three of the week. You may have missed, Senator, this
23:08
Speaker 2: was a very interesting moment on Capitol Hill. Donald Trump
23:12
Speaker 2: came and met with a lot of the Republican leadership
23:16
Speaker 2: a lot of your colleagues were there, and the initial
23:20
Speaker 2: reports that came out were saying it was a lot
23:23
Speaker 2: of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement from the Republican
23:27
Speaker 2: leaders that were there.
23:28
Speaker 1: You were in the room, tell us what was happening.
23:31
Speaker 3: So I was. So. Trump began the day by meeting
23:34
Speaker 3: with the House Republicans. I was not in that meeting.
23:36
Speaker 3: Some of the reports of that as that was a
23:38
Speaker 3: little bit wild and wooly. That got into all sorts
23:41
Speaker 3: of topics. But Trump came by the Senate to have
23:44
Speaker 3: lunch with us, and so we met at the National
23:46
Speaker 3: Republican Senatorial Committee, which is like three blocks away from
23:50
Speaker 3: the Capitol, and Trump joined us for the lunch and
23:54
Speaker 3: it started. We're all sitting sitting in a room. It
23:57
Speaker 3: started with him talking for about twenty twenty five minutes,
24:01
Speaker 3: and then we did a whole series of Q and
24:04
Speaker 3: A where probably about a dozen of us asked him
24:06
Speaker 3: questions and he commented on those. And then we went
24:08
Speaker 3: out and we did a press conference where we stood
24:11
Speaker 3: we all stood behind him, and he stood up and
24:13
Speaker 3: gave the press conference and listen, I gotta say the
24:17
Speaker 3: biggest thing about the lunch that struck me was the
24:21
Speaker 3: unity in the room. Look, the media likes to talk
24:23
Speaker 3: about divisions and the Republican Party, and there are certainly some,
24:27
Speaker 3: but today I didn't see any of that. Today. Everyone
24:31
Speaker 3: in the room was focused on winning in November and
24:35
Speaker 3: turning the country around. And Trump was in great spirits.
24:38
Speaker 3: You know. One of the things I asked him after
24:41
Speaker 3: the meeting. I came up and spent a couple of
24:43
Speaker 3: minutes talking with him. I just asked, how are you doing.
24:45
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been this bs you're dealing with with
24:48
Speaker 3: these New York convictions, their utter garbage. But listen, it's
24:52
Speaker 3: not fun to be convicted of felonies. I mean it's
24:57
Speaker 3: been He's been through hell. And so just as a
25:00
Speaker 3: personal level, I was asking him how he was doing,
25:02
Speaker 3: and he said he was doing fine, and it seemed
25:05
Speaker 3: real and genuine. I mean, he was not down in
25:08
Speaker 3: the dumps, He was not discouraged. In fact, was he
25:11
Speaker 3: was really in good spirits. He was optimistic, and his
25:14
Speaker 3: message to everyone is listen, let's stand together. And he
25:18
Speaker 3: emphasized several things. Number one, he emphasized the border, that
25:22
Speaker 3: we've got to secure the border, that it is insane
25:24
Speaker 3: that we have open borders, that it's an invitation to terrorists,
25:28
Speaker 3: and he's exactly right. If and when Trump wins, we
25:31
Speaker 3: will secure the border in the first month or two
25:35
Speaker 3: of the next Trump administration. And I can say that
25:38
Speaker 3: because we know how to do it. We did it before,
25:40
Speaker 3: and we'll do it again. He also talked a lot
25:43
Speaker 3: about inflation and energy in particular, and he pointed out
25:47
Speaker 3: quite rightly that energy is foundational to inflation. One of
25:50
Speaker 3: the reasons that prices have gone up on just about
25:53
Speaker 3: everything is that energy prices of skyrocketed because the Biden
25:57
Speaker 3: administration has been waging war on American energy and we
26:02
Speaker 3: are an energy powerhouse where the number one producer of
26:04
Speaker 3: oil in the world, where the number one producer of
26:07
Speaker 3: natural gas in the world, and the Biden administration is
26:09
Speaker 3: doing everything they can to stifle that. And Trump was
26:13
Speaker 3: very clear that we're going to reverse that. We will
26:15
Speaker 3: reverse that fast early next year, and that's going to
26:20
Speaker 3: have a real impact on energy prices and inflation across
26:23
Speaker 3: the board. We also talked about national security and in
26:27
Speaker 3: particular how insane it is that the Biden administration has
26:31
Speaker 3: flowed one hundred billion dollars to Iran and if and
26:34
Speaker 3: when Trump wins, that's going to end as well.
26:37
Speaker 2: You mentioned a moment ago that there seemed to be
26:40
Speaker 2: unity in the room. That's incredibly important for getting legislation passed. Yes,
26:46
Speaker 2: and you need that, and we didn't have that type
26:49
Speaker 2: of unity. I would argue last time in twenty sixteen,
26:53
Speaker 2: early on, there was some splinters. There was somede divisiveness
26:57
Speaker 2: in the House. That's in its side. What you seem
26:59
Speaker 2: to be describing this time is if Donald Trump is
27:02
Speaker 2: elected and Republicans have control of the House the Senate,
27:06
Speaker 2: it's game on from the from January tewod there's not
27:09
Speaker 2: going to be you know, let's get to know each
27:11
Speaker 2: other time and have some meetings and maybe come over
27:14
Speaker 2: the White House like there's an agenda and it's ready
27:16
Speaker 2: to go for the American people.
27:18
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think that's exactly right. And let me put
27:20
Speaker 3: it in broader context, which is yesterday the Speaker of
27:24
Speaker 3: the House, Mike Johnson, came and had lunch with all
27:26
Speaker 3: the Republican senators. And by the way, that almost never happens.
27:30
Speaker 3: When Paul Ryan was speaker, he didn't do that. When
27:33
Speaker 3: John Bayner was speaker, he didn't do that. When Kevin
27:35
Speaker 3: McCarthy was speaker. He didn't do that. Mike Johnson has
27:38
Speaker 3: done that this multiple times. This is either the third
27:40
Speaker 3: or fourth time he's come and had lunch with all
27:43
Speaker 3: the Senate Republicans. I think that's great. He was talking
27:46
Speaker 3: at lunch yesterday. He said, you know, it's amazing that
27:48
Speaker 3: the media treats it as a news story that the
27:52
Speaker 3: House and Senator talking to each other. And the reason
27:55
Speaker 3: he came over and talked to us is is he said,
27:58
Speaker 3: he's focused on his end, very much on developing the
28:03
Speaker 3: agenda and the plans to hit the ground running if
28:06
Speaker 3: and when we win in November, if we come in
28:09
Speaker 3: to January of next year with a Republican president, a
28:12
Speaker 3: Republican Senate, Republican House, we got an enormous amount to accomplish,
28:17
Speaker 3: and the Speaker, to his credit, is very focused on
28:20
Speaker 3: the first one hundred days. What can we accomplish, what
28:23
Speaker 3: can we do to change the path of the country.
28:26
Speaker 3: I encouraged him to dig in on that. In fact,
28:29
Speaker 3: I shared with a speaker and with everyone else in
28:31
Speaker 3: the room. You know a lot of the senators that
28:35
Speaker 3: are there now were not there back in twenty seventeen
28:38
Speaker 3: when Trump first became president.
28:40
Speaker 8: You know.
28:40
Speaker 3: The Speaker said, look, when Trump first became president, he
28:43
Speaker 3: was a freshman, he was brand new in the Congress,
28:46
Speaker 3: and he was amazed that the Congress was not prepared
28:49
Speaker 3: with the legislative agenda from day one. And he pointed
28:52
Speaker 3: out that he thought a lot of Republicans were surprised
28:55
Speaker 3: that Trump won. They were expecting Hillary to win, and
28:59
Speaker 3: so when the administration came in, they weren't ready for primetime.
29:02
Speaker 3: They didn't know what to do. In this instance, I'm
29:05
Speaker 3: very glad the Speaker is trying to think proactively. And
29:07
Speaker 3: I described I described something that I did back in
29:12
Speaker 3: the summer of twenty eighteen. So summer of twenty eighteen,
29:16
Speaker 3: we did a lunch with all the Senate Republicans and
29:21
Speaker 3: I prepared a PowerPoint. It was about fifty pages long,
29:25
Speaker 3: and I spoke to my colleagues probably the better part
29:27
Speaker 3: of an hour, and the title of the PowerPoint was
29:32
Speaker 3: carpe dim And what I did in the PowerPoint is
29:35
Speaker 3: I looked in the past, in previous instances when one
29:41
Speaker 3: party controlled the White House, the House, and the Senate.
29:43
Speaker 3: It happens pretty rarely. When the Democrats do it, they
29:48
Speaker 3: fundamentally transformed the country. So in the last century, the
29:52
Speaker 3: first time they did it, they passed the New Deal.
29:56
Speaker 3: The second time they did it, they passed the Great Society.
30:00
Speaker 3: The third time they did it, they passed Obamacare and
30:03
Speaker 3: Dodd Frank And now for the last two years we've
30:06
Speaker 3: seen they've spent us into an absolute inflation and recession home.
30:12
Speaker 3: And on the other hand, Republicans, when we have unified control,
30:19
Speaker 3: we tend to do small and piddling things. So what
30:22
Speaker 3: I argued in the PowerPoint is at the time I
30:27
Speaker 3: presented it was August of twenty eighteen, I said, listen,
30:31
Speaker 3: any rational political observer recognizes that there's a very real
30:36
Speaker 3: chance that we will lose at least one House of
30:37
Speaker 3: Congress in November. And I said to my colleagues, particularly
30:43
Speaker 3: the guys who were the sophomores, who were the people
30:44
Speaker 3: who had been elected two years earlier, And I said,
30:49
Speaker 3: look for you, guys, we have one hundred and eighty
30:54
Speaker 3: three days till the next Congress. For many of you,
30:58
Speaker 3: if we do not pass things now, you will never
31:02
Speaker 3: again have another chance to pass anything into law. And
31:05
Speaker 3: so I put together a spreadsheet. It was about fifty
31:08
Speaker 3: different bills all of the bills had been written by
31:11
Speaker 3: different Republican senators. Some I had written, but most of
31:14
Speaker 3: them were my colleagues. And all of the bills were
31:18
Speaker 3: bills that had a reasonable prospect of garnering fifty one votes.
31:24
Speaker 3: They weren't fringe things that would get ten or twelve votes.
31:27
Speaker 3: They were all things that would easily get forty five
31:31
Speaker 3: Republicans and that had a real shot at getting fifty.
31:34
Speaker 3: And what I argued is, I said, listen, this is
31:38
Speaker 3: going to sound radical to you, Ben, we should do something,
31:46
Speaker 3: we should not do nothing. Amazingly enough, that argument proved unpersuasive.
31:55
Speaker 3: Mitch McConnell said, well, so the principal avenue that if
32:01
Speaker 3: you look, the biggest legislative victory of the Trump years
32:04
Speaker 3: was the twenty seventeen tax cuts. We pass that using
32:09
Speaker 3: what's called budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation is a process under
32:14
Speaker 3: a bill called the Budget Act in nineteen seventy five.
32:18
Speaker 3: The budget piece is not terribly consequential. What's consequential is,
32:21
Speaker 3: under the terms of the statute, you have an up
32:24
Speaker 3: down vote at fifty votes and it can't be filibustered.
32:28
Speaker 3: So it's one of the most important exceptions to the
32:31
Speaker 3: filibuster we could have. If you look at the Democrats,
32:35
Speaker 3: they did three budget reconciliations. It's how they passed almost
32:40
Speaker 3: all of their agenda that put us in this hole.
32:43
Speaker 3: When the Republicans had the majority, we did only one
32:46
Speaker 3: budget reconciliation. We did not do a single one in
32:49
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, which, frankly, Ben is indefensible, and so I
32:52
Speaker 3: made the case of the Speaker and my colleagues. Let's
32:55
Speaker 3: not make that mistake again. Let's hit the ground running
32:58
Speaker 3: as always.
32:59
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Verdict with Sentner, Ted Cruz,
33:02
Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal with my podcast,
33:05
Speaker 2: and you can listen to my podcast every other day
33:07
Speaker 2: you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you
33:09
Speaker 2: listen to Verdict. Afterwards, I'd love to have you as
33:11
Speaker 2: a listener to again the Ben Ferguson podcasts, and we
33:14
Speaker 2: will see you back here on Monday morning.