Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Trump DEI Spending Win, Cracker Barrel Pulls the Plug on Rebrand & Panama Canal at Risk by Far Reaching China Week In Review

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Trump DEI Spending Win, Cracker Barrel Pulls the Plug on Rebrand & Panama Canal at Risk by Far Reaching China Week In Review · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome in his verdict with Ted Cruz. Weekend Review, Ben
0:03
Speaker 1: Ferguson with you, and these are the stories you may
0:05
Speaker 1: have missed that we talked about this week. First up,
0:08
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax DEI grants.
0:13
Speaker 1: This is a big move and it can save you
0:15
Speaker 1: a lot of money. I have those details in a moment. Also,
0:19
Speaker 1: Cracker Barrel, they reverse course well pretty quickly, but was
0:22
Speaker 1: it quick enough to save the brand. We'll talk about that.
0:26
Speaker 1: And finally, Centater Cruz is on a codell to Latin America.
0:30
Speaker 1: What he's seeing is truly unbelievable, especially in the prison system,
0:34
Speaker 1: and some news from the Panama Canal as well. It's
0:38
Speaker 1: the weekend Review and it starts right now. I want
0:42
Speaker 1: to move to another big story as well, and this
0:44
Speaker 1: is one that is not going to get a lot
0:46
Speaker 1: of media attention, So I hope everyone listening will actually
0:48
Speaker 1: pay attention to this because it was a big victory
0:51
Speaker 1: from the Supreme Court allowing Donald Trump to ax millions
0:55
Speaker 1: of dollars center and funding for DEI related grants. This
0:59
Speaker 1: is huge.
1:02
Speaker 2: It is so it was a five to four vote
1:04
Speaker 2: and it allowed the Trump administration to terminate seven hundred
1:09
Speaker 2: and eighty three million dollars worth of grants, their grants
1:12
Speaker 2: from the National Institute of Health, and they were granted
1:15
Speaker 2: that they were canceled because because of the administration's policy
1:20
Speaker 2: positions on diversity, equity and inclusion and gender ideology. And
1:26
Speaker 2: the Trump administration quite reasonably said we're not going to
1:29
Speaker 2: give away three seven hundred and eighty three million dollars
1:31
Speaker 2: for DEI for And these were awards that were studying
1:36
Speaker 2: all sorts of ideological objectives that and in many instances
1:40
Speaker 2: were These are awards that were granted because of the
1:44
Speaker 2: researcher's race.
1:45
Speaker 3: They made that a criterion.
1:47
Speaker 2: And listen, I gotta say, there is an important role
1:51
Speaker 2: for scientific and medical research and IHDS does good work.
1:55
Speaker 2: And you know, early in the Trump administration, I was
1:58
Speaker 2: flying from DC back to Houston and a woman came
2:01
Speaker 2: up to me on the plane and she said she
2:03
Speaker 2: was a cancer researcher at m d Anderson and she
2:05
Speaker 2: said she was very worried about funding getting cut and
2:09
Speaker 2: she wanted to express that to me. And I said, listen,
2:12
Speaker 2: thank you for the work you do. MD Anderson is incredible.
2:15
Speaker 2: They do phenomenal work fighting cancer. And I said, everyone
2:20
Speaker 2: or at least everyone with any sense, agrees that we
2:22
Speaker 2: ought to be doing cancer research. And part of the reason,
2:26
Speaker 2: a big part of the reason, you want to scrutinize,
2:29
Speaker 2: and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures, things like
2:32
Speaker 2: funding you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one
2:36
Speaker 2: of the was one of the USAID grants that the
2:39
Speaker 2: administration canceled. Is so that you can spend the money
2:43
Speaker 2: where it actually should be spent. And so seven hundred
2:45
Speaker 2: and eighty three million dollars in NIH grants that is
2:48
Speaker 2: not actually going to disease and curing disease and helping
2:53
Speaker 2: people who are suffering, but instead are granted based on ideology.
2:57
Speaker 2: That is an absolute waste and it is wrong. But
3:00
Speaker 2: I got to tell you, the ruling from the court
3:03
Speaker 2: was only five to four. It was very narrow, and
3:07
Speaker 2: it had a bit of a complicated, bit of a
3:10
Speaker 2: complicated lineup. So four justices dissented. The four who dissented
3:17
Speaker 2: were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson.
3:23
Speaker 3: So you had the Chief Justice plus the four liberals.
3:26
Speaker 2: Now you had four conservatives, Justice Thomas, Justice Ledo, Justice Gorsich,
3:32
Speaker 2: and Justice Kavanaugh, who would have granted the Trump administration's
3:38
Speaker 2: request entirely. And so what happened was plaintiffs had their
3:43
Speaker 2: grants canceled, they went and filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts
3:46
Speaker 2: because of course in this law fair that they deliberately
3:50
Speaker 2: seek out left wing judges at extreme left wing jurisdictions,
3:53
Speaker 2: and so Massachusetts and San Francisco have been incredibly popular
3:57
Speaker 2: places for left wing attorney's jen role in radical groups
4:01
Speaker 2: to file lawsuits. And the district judge, with a district
4:05
Speaker 2: judge did is two things. Number one, vacated the guidance
4:09
Speaker 2: that the Trump administration had issued saying they were not
4:11
Speaker 2: going to give funding to DEI. And then secondly, the
4:16
Speaker 2: district court ordered the Trump administration give the seven hundred
4:20
Speaker 2: and eighty three million dollars to these grant recipients. That
4:24
Speaker 2: went up on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and
4:26
Speaker 2: the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court and
4:28
Speaker 2: again ordered the Trump administration give the money. Now it
4:33
Speaker 2: went to the US Supreme Court and the Supreme Court
4:36
Speaker 2: five to four said no, you do not have to
4:39
Speaker 2: give the money. So the seven hundred and eighty three
4:40
Speaker 2: million dollars the Trump administration is holding on to it.
4:44
Speaker 2: And the deciding vote on this was was Justice Amy
4:48
Speaker 2: Coney Barrett, who voted with the liberals on part of
4:52
Speaker 2: the case and the conservatives on part of the case.
4:56
Speaker 2: So she voted with the conservatives on you don't have
5:00
Speaker 2: to give the money. And the basis for it, by
5:02
Speaker 2: the way, is what the five justices said, is the
5:05
Speaker 2: lawsuit was filed in the wrong place. That the lawsuit
5:10
Speaker 2: should have been filed in the Court of Federal Claims,
5:13
Speaker 2: which is where if you have a breach of contract
5:16
Speaker 2: case against the federal government. If you have a contract
5:18
Speaker 2: and they broke it under federal law, the place to
5:21
Speaker 2: bring that case is the Court of Federal Claims. It's
5:24
Speaker 2: a specialized court that exists to adjudicate breach of contract
5:29
Speaker 2: cases against the government. They did not bring this in
5:31
Speaker 2: the Court of Federal Claims. They brought it just in
5:32
Speaker 2: an ordinary federal district court. So five to four the
5:36
Speaker 2: court said, wrong court. They don't have jurisdiction to decide this,
5:39
Speaker 2: so they don't have to give the money.
5:42
Speaker 3: Now.
5:43
Speaker 2: Justice Barris Barrett sided with the liberals in refusing to
5:49
Speaker 2: reverse the district courts vacating the guidance on DEI. So
5:55
Speaker 2: the guidance on DEI is currently blocked, although that lawsuit
6:01
Speaker 2: will continue, so it's not necessarily permanently blocked. And she
6:05
Speaker 2: declined to have the Supreme Court reverse that decision. And
6:09
Speaker 2: so this was at the end of the day. This
6:13
Speaker 2: really should have been nine to oh, but I'm glad
6:16
Speaker 2: it was at least five to four the right way
6:17
Speaker 2: because that means that this money doesn't have to go
6:20
Speaker 2: out the door.
6:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's certainly big that didn't have to go out
6:23
Speaker 1: the door moving forward, does this also have some sort
6:26
Speaker 1: of pressing that the president will be harassed maybe a
6:29
Speaker 1: little bit less or do you think Democrats say will
6:32
Speaker 1: harass no matter what. We'll argue wherever we can, a
6:34
Speaker 1: liberal court we can find and that will at least
6:36
Speaker 1: slow him down.
6:38
Speaker 3: Yeah.
6:38
Speaker 2: Look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the
6:40
Speaker 2: left wing activist groups are going to keep trying. This
6:43
Speaker 2: is their next generation of lawfare, just like what before
6:48
Speaker 2: when they indicted him four times. That was an effort
6:50
Speaker 2: to use the courts, to use law enforcement to stop
6:53
Speaker 2: President Trump, but also to stop the voters from re
6:56
Speaker 2: electing him. They failed in that. This is now their effort,
6:59
Speaker 2: and it is really relentless. Every day of the Trump presidency,
7:02
Speaker 2: He's going to be sued. The administration is going to
7:04
Speaker 2: be sued. I will say the Supreme Court, we talked
7:06
Speaker 2: about this in an earlier podcast. It has made important
7:11
Speaker 2: steps to rein in the abuse of nationwide or so
7:15
Speaker 2: called universal injunctions. That was important, and this decision is important,
7:20
Speaker 2: and I will say Justice Gorsic, joined by Justice Kavanaugh,
7:24
Speaker 2: wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.
7:27
Speaker 3: Here's what Justice Gorsic said. Quote.
7:30
Speaker 2: Lower court decisions may sometimes disagree with this Court's decision,
7:35
Speaker 2: but they are never free to defy them. In Department
7:39
Speaker 2: of Education versus California, this Court granted a stay because
7:43
Speaker 2: it found the government likely to prevail in showing that
7:46
Speaker 2: the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to
7:50
Speaker 2: pay grant obligations. The California decision explained that quote, suits
7:56
Speaker 2: based on any express or implied contract with the United
8:00
Speaker 2: States do not belong in district court under the Administrative
8:04
Speaker 2: Procedure Act, but in the court of Federal claims under
8:07
Speaker 2: the Tucker Act. Rather than follow that direction, the district
8:12
Speaker 2: Court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical
8:17
Speaker 2: grants to proceed to final judgment under the APA. As
8:21
Speaker 2: support for its course, the District Court invoked thee persuasive
8:28
Speaker 2: authority of the dissents in California and an earlier Court
8:34
Speaker 2: of Appeals decision that California repudiated that was error in
8:41
Speaker 2: casting California side. The District Court stressed that the court
8:45
Speaker 2: there granted only interim relief pending appeal and a Ritiscechoran
8:50
Speaker 2: did not issue a final judgment on the Merits true enough,
8:55
Speaker 2: but this court often addresses requests for interim relief, sometimes
8:58
Speaker 2: pending a rit of ccherari, as in calif And either way,
9:02
Speaker 2: when this Court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent
9:08
Speaker 2: that commands respect in lower courts.
9:12
Speaker 3: He went on to say, quote, if the District.
9:15
Speaker 2: Court's failure to abide by California were a one off,
9:19
Speaker 2: perhaps it would not be worth writing to address it.
9:22
Speaker 2: But two months ago, another district court tried to quote
9:26
Speaker 2: compel compliance with a different order that this Court had stayed. Still,
9:33
Speaker 2: another district court recently diverged from one of this Court's decisions,
9:38
Speaker 2: even though the case at hand did not differ in
9:41
Speaker 2: any pertinent respect from the one this Court had decided.
9:47
Speaker 2: So now this is the third time in a matter
9:50
Speaker 2: of weeks this Court has had to intercede in a
9:55
Speaker 2: case squarely controlled by one of its precedents. All these
10:00
Speaker 2: interventions should have been unnecessary, but together they underscore a
10:05
Speaker 2: basic tenet of our judicial system. Whatever their own views,
10:10
Speaker 2: judges are duty bound to respect the hierarchy of the
10:14
Speaker 2: federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress. Look
10:20
Speaker 2: that this highlights a pattern we're seeing of lawless district judges.
10:25
Speaker 2: That is, Justice Gorsic and Kavanaugh lay out three and
10:28
Speaker 2: just three weeks that have defied the Supreme Court of
10:31
Speaker 2: the United States said we don't care what the Court said,
10:34
Speaker 2: and you know it was striking. Look I'm reading from
10:37
Speaker 2: a Supreme Court opinion, and some of that sounds like
10:39
Speaker 2: legal ease. But I'll tell you one of the most
10:41
Speaker 2: amazing things that Justice Gorsich described the district Court did
10:46
Speaker 2: is it said it found persuasive the descents in the
10:51
Speaker 2: California decision. Well, a dissent, by definition, means you lost,
10:56
Speaker 2: you did not get the majority. The majority is the opinion.
11:00
Speaker 2: A discent is someone who disagrees with the opinion, and
11:03
Speaker 2: the way precedent works, the way our judicial system works,
11:07
Speaker 2: is a decision that it issues from the Supreme Court
11:10
Speaker 2: is a precedent that all of the district courts and
11:13
Speaker 2: all of the courts of appeals are bound to follow.
11:15
Speaker 2: So if you are citing a descent, you are saying
11:19
Speaker 2: right on the front of it, I don't care what
11:22
Speaker 2: the majority held, I agree with the dissenters. No lower
11:25
Speaker 2: court judge has the authority to do that. That is
11:28
Speaker 2: the definition of lawlessness, and it is why these plaintiffs
11:34
Speaker 2: are seeking out radicals on the bench who they know
11:37
Speaker 2: will be lawless.
11:38
Speaker 1: Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
11:41
Speaker 1: you can go back and listen to the full podcast
11:44
Speaker 1: from earlier this week. Now onto story number two.
11:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, look, we saw an illustration of this with
11:51
Speaker 2: Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel is a terrific institution, particularly in
11:55
Speaker 2: the South, and their woke leadership decided that everything the
11:59
Speaker 2: company was built on they didn't like, and in particular,
12:02
Speaker 2: they didn't like their customers. You know, their customers they
12:05
Speaker 2: thought were not nearly as enlightened as they should be.
12:08
Speaker 2: They were not nearly as woke as they should be.
12:10
Speaker 2: And the whole thing was very reminiscent of bud Light.
12:13
Speaker 2: You know, bud Light. You had a marketing executive who said,
12:15
Speaker 2: you know, the people who buy bud Light.
12:17
Speaker 3: We don't like them.
12:19
Speaker 2: We need to have you know, a bunch of woke
12:22
Speaker 2: transgender activists drinking our beer instead. It was reminiscent of
12:27
Speaker 2: what happened with Target, where they decided to market, you know,
12:32
Speaker 2: to market to transgender toddlers and do it prominently pushing,
12:40
Speaker 2: pushing bathing suits.
12:42
Speaker 3: For two year old boys to.
12:44
Speaker 2: Tuck their genitals, to hide them away, to pretend they're
12:47
Speaker 2: not boys. That was Target thinking, this is really what
12:49
Speaker 2: America wants, because you know, if you're the parent of
12:51
Speaker 2: a two year old, clearly you want your son to
12:54
Speaker 2: believe he's a daughter when he's two. This is a
12:58
Speaker 2: phenomenon a business leader who buy into an ideology that
13:04
Speaker 2: is wildly unpopular and ultimately directly antithetical to their customers.
13:10
Speaker 2: And so Cracker Barrel had had a logo, had a
13:13
Speaker 2: logo of you know, an old old guy sitting on
13:16
Speaker 2: a chair next to a giant barrel. And they decided, okay,
13:18
Speaker 2: let's get rid of the Cracker. Let's get rid of
13:20
Speaker 2: the barrel. Let's get rid of it all, and we'll
13:22
Speaker 2: just have anodyne words because we're really embarrassed that that
13:27
Speaker 2: that were for anything nostalgic, anything that that that is Americana.
13:32
Speaker 2: And the pushback has been phenomenal. There's stock prices tank
13:36
Speaker 2: just like bud Light, just like Target, and and just
13:41
Speaker 2: today they announced never mind. Okay, yeah, this has not
13:44
Speaker 2: worked well. The beatings are really hurting, so we're going
13:48
Speaker 2: to stop. But it is it is striking that that
13:54
Speaker 2: it took the reaction of the market for them to
13:57
Speaker 2: figure it out. I want to say though, it is
13:59
Speaker 2: a great, great victory for common sense that Cracker Barrel
14:04
Speaker 2: finally gave in and said, you know what, we're gonna
14:07
Speaker 2: stop being woke because we'd like to actually have one
14:09
Speaker 2: or two customers when this is all said and done.
14:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. The the I think the frustration of conservatives now
14:16
Speaker 1: voting with our dollars, and that is what ultimately this
14:19
Speaker 1: came down to. A Cracker brought This was a bunch
14:21
Speaker 1: of Americans that said, Okay, you despise us, you despise
14:26
Speaker 1: the you know who we are as a customer base.
14:29
Speaker 1: You're basically telling us you don't want us anymore watch this,
14:34
Speaker 1: uh and and that is exactly how they got this
14:36
Speaker 1: point very quickly. And look, I also think when you
14:39
Speaker 1: have people like you and the President who are willing
14:41
Speaker 1: to speak out on this and say you guys are
14:43
Speaker 1: being stupid, they realize how quickly others are like yeah,
14:47
Speaker 1: us too, like we're gonna you know what, We're gonna
14:50
Speaker 1: say that we think this is ridiculous, and we're starting
14:53
Speaker 1: to finally, I think see the pendulum swing back the
14:56
Speaker 1: other way, which is really really cool.
14:59
Speaker 2: I was gratified because yesterday President Trump publicly called out
15:03
Speaker 2: Cracker Barrel and said, look, you need to just go
15:05
Speaker 2: back to your old logo, like give this up in
15:07
Speaker 2: the rebranding and accept that you were wrong. And I'll
15:10
Speaker 2: tell you. I jumped in on Twitter. I retweeted him,
15:13
Speaker 2: I said this is absolutely right, and the two of
15:15
Speaker 2: us were very vocal saying go back to where you were,
15:18
Speaker 2: and twenty four hours later they did. So that was gratifying.
15:22
Speaker 2: It's not always that people listen they listen to common sense.
15:25
Speaker 2: In this case, they did, and it's worth noting it
15:30
Speaker 2: isn't just in the last week that people noticed that
15:34
Speaker 2: what Cracker Barrel was doing was nuts. Almost a year ago.
15:40
Speaker 2: November of last year, a big investor in Cracker Barrel
15:45
Speaker 2: Guy named Sardar big Laurie. He owns approximately five percent
15:50
Speaker 2: of the restaurant chainstock. He wrote to his fellow shareholders
15:53
Speaker 2: that the Cracker Barrel transformation was a quote mistake of
15:58
Speaker 2: misguided executives falling into a textbook trap of overspending on
16:03
Speaker 2: cosmetic remodeling. And he continued the day Cracker Barrel opened,
16:09
Speaker 2: it was already old, its theme derived from the nineteen twenties,
16:15
Speaker 2: and he wrote, I am concerned that not only will
16:17
Speaker 2: the remodel not work, but it could actually damage the
16:21
Speaker 2: brand further. These decisions are taking us down the same
16:26
Speaker 2: path I believe as Ruby Tuesday, Red Lobster, Tgi Fridays
16:30
Speaker 2: and the like. Let me make my position clear. The
16:34
Speaker 2: company's seven hundred million dollars remodel plan will not work.
16:41
Speaker 2: And he called at a letter to the shareholders in
16:43
Speaker 2: October twenty twenty four, the board's transformation plan quote obvious folly.
16:51
Speaker 2: And yet the corporate leadership ignored the shareholder own five
16:54
Speaker 2: percent of the company, and they charged down that road anyway,
16:58
Speaker 2: and they vaporized roughly fifteen percent of the market cap
17:02
Speaker 2: of the company because that they were more interested in
17:07
Speaker 2: listening to woke marketing executives. And by the way, the
17:10
Speaker 2: entire marketing world, much of that is a scam of
17:13
Speaker 2: left wing, woke people who despise their customers. And let
17:18
Speaker 2: me say, if you're in corporate America, don't listen to
17:20
Speaker 2: marketing executives that don't understand and don't like your customers.
17:24
Speaker 2: But in this instance, Cracker Barrel should have listened to
17:27
Speaker 2: its investor and not these marketing execs, and it paid
17:30
Speaker 2: the price. But the good news is they finally, finally,
17:34
Speaker 2: finally listened and reversed and said, you know what, the
17:37
Speaker 2: principles we were founded on, the principles America was founded on.
17:41
Speaker 2: Those principles are pretty good. We're going to get back
17:43
Speaker 2: to them.
17:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's incredible. All right, final question for you, you've
17:47
Speaker 1: got day one in the book to the Codell. You're
17:49
Speaker 1: going to be down there and also doing more. We're
17:53
Speaker 1: going to be able to talk about that coming up
17:55
Speaker 1: on the next episode of Verdict.
17:57
Speaker 3: That's right.
17:58
Speaker 2: That this is a multi day trip and traveling to
18:00
Speaker 2: two other countries throughout Latin America and the focus is
18:04
Speaker 2: really on meeting with heads of state, meeting with leaders
18:06
Speaker 2: in each of these countries where the issues directly impact
18:11
Speaker 2: the United States, directly impact Texas, they impact our national security,
18:15
Speaker 2: they impact our economy. By the way, I had dinner
18:18
Speaker 2: tonight with the Economy minister here in El Salvador. They're
18:21
Speaker 2: very focused on American investment on energy, on technology, on pharmaceuticals,
18:27
Speaker 2: on creating jobs. And by the way, to give a
18:30
Speaker 2: sense of how much these changes matter, I'm going to
18:33
Speaker 2: give you two stats to wrap up with. The Justice
18:36
Speaker 2: Minister told me they've had over ten thousand applications for
18:40
Speaker 2: people who want to be police officers. Suddenly, people are
18:43
Speaker 2: eager to be police officers because it's making a difference
18:46
Speaker 2: because as they're making their community safe. Previously, when the
18:50
Speaker 2: gangs were running the country, they had in one year
18:53
Speaker 2: over three hundred police officers murdered. Being a police officer
18:56
Speaker 2: was literally taking your life and your faith, family's life
19:00
Speaker 2: in danger. Now people are lining up to be police
19:02
Speaker 2: officers because they see the difference. But here's something else.
19:06
Speaker 2: It used to be that the people of El Salvador
19:08
Speaker 2: were fleeing this country because look, you were risking being murdered,
19:11
Speaker 2: your kids were risking being murdered. You wanted to get out.
19:15
Speaker 2: Now we are seeing reverse migration. They're roughly six million
19:20
Speaker 2: Salvadorans and El Salvador. There are about three million Salvadorans
19:24
Speaker 2: in the United States. President Beccauley told me roughly half
19:28
Speaker 2: of those Salvadorans in America, about one and a half million,
19:32
Speaker 2: have said they want to come back to El Salvador.
19:34
Speaker 2: They're seeing reverse migration because suddenly people are saying, wait,
19:38
Speaker 2: I've fled my country because I was terrified for my
19:40
Speaker 2: safety and my family. Now the country's safe, I want
19:44
Speaker 2: to come back. I love love the beach and the mountains,
19:46
Speaker 2: and the people and the culture that is changing this country.
19:51
Speaker 2: And it ought to be an encouragement to any other leader,
19:54
Speaker 2: to any mayor, to anyone facing crime and challenges. When
19:59
Speaker 2: you fix these problems, it doesn't just keep people safe,
20:03
Speaker 2: which it does, but it has economic benefits. It literally
20:06
Speaker 2: transforms your community. That's inspirational. And as I said, this
20:11
Speaker 2: is the beginning of a multi day trip throughout Latin America.
20:14
Speaker 2: So in two days we'll report on the rest of
20:16
Speaker 2: the trip.
20:17
Speaker 1: As before. If you want to hear the rest of
20:18
Speaker 1: this conversation on this topic. You can go back and
20:21
Speaker 1: down the podcast from earlier this week to hear the
20:24
Speaker 1: entire thing. I want to get back to the big
20:28
Speaker 1: story number three of the week.
20:29
Speaker 3: You may have missed.
20:30
Speaker 1: All right, Senator, you're on this codelln Latin America. One
20:33
Speaker 1: of the other parts of your trip involved going to
20:35
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal and seeing some different things, including a
20:40
Speaker 1: lot that deals with China. Now it's been a big
20:43
Speaker 1: concern talk about that.
20:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I spent a day and a half in Panama.
20:49
Speaker 4: I flew from El Salvador to Panama and met with
20:52
Speaker 4: multiple cabinet members, the Finance Minister, the Defense Minister, the
20:59
Speaker 4: Public Safety minister, uh, and the head of the Panama
21:03
Speaker 4: Canal and and and I will say number one, Panama
21:07
Speaker 4: is a beautiful country. Uh. It is. It is a
21:12
Speaker 4: gorgeous place. And and the people of Panama have a
21:15
Speaker 4: deep affinity for America. I was struck by that. You
21:18
Speaker 4: know that they repeatedly, the government officials, the Panamanians that
21:24
Speaker 4: I visited with, there's a long history in a close,
21:28
Speaker 4: close affinity for the United States. The Panama Canal is amazing.
21:33
Speaker 4: So so I went out on a boat and and
21:35
Speaker 4: and went to to the outer parts of the Panama Canal.
21:39
Speaker 4: And then I went to one of the locks and
21:41
Speaker 4: I saw I saw one of the Panamas, like the
21:45
Speaker 4: super tankers coming through, and and then also saw a
21:49
Speaker 4: little sailboat coming through, and then a kind of medium
21:52
Speaker 4: sized container ship coming through. It is amazing, it is
21:57
Speaker 4: very like, it is very cool. Number one, just how
22:00
Speaker 4: the Panama Canal operates. Like you see the Panamax, the supertanker.
22:07
Speaker 4: The container ship is the largest size possible to fit
22:12
Speaker 4: through the Panama Canal, and it's built for that size.
22:15
Speaker 4: I mean, it is literally this massive ship that is
22:19
Speaker 4: going through these locks. And these locks have concrete on
22:22
Speaker 4: the side, and it's built so the sides of the
22:25
Speaker 4: ship are within two feet of the concrete walls on
22:28
Speaker 4: both sides, Like it's that big. And what happens. So
22:33
Speaker 4: we were on the Pacific end of the canal and
22:36
Speaker 4: a ship comes in and each of the locks has
22:39
Speaker 4: to lower the ship twenty seven feet, so it comes
22:42
Speaker 4: in into the locks. And it's interesting for the big
22:45
Speaker 4: tanker that connect steel cables to the tanker and they
22:48
Speaker 4: have locomotives on both sides to help keep the ship
22:52
Speaker 4: right in the center. You've got only two feet of
22:54
Speaker 4: clearance on both sides, so it'd be really easy for
22:57
Speaker 4: it to smack into the side of the canal. And
23:02
Speaker 4: it is in the lock, and then it takes about
23:04
Speaker 4: eight to ten minutes for the water to drain and
23:07
Speaker 4: for it to lower twenty seven feet. And it's lowering
23:10
Speaker 4: twenty seven feet, and it goes to the next lock
23:12
Speaker 4: and it lowers another I believe it's twenty seven feet.
23:16
Speaker 4: All told, it's about eight I think it's eighty one feet.
23:19
Speaker 4: That it has to rise to get to the height
23:22
Speaker 4: of the lake in the interior, and that it has
23:24
Speaker 4: to lower it to get to the Atlantic Ocean of
23:26
Speaker 4: the Pacific Ocean, and both the Atlantic and Pacific are
23:28
Speaker 4: about the same distance. To lower the water twenty seven
23:34
Speaker 4: feet takes eight to ten minutes, and so the water
23:38
Speaker 4: goes down and then the giant gates open. It was
23:41
Speaker 4: amazing to watch the technology. I saw the old control room.
23:46
Speaker 4: I saw the control room where the lock is being operated,
23:48
Speaker 4: the old control room. So the Panama Canal was built
23:51
Speaker 4: in nineteen fourteen. The United States built it, and we
23:55
Speaker 4: lost thousands and thousands of lives building it. It's an
23:58
Speaker 4: incredible engineer Marble. So the old control room had these
24:04
Speaker 4: brass ge equipment. You saw the old ge General Electric
24:10
Speaker 4: and Electric that they built one of the first early
24:15
Speaker 4: computers to help operate the locks. It's amazing now now
24:19
Speaker 4: it's all computerized in high tech. So the old brass
24:23
Speaker 4: controls of each lock that gives you the water height.
24:26
Speaker 4: And it was literally it almost looked like something Captain
24:30
Speaker 4: Nemo would have in terms of the nineteen fourteen levers
24:34
Speaker 4: and switches to operate the canal. That's still preserved there.
24:40
Speaker 4: When I went out on the boat. One of the
24:41
Speaker 4: things I saw ben is right at the entrance, the
24:46
Speaker 4: Pacific entrance of the canal, there is a gigantic port
24:51
Speaker 4: that is owned and controlled by Communist China, and it's
24:55
Speaker 4: right there and they have cranes. They're right there in
24:58
Speaker 4: a position. There is also China is building a bridge,
25:04
Speaker 4: a bridge across the canal. It is a bridge for cars.
25:09
Speaker 4: They were awarded the contract to build the bridge. China
25:13
Speaker 4: is also there's a Chinese company that is digging a
25:15
Speaker 4: tunnel under the canal for a metro trade. And so
25:21
Speaker 4: I saw, I saw where the metro was going to go.
25:23
Speaker 4: I saw the bridge being built, and it's all right
25:26
Speaker 4: there at the mouth of the canal, and I went.
25:30
Speaker 4: The purpose of my visit was to meet with the
25:33
Speaker 4: Panamanian government and say, look, China cannot have control.
25:38
Speaker 3: Of this canal.
25:40
Speaker 4: It is too important to the United States, to our
25:44
Speaker 4: national security, to our economic security. As you know, I'm
25:48
Speaker 4: the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. The Commerce Committee
25:51
Speaker 4: has jurisdiction over the Panama Canal, and so earlier this
25:55
Speaker 4: year I chaired a hearing on the Panama Canal in
25:58
Speaker 4: the Commerce Committee, and we laid out the concerns, in
26:03
Speaker 4: particular the concerns of China. And when I laid out
26:06
Speaker 4: to the Panamanian officials, I said, look, if God forbid,
26:11
Speaker 4: we find ourselves in a military conflict with China. Let's
26:15
Speaker 4: say next year China invades Taiwan, and President she has
26:21
Speaker 4: repeatedly said he wants to invade Taiwan. If he does so,
26:25
Speaker 4: there's a very real possibility that escalates into a military
26:28
Speaker 4: conflict with the United States. If China is in an
26:33
Speaker 4: active military conflict with the United States, I think the
26:37
Speaker 4: risk is unacceptable that China would try to shut down
26:43
Speaker 4: the Panama Canal, because if they shut down the Panama Canal.
26:47
Speaker 4: It massively delays our ability to move military ships from
26:51
Speaker 4: the Atlantic to the Pacific to engage with the Chinese
26:54
Speaker 4: in Taiwan, because it forces our military ships instead to
26:58
Speaker 4: go around the southern tip of South America rather than
27:01
Speaker 4: cut through the canal. And so if you're president, she look,
27:07
Speaker 4: you wouldn't do it at a time of peace. But
27:09
Speaker 4: if they're at war, it becomes a really compelling situation
27:15
Speaker 4: to say, let's impose massive economic harm on the United
27:19
Speaker 4: States and we get enormous benefits. They're billions of dollars
27:23
Speaker 4: of revenue that comes from shipping. Shipping, whether it is
27:28
Speaker 4: is oil and gas through the Panama Canal or goods
27:32
Speaker 4: and containers, and shutting down the Panama Canal would be
27:35
Speaker 4: a real blow to the United States economy. But it
27:37
Speaker 4: would also be a real blow to our military because
27:40
Speaker 4: it would limit our ability to move naval ships from
27:42
Speaker 4: the Atlantic to Pacific. It would massively delay moving that
27:48
Speaker 4: those ships. And so what I'm pressing Panama, I will
27:52
Speaker 4: say when I shared the hearing on the Panama Canal.
27:57
Speaker 4: Within a week they announced the deal to those two
28:01
Speaker 4: Chinese ports to an American business consortium that deal has
28:08
Speaker 4: not gone through yet. The Chinese are slow walking in
28:11
Speaker 4: and part of the purpose of my trip was to
28:13
Speaker 4: press the Panamanian government and say, look, you need to
28:17
Speaker 4: get the Chinese the hell out of here. Do not
28:19
Speaker 4: leave them in a position where they can shut down
28:22
Speaker 4: this canal, because shutting down this canal would be an
28:25
Speaker 4: enormous economic and national security blow to the United States,
28:27
Speaker 4: but it would also be an enormous blow to Panama.
28:30
Speaker 4: And so part of the case I was making them
28:34
Speaker 4: is their interests in our interest are aligned. They don't
28:37
Speaker 4: want China to be in a position to shut down
28:39
Speaker 4: the canal.
28:39
Speaker 1: As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with center
28:43
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you don't forget to deal
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