Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / We Are All at Risk

Transcript

We Are All at Risk · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Government is using big tech to shut down dissent. They're
0:05
Speaker 1: doing it on the biggest podcast platform in the world.
0:09
Speaker 1: They're doing it up in America's hat with Canadian truckers.
0:14
Speaker 1: We are all we are all at risk here and
0:17
Speaker 1: what happens now will have a lot to say about
0:20
Speaker 1: the future of free speech in our society. This is
0:25
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. Today's episode of Verdict with Ted
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Speaker 1: go to the post office again. Welcome back to Verdict
4:16
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. They seem like
4:20
Speaker 1: very different issues. Canadian truckers and the most popular podcast
4:25
Speaker 1: are on the planet except for the week that Verdict launched,
4:28
Speaker 1: But will digress. We leave that for a couple of
4:31
Speaker 1: years ago. They are deeply connected stories. And actually you
4:36
Speaker 1: seem to have played a role in all of this.
4:37
Speaker 1: You caused a little bit of an international incident, Senator,
4:40
Speaker 1: when you got into a Twitter spat with the mayor
4:43
Speaker 1: of Vancouver over this trucker protest going on up in Canada.
4:48
Speaker 1: Well that's true enough. The Mayor of Vancouver said, you know,
4:51
Speaker 1: we Canadians don't want you truckers. You guys go home,
4:54
Speaker 1: And I had to point out, I said, gosh, you know,
4:57
Speaker 1: the Canucks might have a different view if the truckers
4:59
Speaker 1: actually did go home and suddenly your shelves were empty.
5:02
Speaker 1: I mean, it seems to me two years ago, people
5:05
Speaker 1: were waxing eloquent about the great heroes that truckers were,
5:09
Speaker 1: and I agree that they make our entire system, our
5:13
Speaker 1: economy move forward. But now these leftist politicians are saying,
5:18
Speaker 1: to hell with you, truckers. We don't like what you
5:20
Speaker 1: have to say. So it's not just the little guy.
5:23
Speaker 1: It's not just the working class that is being put
5:25
Speaker 1: upon here. It's even one of the most elite, influential
5:30
Speaker 1: popular voices in the world. That would be Joe Rogan,
5:34
Speaker 1: this podcaster who's got a massive, massive audience, he's politically independent,
5:39
Speaker 1: and a big tech is shutting him down. We touched
5:42
Speaker 1: on it a little bit. Some aging hippies were trying
5:44
Speaker 1: to boot him off of Spotify, but it appears to
5:48
Speaker 1: be sort of working well. These two stories are deeply
5:52
Speaker 1: interconnected and they represent together the most dire threat to
5:58
Speaker 1: free speech. We have Joe Rogan, you have petty government
6:03
Speaker 1: authoritarians enlisting their buddies in big tech to silence the
6:08
Speaker 1: voice of descent Canadian truckers. You have petty government authoritarians
6:13
Speaker 1: enlisting the voice of big tech and the power of
6:16
Speaker 1: big tech to silence the voice of descent and both
6:20
Speaker 1: look that this would never have happened even a year
6:23
Speaker 1: or two or three ago. This is a new phenomenon.
6:26
Speaker 1: Let's take Joe Rogan, so Jen SAKEI publicly called from
6:32
Speaker 1: the White House podium for Spotify to take down his
6:34
Speaker 1: episodes for Spotify to silence him. I will say, let
6:38
Speaker 1: me start off by saying, I'm pissed off. Look our
6:40
Speaker 1: last podcast, we talked about how this pod was the
6:43
Speaker 1: first podcast to be mentioned from the White House podium,
6:46
Speaker 1: and incomes Joe Rogan and bigfoots us M that's true, Senator,
6:51
Speaker 1: we were the first two. We can at least hang
6:53
Speaker 1: our hat on that. But yes, Joe Rogan has come in.
6:56
Speaker 1: He is now the third podcast to be referenced at
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Speaker 1: a White House briefing. Will say in between the two,
7:01
Speaker 1: Jen Saki was asked asked about this podcast and her
7:05
Speaker 1: comment was she said she is blissfully blissfully not a
7:09
Speaker 1: spokesperson for Ted Cruise, which I have to admit. Michael
7:13
Speaker 1: I retweeted and just said the bliss is mutual, the
7:17
Speaker 1: feeling is reciprocated, right. But I will say what we
7:20
Speaker 1: did talk about actually setting up Margarita's and kickboxing and
7:23
Speaker 1: see if we could recruit her over because she thankfully,
7:27
Speaker 1: we're not going to do that. Look stop for a
7:29
Speaker 1: second and think about the White House, the executive office
7:35
Speaker 1: of the leader of the free World, the most powerful
7:38
Speaker 1: man on planet Earth, calling for a voice of descent
7:44
Speaker 1: to be silenced and calling very specifically calling out big Tech,
7:49
Speaker 1: calling out the oligarchs and Silicon Valley. Jensaki was very specific,
7:54
Speaker 1: Spotify take down this post. Now. Normally, when you have
7:59
Speaker 1: suppression of free beach is a big power in balance,
8:01
Speaker 1: and it's powerful people trying to silence weak people. Well,
8:05
Speaker 1: here the person they're trying to silence is Joe Rogan.
8:07
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan as many things, but not weak. He's got
8:10
Speaker 1: one hundred million listeners and viewers. That is a crap
8:13
Speaker 1: ton of listeners and viewers. And you know he gets
8:18
Speaker 1: more viewers. He's for many episodes. He's ten x or
8:26
Speaker 1: a hundred x what CNN is and and the White
8:30
Speaker 1: House is terrified of him. CNN is terrified of him,
8:34
Speaker 1: the Blue check Marks and Twitter are terrified of him.
8:37
Speaker 1: And it's worth worth pausing. Look, you and I are
8:41
Speaker 1: unlikely advocates for Joe Rogan. I don't know Joe Rogan
8:44
Speaker 1: met the guy. As far as I know, he's not
8:48
Speaker 1: a conservative. He endorsed Bernie Friggin Sanders. Generally conservatives don't
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Speaker 1: endorse wild eyed socialists. But Rogan. Look, I've really grown
8:58
Speaker 1: to admire Rogan because he's demonstrated backbone. He's willing to
9:04
Speaker 1: speak out and on COVID he's called bullshit to the
9:09
Speaker 1: continued propaganda and the contradictions and the lies coming out
9:14
Speaker 1: of Fauci, coming out of the Biden White House, coming
9:17
Speaker 1: out of the press, and for those in power, having
9:22
Speaker 1: someone willing to dissent with a really big megaphone scares
9:26
Speaker 1: them and so they want to destroy them. In the
9:29
Speaker 1: important thing to know about Joe Rogan, this is not spontaneous,
9:32
Speaker 1: This is not organic. This is an organized assassination of speech.
9:38
Speaker 1: It started off kind of comical, but then the White
9:42
Speaker 1: House chimed in, and then you noticed it started off
9:44
Speaker 1: with COVID misinformation because he brought in scientists and doctors
9:48
Speaker 1: who had views that differed from the enlightened view of
9:52
Speaker 1: doctor Fauci, which changes every week. But whatever it is
9:55
Speaker 1: that week is holy scripture and cannot be challenged. Yea,
10:00
Speaker 1: But then you know this kind of hack writer Don Winslow,
10:05
Speaker 1: but I've never heard of other than he's loud, obnoxious.
10:07
Speaker 1: On Twitter puts out this video, an old video of
10:12
Speaker 1: Rogan using the N word, and look, using the N
10:15
Speaker 1: word is wrong. Neither you nor I support it. And
10:19
Speaker 1: suddenly all of the blue check marks gathered up together
10:22
Speaker 1: and Rogan is a racist for having used it. Look,
10:27
Speaker 1: that's not a word that should be used in polite society.
10:30
Speaker 1: But I will tell you who else is used the
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Speaker 1: N word repeatedly. Joe Biden, rappers like crazy Howard Stern.
10:38
Speaker 1: They're not castling Howard Stern. Why Because Howard Stern is serviling,
10:46
Speaker 1: kissing the behinds of those in power. It's truly a shame.
10:49
Speaker 1: Howard Stern started out a rebel, and now he echoes
10:52
Speaker 1: the words of the petty tyrants. If you shut up
10:55
Speaker 1: and echo what they say, you're okay. If you're Jimmy Kimmel,
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Speaker 1: you can dress in black face, you can do whatever
11:00
Speaker 1: you want because you're a mouthpiece for the regime. This
11:05
Speaker 1: has followed a familiar script, and I guess this also
11:09
Speaker 1: ties it to the Canadian trucker protest, which is the
11:11
Speaker 1: actual substantive issue that this is about. Is COVID, and
11:15
Speaker 1: so Joe Rogan questioned the COVID narrative. He brought on
11:18
Speaker 1: very respected, very well known scientists. They question the government's
11:22
Speaker 1: COVID narrative, the narrative dujure because as you say, it
11:25
Speaker 1: changes all the time, and so what happens. Then they
11:29
Speaker 1: try to attack him. It doesn't work. Then the left
11:31
Speaker 1: calls him a racist. That is always the next card
11:34
Speaker 1: that they play. They pull it out of nowhere, they
11:36
Speaker 1: take clips out of context, they do whatever they can.
11:38
Speaker 1: They apply a standard unevenly, and they're trying to do that.
11:41
Speaker 1: That seems to have weakened him a little bit. He's
11:43
Speaker 1: made some concessions. We'll see where it goes. But I
11:46
Speaker 1: guess my question on it is what is it about
11:48
Speaker 1: this COVID issue? Because I guess what the left would
11:52
Speaker 1: say is, Michael Senator, this is about health. People are
11:56
Speaker 1: going to die if this information gets out there, and
11:59
Speaker 1: that's why we've got to suppress the truckers. It's why
12:01
Speaker 1: why we've got to shut up Rogan. Is this a
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Speaker 1: unique issue where people are not allowed to dissent? It
12:08
Speaker 1: is unique in the following way. It has revealed the
12:11
Speaker 1: authoritarianism of these government leaders. They believe they have the
12:15
Speaker 1: power to force you to comply, to force you to
12:17
Speaker 1: take a vaccine. My body, my choice doesn't matter to
12:20
Speaker 1: them anymore. Nope, not your body, not your choice. We're
12:23
Speaker 1: going to force you to take a vaccine, to force
12:25
Speaker 1: you to wear a mask, to force you to obey,
12:27
Speaker 1: and if you don't, they will use the course of
12:30
Speaker 1: force of government to shut your business down. You know,
12:33
Speaker 1: there's a restaurant here in DC that was shut down
12:36
Speaker 1: because they refused to enforce the vaccine mandate. So local
12:39
Speaker 1: restaurant said, look, I don't want to like have my
12:41
Speaker 1: customers come in demand their papers, you know, intrude on
12:45
Speaker 1: their medical business. And so what did DC do. District
12:48
Speaker 1: of Columbia came in and shut them down. I mean,
12:50
Speaker 1: it is arbitrary power. They will shut your business down.
12:53
Speaker 1: They will shut your restaurant down. They'll shut your bar down,
12:55
Speaker 1: they'll shut your store down. They will fire you if
12:59
Speaker 1: your active duty militarius, soldier, sailor airman, marine, a Navy seal,
13:03
Speaker 1: they will fire you. If you're a doctor, a nurse,
13:05
Speaker 1: they will fire you. If you're a government employee, if
13:08
Speaker 1: you're an FBI agent, if you're a border patrol agent.
13:10
Speaker 1: They will fire you. It is force. And these are
13:14
Speaker 1: the same guys that during the height of COVID, when
13:17
Speaker 1: it started, we're shutting down playgrounds, we're shutting down churches.
13:21
Speaker 1: We're suing to say, if you sing amazing grace, everyone's
13:26
Speaker 1: going to die. And what COVID is done has revealed
13:32
Speaker 1: the arbitrariness, the power. And by the way, you know,
13:37
Speaker 1: some might say, all right, you're exaggerating. Listen, all these
13:41
Speaker 1: Democratic politicians know it's crap. We all saw this week
13:44
Speaker 1: Stacy Abrams sitting in a classroom full of little kids.
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Speaker 1: The kids are all masked and she's sitting there grinning
13:50
Speaker 1: ear to ear with no mask right in front. Why
13:53
Speaker 1: because she's a Democratic overlord and the rules don't apply
13:56
Speaker 1: to her. They just apply to the little people. In
13:58
Speaker 1: this case, it really was little people. It was children.
14:03
Speaker 1: And it's all the Democratic politicians, every one of them.
14:06
Speaker 1: Gavin Newsom, you know, palling around with Magic Johnson. It's
14:11
Speaker 1: pretty cool he gets to hang out with Magic Johnson.
14:12
Speaker 1: I'm jealous about that, you know. Eric Garcetti saying saying, oh,
14:17
Speaker 1: I held my breath. I had my mask off, but
14:19
Speaker 1: I held my breath balogony. But it's the lie is
14:24
Speaker 1: so absurd. The person saying it doesn't believe it, the
14:28
Speaker 1: person hearing it doesn't believe it. But what it's really about.
14:31
Speaker 1: And by the way, Barack Obama this week, he's having
14:34
Speaker 1: this massive house built in Hawaii, never mind global warming,
14:38
Speaker 1: never mind the environment, and he's standing there with the workers,
14:42
Speaker 1: little working people. The workers are all masks, and there's Obama,
14:45
Speaker 1: no masks, supervising the servants. That's the same as Nancy
14:49
Speaker 1: Pelosi when she does her fundraisers where the serving people
14:53
Speaker 1: must be masked. It's garbage. It is contempt of elitists.
14:59
Speaker 1: But the fact that they take their mask of I've
15:01
Speaker 1: talked in this pot all the time. Democratic senators remove
15:04
Speaker 1: their masks all the time behind closed doors when the
15:08
Speaker 1: TV cameras aren't there, boom, the mask comes off. But
15:11
Speaker 1: as soon as they come out, they put the mask on.
15:14
Speaker 1: This is about power, and Rogan and the truckers are
15:20
Speaker 1: threats to it. And I gotta say, look, Rogan in
15:23
Speaker 1: the world of speech has a damn powerful megaphone. Spotify
15:31
Speaker 1: is paying him one hundred million dollars. One hundred million
15:33
Speaker 1: dollars a lot of money Michael, if Spotify offered it
15:36
Speaker 1: to you tomorrow one hundred million dollars, shave your head
15:38
Speaker 1: and become an m a wrestler. I gotta say, I
15:41
Speaker 1: think we'd see Michael Knowles. Yet, you know, dressed in
15:45
Speaker 1: a red tights, you going to wrestle. I don't want
15:49
Speaker 1: to undercut my negotiation. I would do it for ninety
15:52
Speaker 1: five I would, I believe you, and I'd buy tickets
15:55
Speaker 1: to it. Well, I guess this is what's so scary.
16:00
Speaker 1: Here is Joe Rogan. He's got this huge megaphone, and
16:03
Speaker 1: yet they can, at least to some degree, make him concede.
16:07
Speaker 1: We were always told that, yes, the government is bad
16:10
Speaker 1: and they do lots of bad things, but we've got
16:12
Speaker 1: private enterprise, We've got our own private organizations. We can
16:15
Speaker 1: do our own work in the culture, fight back, build
16:18
Speaker 1: your own Google, all that kind of stuff. And yet
16:20
Speaker 1: what we've seen here in the States and with the
16:22
Speaker 1: Canadian truckers is you're seeing the government using these these
16:26
Speaker 1: private entities. So you've got Spotify as being pressured by
16:30
Speaker 1: the White House to boot Rogan or at least to
16:32
Speaker 1: censor him. You've got go fund me. There was a
16:34
Speaker 1: go fund me set up for these Canadian truckers. A
16:36
Speaker 1: lot of people were donating to them, and then go
16:39
Speaker 1: fund me under a lot of political pressure, says, whoops,
16:42
Speaker 1: never mind, we're going to take that money away from
16:44
Speaker 1: the truckers. Well, so, now we don't have the government,
16:47
Speaker 1: we don't have the private enterprise. What are we supposed
16:49
Speaker 1: to do? So you look at Spotify. They haven't kicked
16:52
Speaker 1: Rogan off yet, but the goal is to kick him
16:54
Speaker 1: off entirely. That's what the White House called for. They
16:57
Speaker 1: have taken down about one hundred episodes of his show.
17:00
Speaker 1: So they've decided that you and I we don't get
17:02
Speaker 1: to see what he said those episodes. We're too dumb,
17:04
Speaker 1: we're too ignorant, we can't listen. That speech is dangerous,
17:08
Speaker 1: and so they're going to ban it. I gotta say.
17:11
Speaker 1: Rogan responded by apologizing and listen. If if there's one
17:14
Speaker 1: lesson Donald Trump has taught us is don't apologize to
17:18
Speaker 1: the woke left wing mob, because they're not interested in apology.
17:22
Speaker 1: They're not interested in truth, they're not interested in facts.
17:25
Speaker 1: Nobody cares in the mob about the substance of what
17:29
Speaker 1: was on those hundred episodes. They don't care at all.
17:31
Speaker 1: They want to destroy him. You look at the truckers.
17:34
Speaker 1: Listen in Canada, the Canadian politicians, you know, the mayor
17:39
Speaker 1: of Ottawa was was was reveling in calling for go
17:47
Speaker 1: fund me to pull down the site and was bragging
17:51
Speaker 1: about it. And go fund me people had given ten
17:54
Speaker 1: million dollars to support this. I mean, it was, you know,
17:57
Speaker 1: a spontaneous movement. And when the government officials called on
18:03
Speaker 1: and go fund me, just like the White House did,
18:05
Speaker 1: the government officials in Canada call on Go fund me
18:07
Speaker 1: stop this. You know, go fund me didn't have one
18:11
Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars tied up with the truckers. If they did,
18:14
Speaker 1: they might have behaved differently. Spotify has been a little
18:16
Speaker 1: bit trying to have their cake and eat it too. Yeah.
18:19
Speaker 1: So go fund Me just said, nope, we're taking the money.
18:22
Speaker 1: And first they said we're going to give it to
18:24
Speaker 1: a bunch of left wing causes that we support. Then
18:27
Speaker 1: there was so much outrage they backed off and said,
18:30
Speaker 1: oh it, or we'll just refund the money. Look. This weekend,
18:33
Speaker 1: I sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking
18:36
Speaker 1: the FTC to investigate go fund me for deceptive trade
18:40
Speaker 1: practices because if you take ten million dollars, if you
18:43
Speaker 1: steal it from people and divert it to a place
18:47
Speaker 1: that the consumers who gave it didn't intend it to go,
18:51
Speaker 1: that is deception, That is consumer fraud, and it is
18:56
Speaker 1: indicative of the arrogance of big tech and the willingness
19:00
Speaker 1: for them to act as enforcers for government officials. Now,
19:04
Speaker 1: there was a second part of this go fund me story.
19:07
Speaker 1: So I'm very glad that you are bringing legitimate government
19:11
Speaker 1: power against go fund me. Here. I will never use
19:14
Speaker 1: go fund me again. Obviously, we can't trust it if
19:17
Speaker 1: they're going to take the money away from the causes
19:19
Speaker 1: we think we're giving to. Now, Michael, that's not fair.
19:21
Speaker 1: If you want to support Black Lives Matter and TIEF,
19:24
Speaker 1: if you want to support rioters and people that are
19:26
Speaker 1: fire bombing police cars, if you want to support people
19:28
Speaker 1: that are taking over police stations and declaring Chad's autonomous zones,
19:32
Speaker 1: go fund me is the site for you. So if
19:35
Speaker 1: you want to support Marxists, that's the place to go.
19:37
Speaker 1: And you don't even need to donate directly to. You
19:40
Speaker 1: can donate to whoever you want. Don't worry, go fund
19:43
Speaker 1: me will redirect your money. You don't even need to
19:45
Speaker 1: think about it. So I'm really glad that you are
19:48
Speaker 1: leading on this issue and getting the government to look
19:50
Speaker 1: into this, this obvious fraud. But there was a second
19:53
Speaker 1: part to the story here, which is that after gofund
19:55
Speaker 1: me took all the money, a bunch of people then
19:58
Speaker 1: got together and started to fund the truckers. Not through
20:03
Speaker 1: the government obviously, not even through some private enterprise an
20:07
Speaker 1: organization might go fund me. They did it through bitcoin.
20:10
Speaker 1: Bitcoin is a powerfully revolutionary technology cryptocurrency. I am very
20:16
Speaker 1: bullish on bitcoin and on crypto generally. And i gotta
20:20
Speaker 1: tell you, the same petty authoritarians who hate Joe Rogan,
20:26
Speaker 1: who hate the Canadian truckers, they hate bitcoin and they
20:30
Speaker 1: hate crypto and their sem irony. So I've become a
20:34
Speaker 1: very vocal defender of crypto, probably the leading defender, certainly
20:38
Speaker 1: one of the leading defenders in the US Senate. And
20:40
Speaker 1: it's interesting a lot of the bitcoin and crypto folks
20:43
Speaker 1: were Bernie bros, just like Rogan, you know, the kind
20:47
Speaker 1: of cool socialists that seem hip. And yet these authoritarians
20:53
Speaker 1: hate bitcoin and they hate crypto, and it's for the
20:57
Speaker 1: same reason. Why did they hate Joe Rogan because they
21:00
Speaker 1: can't control him. He's not subject to their authoritarian power.
21:05
Speaker 1: Why do they hit bitcoin because they can't control it.
21:09
Speaker 1: It is a system of currency outside of the monopoly
21:12
Speaker 1: control of the US government. And I got to say,
21:15
Speaker 1: as I've addressed you know, I spoke at a big
21:17
Speaker 1: cryptoconference in Austin several months ago, and I said, listen,
21:21
Speaker 1: you need to understand this administration, I believe is going
21:25
Speaker 1: to go after you and is going to try to
21:27
Speaker 1: destroy you. And by the way, that's a pattern of authoritarians.
21:33
Speaker 1: China communist China outlawed bitcoin for the exact same reason.
21:38
Speaker 1: Why does Elizabeth Warren hate bitcoin for the same reason
21:42
Speaker 1: that she and China hates bitcoin because neither one of
21:45
Speaker 1: them can control it. And the theme through all of
21:49
Speaker 1: this is the power of freedom to be not subject
21:54
Speaker 1: to the arbitrary whims of those in government power. Now
21:58
Speaker 1: you have convinced me on this. I don't know anything
22:01
Speaker 1: about a crypto. I'm a terrible investor. My investment strategy
22:04
Speaker 1: generally is by high sell low, that's whenever I'm involved.
22:08
Speaker 1: But what a lot of listeners probably don't know is
22:10
Speaker 1: that you are much hipper than I am, you have
22:14
Speaker 1: been on this crypto thing for a while. It's true,
22:17
Speaker 1: and you did make headlines because well, while crypto was
22:21
Speaker 1: collapsing and I was panicked and selling all my crypto,
22:24
Speaker 1: you were apparently buying the dip that that is true.
22:28
Speaker 1: So I bought bitcoin. I own bitcoin. I think according
22:31
Speaker 1: to the public reports, they're three senators that own bitcoin, Me,
22:35
Speaker 1: Cynthia love Us, and Pat Toomey. Um. You know, I'll say,
22:39
Speaker 1: I don't know. Six eight months ago, I didn't know
22:41
Speaker 1: a whole lot about bitcoin and crypto, and I saw
22:46
Speaker 1: that it was growing and developing, and I said, look,
22:48
Speaker 1: I need to educate myself. And so I started setting
22:51
Speaker 1: up dinners with people involved in the crypto world and
22:56
Speaker 1: just sitting down and listening to them. And I started
22:58
Speaker 1: off with, you know, all sorts of dumb questions, you know,
23:00
Speaker 1: what is it? How does it work? In learning? And
23:02
Speaker 1: it's complicated stuff. And I certainly I would not hold
23:05
Speaker 1: myself out as an expert today, but I started learning
23:09
Speaker 1: and listening to it and being fascinated by by the
23:11
Speaker 1: development of it, by the ability that there's a book
23:14
Speaker 1: actually that Cynthia Loves recommended to me called Layered Money
23:17
Speaker 1: which I read that talks about some of the history
23:20
Speaker 1: of the development of money from the beginning. But but
23:23
Speaker 1: crypto is the next evolution of it. And I've gotten
23:27
Speaker 1: very bullish on crypto, especially bitcoin, and really horrified at
23:36
Speaker 1: the efforts of Elizabeth Warren and big government Democrats to
23:41
Speaker 1: crush this growing industry. You know, Texas is becoming an
23:46
Speaker 1: oasis for bitcoin. We're seeing more and more crypto moving
23:49
Speaker 1: to Texas, particularly Austin. And so I started several months ago.
23:53
Speaker 1: I actually have a weekly by order in for bitcoin
23:56
Speaker 1: that every week I just have an automatic buy. You know, look,
23:59
Speaker 1: given that there's votility, UM, I'm a fan of dollar
24:02
Speaker 1: cost averaging, which is just having a buy that occurs
24:05
Speaker 1: weekly automatically, so that high or low it averages out. UH.
24:10
Speaker 1: And then what I ended up doing, UM, I guess
24:15
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago is when bitcoin dropped about
24:18
Speaker 1: in half, I said, all right, I don't believe this
24:21
Speaker 1: drop and and so I made a bigger purchase. I
24:24
Speaker 1: bought twenty five thousand worth of bitcoin. UM. Under the
24:27
Speaker 1: Senate you have to file a financial disclosure for a
24:30
Speaker 1: purchase over a thousand dollars. So I filed that financial disclosure.
24:34
Speaker 1: And you know, usually those financial disclosures don't you know,
24:38
Speaker 1: maybe they get a little bip, but they don't, they
24:41
Speaker 1: don't get a whole lot of attention. It actually fascinating, Michael.
24:43
Speaker 1: When I filed the financial disclosure, it generated a ton
24:46
Speaker 1: of press. And listen, I am bullish on bitcoin. So
24:50
Speaker 1: I'm proud to say I got skin in the game.
24:52
Speaker 1: I believe in it, and that's that's that's why I
24:54
Speaker 1: invested in it. But but I think we ought to
24:57
Speaker 1: be encouraging. I want cryptocurrency. I want America to be
25:02
Speaker 1: the hub of cryptocurrency globally, and frankly, I want Texas
25:06
Speaker 1: to be the hub of cryptocurrency in America. So I
25:10
Speaker 1: have been convinced by you and by other I mean
25:13
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, George Gilder was really bullish on
25:16
Speaker 1: blockchain technology years ago even and said this is kind
25:20
Speaker 1: of the future of the Internet. Yeah, And so what
25:22
Speaker 1: I'm convinced on here now is that this would be
25:25
Speaker 1: a way to avoid government control. This would be a
25:28
Speaker 1: way to avoid even the control of private businesses that
25:31
Speaker 1: are often working at the behest of the government. Anyway.
25:34
Speaker 1: But then my final question to you is this if
25:38
Speaker 1: the government was able to clamp down on all these
25:41
Speaker 1: private businesses and build your own Google and all of that,
25:43
Speaker 1: and that hasn't worked. We saw it with the truckers,
25:45
Speaker 1: we're seeing with Rogan two. What is to stop them
25:49
Speaker 1: from clamping down on bitcoin. You've already heard rumblings out
25:52
Speaker 1: of the government. What is the likelihood that Biden does that?
25:55
Speaker 1: So look, they may well, and I am quite concerned
25:59
Speaker 1: about it. This ad illustration could kill crypto. When I
26:01
Speaker 1: talked to the conference in Austin, you know, there are
26:04
Speaker 1: a lot of folks in the crypto world. We're a
26:06
Speaker 1: little bit utopian that they have a view that that
26:09
Speaker 1: that that we are inevitable, that that that bitcoin is
26:14
Speaker 1: inherently superior to all other forms of money. I will
26:16
Speaker 1: say one of the things I like about it is
26:18
Speaker 1: it's a potential hedge against inflation. And given this administration
26:22
Speaker 1: spending trillions and driving up trillions in debt, I'm interested
26:25
Speaker 1: in the hedge in inflation as they're devaluing the dollar,
26:28
Speaker 1: and so I like bitcoin as a hedge against inflation.
26:31
Speaker 1: But the point I made at this conference is you
26:33
Speaker 1: only need to understand government can destroy You asked how
26:37
Speaker 1: many of you all have heard of napster Um, you know,
26:42
Speaker 1: and they all did, and I said, listen, it's easy
26:45
Speaker 1: to think we're happily in our sort of Austin, peaceful place.
26:50
Speaker 1: And I think Bitcoin is actually where Silicon Valley was
26:55
Speaker 1: maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, which is at a
26:58
Speaker 1: fork in the road where Silicon Valley could have chosen
27:02
Speaker 1: to go towards a libertarian utopia. Leave us alone, let's
27:06
Speaker 1: be entrepreneurs, let's have freedom. Or they could have done
27:10
Speaker 1: what they did, which is to go down the socialist
27:12
Speaker 1: woke path of we exercise power, we are totalitarian, and
27:16
Speaker 1: we're hard leftist woke, and unfortunately Silicon Valley took the
27:20
Speaker 1: wrong choice. I think Bitcoin and crypto more generally is
27:24
Speaker 1: at that same fork in the road. I hope that
27:27
Speaker 1: they go the libertarian way. I hope they go the
27:30
Speaker 1: small business leave us alone, let us be entrepreneurs. You know,
27:35
Speaker 1: that is really potent, So I'm trying to encourage it.
27:38
Speaker 1: But absolutely there is a very real and potent threat
27:42
Speaker 1: from the Biden administration that they will go after it,
27:45
Speaker 1: that they will try to destroy it. And I'm going
27:48
Speaker 1: to fight against that because I think it is a huge,
27:51
Speaker 1: huge industry going forward, and I don't want to see
27:54
Speaker 1: the idiot politicians in Washington drive it out of America
27:59
Speaker 1: and send it overseas. It won't disappear, But Washington is
28:03
Speaker 1: perfectly capable of sending the jobs overseas and sending sending
28:07
Speaker 1: that business overseas. I think that would be catastrophic, right,
28:10
Speaker 1: And it's especially at a moment where we're dissent against
28:14
Speaker 1: the ruling class, the liberal establishment, the regime, whatever you
28:16
Speaker 1: want to call it, where that is so difficult and
28:19
Speaker 1: where people are genuinely persecuted for it. Yes, we have
28:23
Speaker 1: to wield what political power we can. Yes, we need
28:24
Speaker 1: to wield what market power we can. But if if
28:26
Speaker 1: there were an instrument of technology really to be able
28:30
Speaker 1: to exercise our rights in our way of life, that's
28:32
Speaker 1: something very hopeful, and so I hope that we can
28:35
Speaker 1: maintain it. We unfortunately so far, are not accepting bitcoin
28:40
Speaker 1: in the Verdict store, but I think we really should.
28:42
Speaker 1: I think that would be a great way to do it. So, Michael,
28:44
Speaker 1: I've actually introduced legislation in Congress to have the Congressional
28:49
Speaker 1: store accept bitcoin. Rile. That's one of the pieces of
28:52
Speaker 1: legislation I've introduced as a way of spreading its acceptance.
28:58
Speaker 1: By the way, in El Salvador, I spoke with the
29:00
Speaker 1: President of Al Salvador last week El Salvador. It's it's
29:03
Speaker 1: legal currency, it's legal tender in Al Salvador, and it
29:07
Speaker 1: is Bitcoin has all sorts of potential, particularly in developing economy,
29:11
Speaker 1: for people to have secure savings. You may not have
29:13
Speaker 1: access to a bank account, but if you have a
29:15
Speaker 1: cell phone, if you have any technology, you can have
29:17
Speaker 1: secure savings that can't be stolen from you. It can
29:21
Speaker 1: also is secure instantaneous transactions. You can transfer it, buy
29:25
Speaker 1: and sell. You know, they're massive inefficiencies right now, and
29:29
Speaker 1: the transfers of cash that crypto and bitcoin go all around,
29:32
Speaker 1: and so it is a generation skipping technology which is potent,
29:37
Speaker 1: and that's one of the reasons. So I've introduced legislation
29:41
Speaker 1: to repeal what the Democrats did putting additional burdens on crypto.
29:45
Speaker 1: And I've also, as I said, I think the Congressional
29:49
Speaker 1: store how to accept it because it helps it helps
29:54
Speaker 1: expand the ability of this industry to grow. And I
29:57
Speaker 1: think there's enormous benefit to Texas and the country as
30:01
Speaker 1: this industry grows. Well, it's great to know that bitcoin
30:06
Speaker 1: is good for developing economies, because if Joe Biden's policies
30:09
Speaker 1: continue to destroy our dollar and our jobs, we may
30:12
Speaker 1: soon be a developing economy ourselves. Now we have more.
30:17
Speaker 1: Just when you think it's over, there is still more.
30:19
Speaker 1: Some of you who have gone over and gone to
30:22
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash shop and headed
30:24
Speaker 1: over and subscribe to the Verdict Plus community. Some of
30:27
Speaker 1: you know about this, but some of you might not
30:29
Speaker 1: know this quite yet. But our friend Liz Wheeler is
30:32
Speaker 1: hosting a new series with Senator Cruz, the hardest working
30:36
Speaker 1: man in show business and in politics, and that is
30:39
Speaker 1: called Cloak Room. Liz, what are you talking about? Hi?
30:42
Speaker 1: Michael Hi? Senator Yes, and Michael, you and I joke.
30:45
Speaker 1: One series is simply not enough for Senator Cruz, so
30:48
Speaker 1: there must be two. I'm so excited. This will be
30:51
Speaker 1: our second, our second episode in the series. I'm excited
30:53
Speaker 1: to introduce it. It's called the Cloak Room. It's on
30:55
Speaker 1: Verdict Plus. It is only for Verdict Plus subscribers. You
30:59
Speaker 1: can of course join us ad Verdict with Ted Cruz
31:01
Speaker 1: dot com slash Plus. It's a it's a brand new
31:04
Speaker 1: series with Senator Ted Cruz. It's co hosted by me
31:06
Speaker 1: Liz Wheeler. Basically, how it's going to work is I'm
31:08
Speaker 1: going to pick his brain like I would in a
31:10
Speaker 1: strategy session. It's a behind the scenes peek into the
31:13
Speaker 1: details of what goes on in DC, just like the
31:15
Speaker 1: real cloak Room of the Senate. Today, we're going to
31:18
Speaker 1: talk about Stacy Abrams and that infamous massless photo of
31:21
Speaker 1: her with kids who were wearing masks next to her.
31:24
Speaker 1: Plus the proper role, this is the nerdy part, the
31:26
Speaker 1: proper role of public health and the administrative state and
31:29
Speaker 1: the separation of powers. Doctor and now leg I said,
31:32
Speaker 1: you can join us at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot
31:34
Speaker 1: com slash plus. I also have a promo code Cloakroom
31:37
Speaker 1: for you. If you use this promo code Cloakroom, you'll
31:40
Speaker 1: get one month free a one month free trial on
31:42
Speaker 1: your annual subscriptions. It's going to be a good time. Then,
31:46
Speaker 1: as I have mentioned before, soon after that, we're going
31:48
Speaker 1: to have a series where it is just me and
31:51
Speaker 1: Liz and no senator, then a series of Liz and
31:53
Speaker 1: the Cactus, and we're just building out a whole universe
31:56
Speaker 1: here because as the Left tries to clamped down on us,
32:00
Speaker 1: it's more important than ever to speak out and Liz
32:03
Speaker 1: in our beneficence, in our charity, which is a theological virtue.
32:07
Speaker 1: We are not going to keep this episode behind the paywall.
32:10
Speaker 1: In the future of the episodes are going to behind
32:12
Speaker 1: the paywall, but right now we have a sneak peek.
32:14
Speaker 1: So I'm going to get out of here. Liz. You
32:16
Speaker 1: take it away with the Cloakroom. Thank you, Michael. I'm
32:18
Speaker 1: Liz Wheeler. This is Cloakroom on Verdict plus. Senator. We
32:21
Speaker 1: have a great episode plans today, So let's start with
32:25
Speaker 1: this photograph. This is the photograph curd round the country,
32:28
Speaker 1: if you will. It is, of course, Stacy Abrams, gubernatorial
32:30
Speaker 1: candidate for the state of Georgia. She is not wearing
32:33
Speaker 1: a mask in this photograph, which is surrounded by school children,
32:36
Speaker 1: very small children with wearing masks on their face. And
32:39
Speaker 1: not only is this a terrible look, she actually is
32:42
Speaker 1: defending this in the wake of all the outrage. So
32:44
Speaker 1: my question to you, leg I said, is purely political.
32:46
Speaker 1: Is this photograph going to be the reason that she
32:48
Speaker 1: loses her election? Is this going to disqualify her in
32:51
Speaker 1: the eyes of her voters. Look, I think this photograph
32:54
Speaker 1: has the potential to be something like Terry mcculloff's comment
32:57
Speaker 1: at the end of the Virginia governor's race. He said
33:00
Speaker 1: in the debate, he said, parents have no right to
33:02
Speaker 1: say what's taught to their kids in school. And and
33:05
Speaker 1: I think if there was one sentence that defeated McAuliffe
33:09
Speaker 1: and elected Glen Yonken, it was that sentence. It was
33:11
Speaker 1: the arrogance that was revealed. It was you know, there's
33:14
Speaker 1: an old line that a gaff as when a politician
33:17
Speaker 1: tells the truth, tells you what they really think. This
33:20
Speaker 1: picture shows you what Stacy Abrams really thinks. And it
33:23
Speaker 1: is I think this picture will play a central role
33:27
Speaker 1: in the election. You know, several things are striking. Number one,
33:33
Speaker 1: they put the picture out. They were proud of this picture.
33:36
Speaker 1: They saw nothing wrong with it. And then suddenly the
33:38
Speaker 1: reaction was so intense they deleted it, and they got
33:42
Speaker 1: the school to delete it too. They like tried to
33:45
Speaker 1: ban it, tried to erase it, just delete the In fact,
33:48
Speaker 1: the school person deleted her entire account. But but then
33:54
Speaker 1: when everyone naturally criticized the self evident hypocrisy. The Abraham's
34:01
Speaker 1: campaign put out this statement, just snarling with attacks that
34:06
Speaker 1: of course people are attacking me because they're racists and
34:09
Speaker 1: it's all about, you know, undermining Black History Month because
34:13
Speaker 1: they're all just horrible racist who hate me, completely ignoring
34:18
Speaker 1: the substance. Also, a campaign put out a statement that well,
34:21
Speaker 1: Stacy requested that everyone wear a mask and she just
34:24
Speaker 1: took hers off briefly. Well, okay, so that doesn't make
34:29
Speaker 1: it better. Maybe she held her breath like Garcetti did. Indeed,
34:34
Speaker 1: And by the way, I think it's much better. The
34:37
Speaker 1: world would be better if democratic politicians held their breath,
34:39
Speaker 1: because it would mean they couldn't talk, so that would
34:42
Speaker 1: be an improvement. Look this picture. I was reading something
34:46
Speaker 1: today that was comparing this, saying, this is the most
34:50
Speaker 1: consequential image of a politician in a room full of
34:53
Speaker 1: kids since George W. Bush was reading a children's story
34:57
Speaker 1: to a room full of kids when they came in
35:00
Speaker 1: and told him the news about nine to eleven about
35:02
Speaker 1: the plane flying into the twin towers. And you know,
35:06
Speaker 1: we all remember that that image and know that image,
35:09
Speaker 1: and I think this one likewise, people will remember years
35:13
Speaker 1: from now this is an image that will define the
35:17
Speaker 1: double standards, the arrogance, the hypocrisy, and it speaks volumes.
35:25
Speaker 1: I also thought it is notable, like the Washington Post
35:28
Speaker 1: wrote a story about, you know, Republican outrage over Abrams
35:37
Speaker 1: in the picture, and what's interesting is they didn't show
35:41
Speaker 1: the picture. They had a picture of Stacy Abrams like
35:43
Speaker 1: out on the campaign trail smiling. The Washington Post very
35:46
Speaker 1: deliberately wouldn't show the picture because you actually don't need
35:49
Speaker 1: any commentary. You just need to see the image, and
35:52
Speaker 1: it tells you everything you need to know, including the
35:56
Speaker 1: fact that if everyone in the picture, the person at
35:59
Speaker 1: greatest from a serious illness of COVID was clearly Stacey Abrams. Yeah,
36:04
Speaker 1: she's the one not wearing a mask. The little children.
36:08
Speaker 1: The odds are overwhelming. If one of those kids got
36:11
Speaker 1: COVID that there would be few, if any, symptoms, and
36:14
Speaker 1: it would not be life threatening. But what it reveals
36:20
Speaker 1: is that neither she nor the other Democratic politicians that
36:25
Speaker 1: are insisting the kids be masks. They don't believe in
36:28
Speaker 1: this stuff. No, they don't. It's worse than hypocrisy, isn't it.
36:31
Speaker 1: It's it's elitism. They actually aren't just violating rules that
36:35
Speaker 1: they think apply to themselves. They actually don't believe that
36:37
Speaker 1: their own rules apply to themselves. And this has been
36:40
Speaker 1: This is the reason the Washington Post isn't picturing or
36:43
Speaker 1: showing this photograph is because they know it's not a
36:45
Speaker 1: Republican or a Democrat issue anymore among voters, especially parents,
36:48
Speaker 1: that parents across the aisle are outraged at how the
36:51
Speaker 1: public health establishment has treated their children and continue to
36:54
Speaker 1: treat their children in school. And that's where I want
36:56
Speaker 1: to dive into this a little more nerdy, a little
36:59
Speaker 1: more phyllisical aspect of as we've seen up close and
37:03
Speaker 1: personal the last two years, how the public health establishment
37:07
Speaker 1: holds so much power over the American public, how much
37:10
Speaker 1: they influence politicians who issue dictates and mandates and lockdowns
37:15
Speaker 1: and masks and vaccines and all of these, all of
37:19
Speaker 1: these fairly invasive measures in the name of health, in
37:23
Speaker 1: the name of public health. And so I want to
37:24
Speaker 1: talk to you tonight. I want to ask you, from
37:27
Speaker 1: a philosophical perspective, what is the role or what should
37:32
Speaker 1: be the role of the public health establishment in our country. Well,
37:36
Speaker 1: it depends what qualifies for public health establishment and in
37:40
Speaker 1: many ways that is functionally doctor Anthony Fauci, and and
37:44
Speaker 1: he has become the face of it so much so
37:46
Speaker 1: that that on TV he has said, I represent science.
37:52
Speaker 1: You know, it reminds me of Scripture. In the beginning
37:54
Speaker 1: was the word I mean? It is this hubers to
38:00
Speaker 1: embody science with which Faucci. Look. Two years ago, Faucci
38:05
Speaker 1: had a pretty good reputation, he was well respected. The arbitrariness,
38:11
Speaker 1: the error against the attitude of infallibility, and the obvious
38:17
Speaker 1: contradictions that have come from Fauci. I think you've done
38:22
Speaker 1: massive and long term damage to the credibility of the CDC,
38:27
Speaker 1: of the NIH, of the public health establishment. Listen, you
38:32
Speaker 1: want to minimize the spread of disease, lock every person
38:34
Speaker 1: on planet Earth in a dungeon and never let them out.
38:37
Speaker 1: You will reduce the spread of disease. They're just or
38:40
Speaker 1: other negative consequences, right. Well, that kind of get that
38:45
Speaker 1: kind of gets to my questions. That's why I think
38:47
Speaker 1: that we as a nation, especially the Republican Party and
38:49
Speaker 1: the Conservative movement, need to analyze, We need to be
38:52
Speaker 1: thoughtful about what the proper role of public health is.
38:55
Speaker 1: When public health is defined as you I mean as
38:58
Speaker 1: the promise that you laid out, as as Fauci, as
39:01
Speaker 1: these government bureaucrats who weren't elected, they were appointed, who
39:04
Speaker 1: have the highest salary of all federal employees, including the
39:07
Speaker 1: President of the United States, And to me, it speaks
39:10
Speaker 1: to the administrative state because we could, we could get
39:13
Speaker 1: rid of Fauci, meaning President Biden could fire him, he
39:15
Speaker 1: could resign. I mean, he's old, He's not going to
39:17
Speaker 1: be in this position forever. You can replace one bureaucrat
39:20
Speaker 1: with another bureaucrat. But as long as you have this system,
39:23
Speaker 1: as we do of these executive agencies that Congress defers
39:27
Speaker 1: rulemaking too, I don't see this problem, particularly now that
39:31
Speaker 1: they have cemented how they want to handle pandemics or
39:34
Speaker 1: public health. They know that they can wage this power
39:36
Speaker 1: the way that they have. I don't see this going
39:38
Speaker 1: away unless we address the administrative state specifically. Yeah, look,
39:43
Speaker 1: I think it's a very good point. I think the
39:44
Speaker 1: Trump administration made serious mistakes as COVID broke out, and
39:48
Speaker 1: one of the mistakes was elevating Fauci and deferring to
39:52
Speaker 1: him for far too long. The Trump administration should have
39:56
Speaker 1: fired Fauci the way Fauci and the declared lord's a
40:00
Speaker 1: public health treated is is that they were infallible. Yeah,
40:05
Speaker 1: and they did it while being cynically political at the
40:08
Speaker 1: same time. That combination is a really toxic brew. It is,
40:14
Speaker 1: and especially because if there's a doctor in the private
40:16
Speaker 1: sector who has a terrible opinion or gives you terrible
40:19
Speaker 1: medical advice, you just you go somewhere else, you go
40:21
Speaker 1: to a different practice, you go to a different provider,
40:23
Speaker 1: and that doctor. I mean, it's a meritocracy, or it's
40:25
Speaker 1: supposed to be, and that's not the case when it's
40:27
Speaker 1: a government bureaucrat. Again, That's why, that's why I think
40:30
Speaker 1: that when we're looking at the power of these bureaucrats
40:34
Speaker 1: and federal agencies, we have to understand the history a
40:37
Speaker 1: little bit. That this idea of the administrative state was introduced,
40:40
Speaker 1: you know, at least theoretically by Woodrow Wilson. He thought
40:44
Speaker 1: that there should be this this class of neutral bureaucrats
40:47
Speaker 1: that ran our federal government. I personally don't believe that
40:49
Speaker 1: there can be someone who is politically neutral. I think
40:51
Speaker 1: everyone has an opinion. Then LBJ and FDR expanded this
40:55
Speaker 1: administrative state. So now we have this bloated, this bloated apparatus,
40:59
Speaker 1: which a lot of people called the deep state because
41:01
Speaker 1: of all these politicos that work there that aren't accountable
41:04
Speaker 1: to the voter. In my opinion, and I want your
41:07
Speaker 1: take as a constitutional lawyer on this. In my opinion,
41:10
Speaker 1: the advent of this, or what really caused this to
41:14
Speaker 1: grow out of control, was when the Supreme Court stopped
41:16
Speaker 1: applying the separation of powers doctrine. That, of course, was
41:20
Speaker 1: when Congress would delegate their legislative authority to the executive agency.
41:27
Speaker 1: The judicial brands used to not allow that, but then
41:30
Speaker 1: they stopped and they did allow Congress, and now look
41:32
Speaker 1: what we have. So i'd love to hear your take
41:35
Speaker 1: on that and how we reverse that. So you're exactly right.
41:38
Speaker 1: It got exacerbated by a decision from the Supreme Court
41:41
Speaker 1: that was called the Chevron decision, where they created something
41:43
Speaker 1: that's called Chevron deference, which the courts now will defer
41:49
Speaker 1: to the judgment of an agency even if the statute,
41:53
Speaker 1: even if the law doesn't require that outcome. If the
41:55
Speaker 1: expert agency has an outcome, they will defer to it.
41:58
Speaker 1: If there's any ambiguity in the statue. I think there
42:02
Speaker 1: are a lot of folks and I would count myself
42:03
Speaker 1: among them who think Chevron was a mistake, that it
42:06
Speaker 1: contributed to the growth of the regulatory state. And you've
42:09
Speaker 1: got a couple of things at play here. Number One,
42:12
Speaker 1: elected politicians like to shift power to the executive branch
42:18
Speaker 1: because they can avoid responsibility. They can pass a vague
42:21
Speaker 1: in general law, and then when the agency does something bad,
42:24
Speaker 1: they can say to their voters, Hey, it's not me
42:26
Speaker 1: that did it. It's it's it's it's the EPA that
42:28
Speaker 1: did it. It's it's it's the agency. It's OSHA that
42:30
Speaker 1: did it. But secondly, there's a problem that we've seen
42:34
Speaker 1: that's called regulatory capture. And this is a notion from economics,
42:38
Speaker 1: where you have regulators that are regulating in particular industry
42:42
Speaker 1: who become captured by it. They have a revolving door
42:45
Speaker 1: where people come from the agency to the to the
42:48
Speaker 1: private sector that they're regulating, and back again, and they
42:51
Speaker 1: end up following the interests of the giant companies in
42:56
Speaker 1: that industry. So you see it in the aviation world
43:00
Speaker 1: with the FAA and a company like Boeing, and you
43:02
Speaker 1: look at the seven thirty seven macs where there was
43:04
Speaker 1: an instance the FAA was not remotely effective enough and
43:09
Speaker 1: ensuring the safety of the seven thirty seven macs. With
43:12
Speaker 1: respect to COVID. You look at the FDA and just
43:15
Speaker 1: how in bad the FDA is With Big Pharma. I've
43:18
Speaker 1: seen some data with ivermectin and hydroxy chloroquine that have
43:22
Speaker 1: suggested good results, particularly in the developing world. But both
43:27
Speaker 1: of those drugs are incredibly cheap. Both of those drugs
43:30
Speaker 1: are you can get for pennies, whereas Big Pharma if
43:34
Speaker 1: you look at the treatments they're pushing their thousands of dollars.
43:38
Speaker 1: And I do think there is a real question of
43:41
Speaker 1: agency capture. Why is it that the agency favors treatments
43:46
Speaker 1: that cost thousands of dollars versus treatments that cost pennies,
43:50
Speaker 1: And particularly in the weird politicized world where the fact
43:57
Speaker 1: that Trump said hydroxychloric and good caused half the country
44:02
Speaker 1: to say it must be bad if Trump likes it,
44:04
Speaker 1: which is a really weird way to make medical or
44:06
Speaker 1: scientific decisions. Yeah, so that's well, that's science if you're
44:10
Speaker 1: defining science as doctor fauci here, So get a little bit,
44:13
Speaker 1: get a little bit nerdier if you can on the
44:16
Speaker 1: Chevron deference here, I don't understand, Senator, why so many
44:22
Speaker 1: in the judiciary, and this is not just the Supreme Court,
44:24
Speaker 1: this is this is all levels. Why there's such deference
44:27
Speaker 1: to precedent for the sake of precedent when precedent is
44:30
Speaker 1: so clearly unconstitutional. Now, you know, you and I have
44:33
Speaker 1: talked about Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health, we talked about
44:36
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade, We've talked about decisions that are obviously
44:38
Speaker 1: unconstitutional that the left, there are judicial activists who actually
44:42
Speaker 1: don't want to overturn a demonstrably wrong and unconstitutional decision
44:47
Speaker 1: just because it's been quote unquote settled for decades. So
44:51
Speaker 1: I don't understand that jurisprudence, if you want to call
44:54
Speaker 1: it a jurisprudence. But how do we undo the Chevron
44:57
Speaker 1: deference because it is incorrect and right Congress is never
45:01
Speaker 1: gonna do anything about it because it makes their jobs easier,
45:04
Speaker 1: not to be responsible for what they legislate. So there's
45:07
Speaker 1: a doctrine courts follow that's called starry decisis that is
45:11
Speaker 1: respect for precedent. It's following precedent and look stary decisis
45:16
Speaker 1: makes sense and that you want predictability in a legal system.
45:21
Speaker 1: You know, if you look at how laws are structured,
45:24
Speaker 1: there's a tension between rules and standards. Rules are clear
45:29
Speaker 1: bright lines where you know which side you fall on them. Now,
45:33
Speaker 1: they have the advantage of predictability. They have the advantage
45:35
Speaker 1: that xante beforehand, you can know where you will be afterwards.
45:43
Speaker 1: The downside of clear bright line rules is sometimes that
45:46
Speaker 1: are unfair. Sometimes a line where result in a particular
45:48
Speaker 1: case where you say, well, gosh, that rule resulted in
45:51
Speaker 1: an unfairness for this particular person because of some weird circumstances.
45:55
Speaker 1: On the other hand, standards where things are flexible. They
45:59
Speaker 1: can spawn to, oh, if it's unfair to do this here,
46:02
Speaker 1: let's not do it here. If it's fair to do
46:03
Speaker 1: it there, let's do it there, so you can respond
46:05
Speaker 1: to the exigencies of the circumstance. But the problem with
46:09
Speaker 1: standards is they're unpredictable. It's hard to predict on the
46:12
Speaker 1: front end what the answer will be stared is scisis
46:17
Speaker 1: is a structural rule that you want players in our society,
46:22
Speaker 1: whether individuals, whether people looking at the civil law, where
46:25
Speaker 1: the people looking at the criminal law where their companies
46:28
Speaker 1: to be able to predict the outcome. And so if
46:31
Speaker 1: you know, all right, there is this precedent, so the
46:34
Speaker 1: courts will follow this precedent, then you could order your
46:36
Speaker 1: behavior accordingly and say, okay, here's what the law is.
46:39
Speaker 1: You can go to your lawyers ask what the law is,
46:41
Speaker 1: and you can know what it is that that has
46:43
Speaker 1: an advantage. You want stability. You don't want the law
46:47
Speaker 1: changing willy nilly. But the scisis is not absolute. There
46:54
Speaker 1: are times when precedents are wrong and precedents are overturned,
46:58
Speaker 1: and the courts have laid out rules for when precedents
47:02
Speaker 1: sho should be overturned, and the rules look to things
47:06
Speaker 1: like have there been has the law been settled, have
47:11
Speaker 1: people had reliance interest on it? Has the law proven administrable?
47:17
Speaker 1: As it proven Sometimes there's a bad decision that just
47:20
Speaker 1: produces chaos and the courts say, okay, this didn't work.
47:23
Speaker 1: The courts also are more willing to follow starry descisis
47:29
Speaker 1: for a statutory question than they are for a constitutional question.
47:33
Speaker 1: Now why is that? Because a statutory question, which is
47:36
Speaker 1: the interpretation of a federal law passed by Congress, sign
47:39
Speaker 1: a law by the president. If the courts get it wrong,
47:42
Speaker 1: Congress can change the statute, and it does that sometimes.
47:45
Speaker 1: So if there's a statutory question, the courts get it wrong,
47:49
Speaker 1: Congress has the ability to fix it. So there's a
47:51
Speaker 1: higher protection for starry descisis in that instance because you
47:55
Speaker 1: want the predictability even if the court got it wrong.
47:58
Speaker 1: With respect to the Constitution, there's more of a view
48:04
Speaker 1: that a constitutional decision, if it is wrong, can be revisited. So,
48:10
Speaker 1: for example, the most famous overturning of a precedent was
48:15
Speaker 1: Plessy versus Ferguson, which upheld separate but equal and upheld
48:20
Speaker 1: the discrimination in schools, and Brown versus Board of Education
48:24
Speaker 1: overturned Plessy. That was the right thing to do. That
48:30
Speaker 1: Brown was the right decision. Plessy was wrong. During the
48:34
Speaker 1: argument in Dobbs, you had the Supreme Court justices asking
48:37
Speaker 1: the Council, well, okay, look here are all the decisions
48:40
Speaker 1: we've overruled, and they listed some big ones. Why doesn't
48:44
Speaker 1: Row meet that standard? But how willing a justice is
48:49
Speaker 1: to overrule precedent? That varies justice by justice? I will say,
48:52
Speaker 1: By the way, as a final point on this, the
48:55
Speaker 1: liberals it's not that they're devoted to start descisists. They
48:59
Speaker 1: don't believe in started to at all. They're devoted to
49:02
Speaker 1: left wing outcomes yep. So they want star decisis to
49:05
Speaker 1: be followed for left wing decisions. So Row versus Way
49:08
Speaker 1: for them, star decisis is critically important because they support Row.
49:12
Speaker 1: They don't want star decisis. When it comes to Heller,
49:15
Speaker 1: which is the court's decision upholding the Second Amendment right
49:18
Speaker 1: to keep in bear arms, the Liberals would immediately over
49:20
Speaker 1: rule Heller. They don't want stary decisis. When it comes
49:24
Speaker 1: to Citizens United, which protects our political speech and the
49:26
Speaker 1: right to engage and and and criticize politicians. They disagree
49:31
Speaker 1: with Citizens United, they would overturn it. So, particularly for
49:35
Speaker 1: the left, when it comes to stary decisis, that is
49:40
Speaker 1: usually an excuse for whatever policy outcome they want, because
49:45
Speaker 1: the left views the courts as really very little different
49:48
Speaker 1: from a super legislature enacting the policy they agree with.
49:53
Speaker 1: Right and so we have to get to it. We
49:56
Speaker 1: don't have to. We want to get to a really
49:58
Speaker 1: funny question from the verdict usum subscribe or pool here
50:02
Speaker 1: in just a second. But let me ask you a
50:03
Speaker 1: very quick yes or no question. Is there a possibility
50:06
Speaker 1: that Chevron deference, that Chevron could be overturned at the
50:09
Speaker 1: Supreme Court level? So yes, I think there's a good possibility,
50:13
Speaker 1: especially deal Gorse, which has been quite critical of chevron
50:15
Speaker 1: a deference, and it's it's a doctrine that has come
50:17
Speaker 1: under more and more criticism. I think I think there's
50:19
Speaker 1: a real possibility Chevron's overturn because the Left, as they
50:23
Speaker 1: have the past decade, has overshots. They've overshot on their abuse,
50:27
Speaker 1: and the American people want to reject it. Okay, this
50:29
Speaker 1: is a really funny question. I saw this one. It's
50:31
Speaker 1: not a it's not a policy question at all. This
50:33
Speaker 1: is from Paul on the Verdict plus Community. Paul says,
50:37
Speaker 1: is Ted short for Theodore, is Liz short for Elizabeth?
50:40
Speaker 1: And is Michael short from Michael Angelo. Ooh, I like that,
50:46
Speaker 1: So I'll address my piece of it at least. So
50:48
Speaker 1: Ted is actually not short for theater Theodore. My full
50:53
Speaker 1: name is Raphael Edward Cruz. Raphael is after my father,
50:55
Speaker 1: RAPHAELBM and Evil Cruz, who's Cuban. My mental name Edward.
51:00
Speaker 1: It is after my grandfather, my mother's father, who was
51:03
Speaker 1: Edward Dara. So sometimes people refer to me as Eduardo. No,
51:07
Speaker 1: he was Irish and Italian. He was not. Actually he
51:10
Speaker 1: was Irish. My grandmother's Irish and Italian. Um it was
51:14
Speaker 1: Edward and Ted is a nickname for Edward, and so
51:16
Speaker 1: that's that's where Ted comes from. And Liz is short
51:18
Speaker 1: for Elizabeth. I will answer on behalf of Michael and
51:21
Speaker 1: say that it's not short for my clangel. It's short
51:22
Speaker 1: for Saint Michael. Kidding, obviously kidding. This actually will be
51:27
Speaker 1: a test to see if Michael does watch this series,
51:29
Speaker 1: because if he does, you know whole comment on it.
51:31
Speaker 1: If you are not already a subscriber over on Verdict Plus,
51:34
Speaker 1: please join us at Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com
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Speaker 1: com Slash Plus and use promo code Cloakroom. I'm Liz Wheeler.
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