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Botching the Border · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: A record number of unaccompanied miners at the southern border
0:04
Speaker 1: of the United States, Miners that we were told would
0:06
Speaker 1: not be held in detention facilities anymore. Now overflowing those facilities.
0:12
Speaker 1: A crisis you might call it at the border, but
0:15
Speaker 1: the Biden administration would not call it a crisis. We'll
0:18
Speaker 1: get into what's really going on. This is verdict with
0:20
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm
0:29
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles, Senator. There is one issue above all that
0:34
Speaker 1: is dominating right now. It happens to have a lot
0:37
Speaker 1: to do with your state. There is no transparency whatsoever
0:41
Speaker 1: on this. You were having liberal reporters telling people that
0:45
Speaker 1: they had a greater access under Trump under Obama. Right
0:49
Speaker 1: now they are being shut out. What is going on
0:52
Speaker 1: at the border, Well, it's a crisis and it's not complicated.
0:56
Speaker 1: Call it that. We are saying the volume of the
0:59
Speaker 1: league crossings rising dramatically last month. In the month of February,
1:04
Speaker 1: we had over one hundred thousand illegal immigrants detained. We
1:08
Speaker 1: are seeing, in particular crisis with children. We're seeing unaccompanied children,
1:13
Speaker 1: the numbers rising and rising and rising. We're seeing detention
1:17
Speaker 1: facilities that are overcrowded, that are packed, that are at
1:21
Speaker 1: at you know, hundred six seven hunder capacity, and it
1:28
Speaker 1: keeps getting worse. And there are several things to understand
1:32
Speaker 1: about it. Number one, why it's happening. This is the
1:36
Speaker 1: direct result of a series of decisions the Biden administration
1:40
Speaker 1: is made. So Joe Biden gets selected to get sworn
1:43
Speaker 1: in on January twentieth. Within days he announces We're stopping
1:47
Speaker 1: construction of the wall. So border wall done. Within days,
1:54
Speaker 1: the Biden administration returns to catch and release. Now know
1:57
Speaker 1: what is catching release? Catch and releases the policy. It
2:00
Speaker 1: was the policy during the Obama administration where when an
2:05
Speaker 1: illegal immigrant was caught, they'd be given a court date
2:09
Speaker 1: sometime in the future and let go and said, hey,
2:12
Speaker 1: come to court and lo and behold a whole bunch
2:14
Speaker 1: of them never show up. This is not complicated to
2:16
Speaker 1: figure out. One of the most significant things the Trump
2:20
Speaker 1: administration was end catch and release. But the most important
2:25
Speaker 1: thing that the Biden administration did is they ended the
2:31
Speaker 1: remain in Mexico policy. Now, what is the remain in
2:34
Speaker 1: Mexico policy? It was one of the biggest foreign policy
2:38
Speaker 1: and immigration victories of the entire Trump administration and the
2:43
Speaker 1: Trump administration negotiated a deal with the government of Mexico.
2:48
Speaker 1: So the vast majority of the immigrants crossing illegally into
2:52
Speaker 1: this country are not Mexicans. They're Central Americans now who
2:55
Speaker 1: are crossing through Mexico. So they're illegal immigrants in Mexico
2:59
Speaker 1: crossing Mexico southern border illegally to get to the United States.
3:02
Speaker 1: They're largely coming from Guatemala, El Salvador, a couple of
3:05
Speaker 1: other countries, Nicaragua, and countries that have a lot of violence,
3:11
Speaker 1: that have a lot of criminal activity, that have a
3:13
Speaker 1: lot of poverty, and so they're fleeing that in large numbers.
3:16
Speaker 1: The remain in Mexico policy was an agreement with Mexico
3:19
Speaker 1: where where if these folks come and want to apply
3:21
Speaker 1: for asylum in the United States, they stay in Mexico
3:24
Speaker 1: while the case is proceeding. And what the Biden administration
3:29
Speaker 1: did is it took that really important international agreement and
3:33
Speaker 1: it essentially ripped it up, said nope, we don't want
3:36
Speaker 1: to remain in Mexico. We want them here and we
3:38
Speaker 1: want to let them go. And that consequence, we are
3:42
Speaker 1: seeing massive numbers of illegal immigrants being released into the
3:47
Speaker 1: United States, and in turn, Look, if you're sitting at
3:50
Speaker 1: home in Guatemala and you're trying to decide whether to
3:53
Speaker 1: come when you see people being released, when you see
3:55
Speaker 1: people getting to stay, that's when you jump in a
3:58
Speaker 1: caravan and had North. There was a liberal journalist, Martha
4:02
Speaker 1: Radditts on a liberal network ABC, interviewed an illegal alien.
4:06
Speaker 1: His face was covered because he's obviously committing a crime,
4:09
Speaker 1: and she said, would you have done this under Trump?
4:11
Speaker 1: He said, no way, I'm doing this because Biden said
4:14
Speaker 1: that basically I would not face any consequences. He said,
4:17
Speaker 1: the primary reason I'm flaeing is my country is no
4:19
Speaker 1: good and it's violent and I want to get out
4:21
Speaker 1: of there. But I would never have done this if
4:24
Speaker 1: not for the Biden administration. Well, what we're saying is
4:27
Speaker 1: really the mirror image of what we saw in late
4:29
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. In early twenty seventeen, when Trump was elected,
4:33
Speaker 1: we saw illegal crossings plummet by two thirds, and it
4:39
Speaker 1: plummeted by January and February of twenty seventeen. And at
4:42
Speaker 1: the time Trump had just been sworn in. To be honest,
4:44
Speaker 1: he hadn't done anything yet. I mean I mean he
4:46
Speaker 1: literally was just moving in. Yeah, and it is actually
4:51
Speaker 1: an astonishing thing. Think back to the presidential debates, the
4:55
Speaker 1: race of twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen. If any Republican had said,
4:59
Speaker 1: if you elect me, the sheer act of electing me
5:04
Speaker 1: will drop illegal immigration by two thirds, you'd have been
5:08
Speaker 1: laughed out of the room, like every reporter would have
5:10
Speaker 1: laughed at you. Everyone said, that is absurd. So Trump,
5:14
Speaker 1: but January February twenty seventeen, hadn't hired new border patrol agents,
5:18
Speaker 1: he hadn't built a wall, he hadn't done anything. And
5:20
Speaker 1: the numbers plummeted. And the reason they plummeted is that
5:25
Speaker 1: people believe Trump was going to enforce the law. And So,
5:27
Speaker 1: if you're making the decision, do I leave my country,
5:30
Speaker 1: do I pay thousands of dollars to a human traffic
5:33
Speaker 1: or do I engage in a life risking journey only
5:37
Speaker 1: to be apprehended and saying home, No, I think I'll
5:39
Speaker 1: just stay here. We're seeing the mirror image of that
5:42
Speaker 1: now right now, people making that same calculation are looking
5:45
Speaker 1: at Joe Biden saying, you know what, if I get there,
5:48
Speaker 1: I get to stay. So Ali, Ali Oxen free. Let's
5:51
Speaker 1: go right right, because you know, this is a very
5:55
Speaker 1: basic matter. But when you incentivize certain behavior, you get
5:58
Speaker 1: more of it, and you disincentivize a certain behavior, you
6:00
Speaker 1: get you know, Michael, if you say things like that,
6:03
Speaker 1: you're going to identify yourself as a conservative, and they're
6:06
Speaker 1: going to require you to wear like a patch or something.
6:10
Speaker 1: Liberals don't understand incentives. It's one of the most fundamental
6:14
Speaker 1: divides between left and right. It is the concept of incentives.
6:18
Speaker 1: So let's take kids and kids in cages. Remember, for
6:22
Speaker 1: four years we heard the press harping on kids and cages,
6:26
Speaker 1: kids and cages, kids and cages under Trump. Well, the
6:29
Speaker 1: cages were built by Barack Obama. To quote the former
6:33
Speaker 1: president who built the cages, Joe right, that a lot
6:36
Speaker 1: of these photos that had gone viral, they were from
6:38
Speaker 1: the Obama Obama administration. And here's why. So if you
6:41
Speaker 1: go back to what broke the system was was DACA,
6:48
Speaker 1: which now the press loves and the Democrats love. It
6:50
Speaker 1: was President Obama's illegal executive amnesty and what had happened there.
6:54
Speaker 1: If you go back and remember, and this feels like
6:56
Speaker 1: a long time ago, this is twenty twelve, but if
6:58
Speaker 1: you remember, Mamma had been asked over and over and
7:01
Speaker 1: over again by immigration activists, will you just declare amnesty?
7:05
Speaker 1: Use an executive order to declare amnesty? And Obama said repeatedly,
7:09
Speaker 1: I can't do that. It's against the law. He said,
7:11
Speaker 1: I'm not a king. I'm not an emperor. That's how
7:13
Speaker 1: Obama put it. I'm not a king, I'm not an emperor.
7:16
Speaker 1: And then one day he woke up and he was
7:19
Speaker 1: an emperor, and he issued a lawless order directed his
7:23
Speaker 1: administration never mind federal immigration law. We're not going to
7:26
Speaker 1: follow it anymore. If you came to this country as
7:29
Speaker 1: a kid, we're going to grant you amnesty. Now. The
7:32
Speaker 1: year before he did that, there were roughly six thousand
7:36
Speaker 1: unaccompanied miners came into this country. Six thousand significant number.
7:41
Speaker 1: The next year, you know how many there were more.
7:44
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess ninety three thousand. Wow. I didn't
7:47
Speaker 1: realize it was that high. And it goes back to
7:49
Speaker 1: what you just said incentives, which is kids and parents realized, Okay,
7:56
Speaker 1: the president just announced if you came as a kid,
7:59
Speaker 1: you get to stay. What's going to happen. Well, let's
8:02
Speaker 1: send a whole bunch of kids, and actually the Obama
8:05
Speaker 1: Department Homeland Security, they interviewed a number of these kids.
8:08
Speaker 1: They ask them, why are you coming? And the kids said,
8:11
Speaker 1: because I get a bettermisso, which is if I come,
8:15
Speaker 1: I get to stay. Fast forward to today, we're seeing
8:19
Speaker 1: the exact same thing you're you're seeing the Obama administration,
8:22
Speaker 1: or rather than the Biden administration. Right, tomato tomato. Now
8:26
Speaker 1: it's worse. It's tomato versus like massive bright red tomato paste.
8:32
Speaker 1: Like I it's all the bad ideas like because and
8:39
Speaker 1: they don't understand incentives, or perhaps they do understand incentives,
8:45
Speaker 1: but actually they desire this sort of behavior because they
8:48
Speaker 1: think it gives an advantage. You know. It reminds me
8:50
Speaker 1: of years ago. I was reading a newspaper article and
8:52
Speaker 1: I think it was a city council member in San
8:54
Speaker 1: Francisco who said, I don't understand we have the most
8:59
Speaker 1: generous almost benefits in the country and we keep getting
9:02
Speaker 1: more and more homeless people. It's so strange. Remember reading it, going, yeah,
9:06
Speaker 1: you're right, you don't understand, Like if you pay people
9:09
Speaker 1: to do something, they'll do it, right, And we're saying
9:12
Speaker 1: this with it with these kids but you know, to
9:15
Speaker 1: play devil's advocate a little bit, to give the devils
9:17
Speaker 1: their due in the Biden administration. Jensaki said something the
9:21
Speaker 1: other day that I was sort of exasperated when she
9:24
Speaker 1: said it, because they said, Okay, you're you said you
9:27
Speaker 1: wouldn't put the kids in cages, and you're putting the
9:29
Speaker 1: kids in cages, and you're letting some of them go,
9:31
Speaker 1: but you're you have to separate them because you've got
9:33
Speaker 1: to verify that the adults that they're with actually are
9:36
Speaker 1: their relatives. And the things you're doing, it's basically just
9:39
Speaker 1: what the Trump administration did. Accept it, it it would seem
9:41
Speaker 1: to be to a much greater degree. And she said, well,
9:44
Speaker 1: there just aren't a lot of options. I said, well,
9:47
Speaker 1: where was that kind of understanding when Resident Trump was
9:51
Speaker 1: doing that? And I guess though, I would want to
9:53
Speaker 1: take her question seriously, what are you going to do
9:56
Speaker 1: when there aren't a lot of options? So, look, there
10:00
Speaker 1: are some Democrats. I think there are a lot of
10:02
Speaker 1: Democrats across the country who want to genuinely be compassionate,
10:06
Speaker 1: and I understand that that's the right instinct. I mean,
10:08
Speaker 1: it's not a little kid's fault, and so you know,
10:12
Speaker 1: Jen Saki has also said, you know, we're just we're
10:15
Speaker 1: not going to lock up kids now, never mind that
10:17
Speaker 1: they are locking up kids to a much greater degree,
10:20
Speaker 1: to a massive degree. It comes down to incentives. Look,
10:24
Speaker 1: during the Obama administration, I remember traveling down to Texas
10:28
Speaker 1: and a lot of you know, of our two thousand
10:30
Speaker 1: mile border that we have been with Mexico, twelve hundred
10:33
Speaker 1: of those miles are along the border of the state
10:35
Speaker 1: of Texas, so we've got more than half the borders
10:37
Speaker 1: in Texas. And I remember visiting going to Lackland Air
10:41
Speaker 1: Force Base outside of San Antonio, where they were housing
10:44
Speaker 1: they had built facilities, built the early cages four kids.
10:48
Speaker 1: This is the Obama administration. I was there visiting, and
10:51
Speaker 1: I remember I was talking to an official from the
10:54
Speaker 1: Health and Human Services Department, And mind you, this is
10:57
Speaker 1: the Obama administration, so it's the Obama HHS. And this
11:01
Speaker 1: official described to me how the cartels were putting guns
11:06
Speaker 1: to the heads of little kids and forcing children to
11:10
Speaker 1: cut off the fingers or the ears of other kids.
11:17
Speaker 1: And what would happen is a family in Nicaragua, Honduras
11:20
Speaker 1: or El Salvador would give three four or five thousand
11:24
Speaker 1: dollars to a human trafficker. These human traffickers are not
11:28
Speaker 1: nice people. They're not they don't love children. They are vicious,
11:34
Speaker 1: horrific criminal cartels. And what they would do once the
11:39
Speaker 1: family given three four five thousand dollars to the cartel,
11:42
Speaker 1: to the trafficker, they would then deliver to the family
11:46
Speaker 1: their child's finger or ear and say give us another
11:50
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars, and they would extract more money from
11:54
Speaker 1: the parents. And so the Obama HHS official told me
11:58
Speaker 1: that they were getting number one, kids that were horribly deformed,
12:01
Speaker 1: had fingers cut off or ears cut off, and they
12:03
Speaker 1: were getting other kids who were psychologically traumatized because they
12:06
Speaker 1: had a gun put to their forehead. It wasn't even
12:09
Speaker 1: the traffickers that were cutting off the fingers and ears,
12:11
Speaker 1: it was the other kids. And my view that the
12:15
Speaker 1: Democrats say we need to grant amnesty, we need to
12:18
Speaker 1: let kids come because we're compassionate, I'm sorry if you're
12:24
Speaker 1: creating a system that is incentivizing tens of thousands or
12:29
Speaker 1: even hundreds of thousands, and the Biden Department of Homeland
12:32
Speaker 1: Security is projecting over one hundred thousand kids coming in
12:35
Speaker 1: the country on a company little boys, little girls. If
12:38
Speaker 1: you're putting little boys and little girls in the hands
12:40
Speaker 1: of human traffickers, you're not compassionate, You're not humane. You
12:44
Speaker 1: are a monster. And every one of those kids that
12:48
Speaker 1: is sexually assaulted, and I remember, you know, I think
12:51
Speaker 1: it's horrific. Huffington Posts some years ago with Fusion, published
12:56
Speaker 1: a survey. I believe that the number was between sixty
12:59
Speaker 1: and eighty percent of women and girls who cross the
13:02
Speaker 1: border illegally were raped or sexually assaulted along the way.
13:06
Speaker 1: It is. It's staggering, and it's not humane or compassionate.
13:12
Speaker 1: And I will say I get frustrated with Democrats who
13:14
Speaker 1: virtue signal about how much they love immigrants that they
13:19
Speaker 1: support a policy that involves a bunch of immigrant children
13:22
Speaker 1: being physically and sexually abused. It is grotesque. And the
13:27
Speaker 1: real compassionate policy is what we have had, which is
13:32
Speaker 1: to say we're going to enforce the law, we're not
13:33
Speaker 1: going to do catch and release, and if you come
13:35
Speaker 1: here illegally, we're going to send you home. And the
13:37
Speaker 1: reason that is compassionate is you don't end up with
13:40
Speaker 1: kids being handed over to traffickers. Those numbers dropped dramatically,
13:44
Speaker 1: and we're seeing that, and it seems like Biden the
13:48
Speaker 1: Democrats don't understand because there is an effect. There's the
13:51
Speaker 1: question of the justice in and of itself of saying
13:54
Speaker 1: people has a right to have its own borders. Yeah,
13:56
Speaker 1: but then there is this secondary effect, which is you're
13:59
Speaker 1: going to see those numbers plummet. You know, obviously in
14:02
Speaker 1: six thousand to ninety three thousand, we're not talking a
14:05
Speaker 1: small effect, right, I mean, we're talking orders of magnitude.
14:09
Speaker 1: And so I'll tell you on Friday of this week,
14:11
Speaker 1: I'm going down to the border and I'm bringing a
14:14
Speaker 1: number of senators. Right now, the current numbers seventeen senators
14:17
Speaker 1: are coming down. So I invited I invited John Cornyon,
14:21
Speaker 1: my colleague from Texas. I invited the other Republican senators.
14:24
Speaker 1: We've got a total of seventeen senators coming down. We're
14:26
Speaker 1: gonna go and tour the facilities where they're detaining the kids.
14:30
Speaker 1: We're gonna tour, We're gonna meet with the Border Patrol.
14:32
Speaker 1: We're gonna meet with the Border Patrol Union. I know
14:34
Speaker 1: those guys very very well. We're gonna go out on
14:38
Speaker 1: a boat with Texas STPs on the Rio Grand And
14:43
Speaker 1: let me tell you something amazing. The Biden administration has
14:47
Speaker 1: refused to allow any reporters to attend, which was this
14:51
Speaker 1: was not true during the Trump administration, or you got
14:54
Speaker 1: all that flat from the press. The press had bet
14:57
Speaker 1: much better access under the Trump administrator. Trump adminis the
15:00
Speaker 1: press had access to all these facilities. Obama administration the
15:04
Speaker 1: press had access. Look, the Biden administration is already worse
15:07
Speaker 1: than the Obama administration on this front. You know the
15:10
Speaker 1: picture of kids in cages that for four years was
15:12
Speaker 1: blamed on Trump, that was actually a picture taken during
15:15
Speaker 1: the Obama administration. It's because they actually, you know, Biden
15:20
Speaker 1: promised to have the most transparent administration ever. We sent
15:23
Speaker 1: a letter and here's the ridiculous justification the Biden administration
15:28
Speaker 1: is doing. They say, well, we'd love to have reporters there,
15:31
Speaker 1: but we can't because of COVID. Oh so you've got
15:35
Speaker 1: facilities with hundreds of illegal immigrants packed into them at
15:39
Speaker 1: many hundreds of percent greater than their capacity. You've got
15:43
Speaker 1: kids almost stacked upon each other, and their view is
15:47
Speaker 1: there's no risk of COVID there. But one reporter, if
15:51
Speaker 1: you are So ABC News wants to embed with us,
15:55
Speaker 1: wants to come and we invited an ABC News offered
15:57
Speaker 1: to bring a TV camera and be a pool camera. No,
15:59
Speaker 1: what is a camera pull camera is what they call
16:02
Speaker 1: a TV camera that will share its footage with all
16:04
Speaker 1: the other networks. So they could literally have one reporter
16:07
Speaker 1: and one cameraman. Yeah, no, that would be a risk,
16:10
Speaker 1: and there is a risk for COVID. And it's such
16:14
Speaker 1: an obvious lie. You know Alejandro Mayorchis, who's the Secretary
16:19
Speaker 1: of Homeland Security, he went on the Sunday shows this
16:22
Speaker 1: weekend and he repeated the obvious lie. Well, it's just
16:25
Speaker 1: because of COVID, we intend to do it. And look,
16:30
Speaker 1: some of the press is getting agitated. So this week
16:32
Speaker 1: I have been a vigorous defender of the press, which
16:36
Speaker 1: is an odd position for me today. This is very strange.
16:38
Speaker 1: I'm biting my tongue on all the great jokes I
16:41
Speaker 1: could make about the press right now because I actually
16:43
Speaker 1: do sort of defend them against the Biden administration. So
16:46
Speaker 1: I actually believe in a free press. I believe in
16:48
Speaker 1: the Fresh Amendment and what the Biden if Trump had
16:52
Speaker 1: done with the Biden administration had done, the press would
16:55
Speaker 1: be lighting themselves on fire. Yeah, of course. Instead they're
16:58
Speaker 1: just shilling for and defend ending at the Trump administration.
17:01
Speaker 1: Let me get the most absurd part about all of this.
17:03
Speaker 1: So they're releasing thousands upon thousands of illegal immigrants into
17:07
Speaker 1: my home state of Texas. They're setting up detention facilities
17:10
Speaker 1: downtown Dallas, the Convention Center. They're detaining illegal immigrants Middland, Texas.
17:15
Speaker 1: They're detaining illegal immigrants, much against the wishes of the community,
17:19
Speaker 1: they're releasing them. Here's an amazing stat in Harlingen, Texas.
17:23
Speaker 1: The illegal immigrants they're releasing are testing positive for COVID
17:28
Speaker 1: nineteen at a seven times greater rate than the US population.
17:34
Speaker 1: I also did not realize it was that severe. All
17:37
Speaker 1: I noticed was that the administration is now admitting that
17:43
Speaker 1: it is releasing people into the United States who have
17:47
Speaker 1: not been illegal aliens, who have not been tested for COVID.
17:50
Speaker 1: And you saw the DHS secretary was sort of backed
17:53
Speaker 1: into a corner on this and he said, well, it
17:55
Speaker 1: is the official policy to test, is right, but are
17:58
Speaker 1: you doing that? Well, we are doing our best, and
18:02
Speaker 1: it's an admission, it's all but an admission that they
18:04
Speaker 1: are releasing people in the midst of this pandemic where
18:07
Speaker 1: we're not allowed to leave our homes, and they're releasing
18:09
Speaker 1: in Texas, my home state, right and the communities in
18:11
Speaker 1: Texas are not happy about that. And it's one of
18:14
Speaker 1: the things that is frustrating about watching the Biden administration
18:18
Speaker 1: is the absolute hypocrisy on COVID. So they're perfectly willing
18:22
Speaker 1: to release illegal immigrants who may be criminals into Texas,
18:27
Speaker 1: into the United States, even if they may have COVID nineteen,
18:30
Speaker 1: and not test them. But yet they won't allow a
18:34
Speaker 1: single reporter with a camera to see anything on the
18:38
Speaker 1: border because that reporter might have COVID. And you know what,
18:40
Speaker 1: I'm willing to bet even if that reporter tested negative
18:44
Speaker 1: that day and had been vaccinated. Yeah, they still say no,
18:47
Speaker 1: it's not the COVID risk that they're worried about. It
18:51
Speaker 1: is the risk we don't want anyone to see the
18:53
Speaker 1: Biden cages. I have to ask you this, with regard
18:56
Speaker 1: to being able to go out and do things once
18:58
Speaker 1: we're vaccinated, His Royal Highness, Doctor Anthony Faucci has come
19:02
Speaker 1: out and suggested that sure we all get vaccinated, we're
19:07
Speaker 1: still going to have to wear the masks socially distanced,
19:10
Speaker 1: not gather. Maybe we can have a few friends over
19:13
Speaker 1: for the fourth of July. Senator, We're now on day
19:16
Speaker 1: what three hundred and seventy two of fifteen days to
19:19
Speaker 1: slow the spread? When can we return to normal? Come
19:22
Speaker 1: to Texas? You can do it right now. Look, Look,
19:25
Speaker 1: it is assinine and insane. So I've been vaccinated. Members
19:31
Speaker 1: of Congress were offered the vaccine early in January. I
19:35
Speaker 1: actually didn't take it. Then there were number of members
19:37
Speaker 1: of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, who got the vaccine
19:42
Speaker 1: early and ostentatiously. I didn't. I didn't think it was right. Look,
19:46
Speaker 1: I'm relatively young, I'm healthy. I didn't want to cut
19:50
Speaker 1: in line. Yea. And so my view at the time,
19:53
Speaker 1: as I said, we need to wait and let seniors,
19:55
Speaker 1: let frontline workers get the vaccine first, and I don't
19:59
Speaker 1: want to hurry. Ultimately, in the last couple of weeks,
20:03
Speaker 1: I went ahead and got the vaccine. It had been
20:05
Speaker 1: you know, there'd been tens of millions of vaccines administered,
20:07
Speaker 1: many of the seniors, many of the frontline workers had
20:09
Speaker 1: gotten it. And you know, I mean, I do have
20:11
Speaker 1: My mom is eighty six. My dad my dad actually
20:14
Speaker 1: turned eighty two today. And so given my parents, I said,
20:17
Speaker 1: I'm given that. I'm out a lot. As a senator,
20:19
Speaker 1: I went ahead and got the vaccine in the Senate.
20:23
Speaker 1: I think it's the case that all one hundred senators
20:26
Speaker 1: have the vaccine. Now I think Rand Pall may may
20:31
Speaker 1: not have gotten it, although Rand had COVID so so
20:33
Speaker 1: he's got the natural immunity from having had it. CDC's
20:37
Speaker 1: guidance today is that people who are vaccinated can gather
20:41
Speaker 1: in small groups. The most ascinining thing is senators still
20:44
Speaker 1: gather all wearing masks, and it's just like, okay, wait,
20:47
Speaker 1: this may be the safest place on the planet. Like
20:49
Speaker 1: every person you're all vaccinated. But it's a virtue signal.
20:54
Speaker 1: And you get Democrats that are wearing two masks and
20:57
Speaker 1: it's coming three four five, They're just gonna walk around
21:00
Speaker 1: with bags on their head. I mean, and it is.
21:05
Speaker 1: And I'm not one of the Like there are people
21:08
Speaker 1: who are crazies who say it's all a hoax, it
21:11
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense, do nothing. It's going to give
21:14
Speaker 1: you five g which frankly I could use the better
21:16
Speaker 1: cell service. If I became a hotspot, that'd be perfectly fine.
21:20
Speaker 1: This is Look, this is serious disease. We've had over
21:23
Speaker 1: half million Americans killed, We've had over forty seven thousand
21:26
Speaker 1: Texans killed. I think we need to treat it seriously.
21:28
Speaker 1: But we have for God's sakes, has there been an
21:31
Speaker 1: infectious disease certainly not in our lifetime that we've treated
21:34
Speaker 1: this seriously and it has become this this irrational zellatry
21:41
Speaker 1: and a means of control. I gotta say, if you've
21:44
Speaker 1: had the vaccine, the idea that you must wear a
21:46
Speaker 1: mask forever is idiotic. The whole point of getting the
21:49
Speaker 1: vaccine is to go back to normal. Well, this gets
21:52
Speaker 1: back to incentives. If you're if you're going to say,
21:55
Speaker 1: all right, we want you all three hundred plus million Americans,
21:58
Speaker 1: you need to all get the vaccine. But also, nothing
22:02
Speaker 1: about your life can change once you get the vaccine.
22:04
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any sense. And look, I think a
22:07
Speaker 1: lot of people. There are people on the extremes. There
22:10
Speaker 1: are people that are like, shut down everything and they're
22:12
Speaker 1: terrified to breathe. There are people who are like doesn't matter,
22:16
Speaker 1: licking door knobs and things like that door knobs are delicious,
22:20
Speaker 1: but most people are somewhere in the middle of like,
22:23
Speaker 1: take reasonable precautions, but let's not be nuts about it.
22:28
Speaker 1: If you look at how this is, this is playing out.
22:33
Speaker 1: Those who want government control don't want to let go
22:36
Speaker 1: of it. And I think a lot of people recognize
22:39
Speaker 1: there's an irrationality to so, for example, restaurants. You know,
22:43
Speaker 1: when Houston opened up, Heidi and I began going out
22:46
Speaker 1: to eat at restaurants. So we tried to do it
22:47
Speaker 1: preregularly because we want to support the small businesses in
22:50
Speaker 1: our community. And the rules you're walking along you got
22:55
Speaker 1: to wear a mask. And I guess the virus is
23:00
Speaker 1: somehow connected to the tension in your thigh muscles. Because
23:04
Speaker 1: under the rules in a restaurant, if you and I
23:06
Speaker 1: stood up, yes, then you have to put on a mask.
23:08
Speaker 1: You're dangerous then, But as soon as we sit down
23:13
Speaker 1: and take off the mask, and we can be here
23:15
Speaker 1: for three hours, sitting right here, and there's no risk
23:18
Speaker 1: of the it gets absorbed into your hamstrings. What happens
23:20
Speaker 1: it's I think it's because your your thighs are no
23:22
Speaker 1: longer tense, or maybe it's an altitude thing at three
23:25
Speaker 1: feet the virus can't transmit, but at six feet it
23:28
Speaker 1: can't thinner up there are you? Like most people realize,
23:31
Speaker 1: come on, this is crap. Of course, I mean it airplane.
23:36
Speaker 1: So you know, I flew from Houston to DC today,
23:39
Speaker 1: So on the airplane, I gotta get on the plane.
23:43
Speaker 1: I'm on the plane. I'm wearing my mask. I gotta
23:44
Speaker 1: wear my mask. I'm sitting next to someone. They're wearing
23:46
Speaker 1: their mask. But there's the drink exception. So you got
23:50
Speaker 1: in trouble for the drink exception. Oh my, they went nuts.
23:53
Speaker 1: So when I drink my coffee, now I hang my
23:56
Speaker 1: mask from my ear, so it's like visibly there. But
23:59
Speaker 1: but I want you to think of the logic of this.
24:01
Speaker 1: If I'm sitting there, I've got to get the mask
24:03
Speaker 1: because it's going to kill people. Yeah, but if I
24:05
Speaker 1: have a cup of coffee in my hand, the coffee
24:07
Speaker 1: absorbs it. The virus. I think it's and it works
24:10
Speaker 1: for a coke. It wears for orange juice, water, it's liquid.
24:14
Speaker 1: The virus doesn't like liquid or food, yes, liquid or solid.
24:18
Speaker 1: It only likes like At some point, everyone's going this
24:23
Speaker 1: doesn't make any sense. Oh, it's an obviously arbitrary exercise
24:27
Speaker 1: in power. And it does actually get to something that
24:30
Speaker 1: I guess relates, but it gets to this abuse of
24:32
Speaker 1: power more broadly, though I have to ask you about
24:34
Speaker 1: it's from the mail bag question from Prudence who asks
24:37
Speaker 1: if HR one passes, So HR one you've referred to
24:41
Speaker 1: it as the Corrupt Politicians Act. Yeah, if HR one passes,
24:47
Speaker 1: is there any legal case to fight back against it?
24:50
Speaker 1: So not not a political case to defeat it before
24:53
Speaker 1: it passes. But let's say God forbid it happens. Can
24:56
Speaker 1: you fight it in court? Of course, And if the
24:59
Speaker 1: crup Politicians Act passes, there will be lots of legal
25:02
Speaker 1: cases challenging it. But I gotta say, if it passes,
25:05
Speaker 1: we're going to lose all those cases. And tell me
25:08
Speaker 1: that I don't really end on a high note. Don't
25:10
Speaker 1: don't count on the courts to save us. And here's why. Yeah,
25:13
Speaker 1: if the Corrupt Politicians Act passes, it will pass because
25:18
Speaker 1: the Democrats have ended the filibuster. The filibuster is the
25:21
Speaker 1: rule that requires sixty votes to pass legislation. If they've
25:25
Speaker 1: ended it and dropped it to fifty votes, that's the
25:27
Speaker 1: only way they'll pass the Corrupt Politicians Act designed to
25:30
Speaker 1: keep Democrats in power for the next hundred years. If
25:34
Speaker 1: that happens, they will then add two new states to
25:37
Speaker 1: the Union. They'll add the District Columbia, the lad Puerto Rico.
25:41
Speaker 1: That's because Democrats believe they will elect four Democratic senators.
25:44
Speaker 1: DC clearly will Puerto Rico might or might not. Republicans.
25:48
Speaker 1: We'd fight for Puerto Rico and try to win. But
25:50
Speaker 1: if Democrats are right that that elects four new Democratic Senators,
25:55
Speaker 1: they will then pack the United States Supreme Court. They
25:58
Speaker 1: will add four left wing judicial activists the Supreme Court,
26:02
Speaker 1: take it from nine justices to thirteen. If that happens,
26:07
Speaker 1: the odds are one hundred point zero zero zero percent
26:12
Speaker 1: that the packed left wing Supreme Court will uphold the
26:15
Speaker 1: Corrupt Politicians Act, because the Democrats will only appoint left
26:21
Speaker 1: wing activists who will uphold the Corrupt Politicians Act. So
26:24
Speaker 1: the key them now that you've taken away that hope
26:29
Speaker 1: that we might be able to fight in court. But
26:30
Speaker 1: I think rightly so if you have to fight it
26:34
Speaker 1: before it's past, then that requires keeping the filibuster, and
26:39
Speaker 1: that requires winning over one of the moderate semi moderate Democrats.
26:44
Speaker 1: So where we stand right now in the Senate, they're
26:46
Speaker 1: fifty Republicans and fifty Democrats, so it's evenly divided. That
26:49
Speaker 1: means that any tie vote, the Vice President Kamala Harris
26:52
Speaker 1: breaks the time of the fifty Democrats. If all of
26:57
Speaker 1: them vote together, they can end the filibuster. They can
26:59
Speaker 1: do what it's called the nuclear option. Now what does
27:01
Speaker 1: that mean. Look, the filibuster has written into the rules
27:04
Speaker 1: of the Senate that it takes sixty votes to go forward.
27:09
Speaker 1: But the way you exercise the nuclear option is the
27:14
Speaker 1: majority leader, Chuck Schumer moves to proceed to a bill.
27:18
Speaker 1: You have a vote. The vote is fifty fifty Vice
27:21
Speaker 1: President votes yes, and the presiding Officer rules that fifty
27:29
Speaker 1: one votes not being sixty, you can't proceed to it.
27:33
Speaker 1: And in the Senate rules, any senator can appeal the
27:38
Speaker 1: ruling of the chair. So what would happen is Chuck
27:41
Speaker 1: Schumer would appeal the ruling of the chair and would say,
27:45
Speaker 1: the chair just ruled that we need sixty votes to
27:47
Speaker 1: proceed to this. I appeal the ruling of the chair,
27:50
Speaker 1: and if all fifty Democrats vote in favor of the appeal,
27:54
Speaker 1: and if the Vice President votes in favor of the appeal.
27:57
Speaker 1: That's fifty one votes. You can appeal the ruling of
28:00
Speaker 1: the chair with fifty one votes, and under the Senate,
28:02
Speaker 1: that becomes a precedent. So it breaks the rules of
28:05
Speaker 1: the Senate that are written. Because you have fifty one
28:08
Speaker 1: votes to appeal the ruling of the chair, that becomes
28:10
Speaker 1: the new precedent. That it no longer takes sixty even
28:13
Speaker 1: though that's what's written in the rules, it takes fifty one.
28:17
Speaker 1: Of the fifty Democrats, only two have suggested that they
28:23
Speaker 1: wouldn't end the filibuster. The Tube suggested it, or Joe Mansion,
28:27
Speaker 1: he's a Democrat from West Virginia, and Kirsten Cinema, who
28:31
Speaker 1: is a Democrat from Arizona Bright. Now both of them
28:36
Speaker 1: are making lots of noise like we're going to stand
28:38
Speaker 1: up and not end the filibuster. I gotta admit I
28:43
Speaker 1: am very skeptical. YEA, let's take Joe Mansion. So Joe,
28:49
Speaker 1: who's the governor of West Virginia, has been Senator. Joe
28:53
Speaker 1: is a very nice, affable, likable guy who's a college
28:58
Speaker 1: football quarterback, just like me and you football quarterback. You know,
29:02
Speaker 1: we were the geeks in the Debate Club. He was
29:06
Speaker 1: the star quarterback, exactly the same. Everybody likes Joe. You
29:11
Speaker 1: can't not like Joe. He just has a personality that
29:14
Speaker 1: is easy and affable. When I first got elected to
29:18
Speaker 1: the Senate, I remember Jim Demant told me. He said, Ted,
29:22
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion is like a purple unicorn. He will always, always,
29:27
Speaker 1: always be there for you until you need him. I
29:32
Speaker 1: can tell you nine years in the Senate, I do
29:36
Speaker 1: not know of a single issue of consequence on which
29:42
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion was the deciding vote. So basically, what Joe
29:45
Speaker 1: has done is if Republicans going to win, if we
29:47
Speaker 1: had fifty one votes, he might give you a fifty seconds.
29:50
Speaker 1: So he might make it bipartisan, but he's not going
29:53
Speaker 1: to be that. He has never on any issue that
29:57
Speaker 1: matters in the nine years I've served with it, I've
29:59
Speaker 1: never seen him willing to stand up to Chuck Schumer.
30:01
Speaker 1: What about cinema? She hadn't been there that long. She's
30:03
Speaker 1: only been there a couple of years. I like her,
30:05
Speaker 1: She's very nice. I haven't seen her stand up to Schumer. Now,
30:09
Speaker 1: who knows. She hadn't been there long enough that we
30:11
Speaker 1: don't have as long a track history with her. But
30:15
Speaker 1: I don't know what Schumer has the degree to which
30:19
Speaker 1: Democrats are terrified to cross him. And so here's my
30:23
Speaker 1: concern is that Cinema caves and Mansion finds a cute
30:29
Speaker 1: game to pretend he didn't cave. It seems like he's
30:32
Speaker 1: already setting that up. So he's talking about the talking filibuster. Now,
30:37
Speaker 1: the talking filibuster is to say, well, any senator can
30:41
Speaker 1: speak as long as they want, but at the end
30:43
Speaker 1: of the talking filibuster, we're going to vote. And insisting
30:46
Speaker 1: on the talking filibuster is away to break the filibuster.
30:50
Speaker 1: By the way, if they insist on a talking filibuster,
30:54
Speaker 1: I'm gonna spend some time talking. You have a little
30:57
Speaker 1: bit of a track record on it. I have I
30:59
Speaker 1: think the fourth longest in history, twenty one hours. Could
31:04
Speaker 1: we do verdict from the Senate floor. They won't let
31:06
Speaker 1: us do that. But you know, last time I read
31:10
Speaker 1: Green Eggs and Ham, I will tell you a friend
31:13
Speaker 1: of a very dear friend of mine suggested said, if
31:16
Speaker 1: the Democrats forced the talking filibuster, Republicans should stand up
31:22
Speaker 1: and read the Bible from cover to cover. I think
31:26
Speaker 1: many on the other side of the alt would go
31:28
Speaker 1: screaming out of the room. It actually is a great
31:30
Speaker 1: way to clear democrats off the floor. But look, we'll
31:35
Speaker 1: see what happens. But insisting on the talking filibuster is
31:38
Speaker 1: frankly a game to say I haven't ended the filibuster.
31:41
Speaker 1: But at the end, when eventually you collapse and can
31:44
Speaker 1: talk no longer, then you vote in it's fifty and
31:47
Speaker 1: you pass the Corrupt Politicians Act, and you pack the
31:49
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and you do lasting structural damage to the country.
31:53
Speaker 1: You know that. It would seem to me you have
31:56
Speaker 1: seen a lot of these things coming, and we've talked
31:57
Speaker 1: about it on the show. You can go back and
31:59
Speaker 1: see the tape, and a lot of them have really
32:02
Speaker 1: come to pass, and they seem closer to passing right now.
32:04
Speaker 1: We're focused on that crisis on the border. Seems to
32:07
Speaker 1: me there is a crisis just as serious, maybe much
32:10
Speaker 1: more serious, with the Corrupt Politicians Act, with with other
32:13
Speaker 1: other legislation they're trying to force through. By the way, Michael,
32:16
Speaker 1: is there a way for people to subscribe or like
32:18
Speaker 1: this show? Oh that you're talking about this well as
32:20
Speaker 1: speaking of crises that we're facing in the private sector, here.
32:23
Speaker 1: We're certainly going to be booted off of all the
32:25
Speaker 1: platforms at a certain point, but in the meantime it's
32:28
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Speaker 1: You can try it will not be successful, but you
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32:51
Speaker 1: just to be safe, maybe go with the five. And
32:53
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32:59
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33:02
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