Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Biden Admin Urges Israel to STOP Killing Terrorists, Dems Smear Justice Thomas & School Choice, the Civil Rights Issue of the 21st Century
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: It's Verdict live from Arizona at the Goldwater Institute Dinner Welcome.
- 0:10Speaker 2: Center.
- 0:10Speaker 3: Good to be with you.
- 0:11Speaker 1: We are here in Arizona Goldwater Institute. An amazing dinner
- 0:15Speaker 1: with an incredible crowd that many people will hear in
- 0:18Speaker 1: the background here.
- 0:19Speaker 3: Thank you guys for having us. And we've got a
- 0:25Speaker 3: lot to talk about tonight.
- 0:26Speaker 1: And we're also going to get some Q and A
- 0:28Speaker 1: in here from the audience, which is one of your
- 0:29Speaker 1: favorite things to do on the road.
- 0:31Speaker 2: Will that look mad? That's exactly right. And let me
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- 0:36Speaker 2: premier free market think tank in Arizona. It has been
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- 0:48Speaker 2: on school choice. Arizona has been at the tip of
- 0:52Speaker 2: the spear on school choice. They've made an incredible difference,
- 0:57Speaker 2: not just with the kids in Arizona, but they've been
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- 2:00Speaker 2: My dad is eighty four years old, and he pointed
- 2:04Speaker 2: out to me, look, when you say subscribe, my generation
- 2:07Speaker 2: thinks you mean magazine subscriptions, and you're gonna charge me.
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- 2:35Speaker 1: We're you mentioned school choice, and we're gonna get to that.
- 2:37Speaker 1: We're also gonna get some breaking news that deals with
- 2:39Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. But before we get to that, let's
- 2:42Speaker 1: start and talk about what's going on in Israel right now.
- 2:45Speaker 1: There has been over the last twenty four to forty
- 2:47Speaker 1: eight hours, a pretty significant shift, especially from the media
- 2:53Speaker 1: in this country and also around the world, and more
- 2:56Speaker 1: calls for a quote humanitarian ceasefire. It is frustrating when
- 3:01Speaker 1: you see this, because it's clear that Israel is having
- 3:04Speaker 1: to defend itself from.
- 3:06Speaker 3: These horrific terrorists.
- 3:08Speaker 1: We've heard even more about their atroses, including putting children
- 3:11Speaker 1: in ovens, babies and ovens that were found. We know
- 3:14Speaker 1: that they beheaded infant children. And yet the media is
- 3:17Speaker 1: now trying to put pressure not on the Terrace, but
- 3:20Speaker 1: on Israel to just say pause so that many of
- 3:24Speaker 1: these terrats would not be brought to justice, which I
- 3:26Speaker 1: think for many we agree should be that they are
- 3:28Speaker 1: taken off the face of this earth.
- 3:30Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 3:35Speaker 2: Well, Ben, as you know, this has been a battle,
- 3:37Speaker 2: and it's been a battle with the Biden administration from
- 3:40Speaker 2: the very beginning of this war. This war began on
- 3:43Speaker 2: October seventh with a grotesque act of atrocities. The attacks
- 3:50Speaker 2: of Hamas were the worst attacks on the state of
- 3:54Speaker 2: Israel in over fifty years. On October seventh, it was
- 3:59Speaker 2: the single grit greatest mass murder of Jews in any
- 4:02Speaker 2: single day since the Holocaust, and Hamas terrorists, the death
- 4:07Speaker 2: squads went house to house, murdering every person in that house,
- 4:13Speaker 2: seeking out civilians, murdering elderly people, murdering women, murdering children,
- 4:20Speaker 2: violently raping women and little girls, dragging them into the streets,
- 4:25Speaker 2: and murdering, beheading and burning alive infants. It has been sick,
- 4:31Speaker 2: it has been grotesque. Over fourteen hundred Israelis have been murdered.
- 4:37Speaker 2: Over two hundred Israelis are held hostage right now. And
- 4:42Speaker 2: not only was this one of the worst attacks on
- 4:44Speaker 2: Israel in history, this is also one of the worst
- 4:47Speaker 2: terrorist attacks on the United States in history. On that day,
- 4:51Speaker 2: thirty one Americans were murdered. They're roughly a dozen Americans
- 4:55Speaker 2: that are held hostage right now. And I want to say,
- 4:58Speaker 2: at the outset, it is critic that we should be
- 5:02Speaker 2: unequivocal that America stands squarely with the state of Israel.
- 5:08Speaker 3: Amen.
- 5:12Speaker 1: It's also shocking, I think to so many people that
- 5:16Speaker 1: there is such a divide right now on the issue
- 5:19Speaker 1: of Israel within the Democratic Party. When you talk about
- 5:22Speaker 1: the atroces that you just mentioned, it should be a
- 5:25Speaker 1: pretty easy political moment, I would argue, and ten, fifteen,
- 5:30Speaker 1: twenty years ago this would not have been hard. How
- 5:34Speaker 1: is it that so many Democrats are not just screwing
- 5:36Speaker 1: it up. It's they are actually advocating for the terrorist organization,
- 5:41Speaker 1: for those supporting the terrorist organization, and we're witnessing it
- 5:45Speaker 1: in the streets in America, We're witnessing it on college campuses.
- 5:48Speaker 3: We're witnessing it.
- 5:49Speaker 1: All over the world, whether it's in Berlin, whether it's
- 5:52Speaker 1: in France, whether it's at the Opera House in Australia.
- 5:55Speaker 1: There are large groups of people in countries all over
- 5:59Speaker 1: the world and college campuses that are advocating for Hamas
- 6:03Speaker 1: and the Palacinians.
- 6:04Speaker 2: Look, it has been tragic to watch that on the
- 6:07Speaker 2: far left today there is a blatant strain of hatred
- 6:14Speaker 2: for Israel and virulent anti anti Semitism. We see it
- 6:18Speaker 2: the House of Representatives in the SQUAD and the Squad
- 6:22Speaker 2: are viciously anti Israel. You and I on this podcast
- 6:25Speaker 2: talked about the video Overshidah Talib walking down the halls
- 6:29Speaker 2: of the house when being asked, what do you think
- 6:32Speaker 2: about women and children being raped? What do you think
- 6:34Speaker 2: about infants being murdered? And she refused to answer. And
- 6:37Speaker 2: I will say it has been tragic to watch college
- 6:41Speaker 2: campuses across this country as vicious anti Semitism has broken out.
- 6:46Speaker 2: This week, I saw a video form Mi alma mater
- 6:49Speaker 2: from Harvard of a Jewish student being harassed, being threatened,
- 6:53Speaker 2: being surrounded by angry protesters screaming shame, shame, shame. Look.
- 6:59Speaker 2: I called on Harvard any student doing that to another
- 7:02Speaker 2: student should be expelled immediately. But let me say something else, Ben,
- 7:11Speaker 2: because unfortunately, it's not just the radicals in the house.
- 7:15Speaker 2: It's not just the radicals on university campuses. The Biden
- 7:19Speaker 2: administration from the very beginning of this war has systematically
- 7:24Speaker 2: undermined Israel. When the war began on October seventh, early
- 7:30Speaker 2: in the morning, at three in the morning, the State Department,
- 7:32Speaker 2: the Office of Palestinian Affairs tweeted out they said, we
- 7:36Speaker 2: condemned the attack of Amas, but we urge both sides
- 7:40Speaker 2: to engage in no retaliation, no military acts. Violence solves nothing.
- 7:47Speaker 2: This is literally as Israel is having terrorists murder that
- 7:51Speaker 2: night upwards of a thousand Israelis. The US State Department said, Israel,
- 7:56Speaker 2: don't respond at all, do nothing, do not strike back
- 8:00Speaker 2: at the terrorists. Now, my staff and I we spotted
- 8:02Speaker 2: that tweet at three in the morning, and we condemned
- 8:07Speaker 2: it loudly. I said, look, everyone involved in drafting this tweet,
- 8:10Speaker 2: everyone involved in approving it, should be fired. The State
- 8:13Speaker 2: Department within hours deleted the tweet. The next day, Tony
- 8:18Speaker 2: Blink and the Secretary of State set out another tweet.
- 8:22Speaker 2: He said he had just talked with the Turkish Foreign
- 8:24Speaker 2: Minister and they had agreed that it was imperative to
- 8:28Speaker 2: have a cease fire. Understand that the words cease fire listen.
- 8:33Speaker 2: Hamas does not intend to have a ceasefire until they
- 8:36Speaker 2: murder every Jew they can find. That's when they intend
- 8:39Speaker 2: to stop. Prime Minister net Yaho has rightly said that
- 8:44Speaker 2: they are going to utterly eliminate Hamas. And every time
- 8:48Speaker 2: you hear a Democrat or the media saying the words
- 8:53Speaker 2: cease fire, what they are saying is protect Hamas. And
- 8:57Speaker 2: stop Israel for Retalia. Right now, the US Secretary of
- 9:02Speaker 2: State Tony Blincoln is in Israel, and he went there
- 9:06Speaker 2: to argue for what he called a quote humanitarian pause.
- 9:12Speaker 2: Now that's just fancy Orwellian speak for a ceasefire. What
- 9:17Speaker 2: he's saying is Israel, please don't kill the terrorist. He's
- 9:21Speaker 2: also arguing, Israel, please give fuel to the terrorists. So
- 9:28Speaker 2: in the Gaza Strip, many of the Hamas terrorists are
- 9:31Speaker 2: in tunnels that they have dug underground. Those tunnels are ventilated,
- 9:35Speaker 2: they are powered by fuel generators. And so Israel has said,
- 9:39Speaker 2: we're cutting off your fuel. What is the Biden State
- 9:43Speaker 2: Department saying, send fuel in there. The reason Israel's cutting
- 9:46Speaker 2: off the fuel is to get the terrorists out of
- 9:49Speaker 2: the tunnels so they can kill the terrorists who are
- 9:52Speaker 2: targeting and murdering civilians. And I got to say, and
- 9:56Speaker 2: this is something. So in the last three weeks this podcast,
- 10:00Speaker 2: we've done a deep dive on what's happening in Israel,
- 10:03Speaker 2: examining the atrocities that were carried out, but also examining
- 10:09Speaker 2: the complicity of the Biden administration. It is funding this attack.
- 10:13Speaker 2: It has flowed over one hundred billion dollars to Iran,
- 10:18Speaker 2: who planned and directed this attack. But not only that,
- 10:22Speaker 2: on this podcast, we've explained how the corporate media is
- 10:25Speaker 2: an integral part of Hamasa's war plan. We had a
- 10:29Speaker 2: podcast episode that was entitled CNN is Hamasa's air force,
- 10:36Speaker 2: So is MSNBC, so is ABC. It's scary attack, It's terrified. Yeah,
- 10:41Speaker 2: And we went through a dozen different clips, including we
- 10:46Speaker 2: played one on this podcast.
- 10:47Speaker 3: By the way, go back and down with this.
- 10:48Speaker 1: If you didn't, if you did not get to hear this,
- 10:52Speaker 1: this is why I love doing the show with you,
- 10:54Speaker 1: because we take time and we pulled all these clips
- 10:57Speaker 1: and we.
- 10:58Speaker 2: Played them and you can't get anywhere else.
- 11:00Speaker 1: Yeah, no one else is playing this, and we put
- 11:01Speaker 1: it back to back to back to back, so you
- 11:04Speaker 1: can watch the American media defend this terrorist organization well.
- 11:08Speaker 2: And one of the most stunning is CNN had a
- 11:11Speaker 2: spokesperson for the Palestinians who went on CNN and said
- 11:16Speaker 2: Hamas only attacks military targets, they never attack civilians, and
- 11:21Speaker 2: the Israelis deliberately target civilians and CNN sat there as
- 11:28Speaker 2: they utterly lied. They aired globally terrorist propaganda, which is
- 11:34Speaker 2: exactly opposite of the truth that I'll point out. Not
- 11:36Speaker 2: only is it the case that Hamas deliberately was murdering civilians,
- 11:40Speaker 2: and by the way, they don't keep this a secret.
- 11:43Speaker 2: They videoed themselves and put the videos out for the world.
- 11:46Speaker 2: They're proud of it. But not only that, the Israelis
- 11:49Speaker 2: go to extraordinary lengths, more than any military on the
- 11:53Speaker 2: face of the planet, to avoid civilian deaths. Now, tragically,
- 11:58Speaker 2: we know there will be Palestinians civilian deaths, but the
- 12:01Speaker 2: reason for that is Hamas deliberately using human shields. They
- 12:05Speaker 2: want Palestinian civilians to die. So, for example, they put
- 12:09Speaker 2: their military headquarters in the basement of a hospital. They
- 12:12Speaker 2: put missiles in kindergarten classrooms because when the Israelis take
- 12:17Speaker 2: out military targets, they want there to be dead Palestinians
- 12:22Speaker 2: because they then know Hamas knows they're not strong enough
- 12:26Speaker 2: to defeat Israel. But their plan is for the useful
- 12:30Speaker 2: idiots in the global media to take those images and
- 12:34Speaker 2: demonize Israel, which is why it is so important to
- 12:38Speaker 2: speak out and speak the truth.
- 12:39Speaker 1: One of the things about being here, and they go
- 12:41Speaker 1: on anste for this event, is we get to talk
- 12:44Speaker 1: about a subject that's really important that I know many
- 12:46Speaker 1: of you care about, and that's an issue at the
- 12:49Speaker 1: Supreme Court. There is a really important week coming up
- 12:54Speaker 1: that deals with the Supreme Court center and I want
- 12:56Speaker 1: you to talk about this. A vote that's coming up
- 12:58Speaker 1: in judiciary and it's not being covered by anyone, yep.
- 13:02Speaker 1: And it's going to have or could have major consequences.
- 13:06Speaker 1: And part of this is the left's clear vision to
- 13:11Speaker 1: change or all to the Supreme Court and how the
- 13:13Speaker 1: American people look at it, how they view it. It
- 13:16Speaker 1: undermining the Supreme Court, undermining directly justices, influencing justice.
- 13:21Speaker 3: We saw this with Roe v.
- 13:22Speaker 1: Wade and the leaking of that document beforehand. We saw
- 13:26Speaker 1: how the Left allowed them to go after these Supreme
- 13:28Speaker 1: Court justice at their homes and no one was held
- 13:30Speaker 1: accountable for that either.
- 13:32Speaker 2: So the Left has been engaged in a multi year
- 13:35Speaker 2: systematic effort to undermine and delegitimize the Supreme Court. They
- 13:41Speaker 2: view it as the one institution of government they don't
- 13:44Speaker 2: have a stranglehold on it, yeah, and so their intention
- 13:47Speaker 2: is to destroy the Court. And it has featured things
- 13:51Speaker 2: including Chuck Schumer standing on the steps of the Court,
- 13:55Speaker 2: threatening justices by name and saying if you do not
- 13:58Speaker 2: rule the way he wants them to, that you have
- 14:01Speaker 2: unleashed the whirlwind and you will pay the price. We saw,
- 14:07Speaker 2: we saw the leak of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision.
- 14:10Speaker 2: We then also have seen week after week, month after month, angry,
- 14:15Speaker 2: violent protesters outside the homes of Supreme Court justices. Now
- 14:19Speaker 2: it's a federal crime to protest at the home of
- 14:23Speaker 2: a federal judge trying to influence the outcome of an election.
- 14:26Speaker 1: Let's just say that again, because I don't think people
- 14:28Speaker 1: realize that of any federal judge.
- 14:29Speaker 2: Yes, Supreme Court, you can't go and threaten a federal
- 14:33Speaker 2: judge at their home. It's a federal crime. Now, the
- 14:35Speaker 2: Biden Justice Department, you know how many people they prosecuted
- 14:38Speaker 2: for violating that law. Zero, not a single one. Now
- 14:43Speaker 2: it got so bad. There was one lunatic that traveled
- 14:47Speaker 2: from California all the way to Bethesda, Maryland. He brought
- 14:50Speaker 2: a gun, he brought a knife, he brought duct tape,
- 14:53Speaker 2: and he came there to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh. He
- 14:57Speaker 2: was apprehended. He's being proper acuted for attempted murder. But
- 15:02Speaker 2: every night and he should be. But every night the
- 15:05Speaker 2: people who are committing criminal offenses in front of the
- 15:09Speaker 2: justices houses trying to intimidate them. The Biden Department of
- 15:12Speaker 2: Justice Merrick Garland refuses to follow federal law. So the
- 15:17Speaker 2: latest iteration in the Democrats' efforts to undermine the Supreme
- 15:21Speaker 2: Court is they have been targeting a smear campaign directed
- 15:25Speaker 2: at Clarence Thomas. Now I know Justice Thomas very well.
- 15:29Speaker 2: I believe Justice Clarence Thomas is an American hero. He's
- 15:38Speaker 2: an extraordinary man. He's a brilliant man. Actually, I want
- 15:40Speaker 2: to take a digression.
- 15:41Speaker 3: It's so funny.
- 15:42Speaker 2: By the way, I want to tell you a fun
- 15:44Speaker 2: story about Justice Thomas. So, I was a law clerk
- 15:47Speaker 2: at the Supreme Court from nineteen ninety six to nineteen
- 15:49Speaker 2: ninety seven. And when I was clerking at the Court,
- 15:53Speaker 2: i clerked for Chief Justice William Renquist. I got to
- 15:55Speaker 2: know Justice Thomas very well, and at the time two
- 15:59Speaker 2: stories about Justice Thomas. Number one. One of my co
- 16:02Speaker 2: clerks is a guy named Rick Guarded. He's a professor
- 16:04Speaker 2: of law Notre Dame, and Rick and his wife had
- 16:07Speaker 2: had tutored a young African American kid in Arkansas, the
- 16:11Speaker 2: year before. His name was Carlos. He was a seventh grader.
- 16:14Speaker 2: And Rick and Nicole said, okay, we want to fly
- 16:16Speaker 2: Carlos to Washington, d C. He'd never left Arkansas, I
- 16:20Speaker 2: had never seen it, and they said, we want to
- 16:22Speaker 2: bring him there. And so Carlos came. And Rick sent
- 16:25Speaker 2: an email to all nine Supreme Court Justices and he said, Hey,
- 16:28Speaker 2: this kid my wife and I tutored is coming. Would
- 16:31Speaker 2: you be willing to meet with him? Two said yes,
- 16:35Speaker 2: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas now Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
- 16:39Speaker 2: It was very nice of her to meet with him,
- 16:42Speaker 2: and they had a conversation, but look, it was a
- 16:44Speaker 2: little stilted. She was very prim She was very proper.
- 16:48Speaker 2: She was like a librarian. And for a kid who
- 16:51Speaker 2: grew up in rural Arkansas, it was difficult to understand
- 16:54Speaker 2: and really connect with Sirs Ginsburg, but it was very
- 16:58Speaker 2: gracious of her to say yes. The other who said
- 17:01Speaker 2: yes was Clarence Thomas now Clarence Thomas grew up in Pinpoint, Georgia.
- 17:05Speaker 2: Pinpoint is a tiny rural town in Georgia. He grew
- 17:08Speaker 2: up in abject poverty and he sat there talking with Carlos.
- 17:13Speaker 2: He spent over an hour with his seventh grade kid
- 17:16Speaker 2: talking with him. At the end of the discussion, Carlos
- 17:21Speaker 2: the Supreme Court didn't mean a whole lot to him.
- 17:24Speaker 2: But Justice Thomas had a picture of himself with Troy Acoman.
- 17:27Speaker 2: He's a huge Dallas Cowboys fan, and that impressed Carlos, like, wow,
- 17:33Speaker 2: that's a big deal.
- 17:34Speaker 3: You know, Aikman, that's it, You're in.
- 17:37Speaker 2: And Justice Thomas saw how impressed he was, and he
- 17:40Speaker 2: had on his desk he had a ticket to the
- 17:43Speaker 2: Super Bowl encased in loose sight and signed by Emmett Smith,
- 17:49Speaker 2: and he grabbed it off his desk. He said, Carlos,
- 17:51Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you this ticket. But he said, I
- 17:54Speaker 2: want you to promise me you're gonna get a's in
- 17:57Speaker 2: school next year. And Carlos, with wide open eyes, nodded
- 18:02Speaker 2: and said, yes, sir, I will. That's one day that
- 18:05Speaker 2: was never reported, that was never commented. There were no
- 18:07Speaker 2: cameras there. That's who Justice Thomas is. Here's the second story.
- 18:12Speaker 2: So my college roommate and best friend other than Heidi,
- 18:16Speaker 2: it's a guy you know, well, David Panton. Oh yeah,
- 18:18Speaker 2: he is Jamaican. He is an extraordinary guy. And he
- 18:23Speaker 2: was president of the Harvard Law Review. So the first
- 18:26Speaker 2: black president of the Harvard Law Review was a guy
- 18:29Speaker 2: named Barack Obama. I'm not sure what he went on
- 18:31Speaker 2: to do after that.
- 18:34Speaker 3: You can google it if you need to check that
- 18:35Speaker 3: out later.
- 18:36Speaker 2: The second black president of the Harvard Law Review was
- 18:39Speaker 2: my old roommate, David Pantom And so David, when I
- 18:42Speaker 2: was clerking, he said, look, I'd really love to meet
- 18:44Speaker 2: Justice Thomas. And so I asked the Justice, Hey, my
- 18:47Speaker 2: roommate's president the Law Review. Would you be willing to
- 18:49Speaker 2: meet with him? He said sure, So they came. David
- 18:54Speaker 2: came up, and the two of them sat and I
- 18:55Speaker 2: sat in on the meeting. They spent again about an
- 18:57Speaker 2: hour hour and a half talking got along famously. Justice
- 19:02Speaker 2: Thomas wanted David to come clerk for it. And and David,
- 19:06Speaker 2: David is is in private equity, he's gone into business,
- 19:08Speaker 2: and and and David says that. David says, no, no, no, no,
- 19:13Speaker 2: I leave. He's Jamaican. So there's this lilting Jamaican accident.
- 19:16Speaker 2: He goes, no, no, no, I leave law to the smart people.
- 19:21Speaker 2: And Justice Thomas leans forward and says so do I,
- 19:27Speaker 2: And it was just I'm sitting there like, Holy cow,
- 19:29Speaker 2: how am I sitting there watching this extraordinary exchange?
- 19:32Speaker 3: By the way, it's sad, not because this is the
- 19:34Speaker 3: best part about doing this show.
- 19:35Speaker 2: Both brilliant both.
- 19:36Speaker 3: This is the best part about doing this show.
- 19:37Speaker 1: I get to pull back the curtain. You are obsessed
- 19:40Speaker 1: with basketball. People may not realize that you play at
- 19:44Speaker 1: least what twice a week?
- 19:45Speaker 2: I play twice a week. Obsessed is strong?
- 19:49Speaker 1: You love that. It's your It is your thing. Clarence
- 19:52Speaker 1: Thomas likes basketball.
- 19:54Speaker 2: He does He did you ever play? Did y'all ever play? Sadly,
- 19:58Speaker 2: I didn't because his wife Jenny won't let him anymore.
- 20:00Speaker 2: He hurt his knee. He used to play. We begged
- 20:02Speaker 2: him to come out and play now Byron White, Yeah,
- 20:06Speaker 2: who was Okay, here's an interesting bit of trivia. Sorry
- 20:10Speaker 2: we're taking a total diggression. But the fun thing about
- 20:12Speaker 2: a podcast is we can do that, all right, So
- 20:15Speaker 2: let's do a little bit of history. World War two.
- 20:21Speaker 2: A boat known as PT one O nine is sunk
- 20:25Speaker 2: in World War Two. An intelligence report is written that
- 20:31Speaker 2: describes in the sinking of p T one O nine,
- 20:34Speaker 2: incredible heroism from a young sailor by the name of
- 20:39Speaker 2: John Fitzgerald Kennedy. And this intelligence report described Kennedy as
- 20:44Speaker 2: an incredible hero. Fast forward twenty years and JFK's president,
- 20:50Speaker 2: JFK appointed one and only one person to the Supreme Court.
- 20:53Speaker 2: Do you know who that was? I don't Byron White.
- 20:57Speaker 2: Do you know who wrote the intelligence report?
- 21:00Speaker 3: Iron White?
- 21:02Speaker 2: That is the Supreme Court? I guess right, the absolute truth. Now.
- 21:07Speaker 2: Byron White is someone that I think would only exist
- 21:11Speaker 2: in like a fictional Tom Wolf book. Byron White was
- 21:19Speaker 2: second in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy. Byron White
- 21:25Speaker 2: was first in his class at Yale Law School. And
- 21:29Speaker 2: the same year he was first in the class in
- 21:31Speaker 2: the Yale Law School, he led the NFL in rushing. Wow, Like,
- 21:37Speaker 2: holy cow, who does that? And so when I clerked,
- 21:41Speaker 2: Byron White was retired, he was like eighty and he
- 21:45Speaker 2: used to play play hoops with the law clerks. And
- 21:47Speaker 2: so at the Supreme Court there's a basketball court, and
- 21:51Speaker 2: and the basketball court it's at the top and and
- 21:55Speaker 2: so the floor of the court is the ceiling of
- 21:58Speaker 2: the courtroom. So they don't let you during an argument
- 22:01Speaker 2: because you can literally hear the dribbling through the ceiling.
- 22:03Speaker 3: And it's nickname the Supreme Court.
- 22:07Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no, no, that's what I was told.
- 22:09Speaker 3: Now, all right, that's wrong, all right, I was told.
- 22:11Speaker 2: I was told the Supreme Court.
- 22:12Speaker 3: All right, what is it?
- 22:13Speaker 2: It's nickname is the highest court in the lamb.
- 22:15Speaker 3: Oh well, okay, there you go.
- 22:18Speaker 2: But Byron White used to play, and he was, look
- 22:21Speaker 2: the guy led the NFL in rushing. He was a
- 22:24Speaker 2: massive guy, and apparently he'd play with pencil neck law
- 22:28Speaker 2: clerks and he would fowl like crazy and just throw
- 22:31Speaker 2: him down nothing. He would do whatever, be a foul,
- 22:34Speaker 2: and he would just brutalize them. When I was clerking,
- 22:37Speaker 2: he was like eighty, so we couldn't get him to play.
- 22:39Speaker 2: But I just shook his hands and like his fingers
- 22:43Speaker 2: were the diameter of a quarter. I mean, it was weird.
- 22:48Speaker 2: So he didn't play anymore. And sadly Justice Thomas didn't
- 22:51Speaker 2: play anymore when I was there either, because Ginny wouldn't
- 22:53Speaker 2: let him because he hurd his knee playing.
- 22:55Speaker 3: When you clerked.
- 22:56Speaker 1: Last question on this and then we'll get back to
- 22:57Speaker 1: this vote this week. But I got to ask what
- 23:00Speaker 1: was the coolest part about clerking in the Supreme Court.
- 23:04Speaker 2: Being part of the decision making. So I clerked for
- 23:08Speaker 2: Chief Justice Renquist. He was an extraordinary man. He was someone.
- 23:12Speaker 2: He was born in Milwaukee. He was born in a
- 23:17Speaker 2: blue collar family. He enlisted in the army in World
- 23:23Speaker 2: War Two, so he was a sergeant. He was a
- 23:26Speaker 2: weather observer in North Africa during World War Two. It's
- 23:29Speaker 2: one of the really cool things. I've always loved that
- 23:32Speaker 2: the Chief Justice the United States was not an officer.
- 23:35Speaker 2: He was an enlisted man. And years later we was
- 23:39Speaker 2: serving on the Court. Lewis Powell, who served with him,
- 23:41Speaker 2: was a colonel in World War Two, and Powell used
- 23:45Speaker 2: to say, you know, I outrank you, and the Chief
- 23:49Speaker 2: Justice would say, oh, not anymore. But Renquist was spectacularly brilliant.
- 23:59Speaker 2: So he had a purely photographic memory at a level
- 24:04Speaker 2: I've never seen anyone else. So here's an amazing story.
- 24:08Speaker 2: So Renquist graduated from Stanford Law School. He was first
- 24:12Speaker 2: in his class at Stanford. In the same class was
- 24:16Speaker 2: Sanderday O'Connor. She was third in her class at Stanford.
- 24:20Speaker 2: I've always wondered what happened to the poor schlaboo second. Yeah,
- 24:25Speaker 2: So renquists and O'Connor dated. They dated in law school
- 24:32Speaker 2: and they actually he asked her to marry him.
- 24:35Speaker 3: Are you king?
- 24:36Speaker 2: She said no. Now, as y'all know, Saturday O'Connor came
- 24:41Speaker 2: back to Arizona, was an Arizona legend, was the Senate
- 24:45Speaker 2: majority leader here in the state of Arizona. And they
- 24:48Speaker 2: served together, and she and her husband and he and
- 24:51Speaker 2: his wife were friends for fifty years. They were very
- 24:54Speaker 2: close friends. A great story from Saturday O'Connor. So when
- 24:58Speaker 2: she was Sader day and she was dating John O'Connor,
- 25:01Speaker 2: she describes in her autobiography how she brought this this
- 25:05Speaker 2: young Stanford law student she was dating back to meet
- 25:07Speaker 2: her dad on the ranch. And she said that day
- 25:11Speaker 2: dad just happened to be castrating calves.
- 25:16Speaker 3: Just happened to.
- 25:16Speaker 2: Because she writes in the book, I wonder if he
- 25:19Speaker 2: was trying to send the message.
- 25:21Speaker 1: That's like gun cleaning night in the South. Have a
- 25:24Speaker 1: daughter having a date.
- 25:25Speaker 2: Right As the father of two daughters, I find that.
- 25:28Speaker 1: Exquisite Patriot Mobile for ten years has been America's only
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- 27:21Speaker 1: Let's talk about this week in DC because it's important
- 27:24Speaker 1: what's going on and explain what the plan is for
- 27:27Speaker 1: the Democrats and what they're trying to accomplish.
- 27:29Speaker 2: So the Democrats are intending to issue subpoenas for three people,
- 27:34Speaker 2: for Harlan Crowe, for Leonard Leo, and for Robin Arkley
- 27:39Speaker 2: the second now all three of them. Harlan Crowe is
- 27:42Speaker 2: a very successful businessman in Texas. Leonard Leo is a
- 27:45Speaker 2: very close friend who who has helped lead the Federalist
- 27:49Speaker 2: Society for thirty years. I've known Leonard Leo for thirty years.
- 27:52Speaker 2: He's been actively involved in fighting to confirm conservative Supreme
- 27:57Speaker 2: Court justices for thirty years. The purpose of this subpoena
- 28:01Speaker 2: is there is a concerted smear campaign directed at Justice Thomas.
- 28:07Speaker 2: And so you've seen the stories about Justice Thomas flew
- 28:10Speaker 2: on a private plane. Justice Thomas was the guest at
- 28:14Speaker 2: the vacation home of a billionaire, and so he must
- 28:17Speaker 2: be corrupt. Now, I'm going to tell you two things
- 28:21Speaker 2: about that smear campaign. Number One, it is utterly and
- 28:28Speaker 2: completely hypocritical in that if you look at the numbers
- 28:35Speaker 2: from two thousand and four to twenty eighteen, the Justice
- 28:40Speaker 2: is disclosed, how many trips do you think they took
- 28:42Speaker 2: the nine justices? No idea one, three hundred and six.
- 28:46Speaker 3: That's a hell of a lot of travel.
- 28:48Speaker 2: That's nine people. They travel a lot. Six of the
- 28:52Speaker 2: Supreme Court's nine members received paid trips to Europe in
- 28:55Speaker 2: twenty fourteen, including Berlin, London, Zurich. Uh Justice Stephen Bryer
- 29:04Speaker 2: was repeatedly flowed around by the billionaire Pritzker family from Chicago,
- 29:08Speaker 2: by the way, one of whom is the Democrat governor
- 29:10Speaker 2: of Illinois. Right now, Justice Sonoma or likewise flew all
- 29:15Speaker 2: over the place. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg flew all over
- 29:18Speaker 2: the praise. Justice Bryer took more reimbursed trips two hundred
- 29:24Speaker 2: and nineteen than any other member from two thousand and
- 29:29Speaker 2: four to twenty eighteen. And the attack that's directed Clarence Thomas. Look,
- 29:35Speaker 2: if you want to argue Supreme Court justices shouldn't be
- 29:38Speaker 2: able to fly on trips or on private planes, fine.
- 29:41Speaker 2: If you want to talk about rules that apply to everyone,
- 29:44Speaker 2: that's fine, that's a reasonable conversation. What's not reasonable is
- 29:48Speaker 2: to say, we're going to attack Clarence Thomas for doing
- 29:50Speaker 2: the same thing the other eight justices are doing, and
- 29:53Speaker 2: we're going to hypocritically apply rules to him that don't
- 29:56Speaker 2: apply to anyone else. Now, let me tell you something
- 29:58Speaker 2: on top of that, which is this smear campaign is
- 30:04Speaker 2: funded by and is driven by, in particular Pro Publica.
- 30:09Speaker 2: That has been the organizations that's putting out all of
- 30:13Speaker 2: these attack pieces. Now, who is Pro Publica funded by.
- 30:16Speaker 2: I'm going to quote from the Daily Caller quote nonprofit
- 30:20Speaker 2: news outlet Pro Publica, which published multiple stories detailing Supreme
- 30:24Speaker 2: Court Justice Clarence thomas alleged ethics violations, has many of
- 30:29Speaker 2: the same donors as multiple groups actively campaigning for Thomas
- 30:35Speaker 2: to be investigated or resigned. The Sandler Foundation, which launched
- 30:39Speaker 2: Pro Publica in two thousand and seven and is the
- 30:41Speaker 2: News outlet's largest donor, has given it almost forty million
- 30:46Speaker 2: dollars since twenty ten for general support. The Sandler Foundation
- 30:51Speaker 2: is also given over seven point five million dollars to
- 30:55Speaker 2: the Campaign Legal Center since twenty fifteen and over six
- 30:58Speaker 2: million dollars to the America Constitutional Society for general support
- 31:02Speaker 2: since twenty ten. Those are all rabid left wing organizations.
- 31:07Speaker 2: So understand, this smear campaign is driven by left wing billionaires,
- 31:13Speaker 2: and it is funded to delegitimize the Supreme Court. And
- 31:16Speaker 2: in particular, the left hates Clarence Thomas, and they hate
- 31:21Speaker 2: him with an intensity that is different from any other
- 31:26Speaker 2: conservative justice. Look. I knew Anton and Scalia very well.
- 31:29Speaker 2: He was brilliant, He was an extraordinary justice. He was
- 31:32Speaker 2: every bit as conservative as Clarence Thomas. And yet the
- 31:35Speaker 2: left did not keep contempt on Anton and Scalia the
- 31:40Speaker 2: way they do Justice Thomas. The left's view is for
- 31:44Speaker 2: a black man to dare to be conservative is an
- 31:49Speaker 2: unacceptable crime, is something that has to be punished. The
- 31:52Speaker 2: left refers to They do magazine covers with pictures of
- 31:57Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas as an uncle Tom sitting at the feet
- 32:01Speaker 2: of antonin Scalia. It is bigoted, it's racist, it's a lie,
- 32:06Speaker 2: it's im moral, and this viciousness directed at Clarence Thomas.
- 32:10Speaker 2: These subpoenas we're going to vote on this week in
- 32:12Speaker 2: the Judiciary Committee. The Democrats are going to have the
- 32:15Speaker 2: votes to issue them from Judiciary. But the good news
- 32:18Speaker 2: is they don't have legal force unless they get sixty
- 32:21Speaker 2: votes on the floor of the Senate, and the chances
- 32:23Speaker 2: of that happening.
- 32:24Speaker 3: Are zero, Thank goodness for that.
- 32:28Speaker 1: Before we get into Q and A, I want to
- 32:31Speaker 1: ask you one other thing, and it's the issue, and
- 32:34Speaker 1: I have a feeling a lot of people are going
- 32:35Speaker 1: to like this idea here school choice. I am a
- 32:40Speaker 1: huge proponent of school choice. It's been something that you
- 32:43Speaker 1: have been a champion of for years, but it's also
- 32:48Speaker 1: become in many circles they say a third rail. Don't
- 32:50Speaker 1: touch it, don't talk about it, don't deal with in politics.
- 32:54Speaker 1: Do you believe in this next election cycle that Conservatives
- 32:58Speaker 1: can win on the issue of school choice and how
- 33:01Speaker 1: would they best do that nationwide?
- 33:03Speaker 3: Look?
- 33:03Speaker 2: I think absolutely yes, I am There is no domestic
- 33:08Speaker 2: issue I care about more than school choice. I think
- 33:11Speaker 2: school choice is the civil rights issue of the twenty
- 33:15Speaker 2: first century. And listen. It is worth noting that school
- 33:21Speaker 2: choice has been around from the dawn of time. The
- 33:24Speaker 2: rich and the middle class have always had school choice.
- 33:28Speaker 2: If you were a student at the Bethesda Public Schools
- 33:33Speaker 2: in Maryland, Bethesa's, this very wealthy suburb of Washington, d c.
- 33:38Speaker 2: If that school had a fifty percent dropout rate, if
- 33:43Speaker 2: among the students that remained there fewer than half of
- 33:47Speaker 2: them graduated reading at grade level, If drug dealers were
- 33:51Speaker 2: walking in the hallways, if little girls were getting sexually
- 33:54Speaker 2: assaulted in the bathrooms, the Bethesda Public schools would be
- 34:00Speaker 2: empty immediately. Because the parents, they are rich, so they
- 34:04Speaker 2: would do one of two things. They would either write
- 34:06Speaker 2: checks and pay tuition at a private school, or they
- 34:11Speaker 2: would move to another neighborhood that had a better public school,
- 34:14Speaker 2: and they would exercise choice through choosing where to live.
- 34:18Speaker 2: That's what the rich have always been able to do.
- 34:20Speaker 2: That's what the upper middle class have always been able
- 34:23Speaker 2: to do. It is low income Americans. It is single
- 34:28Speaker 2: moms and inner cities who are trapped with failing schools
- 34:32Speaker 2: and those numbers I've described are true in school, after school,
- 34:36Speaker 2: after school in this country, and it predominantly hurts low
- 34:39Speaker 2: income kids, It hurts African American kids, it hurts Hispanic kids,
- 34:44Speaker 2: and the Democrat Party is bought and paid for by
- 34:48Speaker 2: the teachers' unions. If you look at African American communities
- 34:55Speaker 2: or Hispanic communities, systematically, sixty seventy as much as eighty
- 34:59Speaker 2: percent of African American parents, as much as sixty seventy
- 35:04Speaker 2: eighty percent of Hispanic parents support school choice. I believe
- 35:09Speaker 2: every child in America deserves a right to have access
- 35:15Speaker 2: to an excellent education, regardless of their race, of their ethnicity,
- 35:19Speaker 2: of their wealth, of their zip cost. So to say,
- 35:28Speaker 2: we are sitting in actually an extraordinary place because I
- 35:31Speaker 2: want to say to the men and women here, thank
- 35:34Speaker 2: you for your leadership. Arizona has led the nation in
- 35:41Speaker 2: providing choice to your students. It has been extraordinary, It
- 35:44Speaker 2: has been inspirational, it has been powerful, and the Goldwater
- 35:50Speaker 2: Institute has been pivotal in making that happen. And if
- 35:53Speaker 2: you look nationally, the two states at the front of
- 35:56Speaker 2: this fight have been Arizona and Florida. And I will
- 36:00Speaker 2: say something you and I are both Texans, and look Texans.
- 36:03Speaker 2: We are known for being quiet and for our humility.
- 36:08Speaker 2: Look ause Texans. I hate that there is anything Texans
- 36:13Speaker 2: are not leading on, but when it comes to school choice,
- 36:18Speaker 2: Texans have been lagging behind. And I can tell you
- 36:21Speaker 2: there's a major battle playing out in the Texas legislature
- 36:24Speaker 2: right now. We have the single best moment we have
- 36:28Speaker 2: ever had in our lifetimes to pass real and meaningful
- 36:31Speaker 2: school choice in Texas. The Governor Greg Abbott has said
- 36:34Speaker 2: he's going to keep pat calling special sessions until they
- 36:37Speaker 2: pass it. And I'll tell you something that I do
- 36:40Speaker 2: in Texas that is unusual. Ben So, virtually every US
- 36:46Speaker 2: Senator stays out of state primaries in their own state.
- 36:52Speaker 2: And the reason is getting involved in a primary in
- 36:55Speaker 2: your own state is just stupid. It hurts you that
- 36:58Speaker 2: if you make an endorsement in your own primary. In
- 37:00Speaker 2: a primary in your state, the rule of thumb is
- 37:03Speaker 2: you get half of their friends and you get all
- 37:06Speaker 2: of their enemies. I don't do that. I regularly endorse
- 37:13Speaker 2: in primaries, to the best of my knowledge. I don't
- 37:16Speaker 2: know another US Senator that does. To the best of
- 37:18Speaker 2: my knowledge, ninety nine of my colleagues do not. And
- 37:21Speaker 2: I endorse in lots of primaries in Texas. And here's
- 37:24Speaker 2: how I have my staff prepare an Excel spreadsheet of
- 37:29Speaker 2: every vote that a state legislator has cast on school choice.
- 37:35Speaker 2: And my rule is, if you voted in favor of
- 37:38Speaker 2: school choice, and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're quite likely
- 37:44Speaker 2: to get my support. If you've voted against choice, the
- 37:49Speaker 2: chances of getting my support are essentially zero. And it
- 37:53Speaker 2: is very likely that I will indorse your primary opponent.
- 37:58Speaker 2: And when I do that, I don't do it. Jet
- 38:00Speaker 2: I come in and I cut radio and TV ads
- 38:03Speaker 2: and I come in.
- 38:04Speaker 1: You're accusing a lot of things. You going gently into
- 38:07Speaker 1: political time is not one of them.
- 38:09Speaker 2: So the stakes are too high. And so we had
- 38:13Speaker 2: last election cycle seven runoffs with the teachers unions on
- 38:17Speaker 2: one side and me on the other, and we beat
- 38:19Speaker 2: them in a majority of those races. And the reason
- 38:25Speaker 2: I do that, and listen, it hurts me politically to
- 38:28Speaker 2: do that. I am losing votes when I do that.
- 38:31Speaker 2: But the reason I'm doing that is that I want
- 38:34Speaker 2: for the state legislators, when they're thinking about what do
- 38:37Speaker 2: I do on this, for it to be a carrot
- 38:40Speaker 2: and stick that if there is a Republican House member
- 38:45Speaker 2: that's on the fence, do I support it? Do I not?
- 38:49Speaker 2: I want them to say, you know, I really don't
- 38:52Speaker 2: want crews to screw around in my primary. So maybe
- 38:55Speaker 2: I'll just do the right thing and I'll tell you something.
- 38:59Speaker 2: And it's something than why I'm so inspired by the
- 39:01Speaker 2: men and women in this room. When I was first
- 39:04Speaker 2: elected to the Senate in twenty twelve, here's what I
- 39:06Speaker 2: told Heidi. I said, sweetheart, if when I die, if
- 39:12Speaker 2: my tombstone says Ted played a meaningful role in bringing
- 39:16Speaker 2: about school choice to every child in Texas and every
- 39:20Speaker 2: child in America, I will die a very very happy man.
- 39:24Speaker 3: Amen to that. So we really get to do this.
- 39:27Speaker 3: I want to say thank you our show.
- 39:30Speaker 1: We have amazing, amazing sponsors that allows you this Patriot
- 39:34Speaker 1: Mobile is here tonight. I want to say a big
- 39:35Speaker 1: shout out to those guys for being here. If you
- 39:38Speaker 1: haven't checked them out, they're phenomenal. They do great work
- 39:42Speaker 1: and really give people an alternative. So thank you guys
- 39:45Speaker 1: for being here as well. And I saw that I
- 39:46Speaker 1: heard an amen out there.
- 39:47Speaker 2: I knew.
- 39:48Speaker 3: I was like, I know that voice so that's I.
- 39:50Speaker 1: Got it right right, you're out there, yes, say there
- 39:52Speaker 1: he is, all right, there we go. All right, so
- 39:54Speaker 1: let's go to the Q and a real quick we'll
- 39:56Speaker 1: get if you'll say your name at the beginning and
- 39:59Speaker 1: where you live, and then we'll go there.
- 40:00Speaker 3: Go ahead.
- 40:02Speaker 5: Hi, Hi, Senator, I'm Mark Folker from Las Vegas. A
- 40:08Speaker 5: few weeks ago, J. Powell, Chairman of the FED, was
- 40:13Speaker 5: asked if the Federal Reserve was going to issue a
- 40:16Speaker 5: central bank digital currency, and his response was that would
- 40:22Speaker 5: have to be authorized by Congress. So my question is,
- 40:28Speaker 5: when legislation is introduced to authorize a central bank digital currency,
- 40:34Speaker 5: what will be the response in Congress?
- 40:38Speaker 2: Thank you so, Mark, thank you for that question. For
- 40:41Speaker 2: anyone who didn't hear he asked about the Federal Reserve
- 40:45Speaker 2: potentially issuing a central bank digital currency and how Congress
- 40:48Speaker 2: would respond if legislation was issued, I'll tell you I
- 40:53Speaker 2: am passionately opposed to any central bank digital currentsy and
- 41:02Speaker 2: in fact, Mark, I have introduced legislation to prohibit the
- 41:05Speaker 2: FED from ever issuing a central bank digital currency. When
- 41:12Speaker 2: it comes to bitcoin, when it comes to cryptocurrency generally,
- 41:16Speaker 2: I am very bullish on bitcoin. I'm personally an investor
- 41:22Speaker 2: in bitcoin. I have a standing by order. I buy
- 41:24Speaker 2: bitcoin every Monday on an automatic by order. That's just
- 41:30Speaker 2: my meager resources, that's what that's part of our investment.
- 41:35Speaker 2: I think bitcoin is an extraordinary number one hedge against inflation,
- 41:40Speaker 2: but number two. Look, I love bitcoin for the same
- 41:44Speaker 2: reason that collectivists and statists hate it, which is that
- 41:49Speaker 2: it cannot be controlled. Communist China has banned bitcoin. China
- 41:56Speaker 2: hates bitcoin for the same reason Elizabeth Warren and hates
- 42:00Speaker 2: bitcoin because they cannot control it. The left wants to
- 42:04Speaker 2: control your finances, and they want to monitor every monetary
- 42:08Speaker 2: exchange you have. Including the original version of the so
- 42:12Speaker 2: called Build Back Better Bill, which I called Build Back Broke,
- 42:17Speaker 2: required your bank to report to the federal government every
- 42:20Speaker 2: single transaction you made in excess of four hundred dollars.
- 42:25Speaker 2: That meant every mortgage payment, that meant every car payment
- 42:28Speaker 2: with inflation, that damn near man, every time you filled
- 42:31Speaker 2: up your gas tank. I think it is insane. The
- 42:35Speaker 2: federal government has no business monitoring the financial transactions of
- 42:40Speaker 2: a free people. I will tell you also, I am
- 42:47Speaker 2: a big proponent Texas is becoming an oasis for bitcoin
- 42:51Speaker 2: and cryptocurrency mining. That people are coming to Texas to
- 42:55Speaker 2: be free. It is a benefit to have low cost,
- 42:58Speaker 2: abundant energy, and if that's one thing Texas has, we
- 43:01Speaker 2: have a lot of it. I will say I'm glad J.
- 43:04Speaker 2: Powell says that I have asked him in my office
- 43:07Speaker 2: about a central bank digital currency. What he said in
- 43:11Speaker 2: my office sounded pretty good. Now, it worries me sometimes
- 43:15Speaker 2: that when J. Powell is talking to Democrats what he
- 43:17Speaker 2: says doesn't sound pretty good. And so I remain worried
- 43:21Speaker 2: the Fed will try to do this on their own.
- 43:24Speaker 2: But I can tell you if they do, I will
- 43:27Speaker 2: lead the fight against it. And I don't think the
- 43:29Speaker 2: federal government should ever get in that business.
- 43:32Speaker 3: Go ahead, next up, tell us your name.
- 43:36Speaker 4: Hi. I'm Jenny Simpson from Paradise, Sallya, Arizona. My question is, Senator,
- 43:43Speaker 4: when are you going to convince the rest of the
- 43:45Speaker 4: Senate that without border security, we don't have any US security?
- 43:53Speaker 3: Amen?
- 43:54Speaker 2: Jenny, Amen, Amen, Amen, thank you for that question. I
- 43:58Speaker 2: tell you we talked about where we're going to talk
- 44:00Speaker 2: about security in the border or not, and I told
- 44:03Speaker 2: him Ben, we're in Arizona. The chances that we go
- 44:05Speaker 2: through Q and A without talking about border security or
- 44:09Speaker 2: zero Look, it is an absolute manifest disaster. Y'all know
- 44:14Speaker 2: that you deal with it every day. In Texas, we
- 44:17Speaker 2: know that we deal with it every day. I was
- 44:19Speaker 2: down at our southern border last week. I went there
- 44:22Speaker 2: Thursday night of last week. I went to the midnight
- 44:26Speaker 2: muster with the Border Patrol agents, where I said to
- 44:28Speaker 2: all of the agents, thank you, thank you, thank you
- 44:31Speaker 2: for your heroism for defending this nation, even when you
- 44:35Speaker 2: have political nincom poops who are undermining you every single day.
- 44:42Speaker 2: I then went out on midnight patrol with the border Patrol,
- 44:44Speaker 2: which I've done many, many times. Every time you go
- 44:48Speaker 2: out on midnight patrol, within minutes you encounter groups of
- 44:52Speaker 2: illegal aliens. Karine Jean Pierre said at a White House briefing,
- 44:57Speaker 2: people are not just walking across our southern border. It's
- 45:00Speaker 2: not happening. Now, there's a technical term for what she
- 45:04Speaker 2: just did there. That is called a lie. It is
- 45:09Speaker 2: not a point of view, it is not spin, it
- 45:12Speaker 2: is not advocacy. It is a brazen, flat out lie.
- 45:18Speaker 2: And I responded, actually on this podcast, I said, Kareem
- 45:21Speaker 2: John Pierre, come with me to the southern border. Let's
- 45:24Speaker 2: go out and in one hour, I promise you, we
- 45:27Speaker 2: will encounter illegal aliens, because over eight million have crossed
- 45:31Speaker 2: since Joe Biden became president. Now, let me tell you something.
- 45:37Speaker 2: One of the last times I was there, a reporter
- 45:40Speaker 2: asked me, said, well, aren't the policies of Democrats much
- 45:45Speaker 2: more compassionate and humane on immigration than you mean, old
- 45:50Speaker 2: Republicans who want to secure the border. And I just
- 45:53Speaker 2: started laughing, and I said, you know who doesn't believe
- 45:56Speaker 2: that anymore? The Democrats. I said, where's Joe Biden, Where's
- 46:03Speaker 2: Kamala Harris? Where is a single Democrat senator? None of
- 46:10Speaker 2: them come to the border. And there's a reason for that,
- 46:12Speaker 2: because you cannot see what is happening. You cannot see
- 46:17Speaker 2: the dead bodies. Last year, eight hundred and fifty three
- 46:20Speaker 2: migrants died crossing illegally into this country. Texas farmers and
- 46:24Speaker 2: ranchers find dead bodies on their property every single day.
- 46:27Speaker 2: They do the same thing here in Arizona. You cannot
- 46:31Speaker 2: see the children who have been brutalized by human traffickers.
- 46:37Speaker 2: You can't see the women who've been sexually assaulted. You
- 46:40Speaker 2: can't see the more than one hundred thousand drug overdoses
- 46:45Speaker 2: last year, seventy percent of which came from Chinese Fetanah.
- 46:49Speaker 2: You can't see that and argue this is humane or compassionate.
- 46:53Speaker 2: It is a disaster. And we're seeing blue state governors
- 46:58Speaker 2: and mayors, people like Mayor Erica Adams in New York
- 47:01Speaker 2: City declaring an emergency and saying illegal immigration is destroying
- 47:10Speaker 2: New York City. New York City has nine million people.
- 47:14Speaker 2: They've had roughly one hundred and ten thousand illegal immigrants.
- 47:19Speaker 2: Adams blames that madman down in Texas, by which I
- 47:24Speaker 2: think he means Governor Greg Abbott. Frankly, I was offended.
- 47:27Speaker 2: He didn't mean me, Like, what do I have to do.
- 47:31Speaker 1: I'm sure we can get a reporter to ask that
- 47:33Speaker 1: question if like clarify right.
- 47:36Speaker 2: I don't disagree with him that one hundred and ten
- 47:38Speaker 2: thousand illegal immigrants threatens to destroy New York City. But
- 47:41Speaker 2: my question is, if that's true, what the hell do
- 47:45Speaker 2: you think eight million is doing for Texas at Arizona
- 47:50Speaker 2: and the rest of the southern border.
- 47:52Speaker 3: Amen.
- 47:55Speaker 2: So I can tell you periodically I bring my colleagues down.
- 47:59Speaker 2: So on Thursday I brought five senators down to the
- 48:02Speaker 2: southern border to see firsthand what is happening. The Democrats
- 48:06Speaker 2: quite simply do not care. It is the fault. This
- 48:12Speaker 2: crisis is man made. Joe Biden created it, Kamala Harris
- 48:16Speaker 2: created it, and every single Democrat senator created it. And
- 48:20Speaker 2: they could stop it tomorrow. So I cannot promise you
- 48:24Speaker 2: that I'm going to change their view, but I can
- 48:28Speaker 2: promise you I will continue doing everything humanly possible to
- 48:33Speaker 2: tell the American people the nightmare, the national security disaster
- 48:38Speaker 2: that they are creating. The San Diego Customs of Border
- 48:41Speaker 2: Patrol last week put out a written memo directing border
- 48:46Speaker 2: patrol to be on guard for Hamas and Hesbala terrorists
- 48:49Speaker 2: crossing our southern border.
- 48:53Speaker 1: Changed his words this week, saying he's terrified over this.
- 48:56Speaker 2: This is our last podcast. On Wednesday, we played Christopher Ray,
- 49:00Speaker 2: the director of the FBI, his words before Congress where
- 49:04Speaker 2: he said, there's a real risk of a Hamas attack
- 49:07Speaker 2: in the United States right now, and I am sorry
- 49:11Speaker 2: to say I think we are at a greater risk
- 49:14Speaker 2: today of a major terrorist attack in America than at
- 49:17Speaker 2: any point since September eleventh, And as long as Joe
- 49:21Speaker 2: Biden and the Democrats keep an open border, we are
- 49:25Speaker 2: jeopardizing the safety of every American in our country.
- 49:29Speaker 1: One final question real quick and we'll wrap it up.
- 49:33Speaker 6: Hello, Senator, my name's Matt mcill I'm from Alexander, Virginia.
- 49:36Speaker 6: We have a common mentor and Chuck Cooper.
- 49:39Speaker 2: Oh fantastic.
- 49:40Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 49:40Speaker 6: So my question for you is about Citizens United versus FEC.
- 49:45Speaker 6: So you know, this is something that Chuck and I
- 49:49Speaker 6: worked on together going back I don't know, way back
- 49:53Speaker 6: to two thousand and two. So all of a sudden,
- 49:57Speaker 6: after the Supreme Court's decision in two and ten, thirteen
- 50:01Speaker 6: years later, it's suddenly controversial again. Just wondering if you
- 50:04Speaker 6: could explain to why it's controversial and where you stand
- 50:07Speaker 6: on that.
- 50:07Speaker 3: Please, thank you.
- 50:08Speaker 2: So it is a great question. I will say that
- 50:11Speaker 2: the gentleman who just asked, he said that he had
- 50:13Speaker 2: worked with Chuck Cooper. Chuck Cooper was my very first
- 50:17Speaker 2: boss that I worked for after Clerky for Chief Justice Requist.
- 50:20Speaker 2: He's one of my closest friends and mentors. He's one
- 50:23Speaker 2: of the top Supreme Court and constitutional lawyers in the country.
- 50:27Speaker 2: The question was about Citizens United, and I have a
- 50:30Speaker 2: crazy radical view, which is we should protect free speech.
- 50:35Speaker 2: Free speech matters. You know what Citizens United was about.
- 50:42Speaker 2: So if you look at the case, Citizens United is
- 50:44Speaker 2: a nonprofit organization that made a movie that was critical
- 50:49Speaker 2: of Hillary Clinton, and the Obama administration wanted to go
- 50:54Speaker 2: after and find and punish this nonprofit organization for daring
- 50:58Speaker 2: to make a movie that was critical of a politician.
- 51:03Speaker 2: And it went all the way to the US Supreme Court,
- 51:06Speaker 2: and actually at the US Supreme Court there's an exchange
- 51:09Speaker 2: where Justice Alito asked the Obama Justice Department, under your
- 51:14Speaker 2: theory that the government can punish a movie maker for
- 51:19Speaker 2: making a movie critical of a politician, could the federal
- 51:23Speaker 2: government also ban books? Would you have the authority to
- 51:26Speaker 2: ban books you didn't like that criticized politicians? And the
- 51:31Speaker 2: Obama Justice Department said yes, yes, that's exactly what we're
- 51:35Speaker 2: arguing for the Supreme Court and Citizens United quite rightly
- 51:42Speaker 2: upheld the First Amendment and said Americans have a right
- 51:46Speaker 2: to speak and to speak about politics, and the government
- 51:49Speaker 2: can't criminalize you and me speaking about politics. Now, I've
- 51:58Speaker 2: been in the set at eleven years. I've spent the
- 52:00Speaker 2: last eleven years, I've spent all of my adult life
- 52:03Speaker 2: fighting to defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
- 52:07Speaker 2: My time in the Senate in particular, I've been passionate
- 52:10Speaker 2: defending a free speech. In the wake of Citizens United,
- 52:14Speaker 2: the Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment to repeal the free
- 52:21Speaker 2: speech protections of the First Amendment. Now you probably don't
- 52:26Speaker 2: know that because the news didn't cover it. The first
- 52:30Speaker 2: version of the constitutional amendment they introduced is an amendment
- 52:35Speaker 2: that would give Congress plenary power, which means blanket power,
- 52:39Speaker 2: total authority to regulate any expenditure of money that involves politics.
- 52:51Speaker 2: That means if a little old lady goes to home
- 52:54Speaker 2: depot and buys a poster board and a stick and
- 52:59Speaker 2: puts up aside on her front yard, that says, Joe
- 53:03Speaker 2: Biden is a dumbass, that the federal government could make
- 53:08Speaker 2: it a felony and lock her up and put her
- 53:10Speaker 2: in jail. That also means, by the way, the federal
- 53:14Speaker 2: government could lock up Simon and Schuster, could lock up
- 53:18Speaker 2: a movie producer, could lock up anyone who engages in
- 53:21Speaker 2: speech the federal government didn't like. It also means, by
- 53:24Speaker 2: the way, they could lock up any union organizer who
- 53:27Speaker 2: spends even a dollar trying to organize people at a union.
- 53:33Speaker 2: I led the fight against it. At the time, I
- 53:35Speaker 2: was the ranking member on the Constitution's subcommittee, the Senate
- 53:38Speaker 2: Judiciary Committee. You can go online and watch. I debated
- 53:44Speaker 2: al Franken when he was a Senator before he resigned
- 53:46Speaker 2: in disgrace. Really a sad day for me, I asked
- 53:51Speaker 2: al Franken. I said, I've got three simple questions. Should
- 53:56Speaker 2: the federal government be able to ban books, yes or no?
- 54:00Speaker 2: Should the federal government be able to ban movies, yes
- 54:02Speaker 2: or no? And should the federal government be able to
- 54:05Speaker 2: criminalize the NAACP. Because after the Democrats retreated from their
- 54:13Speaker 2: first version of the amendment, they shifted to another version.
- 54:16Speaker 2: They said, well, this is only true for corporations. Well,
- 54:20Speaker 2: you know what, Paramount Pictures is a corporation under their amendment.
- 54:24Speaker 2: You could ban movies. Simon and Schuster's a corporation under
- 54:28Speaker 2: their amendment. You could ban books, and the NAACP is
- 54:32Speaker 2: a corporation. Under their amendment, they could criminalize membership in
- 54:35Speaker 2: the NAACP. We were in the Senate, I introduced a
- 54:40Speaker 2: substitute amendment to replace every word of their amendment with
- 54:51Speaker 2: word for word the First Amendment to the Bill of
- 54:53Speaker 2: Rights of the Constitution. Every single Democrat voted. Now we
- 54:59Speaker 2: went to the Senate floor. I led the debate on
- 55:01Speaker 2: the Senate floor. I had a poster board behind me.
- 55:05Speaker 2: So they had tried to do this previously, and there
- 55:08Speaker 2: had been lions of the left who spoke out against it,
- 55:11Speaker 2: Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy said, when Democrats tried to do
- 55:15Speaker 2: this in a previous decade, we haven't amended the Bill
- 55:18Speaker 2: of Rights in two hundred years, and now is no
- 55:21Speaker 2: time to start. I had a picture of Ted Kennedy
- 55:24Speaker 2: behind me in that quote. My dad, whom I adore,
- 55:27Speaker 2: who was an exile from Cuban, came to America seeking freedom.
- 55:31Speaker 2: My dad called me terrified. He's like, my god, you've
- 55:34Speaker 2: got Ted Kennedy behind you. It's like, what has happened
- 55:37Speaker 2: to my son? He's gone native. In the past, there
- 55:42Speaker 2: had been Democrats that believed in free speech. We voted
- 55:44Speaker 2: on it in twenty fourteen. Do you know how many
- 55:49Speaker 2: Democrats voted against repealing the free speech protections of the
- 55:55Speaker 2: First Amendment?
- 55:56Speaker 3: How many?
- 55:56Speaker 2: Zero? Wow, not a single Democrat. Every Democrat lined up
- 56:02Speaker 2: for taking away free speech. By the way, that fall
- 56:06Speaker 2: on Constitution Day, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia invited
- 56:12Speaker 2: me to debate a Democrat on their amendment to repeal
- 56:16Speaker 2: the free speech protections of the First Amendment. I immediately accepted.
- 56:21Speaker 2: They invited Dick Durbin, the author of the amendment. He
- 56:24Speaker 2: said no. They invited Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the leading advocates.
- 56:27Speaker 2: He said no. They invited Al Franken, one of the
- 56:30Speaker 2: leading advocates. He said no. They invited Chuck Schumer, one
- 56:33Speaker 2: of the leading advocates. He said no. No Democrat was
- 56:36Speaker 2: willing to show up. So I went to Philadelphia, an
- 56:39Speaker 2: audience about seven hundred people, and I basically debated myself. Yeah,
- 56:45Speaker 2: I presented their arguments, and I'm very pleased to say
- 56:50Speaker 2: I kicked their ass.
- 56:54Speaker 1: Thank you guys so much for having us here. It
- 56:59Speaker 1: was well worth the flight down here to Arizona. Thanks
- 57:03Speaker 1: to Goldwater Insto for having us.
- 57:05Speaker 3: Don't forget.
- 57:05Speaker 1: You can download Verdict Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. Hit that subscribe,
- 57:09Speaker 1: that auto download button, the follow button depending on where
- 57:13Speaker 1: you download Verdict. Also remember on Saturdays we have our
- 57:16Speaker 1: weekend review where we grab some of the issues you
- 57:19Speaker 1: may have missed a little bit deeper in each episode,
- 57:21Speaker 1: and we put that out there for you as well,
- 57:23Speaker 1: and the Senator I will see you back here in
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