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$28,841,673,978,652 · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Twenty eight trillion, eight hundred forty one billion, six hundred
0:05
Speaker 1: seventy three million, nine hundred seventy eight thousand, six hundred
0:09
Speaker 1: fifty two dollars. That is the national debt of the
0:13
Speaker 1: United States. Democrats want to add a lot more money
0:18
Speaker 1: even to that colossal number, and the fight over raising
0:23
Speaker 1: the US debt ceiling is the epicenter of what's going
0:27
Speaker 1: on in Washington right now. President Joe Biden demanding that
0:31
Speaker 1: Republican centers get out of the way, that they use
0:34
Speaker 1: this opportunity to push through the most radical aspects of
0:38
Speaker 1: their agenda and using the debt ceiling crisis to do it.
0:44
Speaker 1: What happens if the United States defaults on its debt.
0:47
Speaker 1: It's never happened before. We have no idea what will
0:50
Speaker 1: happen now, Washington playing with fire. This is Verdict with
0:54
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. I'm
1:03
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles, and I have a whole lot of questions here, Senator.
1:07
Speaker 1: We'll get right into it very simply. I hate to
1:11
Speaker 1: ask a stupid question, but even I and I've paid
1:14
Speaker 1: a lot of attention to these things, even I don't
1:16
Speaker 1: quite understand what this is what is the debt ceiling?
1:20
Speaker 1: Why does the debt ceiling matter? Why do the debt
1:22
Speaker 1: ceiling fights come up every few years? And what happens
1:27
Speaker 1: if we do not raise the debt ceiling and default
1:29
Speaker 1: on our debt. Well, probably the easiest way to think
1:32
Speaker 1: about it is like it's the limit on your credit card.
1:35
Speaker 1: The debt ceiling is the cap on how much money
1:38
Speaker 1: the federal government can pass, and it's a statutory limit
1:42
Speaker 1: that's passed into law that limits how much the United
1:46
Speaker 1: States government can borrow. Just like if you have a
1:49
Speaker 1: credit card that has a ten thousand dollars limit, you
1:52
Speaker 1: can't borrow eleven thousand, And if you want to borrow
1:54
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand, you have to get on the
1:56
Speaker 1: phone and try to ask them to raise it to
1:58
Speaker 1: fifteen or raise it to money. That's the same principle
2:01
Speaker 1: as the debt ceiling. It is a tool designed to
2:05
Speaker 1: try to force Congress to confront spending and to rein
2:10
Speaker 1: in out of control spending and out of control debt.
2:13
Speaker 1: And the debt ceiling expired on July thirty first, the
2:19
Speaker 1: end of July. Now, the Department of Treasury has the
2:22
Speaker 1: ability to kind of push the date when the US
2:27
Speaker 1: needs to borrow back a couple of months, it's called
2:30
Speaker 1: using extraordinary measures, and so Janet Janet Yell and the
2:33
Speaker 1: Treasury Secretary is able to delay the date to sometime
2:38
Speaker 1: to mid delayed October. But if the debt ceiling is
2:43
Speaker 1: not raised, then the United States government cannot continue to
2:46
Speaker 1: borrow borrow money, and so that puts pressure on Washington.
2:52
Speaker 1: We're right now in the middle of a battle because
2:55
Speaker 1: of two things. Number One, Chuck Schumer and the Democrats
3:00
Speaker 1: have the total and complete ability to raise the debt
3:03
Speaker 1: ceiling on their own. So Democrats control the Senate, Democrats
3:08
Speaker 1: control the House, Democrats control the White House. There's a
3:12
Speaker 1: process called budget reconciliation. We've talked about that quite a
3:16
Speaker 1: bit on this podcast. Budget reconciliation is the process that
3:20
Speaker 1: comes from the Budget Act in nineteen seventy four. The
3:23
Speaker 1: part that is really relevant and that comes up with
3:26
Speaker 1: some regularity, is it is the major exception to the filibuster.
3:30
Speaker 1: So ordinarily, to move to precede the legislation in the
3:33
Speaker 1: Senate takes sixty votes. Under budget reconciliation, it only takes fifty,
3:39
Speaker 1: and so Schumer and Pelosi and Biden because they have
3:43
Speaker 1: control of all the elected branches of government, have the
3:47
Speaker 1: ability with just Democratic votes to raise the debt ceiling.
3:51
Speaker 1: And they could have done it a week ago, they
3:53
Speaker 1: could have done it a month ago, they could have
3:54
Speaker 1: done it three months ago. So what's happening? Schumer and
3:58
Speaker 1: the Democrats are nervous, And they're nervous because the Democrats
4:04
Speaker 1: are in the middle of a massive spending street spree.
4:08
Speaker 1: I mean, it is reckless. It is the biggest spending
4:12
Speaker 1: spree since World War Two. It is massive. And in
4:17
Speaker 1: the face of that, Democrats don't want to vote for
4:22
Speaker 1: the debt to pay for their trillions in new spending.
4:26
Speaker 1: So what Schumer is doing instead is he keeps bringing
4:30
Speaker 1: up the debt ceiling in a legislative vehicle that requires
4:34
Speaker 1: sixty votes. So he doesn't want to use reconciliation, which
4:37
Speaker 1: he can, and there's nothing Republicans can do to stop
4:40
Speaker 1: in from using reconciliation, but he wants to bring it
4:43
Speaker 1: up through a vehicle that requires sixty votes. Why because
4:48
Speaker 1: he wants ten Republicans to vote for raising the debt ceiling.
4:51
Speaker 1: He doesn't want it to be just Democrats who own
4:55
Speaker 1: their trillions in debt. What's amazing about that explanation, which
4:59
Speaker 1: I think spells it out pretty well, is it's the
5:01
Speaker 1: opposite of what we're being told in the media. What
5:04
Speaker 1: we're being told in the media is that Republicans who
5:07
Speaker 1: are fanatical about spending and they're neurotic about not raising
5:11
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling, and or they're opportunistic or their cynical,
5:16
Speaker 1: they are holding America's good credit hostage because they don't
5:20
Speaker 1: want to vote for this thing. But what you're saying is, actually,
5:23
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer could pass this tomorrow. So it's really Chuck
5:26
Speaker 1: Schumer and the Democrats who are holding this hostage and
5:30
Speaker 1: who are drawing this out and making a big spectacle
5:32
Speaker 1: of it. What happens just at a practical level, I
5:35
Speaker 1: guess we're kind of dealing with a crystal ball here
5:38
Speaker 1: because it's never happened before. But what would happen if
5:41
Speaker 1: we just defaulted on our debt? It would be a
5:44
Speaker 1: catastrophic impact in the market. It would cause the stock
5:47
Speaker 1: market to tumble, it would cause bonds to tumble, it
5:50
Speaker 1: would cause the credit rating of the United States to
5:52
Speaker 1: be downgraded. That the cascading effects could be enormous. It
5:57
Speaker 1: would be wildly irresponsible. No rational person wants to see
6:01
Speaker 1: the United States default on its debt. America pays our debt.
6:05
Speaker 1: And I gotta, you know, I gotta say, it's worth
6:08
Speaker 1: stopping and reflecting it. What a wildly different position we
6:13
Speaker 1: are in today versus twenty fourteen, and and and if
6:18
Speaker 1: I can take us back to the way back machine
6:21
Speaker 1: to twenty fourteen. So twenty fourteen was was my second
6:24
Speaker 1: year in the Senate. So I was still a freshman
6:27
Speaker 1: in a newbie And the single biggest fight I have
6:31
Speaker 1: had in nine years in the Senate occurred on the
6:35
Speaker 1: debt ceiling occurred on this issue. And it's as you know,
6:39
Speaker 1: I've written two books. Last year I wrote One Vote
6:42
Speaker 1: Away about the Supreme Court, great book, go by it.
6:45
Speaker 1: But the first book I wrote was called A Time
6:47
Speaker 1: for Truth, and A Time for Truth was my life story.
6:52
Speaker 1: I wrote it in twenty fifteen. The opening chapter of
6:54
Speaker 1: my first book, A Time for Truth is entitled Mendacity,
6:59
Speaker 1: and it is the inside story of the death ceiling fight.
7:03
Speaker 1: So let's go back to twenty fourteen. Twenty fourteen, Democrats
7:07
Speaker 1: controlled the Senate. It was Harry Reid instead of Chuck Schumer,
7:09
Speaker 1: who was the majority leader. Republicans controlled the House, Barack
7:14
Speaker 1: Obama was president, and there was another debt ceiling coming up.
7:18
Speaker 1: We were going to our Senate Republican lunch and every Tuesday,
7:23
Speaker 1: Wednesday Thursday, all the Senate Republicans we have lunch together.
7:26
Speaker 1: And at one of the lunches, Mitch McConnell, who was
7:29
Speaker 1: the minority leader at the time, he stood up and
7:31
Speaker 1: he said, I've got a great plan. I want all
7:35
Speaker 1: of us to consent to unanimously consent to lower the
7:40
Speaker 1: threshold for Harry Reid to raise the death ceiling from
7:44
Speaker 1: sixty votes to fifty votes. Now, in the Senate, you
7:46
Speaker 1: do pretty much anything by unanimous consent. But unanimous consent,
7:49
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, takes all one hundred senators agree.
7:54
Speaker 1: So Mitch said, I want all of us to unanimously
7:57
Speaker 1: consent to lower the threshold for Harry Reid from sixty
8:00
Speaker 1: vote to votes. And the beauty of it is, once
8:04
Speaker 1: we do that, we can all vote no, the Democrats
8:07
Speaker 1: can all vote yes, and we could all tell our
8:10
Speaker 1: constituents at home we voted no on the thing we
8:14
Speaker 1: just consented to allow happen. And I was sitting there,
8:18
Speaker 1: I was frankly expecting leadership to come up with some
8:21
Speaker 1: sort of kind of lame and tepid strategy. It had
8:26
Speaker 1: not occurred to me that their strategy was absolute and
8:29
Speaker 1: total capitulation from the outset. And so I sat there
8:33
Speaker 1: in the room and I just raised my hand and
8:34
Speaker 1: I said, Mitch, you need to understand there is no
8:39
Speaker 1: universe in which I will consent to lowering the threshold
8:44
Speaker 1: for Harry Reid and Barack Obama to raise our debt
8:48
Speaker 1: from sixty votes to fifty votes. I was elected by
8:50
Speaker 1: the people of Texas promising to do everything humanly possible
8:55
Speaker 1: to stop the out of control spending and debt that
8:57
Speaker 1: is bankrupting our kids and grandkids. And I'm not willing
9:01
Speaker 1: to do it. Michael. There is nothing I've done in
9:04
Speaker 1: my entire time in the Senate that has generated more rage,
9:08
Speaker 1: more fury, more red faced senators yelling and cursing at
9:14
Speaker 1: me than that simple act of objecting. It was much worse,
9:19
Speaker 1: by the way, than the Obamacare. It was much worse
9:21
Speaker 1: than the Obamacare filibuster. So leadership was mad that I
9:25
Speaker 1: had spent twenty one hours filibustering Obamacare the previous years.
9:28
Speaker 1: They were mad about that, But when I objected to
9:31
Speaker 1: their scheme to raise the death ceiling. It the fury
9:36
Speaker 1: it caused was massive. It's fascinating how much things have
9:41
Speaker 1: changed from twenty fourteen to now. In twenty fourteen, Republican
9:49
Speaker 1: leadership carpent bomb me, attacked me, planted planted editorials criticizing me. So,
9:56
Speaker 1: for example, the Wall Street Journal, which, by the way,
9:58
Speaker 1: when Republican leadership is mad at you, the editorial page
10:02
Speaker 1: of the Wall Street Journal is their preferred whipping post,
10:07
Speaker 1: and it's where they take you out, and it comes
10:10
Speaker 1: straight from Republican leadership. They go to the Journal. The
10:13
Speaker 1: Journal wrote an editorial entitled Minority Maker, and it said
10:19
Speaker 1: Cruz is going to ensure that Republicans remain in the
10:23
Speaker 1: minority in the Senate forever, and that Harry Reid remains
10:27
Speaker 1: majority leader because he is fighting and objecting on the
10:30
Speaker 1: death ceiling. Now, I point out they wrote that in
10:34
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, and just a few months later we had
10:37
Speaker 1: the elections in twenty fourteen. And you know, Michael, in
10:41
Speaker 1: the Old Testament, if someone came forward and said they
10:44
Speaker 1: were a prophet, the Old Testament actually just discussed what
10:47
Speaker 1: you should do. You should ask them to make short
10:50
Speaker 1: term prophecy, short term predictions, and see if they come true. Well,
10:55
Speaker 1: the Journal's prediction that I was going to make Republicans
10:58
Speaker 1: a permanent majority, it turned out just a little bit wrong,
11:01
Speaker 1: but categorically wrong. And in November twenty fourteen, we won
11:06
Speaker 1: nine Senate seats, we retired Harry Read as majority leader,
11:11
Speaker 1: and we won the biggest majority in the House of
11:13
Speaker 1: Representatives since nineteen twenty eight. And so miraculously, standing and
11:18
Speaker 1: fighting also wins elections. The voters like it when Republicans
11:23
Speaker 1: don't roll over and surrender to the Democrat. Well, this,
11:28
Speaker 1: I think is what really relates to what's going on
11:31
Speaker 1: right now today, because I politically, I came of age
11:34
Speaker 1: during that era from twenty ten to twenty fourteen, the
11:37
Speaker 1: Tea Party movement, your election, Actually you've politically come of age.
11:42
Speaker 1: I'm I'm still coming of age. Actually, you know, I
11:45
Speaker 1: can't wait to get a little hair on my face.
11:47
Speaker 1: I thought this was like a teen drama. Oh, I remember,
11:51
Speaker 1: even when I was fresher and facer at the time.
11:54
Speaker 1: I remember every Republican, every Conservative who was worth his salt,
11:59
Speaker 1: was focused on the debt, on deficit spending, on this
12:03
Speaker 1: idea that the inheritance we're leaving to our kids is debt.
12:07
Speaker 1: I mean, what kind of a country does that, what
12:09
Speaker 1: kind of a generation does that. They're actually going to
12:11
Speaker 1: be responsible, We're going to get our own house in order.
12:13
Speaker 1: We're going to enact to these principles that we all
12:16
Speaker 1: like to talk about. And then your story here, I
12:19
Speaker 1: think is very important. What happened is the Republican leadership
12:23
Speaker 1: in those back rooms just said, yeah, that was all bunk.
12:25
Speaker 1: We're not going to follow any of that. We're just
12:27
Speaker 1: going to make it easier. That was just a way
12:28
Speaker 1: to win elections. And now when we're focusing on this
12:32
Speaker 1: debt fight, it seems to me that many Republicans and
12:36
Speaker 1: Conservatives don't really care anymore. I mean that focus from
12:40
Speaker 1: you know, ten years ago, it seems to have moved
12:43
Speaker 1: on to other issues. And I wonder if it's because
12:45
Speaker 1: we just got burned during the tea party and nothing
12:48
Speaker 1: really changed. Well, look, I say a couple of things,
12:52
Speaker 1: you know. Number one, if you go back to the
12:54
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen fight, it's important to note what I was
12:58
Speaker 1: fighting for at the time, and I was not fighting
13:01
Speaker 1: for never raising the debt ceiling. I've never been someone
13:05
Speaker 1: who promises I will never raise the debt ceiling. We've
13:07
Speaker 1: got you know, typically the figure is about forty percent
13:10
Speaker 1: of what the government spends has borrowed money. So unless
13:13
Speaker 1: you're prepared to instantaneously cut government spending by forty percent,
13:17
Speaker 1: that's not a reasonable position to say we will never
13:20
Speaker 1: raise the debt ceiling. My position in twenty fourteen, my
13:23
Speaker 1: position today is that I'm not willing to support raising
13:27
Speaker 1: the debt ceiling unless it is accompanied by meaningful structural
13:32
Speaker 1: reforms that address spending and rain in the out of
13:36
Speaker 1: control spending. In twenty fourteen, the case I made to
13:38
Speaker 1: the conferences, I said, look, if you look historically, the
13:42
Speaker 1: debt scene ceiling has been the lever point where we
13:46
Speaker 1: actually get spending constraints. So at the time these figures
13:49
Speaker 1: are a little bit out of date because they're twenty
13:51
Speaker 1: fourteen figures. But at the time of the last fifty
13:55
Speaker 1: two times Congress had raised the debt ceiling, so this
13:57
Speaker 1: comes up a lot. Twenty seven of those times Congress
14:02
Speaker 1: had attached meaningful spending reforms to the debt ceiling. So,
14:06
Speaker 1: for example, the Budget Control Act in twenty ten, which
14:11
Speaker 1: made major progress reigning in out of control spending that
14:15
Speaker 1: came through a debt ceiling fight. Graham Rudman. Probably the
14:19
Speaker 1: most significant spending restraint legislation enacted in the law and
14:24
Speaker 1: modern times came through a debt ceiling fight. So it
14:27
Speaker 1: is possible to make progress on spending by using the
14:31
Speaker 1: death ceiling as leverage. And so what I argued in
14:34
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen is let's not let this lever point go.
14:38
Speaker 1: Let's use it to actually honor our promises to the voters.
14:42
Speaker 1: Some of the differences Number one, I think Republican leadership
14:46
Speaker 1: has learned Unlike in twenty fourteen, twenty fourteen they thought
14:50
Speaker 1: I was bluffing at this point, they don't think I'm
14:53
Speaker 1: bluffing anymore. So nobody asked this time, Ted, will you
14:57
Speaker 1: consent to lower the thresholds reporters asked. They ran up
15:00
Speaker 1: and said, hey, Cruz, are you going to object to
15:02
Speaker 1: Laurie the threshold? I was like, h of course. But
15:04
Speaker 1: what was interesting is when people learn you don't bluff,
15:10
Speaker 1: Nobody in the conference thought I would possibly not object.
15:13
Speaker 1: They They're just like, yeah, okay, Ted will object to that.
15:15
Speaker 1: So that option ain't gonna work. So leadership didn't even
15:20
Speaker 1: try it. A second difference, and this is an important difference,
15:25
Speaker 1: is unlike in twenty fourteen when we had a Republican house,
15:30
Speaker 1: now they've got a Democratic House, so now they can
15:33
Speaker 1: raise the debt ceiling on their own without us. We
15:35
Speaker 1: can't stop them. I wish we could, but we can't
15:39
Speaker 1: stop them. There does seem to be a lot of
15:41
Speaker 1: turmoil within the Democratic Conference. I mean, I guess this
15:45
Speaker 1: is a slightly related matter, but in a very different context.
15:48
Speaker 1: Kirsten Cinema, one of two semi moderate Democrats in the Senate,
15:54
Speaker 1: is being accosted everywhere she goes. She's being costed on airplanes.
15:57
Speaker 1: She was accosted in the bathroom by an ille alien
16:00
Speaker 1: screaming at her to push for a mass amnesty. This
16:05
Speaker 1: is a we always lament civility breaking down, and sometimes
16:10
Speaker 1: it's exaggerated and at sometimes it's real. But this seems
16:13
Speaker 1: to be crossing a line when you follow female senators
16:16
Speaker 1: into the bathroom and start screaming at them. By the way,
16:19
Speaker 1: as a foreign national demanding that you give legal status
16:24
Speaker 1: to millions of people. Now, look that that is exactly right.
16:27
Speaker 1: And the degree to which Kirsten Cinema and Joe mansion
16:30
Speaker 1: are being harassed. You look at Cinema and these left
16:35
Speaker 1: wing activists that she teaches a university class in Arizona,
16:41
Speaker 1: and they followed her into her class, they harassed her class,
16:44
Speaker 1: and then they followed her from her class into the restroom.
16:48
Speaker 1: She went into the stall to use the restroom and
16:51
Speaker 1: they sat there filming it and berating her. And by
16:55
Speaker 1: the way, they were so proud of what they were doing.
16:57
Speaker 1: They were filming doing it. As you noted, they all
17:00
Speaker 1: so harassed her on the airplane, the harassed her in
17:02
Speaker 1: the airport, and I got to say yesterday there was
17:05
Speaker 1: really something shameful because Joe Biden was asked about it
17:10
Speaker 1: and he just said, you know, it's part of the process.
17:15
Speaker 1: What utter crap. No, I mean, that was an opportunity
17:18
Speaker 1: for Biden to show some leadership and say, you know, no,
17:22
Speaker 1: you don't harass someone and chase them into the ladies room.
17:26
Speaker 1: That is not the way people behave in a civilized democracy.
17:31
Speaker 1: But but the left is so angry that they believe
17:34
Speaker 1: intimidation and threats are an appropriate way of behaving. And
17:40
Speaker 1: right now they are trying to rain the nastiest pressure
17:44
Speaker 1: imaginable down on Cinema and Mansion to pressure them to
17:48
Speaker 1: flip their votes. At least so far they haven't. This
17:51
Speaker 1: is on the big Bernie Sanders three point five trillion
17:55
Speaker 1: dollars socialist budget. Right now, Mansion and Cinema are saying
18:00
Speaker 1: they're not going to support it, that it's too big
18:02
Speaker 1: and it's too irresponsible, and the left is furious. Well, center,
18:07
Speaker 1: I do have to ask you, though I can't believe
18:09
Speaker 1: that I'm giving Joe Biden the benefit of the doubt.
18:11
Speaker 1: It feels very unnatural to me, But I do want
18:14
Speaker 1: to ask if he's got a point. Biden says, if
18:16
Speaker 1: you're in public life, you're going to get accosted. People
18:18
Speaker 1: are going to yell at you. It's and it does
18:21
Speaker 1: happen to a lot of people. So to what degree
18:24
Speaker 1: is this historic incivility that we're seeing, not just with
18:28
Speaker 1: cinema but in recent years even on say, both sides
18:32
Speaker 1: of the aisle, And to what degree is this just
18:35
Speaker 1: business as usual? Look, it actually is markedly different. In
18:39
Speaker 1: the last couple of years. When Donald Trump got elected,
18:44
Speaker 1: left lost their mind. He broke them. Their brains are broken.
18:49
Speaker 1: And I can tell you it is very, very different
18:53
Speaker 1: serving in public office Look, I've been in some contentious battles,
18:57
Speaker 1: but it's only been the last couple of years. Remember
18:59
Speaker 1: a couple of year years ago, Heidi and I were
19:01
Speaker 1: at a restaurant in DC at a group of screaming,
19:04
Speaker 1: angry anarchist came in harassed us. We had to leave
19:08
Speaker 1: the restaurant because we didn't want to disturb the other
19:10
Speaker 1: people who were having dinner, and they chased us down
19:14
Speaker 1: the street and into a dark alley. I mean, it
19:16
Speaker 1: had the potential of being a very dangerous gathering. It
19:20
Speaker 1: was a dozen angry leftists with Heidi and me, and
19:23
Speaker 1: it was threatening and serious. Rand Paul and his wife
19:26
Speaker 1: Kelly Paul, the Black Lives Matter protesters when Trump gave
19:30
Speaker 1: his speech at the White House during the RNC convention.
19:33
Speaker 1: They were scared for their lives. They had police officers
19:36
Speaker 1: that were fighting back what was close to a riot,
19:40
Speaker 1: and Rand and Kelly both were frightened that they were
19:44
Speaker 1: going to be seriously injured, if not worse. This has
19:48
Speaker 1: all gotten nastier than it used to be. I can
19:51
Speaker 1: tell you in nine years I've been in the Senate
19:56
Speaker 1: for eight of them, I never or had a protest
20:00
Speaker 1: at my house in the last year or so, I've
20:06
Speaker 1: had probably twenty five or thirty. Wow. We now have
20:10
Speaker 1: twenty four hour security at the house, which which we
20:13
Speaker 1: have to do because the protesters have gotten so nasty.
20:17
Speaker 1: They have showed up at five in the morning, banging pots,
20:21
Speaker 1: shining flashlights in the windows of our neighbors, including neighbors
20:25
Speaker 1: who have little children, screaming profanities, dropping the F bomb
20:29
Speaker 1: at five in the morning, designed to wake people up
20:32
Speaker 1: and harass them. And so, what what is happening to Cinema?
20:35
Speaker 1: By the way, mansion mansion? When he's in DC, lives
20:38
Speaker 1: on a houseboat, and he had protesters row their kayaks
20:41
Speaker 1: up to his houseboat and engage with him at his houseboat.
20:46
Speaker 1: This is a far nastier form of engagement than used
20:52
Speaker 1: to be typical. And I think it is as a
20:55
Speaker 1: result of Trump's presidency. The left just they convinced themselves
21:01
Speaker 1: he's Adolf Hitler, and so all rage and fury is
21:04
Speaker 1: justified in opposition to someone who they hate so much.
21:09
Speaker 1: You know, it's an interesting case study. I mean, I'm
21:11
Speaker 1: sorry that you're going through it, but you are a
21:13
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting case study here because you you
21:15
Speaker 1: were outspoken, you were something of a firebrand the minute
21:19
Speaker 1: you got to the Senate. So it's not as though
21:21
Speaker 1: they ignored you just because you were a wallflower. And
21:23
Speaker 1: then later on they started going after you. I mean
21:25
Speaker 1: you going back to twenty twenty fourteen. Yet this never
21:28
Speaker 1: happened at twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, this never happened. Yeah,
21:32
Speaker 1: so this something clearly has changed. And you know, I
21:35
Speaker 1: mentioned to try to sound nice and open minded, I
21:38
Speaker 1: said that there is incivility on both sides of the aisle,
21:40
Speaker 1: but we really should not make a comparison here. When
21:43
Speaker 1: when you have Maxine Waters saying, go get up in
21:45
Speaker 1: their face, go shout at them in public, meaning Republicans,
21:48
Speaker 1: when you have Hillary Clinton saying you can't be civil
21:50
Speaker 1: with your opponents, when you've got the sitting Vice president
21:53
Speaker 1: now Kamala Harris bailing out rioters and looters, that is
21:56
Speaker 1: a very different thing than what the Republicans are doing.
21:58
Speaker 1: But the Republicans are being uncivil as well, though much
22:02
Speaker 1: less violent. And this is the way they're being uncivil
22:05
Speaker 1: as they're chanting. According to the news report, let's go Brandon, Senator,
22:12
Speaker 1: can you explain that to me? Well, it's an amazing
22:15
Speaker 1: phenomenon that seems to be occurring at college football games
22:18
Speaker 1: across the country, and it appears to be spontaneous, but
22:22
Speaker 1: very large groups of people are are chanting expletives at
22:28
Speaker 1: Joe Biden, and in particular, they're chanting F Joe Biden,
22:32
Speaker 1: but they're they're not abbreviating it. And it's a fairly
22:36
Speaker 1: remarkable thing that seems to be springing up. And the
22:40
Speaker 1: story you're telling as there was a NASCAR race a
22:43
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, and the winner of the race
22:47
Speaker 1: was whose name was Brandon was being interviewed and the
22:50
Speaker 1: crowd behind him is yelling and yelling loudly F Joe
22:56
Speaker 1: Biden in clear and very distinct words, and and the
23:03
Speaker 1: NBC interviewer who is interviewing him says, Oh, the crowd's
23:06
Speaker 1: so excited. You can hear them channing. Let's go Brandon.
23:10
Speaker 1: And if you just watch the clip that that is
23:14
Speaker 1: not what they're chanting. In her defense, NASCAR races are loud.
23:20
Speaker 1: Maybe she had headphones on, maybe she couldn't hear, or
23:24
Speaker 1: maybe it was one of the more remarkable examples of
23:28
Speaker 1: fake news. I you know, I did tweet nast. Is
23:31
Speaker 1: NBC News going to issue a correction because I'm quite
23:35
Speaker 1: confident they were not channing Let's go Brandon, and it's
23:38
Speaker 1: now become a thing. In fact, the Daily Wire I
23:41
Speaker 1: saw is selling let's go Brandon shirts. I got to
23:44
Speaker 1: admit I was awfully tempted to have verdict, just steal
23:48
Speaker 1: the idea and do the same thing. We may put
23:50
Speaker 1: a Let's go Brandon shirt on our cactus friend. You know,
23:54
Speaker 1: I find it it u in the world to fake news.
24:00
Speaker 1: It was a pretty remarkable moment. It was. This was
24:04
Speaker 1: what was so shocking about the whole thing is there
24:07
Speaker 1: are a great many people in this country who believe
24:09
Speaker 1: that Brandon should go go himself. Let's put it that way.
24:12
Speaker 1: And so obviously there is something of a popular uprising here,
24:16
Speaker 1: especially when people are rowdy at games and things like that.
24:19
Speaker 1: And it's the gas lighting. I think that got people
24:21
Speaker 1: that the media would would tell you, no, don't believe
24:24
Speaker 1: you're lying, eyes, don't believe you're lying. Ears, and even
24:28
Speaker 1: you know that this ties into something probably a little
24:31
Speaker 1: more urgent and serious to two people in the way,
24:33
Speaker 1: quick story, I'll tell you on that. So when I
24:36
Speaker 1: first ran for Senate in twenty twelve, my opponent was
24:40
Speaker 1: David Duhurst, and he was the Lieutenant governor of Texas.
24:43
Speaker 1: He's worth about two hundred million dollars. He was viewed
24:45
Speaker 1: as unstoppable and unbeatable. He had universal name idea. I
24:50
Speaker 1: was at two percent. Nobody had ever heard of me.
24:52
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money, I didn't have a prayer.
24:54
Speaker 1: And there was a moment really when when everything flipped.
24:58
Speaker 1: So the primary, neither of us got fifty percent. On
25:04
Speaker 1: primary night, he got forty four percent. I got thirty
25:07
Speaker 1: four percent, which shocked people because no one got fifty.
25:10
Speaker 1: We went to a runoff. And in between the primary
25:13
Speaker 1: and the runoff was the Texas State Convention, about fifteen
25:16
Speaker 1: thousand activists from all across Texas. It's the largest Republican
25:21
Speaker 1: convention in the country other than the National Republican Convention.
25:26
Speaker 1: And Rick Perry, who was a friend but in that race.
25:29
Speaker 1: Rick Perry had endorsed David Duhurst, and he was there
25:32
Speaker 1: speaking and he said in his speech, and he was
25:36
Speaker 1: speaking the day before I was going to speak, he
25:39
Speaker 1: said everyone should vote for David Dwhurst for Senate. And
25:42
Speaker 1: the entire convention erupted in booze, loud, angry, booze and
25:48
Speaker 1: it was sort of a it was a wild moment
25:51
Speaker 1: because at that point all of our supporters felt they
25:54
Speaker 1: were alone, like this cruise character as no prayer, nobody
25:58
Speaker 1: else's voting for him, you can't win, and like each
26:00
Speaker 1: of the activists looked in holy cow, everyone else was booing. Well. Afterwards,
26:05
Speaker 1: Rick Perry did a press conference where reporters asked, Wow,
26:09
Speaker 1: the whole convention booed you when you said David do
26:12
Speaker 1: Hurst name, and Perry, to his credit, he said no, no no, no, no.
26:16
Speaker 1: They were not saying boo They were saying do do
26:23
Speaker 1: do hers? And that was pretty damn funny. I mean,
26:26
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, it's not true, but but that's
26:31
Speaker 1: that's a pretty clever. That's thinking on your feet though.
26:34
Speaker 1: That is thing is Dohurst do yes? Well? You you
26:39
Speaker 1: actually you do? You do see this phenomenon, And sometimes
26:42
Speaker 1: it's to express their anger at Brandon or Joe Biden,
26:46
Speaker 1: depending on your interpretation. Sometimes it's at a political convention,
26:49
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's bubbling up from the way that the
26:53
Speaker 1: government is actually working. And this is something you've been
26:55
Speaker 1: seeing for months and months now, specifically with regard to
26:58
Speaker 1: critical race theory and gender theory. In schools. Parents are
27:02
Speaker 1: showing up to their school boards and they're pushing back
27:04
Speaker 1: on these policies, and they're saying, no, get this nonsense
27:08
Speaker 1: out of the classroom. This is harming my child's education.
27:11
Speaker 1: We don't want any part of it. So there have
27:14
Speaker 1: been many protest movements in the history of the United States,
27:17
Speaker 1: going back a very very long time. Very recently, we
27:19
Speaker 1: had a protest movement last year, the BLM and Antifa riots,
27:23
Speaker 1: which often turned violent and resulted in lots of people
27:27
Speaker 1: dying and lots of businesses being torn down and places
27:31
Speaker 1: being set on fire. And we were told those were
27:33
Speaker 1: mostly peaceful protests. Well, now we are hearing from the
27:36
Speaker 1: Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, that the
27:39
Speaker 1: parents who were showing up to protest radical gender theory
27:43
Speaker 1: in kindergarten classrooms are very possibly domestic terrorists. A momorandum
27:48
Speaker 1: just went out the Attorney General instructing the DOJ to
27:53
Speaker 1: watch the disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats against
27:57
Speaker 1: school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff who participate in
28:01
Speaker 1: the vital work of running our nation's public schools. The
28:04
Speaker 1: Department takes his incidents seriously. And is committed to using
28:06
Speaker 1: its authority and resources to counter them. Are we now
28:13
Speaker 1: at the point where we believe that people throwing molotov
28:15
Speaker 1: cocktails at federal buildings last year in twenty twenty, they're
28:19
Speaker 1: mostly peaceful protesters, but parents protesting radicalism and their kids' schools,
28:23
Speaker 1: they're the domestic terrorists. I wish you were exaggerating, but
28:27
Speaker 1: the statement you just made on its face is so
28:30
Speaker 1: utterly ludicrous, and it's also true. You know Merrick Garland,
28:36
Speaker 1: who's the Attorney General. He was a Court of Appeals
28:42
Speaker 1: judge for twenty some odd years. As you recall, he
28:46
Speaker 1: was who Barack Obama had nominated to the Supreme Court
28:50
Speaker 1: to replace Scalia. But he didn't get that vacancy because
28:52
Speaker 1: we didn't take it up because it was the presidential
28:54
Speaker 1: election year and Republicans controlled the Senate and we said,
28:57
Speaker 1: the voters are going to decide who filled the seat.
29:00
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland is now Attorney General. At his confirmation hearing,
29:05
Speaker 1: I asked Garland he actually had a reputation as a
29:08
Speaker 1: Court of Appeals judge for being relatively fair and impartial.
29:14
Speaker 1: He was not viewed as a hard partisan when he
29:17
Speaker 1: was a judge and I cross examined Garland at his
29:19
Speaker 1: confirmation hearing, and I said, look, under Barack Obama, the
29:23
Speaker 1: Department of Justice was politicized and it was weaponized. It
29:27
Speaker 1: was turned into a weapon to target people that were
29:31
Speaker 1: perceived to be the political enemies of the White House.
29:35
Speaker 1: And that includes the IRS that went after Tea Party groups,
29:39
Speaker 1: when after pro life groups, went after pro Israel groups.
29:42
Speaker 1: That includes the intelligence community in the FBI that went
29:46
Speaker 1: so far as wire tapping the Donald Trump campaign and
29:49
Speaker 1: sending in people wearing wires to record them. And I asked,
29:55
Speaker 1: Merrick Garland, will you commit, if you're confirmed no to
30:00
Speaker 1: use the Department of Justice as a partisan weapon to
30:04
Speaker 1: attack the other side. And he did, He made that commitment,
30:06
Speaker 1: he said he would not. That memo you're holding is
30:09
Speaker 1: really disturbing because I think he has been breaking that
30:13
Speaker 1: promise almost from the moment he got there. But that
30:17
Speaker 1: memo is the clearest example of it. So, look, we're
30:20
Speaker 1: saying a phenomenal example of democracy and action in that
30:25
Speaker 1: parents are rising up at school board meetings and expressing
30:29
Speaker 1: dismay over critical race theory that's being taught in schools,
30:32
Speaker 1: that our kids are being taught lies they're being taught
30:36
Speaker 1: that America is fundamentally racist. They're being taught that all
30:40
Speaker 1: whites are racists. They're being taught that the entire history
30:43
Speaker 1: of America as a history of oppression. And these lies
30:48
Speaker 1: are dividing kids based on racial lines, and parents are
30:52
Speaker 1: upset about that. They don't like it, and so they're
30:54
Speaker 1: going to their school boards and saying, don't teach this
30:56
Speaker 1: garbage to our kids. That's actually how our democratic process
31:01
Speaker 1: is supposed to work, that elected officials are supposed to
31:05
Speaker 1: be accountable to the voters. The left doesn't like accountability.
31:08
Speaker 1: They like to be insulated. They're perfectly happy to harass
31:13
Speaker 1: people they don't like, but they themselves don't like to
31:16
Speaker 1: be held accountable. But now the Department of Justice, Merrick
31:20
Speaker 1: Garland is saying they're going to treat a parent going
31:22
Speaker 1: to a school board meeting as a terrorist and a threat,
31:25
Speaker 1: and they're going to go after them and they're going
31:27
Speaker 1: to persecute them. And this is absurd, It is a
31:32
Speaker 1: ridiculous abuse of power. And listen, you pointed out last
31:36
Speaker 1: year the BLM and Antifa riots. They burned storefront after storefront,
31:42
Speaker 1: they robbed, they looted, they murdered police officers, and yet
31:46
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice treated it as isolated issues. Look,
31:51
Speaker 1: they were firebombing of federal courthouse night after night after night,
31:55
Speaker 1: and yet the Department of Justice that you know, this
31:58
Speaker 1: DJ under Merrick Garland traits. It is just, oh, isn't
32:01
Speaker 1: that nice that their throat literally throwing Molotov cocktails. This
32:08
Speaker 1: is sad that the Democrats. Look, COVID has really revealed
32:13
Speaker 1: this as well. Democrats are in they are authoritarians. You
32:19
Speaker 1: want to know the basic difference between liberals and conservatives.
32:22
Speaker 1: Liberals are comfortable using the coercive power of government to
32:27
Speaker 1: force you to comply, to force you to obey, whereas
32:32
Speaker 1: conservatives believe in liberty, believe in individual choice. You can
32:35
Speaker 1: say what you want, even if it is dumbass stuff.
32:38
Speaker 1: You can say it on religion, you can believe what
32:41
Speaker 1: you want, even if it's dumbass stuff. You can go
32:43
Speaker 1: worship a golden calf in your backyard if you want to.
32:48
Speaker 1: We believe in individual choice. On vaccines, Look, you and
32:51
Speaker 1: I have talked about vaccines. I believe in vaccines. I've
32:54
Speaker 1: taken the vaccine, my family's taken the vaccine. But individual
32:58
Speaker 1: choice means it's up to you whether you get a
33:01
Speaker 1: medical procedure, whether you take a vaccine. Gavin Newsom is
33:04
Speaker 1: ordering every school child in California to get the vaccine.
33:09
Speaker 1: That is horrific. It is a violation of medical privacy
33:13
Speaker 1: and autonomy to do that. And the Left doesn't care.
33:16
Speaker 1: And so when it comes to parents protesting the radical
33:21
Speaker 1: Marxist theories being taught to their kids, the Department of
33:25
Speaker 1: Justice will come in and threaten mom at the PTA meeting,
33:29
Speaker 1: We're going to put you in handcuffs. Holy crap, that
33:32
Speaker 1: is offensive. This is the irony is that the left
33:37
Speaker 1: is all for liberation and expression and descent is patriotic
33:41
Speaker 1: and protesting when it suits their interests. But then, of course,
33:44
Speaker 1: the moment that a concerned parent says, actually, I don't
33:48
Speaker 1: think little Johnny should be told that white people are
33:51
Speaker 1: evil and that America's are rotten place, and that boys
33:54
Speaker 1: can become little girls, and you know, maybe we should
33:57
Speaker 1: just stick to the you know, reading and arithmetic. Maybe
34:00
Speaker 1: we should stick to the basically building blocks of education.
34:03
Speaker 1: They are labeled as domestic terrorists. And what is so
34:06
Speaker 1: dismaying to me is as you said, and as you
34:09
Speaker 1: made clear during his confirmation hearings, Mary Garland was the
34:14
Speaker 1: moderate one. He's supposed to be one of the most
34:16
Speaker 1: moderate people in the entire administration, So that that is
34:19
Speaker 1: a great fear. And actually, something else that you touched
34:23
Speaker 1: on here is democracy in action. Who sets these kinds
34:25
Speaker 1: of standards, Who decides these things? What does our public square?
34:29
Speaker 1: What does it look like? We only have a Let
34:31
Speaker 1: me make it. Let me make a brief point on that, Michael,
34:34
Speaker 1: let me make actually two points on that. Number one.
34:38
Speaker 1: Some of the sort of Twitter lefties who said, oh well,
34:42
Speaker 1: this is this is threats, this is let me be clear.
34:45
Speaker 1: Nobody has a right to threaten anyone. Nobody has a
34:49
Speaker 1: right to carry out violence. And if you have someone
34:53
Speaker 1: who makes a threat of violence or carries out violence
34:56
Speaker 1: against a school member, school board member, even if they're
34:59
Speaker 1: some not elefty, if you have violence against someone, they
35:03
Speaker 1: should be prosecuted and sent to jail. That violence is
35:05
Speaker 1: not acceptable. Secondly, look, I going back to the point
35:11
Speaker 1: about you know, harassing Kirsten's cinema in the ladies room.
35:16
Speaker 1: The parents are doing this at school board meetings that
35:18
Speaker 1: are designed to be a forum for parents to be
35:20
Speaker 1: able to express their views. They're not going to the
35:23
Speaker 1: homes of the school board meetings, they're not going into
35:25
Speaker 1: the bathroom with them. They're going to a public forum.
35:28
Speaker 1: And and I am all four listen. I mean, I've
35:31
Speaker 1: done hundreds of town halls. I've had people come and
35:35
Speaker 1: disagree with me, and I'm perfectly fine to get in
35:38
Speaker 1: in a robust discussion in a forum that is appropriate
35:43
Speaker 1: for that. I'll tell you one time, it's kind of fun.
35:46
Speaker 1: I don't know. Twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, I was actually
35:50
Speaker 1: part of a protest at the White House against the
35:54
Speaker 1: Obama Iran nuclear deal, and there were protesters from that
36:00
Speaker 1: showed up, Code Pink, the sort of lefty group. They
36:04
Speaker 1: were there screaming and yelling and they were angry, and
36:08
Speaker 1: I actually stopped and I said, all right, look, the
36:10
Speaker 1: First Amendment gives you a right to speak, it gives
36:12
Speaker 1: me a right to speak, but it doesn't give either
36:14
Speaker 1: one of us a right to shout the other down
36:17
Speaker 1: and prevent people from hearing what we have to say.
36:20
Speaker 1: So I said, I'll tell you what. Pick someone from
36:23
Speaker 1: your group, You tell me who pick whoever it is,
36:26
Speaker 1: come on up here, and I'm going to hand you
36:28
Speaker 1: this microphone, and I'm going to let you tell this
36:31
Speaker 1: crowd why you think the Iran deal is a good deal.
36:35
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to give you a response, and you
36:37
Speaker 1: may not like my response. And so they selected Medea
36:40
Speaker 1: Benjamin as one of the founders of code Pink. She
36:42
Speaker 1: came up there and I said, now, look, if I
36:45
Speaker 1: give her this microphone, you guys don't get to be
36:47
Speaker 1: disruptive and scream and yell and shout everyone down. And
36:51
Speaker 1: we proceeded to have I think it was a fifteen
36:53
Speaker 1: or twenty minute debate on the merits of the Iran deal.
36:56
Speaker 1: Was all televised. If you go online, you can google
36:59
Speaker 1: it and watch me debating the head of Code Pink
37:02
Speaker 1: on the irand deal. That that is that's democracy in
37:06
Speaker 1: action too. So I'm not saying that, you know, but
37:09
Speaker 1: there's a difference between that and following someone into the
37:12
Speaker 1: bathroom while they'll try to trying to use the facilities right.
37:16
Speaker 1: And this actually ties in pretty directly as we think
37:19
Speaker 1: of the way our public square has changed. Now. So
37:22
Speaker 1: many of these debates happen on social media, and as
37:25
Speaker 1: big tech companies get more and more and more power,
37:27
Speaker 1: they seem to be controlling speech in the republic, and
37:30
Speaker 1: if you control speech in a republic, you basically control
37:33
Speaker 1: the whole thing. The way we govern each other is
37:35
Speaker 1: that we persuade one another and deliberate and debate. There
37:39
Speaker 1: is a story here, and I know, as always, i'm
37:40
Speaker 1: running late and we've only got a little bit of
37:42
Speaker 1: time left, but but I really want to touch on
37:44
Speaker 1: it because you were there, you actually saw it firsthand.
37:47
Speaker 1: There was a Facebook quote unquote whistleblower. This is a
37:50
Speaker 1: woman who is calling out what she seems to think
37:53
Speaker 1: are the most nefarious activities and operations at Facebook. But
37:58
Speaker 1: what's strange here, what has me feeling a little weird
38:01
Speaker 1: about the story is typically whistleblowers against entrenched powers are
38:08
Speaker 1: sort of quieted by those powers. They're not promoted, they're suppressed,
38:12
Speaker 1: they're pushed to the side. And yet this whistleblower is
38:15
Speaker 1: being lauded in the media by established democrats, by other
38:20
Speaker 1: people in what you might call the ruling class. So
38:23
Speaker 1: what is going on here? A lot of conservatives don't
38:26
Speaker 1: like what Facebook is doing when they suppress our speech,
38:29
Speaker 1: But what is the angle coming out here from this whistleblower?
38:33
Speaker 1: So there are two things that are going on two
38:35
Speaker 1: major concerns about Facebook and this so called whistle whistleblowers
38:40
Speaker 1: at the intersection of them both. The first thing that
38:43
Speaker 1: is going on is that Facebook has a practice of
38:48
Speaker 1: targeting children, and in particular teenage girls and Instagram, which
38:55
Speaker 1: Facebook owns. The algorithm is designed to appeal to teenage girls,
39:02
Speaker 1: but also to reinforce very negative trends with teenage girls.
39:07
Speaker 1: So for example, body image problems and eating disorders and
39:13
Speaker 1: suicidal tendencies, the algorithm feeds all of that. And and
39:19
Speaker 1: I don't you don't have to take my word for it,
39:21
Speaker 1: you can actually take Facebook's word for it. So the
39:23
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal a couple of weeks ago broke a
39:26
Speaker 1: bombshell story that Facebook conducted its own research on what
39:32
Speaker 1: is the effect of our product on kids and their
39:35
Speaker 1: marketing to kids, and they concluded that teenage girls, in
39:41
Speaker 1: particular Instagram was really toxic and British girls thirteen percent
39:51
Speaker 1: said they had gotten their suicidal ideas from Instagram. American
39:57
Speaker 1: girls six percent of them said they had their suicidal
40:01
Speaker 1: ideas from Instagram. And so Facebook had this research, which
40:06
Speaker 1: was handed over to the Wall Street Journal. In the
40:08
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal reported on it, We've had now three
40:11
Speaker 1: hearings in the last couple of weeks in the Senate.
40:13
Speaker 1: I participated in all of them with Facebook witnesses. The
40:17
Speaker 1: Facebook witnesses have been terrible. They're essentially giving the Sergeant
40:23
Speaker 1: Schultz defense. I hear nothing, I see nothing from Hogan
40:26
Speaker 1: Heroes a show before you were born, Michael, but a
40:29
Speaker 1: great show. For I was a glint in my father's eye.
40:32
Speaker 1: But I used to watch it as a little kid
40:34
Speaker 1: with my dad. Hogan's Heres was awesome. So their defense,
40:38
Speaker 1: so I've asked. I've asked. There were two witnesses from
40:40
Speaker 1: Facebook the last two weeks. I've asked them number one,
40:43
Speaker 1: is this research true? They say, well, no, it's out
40:47
Speaker 1: of context. I said, great, what's the context? Oh no, no,
40:50
Speaker 1: we won't release the research. We're not going to tell
40:52
Speaker 1: you what the research says. But but we don't like
40:54
Speaker 1: what the journal reported. And I said, okay, the journal
40:56
Speaker 1: reported Mark Zuckerberg personally review this research. Is that true
41:02
Speaker 1: to seeing your Facebook witnesses? I don't know. I don't know.
41:04
Speaker 1: I don't know what Zuckerbook knows. Who knows? Who knows? No, no, no,
41:07
Speaker 1: we're not going to say anything about what Zuckerberg knew.
41:09
Speaker 1: I asked another follow up, which is has Facebook quantified
41:15
Speaker 1: how many teenage girls have taken their lives because of
41:18
Speaker 1: your product? Facebook witnesses refused to answer that question, and
41:24
Speaker 1: I asked the natural follow up, Okay, you got research
41:28
Speaker 1: telling you that your product is hurting children. What'd you
41:35
Speaker 1: do to fix it? What changes did you implement to
41:40
Speaker 1: fix this problem? And the short answer is the Facebook
41:43
Speaker 1: witnesses said nothing, nothing, nothing. We didn't do a damn thing.
41:49
Speaker 1: So this week, the so called whistleblower who had been
41:51
Speaker 1: an employee at Facebook was testifying. I asked her the
41:55
Speaker 1: same questions. She was actually much more cooperative in the question.
41:58
Speaker 1: She said, yes, that's what the research said. She said, yes,
42:01
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg was aware of it. She didn't know if they'd
42:05
Speaker 1: quantify how many teenage girls had taken their lives because
42:09
Speaker 1: of the Facebook's product, But in terms of what they
42:11
Speaker 1: did to change it, she said, not a damn thing.
42:14
Speaker 1: In fact, she watched the testimony of the previous two
42:17
Speaker 1: Facebook witnesses, she said, it was amazing when you asked
42:19
Speaker 1: them that question. She assumed they'd come out with a
42:22
Speaker 1: five point plan. We did the following five things in
42:25
Speaker 1: response to it. Which sort of anyone you would think
42:28
Speaker 1: if you got a report that you were marketing a
42:31
Speaker 1: product that was killing children, you would think you would say,
42:35
Speaker 1: all right, how can we change this so that doesn't happen.
42:38
Speaker 1: She confirmed Facebook didn't do anything so on that. The
42:42
Speaker 1: hearing we had today, there was actually bipartisan concern about that,
42:46
Speaker 1: both Republicans and Democrats. Nobody's defending Facebook in what it's
42:51
Speaker 1: doing to teenage girls. And the analogy that most frequently
42:55
Speaker 1: gets invoked is the tobacco companies. When the tobacco companies,
42:58
Speaker 1: you know, Joe Cammell, when they marketed to kids to
43:01
Speaker 1: try to get them addicted to cigarettes as young teenagers
43:04
Speaker 1: so they would be lifelong customers. Facebook is kind of
43:07
Speaker 1: falling into the same category of deliberately engaging in business
43:13
Speaker 1: practices that hurt kids. That's category one. Category two is
43:19
Speaker 1: political censorship, and we've talked a ton on this podcast
43:22
Speaker 1: about political censorship. In category two, there is a yawning
43:30
Speaker 1: divide between Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Most if not all,
43:36
Speaker 1: Republicans in Congress are very worried about political censorship, about
43:41
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley billionaires silencing conservative views they disagree with. Most
43:46
Speaker 1: congressional Democrats. Not only are they not worried about it,
43:51
Speaker 1: not only do many of them deny that it exists
43:54
Speaker 1: or that it happens. Their position is, we want more
44:00
Speaker 1: of it, We want more censorships, silence every quote extremist voice.
44:07
Speaker 1: And that's their code word. When you hear liberals using
44:11
Speaker 1: the word extremist. What they mean is youth. What they
44:15
Speaker 1: mean is any conservative. What they mean is any libertarian.
44:18
Speaker 1: What they mean is Donald Trump. What they mean as
44:20
Speaker 1: anyone who voted for Donald Trump. What they mean is
44:22
Speaker 1: anyone who's pro life. What they mean is anyone who
44:24
Speaker 1: believes that there are two genders. All of that they
44:28
Speaker 1: believe is extremist. And they want social media to silence
44:32
Speaker 1: at all. And so the hearing today and listen, my
44:36
Speaker 1: sense of this whistleblower is that she's very much politically
44:40
Speaker 1: on the left, so she wants Facebook to censor even
44:44
Speaker 1: more so on that component. Yes, the media and yes,
44:49
Speaker 1: Democrats are jumping on this whistleblower because they're trying to
44:55
Speaker 1: use her testimony to further their preferred political outcome, which
44:59
Speaker 1: is for face book to censor every conservative view so
45:03
Speaker 1: that the only view anyone is allowed to express is
45:06
Speaker 1: the left wing view, another bait and switch, another if
45:10
Speaker 1: you focus on the legitimate problems at Facebook, which we
45:12
Speaker 1: would all acknowledge, and use that as a way to
45:16
Speaker 1: push through even more censorship of conservatives. You're seeing this
45:20
Speaker 1: happen a lot around the country right now, a lot
45:23
Speaker 1: around Washington. There is one place where you will not
45:26
Speaker 1: be censored. That is on the Verdict Live Fall Tour.
45:31
Speaker 1: We are coming to schools hopefully near you. We're going
45:34
Speaker 1: to University Wisconsin Madison on the thirteenth of this month,
45:38
Speaker 1: so just next week, we are going to Texas. We're
45:42
Speaker 1: going to Texas A and M on the fourteenth. It's
45:45
Speaker 1: going to be a great deal of fun. I can't
45:48
Speaker 1: wait to see everybody there. We've got more schools that
45:50
Speaker 1: are going to be announced, but get ready. So, Michael,
45:53
Speaker 1: where can they get their tickets? How can they go?
45:55
Speaker 1: If they want to come see either University Wisconsin Madison
46:00
Speaker 1: or Texas A and M. How can they come see
46:02
Speaker 1: Verdict Live. You've got to go to YAF dot org.
46:07
Speaker 1: That is a Young America's Foundation partnering up with us
46:09
Speaker 1: for this fall tour. Head on over there, click on
46:12
Speaker 1: the tour, click on your school you can go get
46:15
Speaker 1: all of the information there. It's going to be me,
46:18
Speaker 1: It's going to be Senator Cruz. It is going to
46:20
Speaker 1: be our trusty cactus friend. We didn't get time for
46:23
Speaker 1: the mailbag. Don't worry. We're gonna have a whole lot
46:25
Speaker 1: of time for the mailbag in person with all of you.
46:28
Speaker 1: You can also stream the events live. You can do
46:31
Speaker 1: that on the Young America's Foundation, why AF or Verdict
46:35
Speaker 1: YouTube channels. We can't wait to see everybody in person,
46:38
Speaker 1: but for now, Senator, we have to say goodbye. I'm
46:40
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode
46:53
Speaker 1: of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you
46:55
Speaker 1: by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee
46:59
Speaker 1: dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country.
47:04
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans
47:08
Speaker 1: to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help
47:11
Speaker 1: the Republican Party across the nation.