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Transcript

American Oligarchs · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: We have all talked for months and months and years
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Speaker 1: and years about the threats that big tech is posing
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Speaker 1: to free expression, to the First Amendment, to our public square,
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Speaker 1: to self government itself. Now, finally the government is taking action.
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Speaker 1: The Department of Justice is suing Google on the grounds
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Speaker 1: of antitrust. The US Senate is going to subpoena Jack
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Speaker 1: Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, the heads of Twitter and Facebook.
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Speaker 1: Big tech is finally being called to account. This is
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Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
0:42
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles, joined as ever by Senator Cruz. Senator
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Speaker 1: I like to think that on this show we predict
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Speaker 1: the future, and I guess sometimes actually maybe affect the future,
0:53
Speaker 1: because as we're talking about laws that could be passed
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Speaker 1: and big moves that could be taking place in the
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Speaker 1: federal government. Last episode we talked about this crazy story
1:01
Speaker 1: with big Tech censoring a New York Post investigation into
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Speaker 1: Hunter Biden and possible corruption involving Joe Biden. Big Tech
1:10
Speaker 1: suppressed the story, shut it down. We also are going
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Speaker 1: on for days now it appears the federal government is
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Speaker 1: taking action. All I've seen her the headline, Senator that
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Speaker 1: the DOJ is going to try to break up Google,
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Speaker 1: and that the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to subpoena
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Speaker 1: the other heads of big tech. What can you tell
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Speaker 1: us about what is actually going on? Well, sure, this
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Speaker 1: has been a big and momentous week on multiple fronts,
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Speaker 1: as you just noted concerning big tech. Let's start with
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Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook. And last week during the confirmation hearing
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Speaker 1: on Judge Barrett, we had one story that came out
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Speaker 1: Wednesday night that was the New York Post blockbuster story
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Speaker 1: on Ukraine based on Hunter Biden's emails and alleging on
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Speaker 1: its face corruption by Joe Biden and that he had
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Speaker 1: lied in saying that he had not not met with
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Speaker 1: these Ukrainian oligarchs. The next day, Thursday, and we recorded
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Speaker 1: a Verdict podcast with that information that night, because both
2:15
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook blocked that story. If any individual user
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Speaker 1: tried to tweet out that New York Post story, you
2:24
Speaker 1: got a warning sign that said you couldn't tweet it,
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Speaker 1: you couldn't post it on Twitter said that this was
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Speaker 1: potentially harmful. Well, the next day, Thursday morning, the story
2:36
Speaker 1: actually it got worse because the New York Post broke
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Speaker 1: a second blockbuster story. This second one was again from
2:44
Speaker 1: the same trove of emails on Hunter Biden's laptop, allegedly,
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Speaker 1: this one concerning Communist China and an offer from Communist
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Speaker 1: China to pay not only Hunter Biden millions of dollars,
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Speaker 1: but to pay Joe Biden himself millions of dollars. The
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Speaker 1: emails refer to Joe Biden as quote the big Guy,
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Speaker 1: and it's an offer of serious cash directly to Joe Biden.
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Speaker 1: So once again, Twitter block that, and I have to
3:15
Speaker 1: admit I saw this. So I'm sitting on my phone
3:17
Speaker 1: during the Judge Barrett confirmation hearing, and I'm up at
3:21
Speaker 1: the Dias and I'm on my phone and I'm looking
3:23
Speaker 1: at the store and I'm like, wow, this is unbelievable.
3:26
Speaker 1: And so I put together a tweet. You know, we'll
3:29
Speaker 1: Twitter block this one too, and I hit send and boom,
3:33
Speaker 1: Twitter's blocked it and I can't send it, and I'm
3:38
Speaker 1: like furious, And so I get up and called Lindsay
3:43
Speaker 1: Graham over and he and I stepped out out back.
3:46
Speaker 1: And so the public hearing room where we do the
3:49
Speaker 1: hearings is in the Heart Centered office building and there's
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Speaker 1: an area back behind this like the ante room. So
3:53
Speaker 1: I pulled Lindsay back and I was worked up. I said,
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Speaker 1: you know what, let's subpoena Twitter right now. We're we're meeting,
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Speaker 1: the Judiciary Committee is here. Let's do it right now.
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Speaker 1: Get Jack Dorsey to come right here and explain what
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Speaker 1: in the hell he is doing. So I gotta admit
4:10
Speaker 1: Lindsay's staff was very worried about this, and look, to
4:15
Speaker 1: be fair, that they're sitting there saying, well, let's not
4:17
Speaker 1: do anything to screw up the Judge Barrett confirmation. And
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Speaker 1: I understand that, and I'm like, well, look obviously I
4:22
Speaker 1: don't want to. I don't want to do anything to
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Speaker 1: screw that up. And so they were nervous. Let's just
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Speaker 1: let's not do anything else. Let's just do Judge Barrett.
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Speaker 1: But this was so so absurd. I told Lindsay we
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Speaker 1: got we got to do something. So what his staff
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Speaker 1: has said is, well, look we can we can notice
4:40
Speaker 1: a hearing for next week and vote on subpoena's next week.
4:45
Speaker 1: And I said great, and Lindsay said, you know, if
4:47
Speaker 1: you want, you and I can go announce it to
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Speaker 1: the TV cameras right now. I said, great, let's go.
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Speaker 1: We both walk out as during a break in the
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Speaker 1: Judge Barrett hearing, So it's it's just there was a
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Speaker 1: kind of a five minute break. Lindsay and I walk
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Speaker 1: out to the a TV camera out there, and we
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Speaker 1: both announced together that the Judiciary Committee will be voting
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Speaker 1: on subpoenas to subpoena Jack Dorsey to testify in front
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Speaker 1: of Judiciary. And that blew up the news. That was
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Speaker 1: literally just on the fly, Lindsay and me talking in
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Speaker 1: the ante room, and we agreed, let's go announce it,
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Speaker 1: and now this week we'll be teeing it up. This
5:25
Speaker 1: is something that I realized during impeachment, and I suppose
5:29
Speaker 1: probably the listeners and viewers realized it too that I
5:31
Speaker 1: didn't understand before. In my mind, the way the government
5:34
Speaker 1: and especially the Senate works is that everything is preplanned
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Speaker 1: and nothing happens on the spur of the moment, and
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Speaker 1: you just know what's going to happen. And that's that
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Speaker 1: what I realized was that's not really what happens in
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Speaker 1: the moment. I mean, as you described, during impeachment, you'd
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Speaker 1: hear a question, you'd hear Adam Shifts say something, you'd
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Speaker 1: go into the cloak room, you'd talk to Senator so
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Speaker 1: and so, you guys would make a plan to do this,
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Speaker 1: that or the other thing. And obviously that's what's happening
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Speaker 1: here as well. Twitter's decision to censor this information, to
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Speaker 1: suppress it led directly to Jack Dorsey getting subpoenaed on
6:07
Speaker 1: the fly in the moment. And we'll get into the
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Speaker 1: legal issue I suspect in a moment, but I think
6:12
Speaker 1: it is important for listeners to consider just the way
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Speaker 1: that our political system is structured right now that a
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Speaker 1: US senator in a hearing trying to post new information
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Speaker 1: that has just come out from the oldest continually published
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Speaker 1: daily newspaper in the country founded by Alexander Hamilton, the
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Speaker 1: New York Post, trying to put that out there in
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Speaker 1: the public square, could be censored by a tech oligarch
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Speaker 1: in Silicon Valley. That is the regardless of the legal question.
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Speaker 1: That is the political situation that we're looking at now
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Speaker 1: as we head into these subpoenas. So, look, you and
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Speaker 1: I and on Verdict, we've been talking about tech censorship
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Speaker 1: a long time, and a lot of us have been
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Speaker 1: very concerned about tech bias and censorship for years it's
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Speaker 1: been getting steadily worse. It's been escalating, it's more and
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Speaker 1: more and more. Last week was a dramatic escalation last week.
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Speaker 1: It's one thing for big tech to silence individual Americans speaking.
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Speaker 1: They're doing far too much of it. It's wrong and
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Speaker 1: it's and I am leading the fight to stop it.
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Speaker 1: But last week represented something very very different, which is
7:19
Speaker 1: they silenced a major media publication. The New York Post
7:23
Speaker 1: has the fourth highest circulation of any newspaper in America.
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Speaker 1: And not only could you or I or any American
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Speaker 1: you couldn't tweet their story. Twitter actually blocked the New
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Speaker 1: York Post itself, prevented the New York Post from posting
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Speaker 1: their own story and silenced the media from speaking. And
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Speaker 1: it actually, you know, Politico certainly not a right leaning publication,
7:49
Speaker 1: to put it mildly, a Politico journalist sent out some
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Speaker 1: tweets about the New York Post story, and the Politico
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Speaker 1: journalist got blocked. And this is big tech a the
8:01
Speaker 1: power to censor the media. And you know, if reporters
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Speaker 1: had even the tiniest hint of integrity, they'd be losing
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Speaker 1: their minds over this, right, because this is literally Jack
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Speaker 1: Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg saying they can decide what media
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Speaker 1: outlets an American can report and what anyone in America
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Speaker 1: is allowed to see, because if they can if they
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Speaker 1: can censor the New York Post, they can sense of
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Speaker 1: the New York Times, if they can silence Politico, they
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Speaker 1: can silence the Washington Post, or they can silence Fox News.
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Speaker 1: And crossing that threshold of we're now going to silence
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Speaker 1: silence the media is incredibly dangerous two weeks out from
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Speaker 1: an election. Certain no reporter cares that they're so invested
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Speaker 1: in defeating Donald Trump that they're willing to let Jack
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Speaker 1: Dorsey sensor them and decide which of the stories can
9:02
Speaker 1: can be published. Um, and it's it's these are these
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Speaker 1: are American oligarchs. I mean, you want to talk about
9:08
Speaker 1: the oligarchs of Russia. These are oligarchs with money that
9:12
Speaker 1: that believe they're drunk on their own power, right. I
9:16
Speaker 1: think I think this is the point when when people
9:18
Speaker 1: use the phrase fake news, I think sometimes it's a
9:21
Speaker 1: little bit ambiguous what that means. But I think in
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Speaker 1: its most precise meaning, it's not that every single news
9:27
Speaker 1: story is false. It's not that every single reporter is corrupt.
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Speaker 1: It's that the news itself is fake because it isn't
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Speaker 1: the news, because the focus is not on reporting the news.
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Speaker 1: The focus is not on standing up to censorship when
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Speaker 1: the outlets are censored. It's all just about advancing a
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Speaker 1: narrative that benefits one political party over another. Well, and
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Speaker 1: you know, so the most of the Democratic senators have
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Speaker 1: ignored this issue, have ignored the New York Post story,
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Speaker 1: have ignored um ignored Twitter censorship and Facebook censorship. U
10:00
Speaker 1: by the way, the Biden campaign has ignored it. So
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Speaker 1: Joe Biden. About the only thing the Biden campaign has
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Speaker 1: said is there's no meeting with the Oligarch on his
10:08
Speaker 1: official schedule. So they haven't denied that this was Hunter
10:11
Speaker 1: Biden's laptop. They haven't denied that these are Hunter Biden's emails.
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Speaker 1: They haven't denied that Joe Biden met with the oligarc
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Speaker 1: even though he said said previously he did not. They
10:20
Speaker 1: haven't denied that that communist China offered Joe Biden millions
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Speaker 1: of dollars, So no one's even asked them. You know,
10:28
Speaker 1: Biden did an ABC town hall the day after these
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Speaker 1: stories broke, and they didn't bother to ask him. It's
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Speaker 1: simply it doesn't exist. It's been disappeared. But when it
10:40
Speaker 1: comes to Democratic senators, to the extent they've said anything
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Speaker 1: about it, their talking point has been this is Russian disinformation. Okay, well,
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Speaker 1: I'm not aware of any evidence of that. The Director
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Speaker 1: of National Intelligence has said it's not. But if somebody
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Speaker 1: has evidence that it's Russian information, great, show us the evidence. Look,
11:02
Speaker 1: if these emails are fake, that's highly relevant. If they're
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Speaker 1: But at this point Joe Biden didn't claiming they're fake. Right, Well,
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Speaker 1: it would seem, you know, the fact that the Biden
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Speaker 1: campaign won't deny it, and the fact that photos were
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Speaker 1: released as well, either these Russian disinformers have the greatest
11:20
Speaker 1: photoshop skills in the world, or what we're looking at
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Speaker 1: is legitimate material from Hunter Biden's computer. If something's fake,
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Speaker 1: that's actually what journalism is for. So I'm perfectly fine
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Speaker 1: with people reporting it. If you share the New York
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Speaker 1: Post story, it turns out the story is wrong, fine,
11:37
Speaker 1: then they put out the refutation and show that it's wrong.
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Speaker 1: But Big Tech doesn't want to do that. They just
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Speaker 1: simply want to make it disappear. And I think Big
11:48
Speaker 1: Tech believes they are not accountable to anybody, and that's
11:52
Speaker 1: why I think it's so important that they testify. I
11:56
Speaker 1: think so as well. I was thrilled when I saw
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Speaker 1: that you were called for Dorsey and Zuckerberg to come
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Speaker 1: and testify. I have to ask you for a little
12:04
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, though, a little cloakroom gossip, if you
12:07
Speaker 1: don't mind, which is that I've seen headlines that some
12:09
Speaker 1: Republicans on the committee are wavering, that's the term that's
12:13
Speaker 1: been reported. Are people going soft here? Are we actually
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Speaker 1: going to hear from Zuckerberg and Dorsey or not? I
12:19
Speaker 1: believe we will. It is true. We are having I
12:24
Speaker 1: guess what I'll characterize as vigorous internal conversations. We were
12:30
Speaker 1: supposed to vote today. This is Tuesday, you and I
12:33
Speaker 1: are talking. I think the pod will probably can't come
12:35
Speaker 1: out tomorrow. But we were supposed to vote today on
12:37
Speaker 1: the subpoenas. We haven't voted today. There is a vote
12:41
Speaker 1: noticed for Thursday, so two days from now on the subpoenas.
12:46
Speaker 1: Twitter and Facebook are right now negotiating with the Judiciary
12:50
Speaker 1: Committee about potentially appearing voluntarily, and actually next week they're
12:57
Speaker 1: going to be appearing before the Commerce commit I also
13:00
Speaker 1: serve on the Commerce Committee, so I'm going to be
13:02
Speaker 1: at a hearing next week with the heads of Google, Facebook,
13:05
Speaker 1: and Twitter. Anyway, Commerce is a very different committee than Judiciary.
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Speaker 1: I'm on both of the committee, so it's I'm I'm
13:12
Speaker 1: fine with that, but Commerce, the issue's Commerce focuses on
13:16
Speaker 1: Section two thirty will be part of the discussion in
13:19
Speaker 1: the Commerce hearing. But Judiciary is on both sides, Democrat
13:25
Speaker 1: and Republican, frankly manned by junkyard dog prosecutors who know
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Speaker 1: how to pound the hell out of a witness. It's
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Speaker 1: just a different that, ain't commerce. Commerce is lovey dovey
13:37
Speaker 1: kumbay yah. It's It's a lot easier to testify in
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Speaker 1: front of Commerce than Judiciary. What I am pressing for,
13:44
Speaker 1: what I want to see happen is I want to
13:47
Speaker 1: see Dorsey and Zuckerberg testify in person. They prefer to
13:52
Speaker 1: do it remotely. Yeah, I want to drag their asses
13:55
Speaker 1: to Washington to sit down in that hearing and answer questions.
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Speaker 1: And I think it needs to be for the election.
14:01
Speaker 1: I believe we'll see them testify before the election. I
14:06
Speaker 1: hope it's in person. That's what I'm pressing for and
14:11
Speaker 1: whether it is by subpoena or voluntary doesn't really matter.
14:16
Speaker 1: My objective is that they testify. If they agree to
14:19
Speaker 1: voluntarily shown up, fine, as long as it's in person
14:24
Speaker 1: before the election. But where the votes are on Judiciary,
14:27
Speaker 1: I don't know. We may find out on Thursday. We
14:30
Speaker 1: may see it tied up for a vote. I think
14:32
Speaker 1: we'll see all the Republicans come on board if it
14:34
Speaker 1: actually gets pressed to a vote. I think there's some
14:36
Speaker 1: folks that are nervous, But nervous is not the same
14:41
Speaker 1: thing as voting, now, you know, Senator, I read the
14:43
Speaker 1: mail bag to this show, and we get a lot
14:46
Speaker 1: of emails and a huge number of people are asking
14:50
Speaker 1: when these guys are going to be dragged in front
14:53
Speaker 1: of Congress and in front of the Senate to answer questions.
14:55
Speaker 1: So I hope that your colleagues on the committee get
14:57
Speaker 1: the message. Very interesting, it actually had not a occurred
15:00
Speaker 1: to me that testifying before different committees has a different
15:03
Speaker 1: tenor because you have different people on those committees. And
15:06
Speaker 1: I'm not at all surprised the Judiciary Committee has more
15:09
Speaker 1: of a bulldog kind of style. I certainly want to
15:11
Speaker 1: see them dragged before that committee and answer those questions.
15:15
Speaker 1: I also have to ask you though about this separate question.
15:17
Speaker 1: We've been focusing on Facebook and Twitter, but the big kahuna,
15:20
Speaker 1: the real giant in this space, is actually not Twitter,
15:25
Speaker 1: and it's not even Facebook. It's Google. The DOJ has
15:28
Speaker 1: just announced that they are going to sue Google on
15:31
Speaker 1: anti trust grounds. Obviously, I am not an expert in
15:35
Speaker 1: anti trust law, and I suspect most people who are
15:37
Speaker 1: calling for a big tech to be broken up aren't
15:40
Speaker 1: expert in that either. What is the case here and
15:44
Speaker 1: do you think it will be successful? And do you
15:45
Speaker 1: think it's advisable? So I'm very glad DJ is moving
15:49
Speaker 1: forward and filing a case. The exact details of it
15:51
Speaker 1: will be coming out in coming days and weeks, but
15:54
Speaker 1: as I understand it, they're bringing a case that Google
15:57
Speaker 1: is a monopoly and it's abusing its monopoly power. And
16:00
Speaker 1: at least some of what the case is focusing on
16:04
Speaker 1: is that they force, for example, phone companies to preload
16:08
Speaker 1: Google on it as your search engine when you get
16:11
Speaker 1: a phone, and they use their market power to prevent
16:16
Speaker 1: competitors from doing the same. And look, Google is very
16:21
Speaker 1: good at leveraging one monopoly and too power in all
16:25
Speaker 1: sorts of other areas, and so from the initial announcements,
16:30
Speaker 1: that's what the case is going to focus on. I
16:33
Speaker 1: hope one component of the case is using their monopoly
16:37
Speaker 1: power to censor political speech that doesn't fall as traditionally
16:42
Speaker 1: or cleanly into antitrust laws. And it's one of the
16:44
Speaker 1: things we've talked about. In fact, when you and I
16:47
Speaker 1: talked with Bill Barr. I mean I have in the
16:49
Speaker 1: last four years raise this issue personally and directly with
16:54
Speaker 1: the President multiple times, with the Vice President, with the
16:57
Speaker 1: White House Chief of Staff, with the White House Council,
16:59
Speaker 1: with the Attorney General, with a Deputy Attorney General, with
17:01
Speaker 1: the Assistant Attorney General for an I trust, with the
17:04
Speaker 1: chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. I mean, this is
17:08
Speaker 1: I think it's the biggest threat in the country to
17:10
Speaker 1: free speech, to a free press, and to to our democracy,
17:15
Speaker 1: to our our elections. So I hope and Google is
17:21
Speaker 1: by far the worst actor. So as I sort of
17:24
Speaker 1: ranked the actors of big tech, Facebook I have problems with,
17:29
Speaker 1: but comparatively speaking, they're the least bad of the big guys.
17:35
Speaker 1: Then there's Twitter, which is quite brazen, and then by
17:38
Speaker 1: far the worst I believe is Google, and Google owns YouTube,
17:41
Speaker 1: so so I throw YouTube into it. And remember Google's
17:45
Speaker 1: motto used used to be, uh, do no evil? Yeah,
17:50
Speaker 1: don't be evil, don't be evil, don't be evil. Yeah,
17:53
Speaker 1: it's and then they just scrapped it. I mean they
17:56
Speaker 1: literally scrapped the motto and I don't know if it
18:00
Speaker 1: was what they were twirling their mustache and like the
18:03
Speaker 1: fires of Hades to which they were condemning the globe
18:06
Speaker 1: and decided, oh, let's not forswear evil anymore. I mean,
18:09
Speaker 1: it really is. And the amount of look, Google's worth
18:15
Speaker 1: over trillion dollars they have I think one hundred and
18:18
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars in cash, just just like the change
18:23
Speaker 1: apparently sitting around and the sofas and between the cushions
18:27
Speaker 1: and their sofas, like the massive power Google has, and
18:31
Speaker 1: they are completely brazen about using it to advance their
18:37
Speaker 1: political lens. And I will say I have a theory.
18:39
Speaker 1: By the way, so on these New York Post stories,
18:42
Speaker 1: we know that Facebook and Twitter blocked it. To our knowledge,
18:46
Speaker 1: Google hasn't blocked it. So I actually tried went to
18:49
Speaker 1: Google and typed in and Google it comes up, and
18:52
Speaker 1: I have a theory that actually the reason Google didn't
18:54
Speaker 1: block it is because they knew this DJ's case was coming,
18:58
Speaker 1: that they're on mildly better behavior because they're facing massive litigation.
19:06
Speaker 1: I can't prove that that's just a theory. No, it's
19:09
Speaker 1: a good suggestion, Senator, because I did wonder at the time.
19:12
Speaker 1: I said, wait a second, how's Google not jumping on
19:14
Speaker 1: this bandwagon? But of course Google is getting word when
19:17
Speaker 1: when you're talking about an entity as large as the
19:18
Speaker 1: DOJ or the federal government, obviously they know what's coming
19:22
Speaker 1: down the pike, and what you what you focused on
19:24
Speaker 1: there is search, which when most people think about how
19:28
Speaker 1: YouTube is abusing its power or Google is abusing its power,
19:30
Speaker 1: they think it's through video, or they think it's through advertising,
19:33
Speaker 1: or they think it's But in this fifty seven page
19:36
Speaker 1: complaint that the DOJ has just filed here, they actually
19:40
Speaker 1: focus in on search, and search is Google's core product.
19:44
Speaker 1: If you make it to the first page of a
19:46
Speaker 1: Google search, that has so much power, so much more
19:50
Speaker 1: power than if you're on page two or page two
19:52
Speaker 1: thousand for that matter. And Google, we know manipulate search
19:56
Speaker 1: for ideological ends. But what do you say, Senator, beyond
19:59
Speaker 1: the logical question, beyond the free speech question. What do
20:03
Speaker 1: you say to people, maybe they're a little more libertarian leaning,
20:06
Speaker 1: who say, listen, it's it's a free market, and Google's
20:10
Speaker 1: a private company sort of. And if Google, you know,
20:14
Speaker 1: is not to your liking, well then fella just go
20:16
Speaker 1: make your own Google. Do you do you think conservatives
20:18
Speaker 1: are betraying our kind of free market preferences. Yeah, look,
20:24
Speaker 1: I understand those sentiments, you know. I will say, by
20:26
Speaker 1: the way that some of the voices, particularly in DC,
20:29
Speaker 1: that echo them, some of the more libertarian outfits get
20:34
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money from big tech. And one
20:37
Speaker 1: problem we have in our own neck of the woods
20:41
Speaker 1: in terms of the center rights conservative libertarian world, is
20:46
Speaker 1: there are some folks who, if you write them a
20:48
Speaker 1: big enough check, suddenly if you look at some of
20:50
Speaker 1: the most vigorous defenders of tech from from all of
20:55
Speaker 1: this scrutiny, for many of them, there's a money trail
20:58
Speaker 1: to be followed. But let me take your the critique
21:04
Speaker 1: on face value. I am a free market conservative. I
21:09
Speaker 1: believe in free markets. That doesn't mean we don't have laws.
21:12
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean you don't have the antitrust laws the
21:14
Speaker 1: antitrust laws have been on the books for almost one
21:18
Speaker 1: hundred years yea, and abusing a monopoly position, which is
21:22
Speaker 1: what Google does, has been against the law a very
21:27
Speaker 1: long time. Of course, it is right the government shouldn't
21:31
Speaker 1: be regulating speech. We don't want some federal police officers
21:35
Speaker 1: saying this speech is good, this speech is bad. That
21:37
Speaker 1: would be a terrible outcome, and by the way, the
21:40
Speaker 1: Democrats would love that outcome. So so we need to
21:42
Speaker 1: be very cautious about where they want to take this.
21:47
Speaker 1: But there's a difference between that and not letting someone
21:51
Speaker 1: abuse their monopoly power. And there's also a difference. Section
21:55
Speaker 1: two thirty, which we've talked about a lot on this podcast,
21:58
Speaker 1: is a special immunity from liability that Congress gave big
22:02
Speaker 1: Tech that nobody else gets. And it's basically a subsidy.
22:05
Speaker 1: All right, you want to put it in free market terms,
22:07
Speaker 1: end section two thirty because it's a damned subsidy to
22:10
Speaker 1: the biggest, most profitable companies on Earth. It's corporate welfare,
22:15
Speaker 1: and it immunizes them from behaving like the Ttalitarian Star Chamber.
22:20
Speaker 1: And so that's a pure free market argument which addresses
22:25
Speaker 1: directly what the threat is and the magnitude if you
22:29
Speaker 1: believe in the principles of free speech, which is that
22:31
Speaker 1: we ought to be able to speak and debate freely. Yeah,
22:35
Speaker 1: allowing one or two billionaires to have a monopoly on
22:38
Speaker 1: every means of communication is a really, really dangerous phenomenon. Absolutely,
22:45
Speaker 1: I agree entirely with that, and I think there is
22:48
Speaker 1: nothing conservative about allowing a couple of oligarchs to dominate
22:53
Speaker 1: our public square and control the flow of information. And
22:56
Speaker 1: of course there's nothing conservative about letting companies brazenly violate
22:59
Speaker 1: the law, laws that have been on the books for
23:01
Speaker 1: one hundred years or laws that have been on the
23:03
Speaker 1: books for twenty five years. You have assuaged my fears
23:06
Speaker 1: on this free market issue, and I think a lot
23:09
Speaker 1: of conservatives are are recognizing that threat. We have a question,
23:13
Speaker 1: by the way, Senator, in our remaining couple of minutes
23:15
Speaker 1: that is just as important in my view. I was
23:18
Speaker 1: going to I was gonna bring this up with you
23:20
Speaker 1: personally as a matter of fact, because I was very
23:22
Speaker 1: worried when this was mentioned on the Senate floor. This
23:26
Speaker 1: is from Gregory. Is Senator Cruz really a vegan? Say
23:31
Speaker 1: it ain't so, Senator This is after your colleague, Corey
23:34
Speaker 1: Booker came out and made this wild accusation on the
23:37
Speaker 1: Senate floor. Please clear this up for us. It was
23:41
Speaker 1: a hurtful and scurrilous attack. It was deeply personal, and
23:47
Speaker 1: it was lies, damn lies and statistics. I am emphatically
23:53
Speaker 1: a Cuban Texan carnivore, but I will come see that
24:00
Speaker 1: that all of the animals that I eat are vegetarians. Um.
24:07
Speaker 1: And you know, so Corey Booker said that, and it
24:11
Speaker 1: was it was a moment of levity where I popped
24:14
Speaker 1: back at him. What would surprise people is Cory and
24:18
Speaker 1: I actually get along quite quite well. I like Corey personally.
24:22
Speaker 1: We've we've actually gone out to dinner, although he I
24:25
Speaker 1: let him pick the place and he went to a
24:27
Speaker 1: vegetarian restaurant. It was truly maddening. I was like, could
24:30
Speaker 1: they go kill some animal and serve it for dinner? Please?
24:34
Speaker 1: I'll be right back. But look, I actually think one
24:37
Speaker 1: of the reasons Corey didn't do very well in the
24:41
Speaker 1: Democratic presidential primary is because he's not a jerk. Yeah,
24:46
Speaker 1: and I think they wanted someone to be tough and
24:50
Speaker 1: a jerk in that primary, and so Corey was kind
24:52
Speaker 1: of faking it, and he wasn't very good at faking it. Yeah, yeah,
24:58
Speaker 1: I think that that came across the I Am Spartacus
25:01
Speaker 1: moment is a good example of a less than authentic
25:06
Speaker 1: moment than we have seen. I agree, And he usually
25:12
Speaker 1: when he's being his authentic self, he usually plays a
25:15
Speaker 1: little bit fairer, a little bit nicer, except for that
25:18
Speaker 1: awful lie. I have to tell you, Senator, we have
25:20
Speaker 1: had done many meals together, and I thought, hold on,
25:23
Speaker 1: if Senator Cruiz is a vegan, I think I've never
25:25
Speaker 1: seen him eat anything other than red meat at at
25:28
Speaker 1: a meal, at lunch, dinner. So I'm glad that you've
25:30
Speaker 1: cleared this up. Nothing has changed in the meantime. So
25:34
Speaker 1: and you know this because you are you still a
25:36
Speaker 1: California resident or have you gone gone to Tennessee yet?
25:39
Speaker 1: Where just for a few more minutes in about ten
25:43
Speaker 1: or twelve days. But I'm in La La Land for now. Well,
25:46
Speaker 1: as you know, Heidi is a vegetarian, and she's from
25:51
Speaker 1: California and her entire family or vegetarians. I'm married into
25:54
Speaker 1: a family of California vegetarians. I remember one of the
25:57
Speaker 1: first times I went in a family vacation with my
26:00
Speaker 1: in laws. We were out on a houseboat on Lake Powell,
26:03
Speaker 1: which is spectacular, and my father in law was like
26:07
Speaker 1: grocery shop. He didn't know what to do with his
26:09
Speaker 1: carnivore son in law. So at the grocery store he
26:12
Speaker 1: brought bought a giant salami and said, here, Ted, here's
26:16
Speaker 1: some meat for the week. And it was kind of like, uh, thanks, Peter.
26:22
Speaker 1: That's you know. And I will say, Senator, it shows
26:25
Speaker 1: how open minded you are. You know, you've you can
26:29
Speaker 1: have a conversation with Corey Booker, you can share a
26:32
Speaker 1: table with vegetarians, share a family with vegetarians. Even have
26:35
Speaker 1: I told you my dental theory of this, by the way,
26:38
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Now. So I have a dental theory.
26:42
Speaker 1: So my father in law is a dentist, so I.
26:44
Speaker 1: But my theory is, if you look at the animal kingdom,
26:47
Speaker 1: every animal that has incisors like we do, they are
26:51
Speaker 1: fangs and they ripped the flesh of other animals. The
26:56
Speaker 1: animals that chew their cut or chew grass, they don't
27:01
Speaker 1: have incisors. So my dental theory is, look, we have
27:05
Speaker 1: we have fangs for a reason, and that is to
27:08
Speaker 1: plunge our teeth into a RIBI and my Denis father
27:13
Speaker 1: in law is not persuaded by that argument, Well, Senator,
27:15
Speaker 1: I find a very persuasive. We have those incisors and
27:18
Speaker 1: fangs for a reason, and that reason might be the
27:22
Speaker 1: testimony of big Tech executives in front of the Senate
27:25
Speaker 1: Judiciary Committee. I suppose there are many uses for this.
27:28
Speaker 1: We will we will have to leave it there, though,
27:30
Speaker 1: look forward to following the update on big Tech and
27:35
Speaker 1: a number of other issues that we will have to
27:37
Speaker 1: save until next time. Until then, I'm Michael Knowles. This
27:40
Speaker 1: is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with
27:52
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom
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