Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / One Vote Away

Transcript

One Vote Away · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: You've probably heard a lot by now about Amy Coney Barrett,
0:04
Speaker 1: President Trump's Supreme Court nominee. Some of it true, most
0:07
Speaker 1: of it probably false. How do you separate fact from fiction? Well,
0:11
Speaker 1: luckily we're about to speak with someone who just sat
0:14
Speaker 1: down with Judge Barrett about an hour ago. This is
0:17
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
0:27
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles, Senator. One thing I love so much
0:31
Speaker 1: about this show is that I get the inside scoop
0:34
Speaker 1: from you. I have been absolutely flooded with a ton
0:38
Speaker 1: of information about Amy Coney Barrett by the press. I
0:41
Speaker 1: assume most of it is complete nonsense. You just sat
0:44
Speaker 1: down with the Supreme Court nominee. What can you tell us, Well,
0:49
Speaker 1: she's very impressive. So I had a meeting this afternoon
0:53
Speaker 1: at two o'clock at the Capitol. Normally, what happens with
0:57
Speaker 1: Supreme Court nominees as they come around all us to
1:00
Speaker 1: office and they come to each senator's office. This time,
1:04
Speaker 1: because of COVID, they did a little bit differently. So
1:06
Speaker 1: they did it in a big room in the Capital
1:09
Speaker 1: called the Mansfield Room that they set up with the
1:12
Speaker 1: chairs separated so we could socially distance, and so I
1:16
Speaker 1: went by and visited with her. Went in, initially said hello,
1:20
Speaker 1: did the elbow bump thing with masks, and then sat
1:23
Speaker 1: down in the chairs, invited the reporters in, and I
1:27
Speaker 1: shared a few thoughts in front of a bunch of
1:29
Speaker 1: reporters who as is their want or screaming out questions.
1:36
Speaker 1: And then we threw the reporters out of the room
1:39
Speaker 1: and she and I visited and we talked probably forty
1:42
Speaker 1: five minutes. And it's an impressive you know, I mean,
1:48
Speaker 1: most of us by now have heard the facts, and
1:51
Speaker 1: she's very impressive in terms of her record. Number one
1:54
Speaker 1: in the class at Notre Dame Law School, law clerk
1:58
Speaker 1: for Larry Silberman on the DC Circuit and then law
2:01
Speaker 1: clerk for Scalio in the Supreme Court, law professor at
2:04
Speaker 1: Notre Dame for twenty years, federal judge. Actually, you know
2:10
Speaker 1: where I started talking with her. A lot of what
2:11
Speaker 1: I asked about is how her family was doing that
2:14
Speaker 1: this has been you know, she's got seven kids and
2:17
Speaker 1: including a number of kids who are young kids, and
2:20
Speaker 1: this process is brutal, and you know, I shared with her,
2:24
Speaker 1: being a dad, I've been through some pretty tough battles
2:29
Speaker 1: with little kids. Our girls are nine and twelve, and
2:32
Speaker 1: they've seen all the nasty things said and it's hard
2:35
Speaker 1: on them. So, I mean, I just tried to visit
2:37
Speaker 1: with her a little bit about the family aspect of
2:39
Speaker 1: it and talk with her. So she clerked at the
2:44
Speaker 1: Supreme Court the year after I did, and she's very
2:49
Speaker 1: good friends with some very close friends of mine who
2:52
Speaker 1: are both professors at Notre Dame Law School. So we
2:55
Speaker 1: visited about some of the challenges of this process, and
3:01
Speaker 1: I asked her some questions in terms of her approach,
3:05
Speaker 1: how she approaches cases, how she approaches being a judge.
3:10
Speaker 1: But I also try to just share with her my
3:13
Speaker 1: thoughts and advice in terms of approaching this hearing. It's
3:16
Speaker 1: a pretty daunting thing to be facing a hearing where,
3:20
Speaker 1: you know, I think Senate Democrats are going to come
3:22
Speaker 1: after her really hard. Oh, they've more or less promised
3:25
Speaker 1: it already. I mean, we saw what happened to Brett Kevin.
3:27
Speaker 1: They're basically promising more than that. So I think it's
3:30
Speaker 1: almost a guarantee that it's going to be brutal. What
3:33
Speaker 1: advice did you give Judge Barrett, Well, my advice to
3:36
Speaker 1: her is actually the advice I've given a lot of
3:39
Speaker 1: nominees or coming before hearings, which which is be boring.
3:43
Speaker 1: You don't want to make news. You don't want to
3:46
Speaker 1: you want to calmly answer the senator's questions. Right now,
3:51
Speaker 1: the Senate Democrats haven't really found any attacks. They're sticking,
3:55
Speaker 1: and so part of their strategy is going to be
3:57
Speaker 1: to try to provoke her to say something foolish. I
3:59
Speaker 1: don't think she's going to. This is a very poised,
4:03
Speaker 1: very mature, experienced judge and experienced professor. One of the
4:09
Speaker 1: things I told her is, I said, listen, to be honest,
4:11
Speaker 1: none of the Senate Democrats are nearly as intimidating as
4:15
Speaker 1: as Scalia was. She and she worked for Scalia, knew
4:19
Speaker 1: him well. We talked a bit about Scalia. I asked
4:22
Speaker 1: her her thoughts on Scalia, what he did right, when
4:25
Speaker 1: we did, what he did wrong? You know. I talked
4:28
Speaker 1: about her approach to questions. I tried to walk through
4:33
Speaker 1: some of the natural pitfall so the reporters are all asking.
4:38
Speaker 1: For example, they asked me, is she going to recuse
4:41
Speaker 1: herself if there are any election related disputes? Why would
4:45
Speaker 1: she even recuse herself because she's a Trump nominee. Shouldn't
4:48
Speaker 1: Kavin or recuse himself then, because it's the Democratic talking points,
4:52
Speaker 1: So all the reporters are repeating it, and I said, no,
4:56
Speaker 1: of course she wouldn't. I said, she wouldn't recuse herself
4:59
Speaker 1: any more than Elena Kagan and Sonya Sotomayora would. They
5:03
Speaker 1: were both appointed by during the Obama Biden administration. Does
5:07
Speaker 1: the fact that Biden was vice president mean they should
5:09
Speaker 1: recuse themselves? Of course not. I actually afterwards explained to reporters.
5:13
Speaker 1: I said, look, all nine justices were appointed by presidents,
5:18
Speaker 1: all are virtually all of them have had to adjudicate
5:20
Speaker 1: cases in which the president or the administration that appointed
5:23
Speaker 1: them was a party before them may have had one
5:26
Speaker 1: particular side or another, and that that's just part of
5:29
Speaker 1: being a judge. I mean, there's a standard legal standard
5:31
Speaker 1: for recusal, but the fact that the president or the
5:36
Speaker 1: Senate that appointed or confirmed you is a party is
5:39
Speaker 1: not a recognized standard for recusals. So that question, they
5:43
Speaker 1: asked me, I answered it, she'll she'll have to address
5:47
Speaker 1: that at the hearing, and I'm confident she'll be able to,
5:53
Speaker 1: you know, one thing I talked with her about. Also,
5:55
Speaker 1: there's a question for every judicial nominee about what do
6:01
Speaker 1: you say about precedent. So, for example, a question that
6:04
Speaker 1: gets asked if every judicial nominee was Brown versus Board
6:08
Speaker 1: of Education correctly decided Brown is the seminal case that
6:13
Speaker 1: overruled Plessy against Ferguson and that ruled that schools had
6:18
Speaker 1: to be desegregated, that we had to have integrated public schools.
6:21
Speaker 1: Plessy had was an abomination. It had ruled that separate
6:25
Speaker 1: but equal was acceptable under the equal Protection clause to
6:28
Speaker 1: the Constitution. And it's interesting if you look at particular
6:33
Speaker 1: Trump nominees, that question gets asked, if not to every nominee,
6:37
Speaker 1: just about every nominee, and some of them answer it,
6:40
Speaker 1: some of them don't. Those who answer it, so they're
6:47
Speaker 1: downsides to both if you don't answer, and I've seen
6:49
Speaker 1: some of the the judicial nominees say, well, I'm not going
6:52
Speaker 1: to share my thoughts on any pending case or any
6:55
Speaker 1: case that might come before the court. The problem is
6:58
Speaker 1: if you don't answer it, it lets the Democrats demagogue
7:00
Speaker 1: you don't even believe in Brown? What kind of crazy
7:03
Speaker 1: radical are you? And you can't say that you you
7:06
Speaker 1: don't want to comment on an issue that will come
7:08
Speaker 1: before the court, because Brown versus Bore dramatic Jason obviously
7:11
Speaker 1: already came before the court well, and the Brown question
7:16
Speaker 1: is really all a setup to get at if you
7:20
Speaker 1: answer it and say you agree with with with Brown,
7:24
Speaker 1: the next question where this is headed is all right,
7:27
Speaker 1: what about Row versus Wade? What about Heller versus District
7:29
Speaker 1: of Columbia? What about Citizens United? And it's the slippery
7:33
Speaker 1: slope that if you're willing to answer question about one case,
7:38
Speaker 1: as I said, judicial nominees have taken it both ways.
7:41
Speaker 1: They've refused to answer any or some have said, yes,
7:45
Speaker 1: Brown was rightly decided. Personally my view on it, It
7:49
Speaker 1: is the right way to answer to say, of course
7:50
Speaker 1: Brown was rightly decided. Nobody disputes that there's no likelihood
7:54
Speaker 1: of litigation on it. There is no active side before
7:58
Speaker 1: the court challenge that, And that is quite different from
8:04
Speaker 1: the other examples I gave where there is litigation every
8:08
Speaker 1: term that potentially touches on those issues. And so you know,
8:12
Speaker 1: the reporters afterwards all rushed up to me and they said, okay,
8:15
Speaker 1: did did she make any commitments? To you on how
8:18
Speaker 1: she would rule on anything, And I was like, well, no,
8:21
Speaker 1: of course, not that that would be inappropriate for me
8:23
Speaker 1: to ask, and it would be even more inappropriate for
8:26
Speaker 1: her to answer me. I wouldn't want to judge who
8:29
Speaker 1: would make a commitment. I'm going to rule X or
8:32
Speaker 1: Y way. Please give me your vote, and I promise
8:35
Speaker 1: you all rule this way. That's that's not how this
8:37
Speaker 1: is supposed to go. But you know what, that's how
8:39
Speaker 1: democrats approach it. I mean they are they treat the
8:43
Speaker 1: chord as an arm of politics. I'm looking for a
8:47
Speaker 1: justice who will follow the law and the Constitution. And
8:51
Speaker 1: I think what I was most impressed with sitting down
8:53
Speaker 1: with her was her calmness and demeanor. I mean, it's
8:58
Speaker 1: been you know, she had a pretty quiet life as
9:01
Speaker 1: a law professor and a pellet judge, and suddenly she's
9:05
Speaker 1: in the middle of this maelstrom. Where where this this
9:08
Speaker 1: political attack machine. I actually advised her, I said, look,
9:11
Speaker 1: they're trying to dig of everything they can to attack you.
9:15
Speaker 1: They're looking right now for someone who went to third
9:18
Speaker 1: grade with you that doesn't like you, and so just
9:21
Speaker 1: be aware and be ready, and just be calm and
9:24
Speaker 1: deal with whatever. Unfortunately, and I don't know if you remember,
9:30
Speaker 1: there was a guy, Anthony Lake who was nominated to
9:33
Speaker 1: a position under Bill Clinton, not a judicial position, but
9:36
Speaker 1: a position in the executive and he went through a
9:39
Speaker 1: really brutal confirmation and he described the confirmation process afterwards.
9:44
Speaker 1: He said it is nasty and brutish without being short,
9:50
Speaker 1: which is of course you will appreciate it as a
9:53
Speaker 1: classically educated man. That's a reference to Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
9:58
Speaker 1: who described Hobbes described the state of nature as nasty, brutish,
10:01
Speaker 1: and short without government stepping in to protect people's rights,
10:06
Speaker 1: and so that was he was making a pun on that. Well, Senator,
10:09
Speaker 1: I think that's excellent advice for the judge. I'm glad
10:13
Speaker 1: that you got to spend that much time with her.
10:15
Speaker 1: But you mentioned that there's something strange about this particular
10:19
Speaker 1: confirmation process because of COVID. Something else is strange too,
10:23
Speaker 1: which is that typically the judges meet with a whole
10:26
Speaker 1: lot of senators, ideally all of the senators before they
10:29
Speaker 1: go and testify. This time, there are a number of
10:33
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats who are refusing to meet with Judge Barrett
10:36
Speaker 1: because they're saying that she's an illegitimate nominee. Well, and
10:41
Speaker 1: it's it's really bizarre. I don't know if any precedent
10:43
Speaker 1: that that's happened. Quite a few Democrats have said they're
10:46
Speaker 1: not going to talk to her, they're not going to
10:47
Speaker 1: meet her. There've been a handful who are willing to
10:50
Speaker 1: meet with her. So I credit them with not making
10:53
Speaker 1: the entire process of farce. But it shows. Look the
11:00
Speaker 1: Democratic base a week ago, even before this vacancy, that
11:04
Speaker 1: they were enraged that they had they were furious. They
11:08
Speaker 1: hate Trump. Yeah, when this vacancy happens, you know, it's
11:13
Speaker 1: it's it's like, to quote the movie spinal Taps, suddenly
11:16
Speaker 1: it goes to eleven. Yeah, I mean it's it's they're
11:19
Speaker 1: out of their minds. And so I think Democrats are
11:21
Speaker 1: in a hard position because they don't really have any
11:24
Speaker 1: criticisms that are are sticking. They tried to paint her
11:27
Speaker 1: as sort of a kooky religious person. I mean, they
11:31
Speaker 1: were these stories saying that like she's the inspiration for
11:34
Speaker 1: the Handmaid's Tale. I don't know if you saw a
11:37
Speaker 1: senator the article that came out that said the group
11:40
Speaker 1: that Amy Barrett is a member of is the inspiration
11:43
Speaker 1: for the Handsmaid's Tale. And then you look at the
11:45
Speaker 1: bottom of the article and there's a correction and it says, oh,
11:47
Speaker 1: actually it was a different group, but the rest of
11:50
Speaker 1: the article is true. You say, well, that's the whole article.
11:54
Speaker 1: It's kind of a bizarre last I checked. Having a
11:59
Speaker 1: mom of seven who is a renowned law professor and
12:03
Speaker 1: federal judge it about to be Supreme Court justice, is
12:05
Speaker 1: not exactly a model for female subjugation. Like it's it's
12:10
Speaker 1: a bizarre narrative of Okay, I haven't seen the show,
12:16
Speaker 1: but that sure doesn't seem to be what it's about
12:18
Speaker 1: from what little I've seen I get, although judges do
12:22
Speaker 1: wear robes, so in that respect, it's entirely accurate. That's
12:25
Speaker 1: what they were talking about. You know, there was another
12:27
Speaker 1: attack lobbed against her by some other prominent leftists on
12:31
Speaker 1: Twitter and in other places, saying that there's no way
12:33
Speaker 1: that she could have been an attentive mother because she's
12:36
Speaker 1: had this wonderful career. And you say, gosh, I can't
12:38
Speaker 1: believe feminists are now telling women they can't have it all,
12:41
Speaker 1: you know, they can't work that Those attacks seem to
12:44
Speaker 1: have been really ill advised, the attacks on her family,
12:47
Speaker 1: the attacks on her religion. I know that Dick Durbin,
12:50
Speaker 1: who is the second most powerful Democrat in the Senate
12:53
Speaker 1: Senate Minority Whip, he went on George Stephanopolis's show just
12:56
Speaker 1: a few days ago and he said that the Senate
12:59
Speaker 1: Democrat can slow down the process, but they cannot stop
13:03
Speaker 1: the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett. Why is he coming
13:07
Speaker 1: out now and just more or less admitting defeat. I
13:09
Speaker 1: don't remember the Democrats doing that during the Kavanaugh hearings. Well.
13:14
Speaker 1: I think he sees a mismatch between what their base
13:16
Speaker 1: is demanding and what they can do. I believe we've
13:19
Speaker 1: got the votes. Barring some shocking revelation that no one's anticipating,
13:24
Speaker 1: I think we will have the votes to confirm Judge Barrett.
13:27
Speaker 1: And I think it'll happen by the end of the month.
13:29
Speaker 1: It'll happen before election day, which which I think is
13:31
Speaker 1: really important. Durban can count count noses. He can see
13:35
Speaker 1: that they don't have the votes. I think he's probably
13:38
Speaker 1: politically worried that if their base gets totally ginned up
13:41
Speaker 1: and demands you must stop this, they don't. If we
13:47
Speaker 1: hold onto the votes, there's not anything they can do
13:50
Speaker 1: to stop it, and so I think he's trying to
13:54
Speaker 1: calibrate expectations. Now that being said, I fully expect them
13:58
Speaker 1: to try and engage in a fishing expedition, and I
14:01
Speaker 1: think we'll see some procedural tools to try to delay it,
14:06
Speaker 1: to force unnecessary votes, but procedurally, and I'm spending a
14:11
Speaker 1: lot of time talking with with MITCHA. McConnell, the Majority leader,
14:14
Speaker 1: with the Senate lawyers, with my lawyers, to think through
14:17
Speaker 1: all the procedural tools they can they can try to
14:20
Speaker 1: do to delay this. But the long and short of
14:23
Speaker 1: it is, if the majority stays stays solid and committed
14:28
Speaker 1: to moving forward on this nomination, we will get it done.
14:32
Speaker 1: And I think we will well. Senator. I think one
14:34
Speaker 1: of the reasons that Dick Durban and the Democrats basically
14:37
Speaker 1: are throwing in the towel here and they want the
14:39
Speaker 1: confirmation process to be shorter is because the longer it
14:41
Speaker 1: drags on, the more copies of your new book that
14:44
Speaker 1: you're going to sell. One vote away. Obviously, we currently
14:47
Speaker 1: have eight justices on the Supreme Court. We have that
14:49
Speaker 1: one vacancy, so that one seat, that ninth seat could
14:52
Speaker 1: be the swing vote that could determine how cases go.
14:55
Speaker 1: And just coincidentally or providentially, you've got a book that
14:59
Speaker 1: has just come out on this topic. Yeah, well that's right.
15:02
Speaker 1: So this is Thursday, Tuesday afternoon that we're recording this.
15:05
Speaker 1: The debate's going to be tonight, so we're not going
15:07
Speaker 1: to talk about the debate on this podcast. It'll come
15:09
Speaker 1: out tomorrow, but we'll do a pod on the debate.
15:11
Speaker 1: So I imagine there'll be some fireworks this evening at
15:14
Speaker 1: the debate. But today Tuesday, the book came out, and
15:19
Speaker 1: here it is right now. It's actually we've been talking
15:21
Speaker 1: about it for a while, but it's it's out. It's
15:24
Speaker 1: we accelerated. It was actually due to come out next week,
15:27
Speaker 1: and given the nomination, given that this fight is front
15:29
Speaker 1: and center, we accelerated it to move it earlier. Now.
15:35
Speaker 1: As you know, I wrote this book this spring and
15:38
Speaker 1: summer during the COVID lockdown. I was working from home,
15:41
Speaker 1: and so I in my living room and sat down
15:43
Speaker 1: at the computer and wrote it. And it's designed to
15:46
Speaker 1: do really a deep dive into the Supreme Court into
15:50
Speaker 1: what's going on. Every chapter is on a different constitutional
15:53
Speaker 1: right and and to tell the inside story of what's
15:56
Speaker 1: happening at the Court. And obviously I didn't know we'd
16:01
Speaker 1: be in the middle of this fight right now. I
16:03
Speaker 1: anticipated the book coming out in the fall, going into
16:06
Speaker 1: the presidential election, because a huge issue in the election
16:10
Speaker 1: is the Supreme Court and what kind of nominees we're
16:13
Speaker 1: going to have. Well, this is actually the point, Senator
16:16
Speaker 1: that I want to hit on because it's it's the
16:19
Speaker 1: thing that was most striking to me about the book's release.
16:21
Speaker 1: You know, publishers always want to release books when they're
16:24
Speaker 1: going to sell the most copies. That's obvious, and it's
16:27
Speaker 1: so interesting to me that during a presidential election they
16:31
Speaker 1: slated a book about the Court. And this has been
16:34
Speaker 1: cropping up in every presidential election in my lifetime, but
16:37
Speaker 1: it seems increasingly so that the Court seems to become
16:41
Speaker 1: this central issue almost and often it is of the campaign.
16:47
Speaker 1: Obviously that's true this stump, but it was true in
16:49
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen as well. It was so it ended up
16:53
Speaker 1: being the single biggest reason that I voted for Donald Trump,
16:56
Speaker 1: and one of the things I talk about at in
17:00
Speaker 1: the introduction. So the first chapter of the book goes
17:03
Speaker 1: back through some of the details of twenty sixteen. And
17:06
Speaker 1: we had a rollercoaster presidential campaign, to put it mildly,
17:10
Speaker 1: And you know, Trump and I had a good relationship,
17:15
Speaker 1: and then we beat the living daylights out of each other.
17:17
Speaker 1: And my campaign won a bunch of states, but we
17:22
Speaker 1: didn't prevail. Trump prevailed, and I for the first time
17:25
Speaker 1: really tell the story about the convention in Cleveland, which
17:29
Speaker 1: you'll recall. The speech I gave there prompted booing and
17:35
Speaker 1: angry reactions because I didn't endorse Trump at the time.
17:40
Speaker 1: I actually the language I used in that speech was
17:44
Speaker 1: almost word for word the language Ronald Reagan used about
17:48
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford when Ford had just beaten him in the primary.
17:52
Speaker 1: And it was almost word for word the language that
17:54
Speaker 1: Ted Kennedy used about Jimmy Carter when Jimmy Carter had
17:58
Speaker 1: just beaten him in the primary. Neither one of them
18:00
Speaker 1: endorsed the person who had prevailed. Rather, they laid out
18:04
Speaker 1: a vision they wanted the candidate to follow, And I
18:08
Speaker 1: was really trying to lay out a vision for Trump.
18:10
Speaker 1: At the time, it was not clear to me and
18:13
Speaker 1: clear to many others, whether Trump would governors as a conservative,
18:17
Speaker 1: whether he would continue to campaign as a conservative, and
18:20
Speaker 1: so what I tried to do in the speech was
18:23
Speaker 1: to say, we should vote for candidates we can trust
18:26
Speaker 1: to defend freedom and defend the Constitution. And what I
18:30
Speaker 1: described in the first chapter of the book is much
18:36
Speaker 1: to my pleasant surprise, Trump continued campaigning as a conservative
18:40
Speaker 1: after he won the nomination. Many Republicans moved to the
18:44
Speaker 1: middle or the left after they win the nomination. Trump
18:46
Speaker 1: did not do that. And when I decided to endorse him,
18:50
Speaker 1: which was in September of twenty sixteen, the Supreme Court
18:54
Speaker 1: was front and center in terms of why. And so
18:57
Speaker 1: I negotiated with a Trump campaign and there was an
19:01
Speaker 1: explicit quit pro quo. There was an explicit exchange we
19:03
Speaker 1: had that that there were two conditions that I wanted.
19:07
Speaker 1: Number One, you remember Trump had put out a list
19:09
Speaker 1: of eleven potential judges in the heat of the campaign,
19:14
Speaker 1: but the list was not exclusive. So he said at
19:18
Speaker 1: the time, these eleven are the kinds of judges I
19:22
Speaker 1: will appoint or anybody else on planet Earth. Right, I
19:26
Speaker 1: elander as someone like so and somebody could be could
19:28
Speaker 1: be anybody else. And so I was very concerned about that.
19:32
Speaker 1: I wanted greater certainty the Scala of vacancy was front
19:36
Speaker 1: and center, and so so the conditions that I negotiated
19:39
Speaker 1: with a Trump team or that he put out an
19:41
Speaker 1: explicit list and bind himself to it, explicitly commit these
19:46
Speaker 1: names and only these names will be the pool that
19:48
Speaker 1: that that we will use, and also that he add
19:52
Speaker 1: centator Mike Lead to the list. I still think Mike
19:55
Speaker 1: Lee would be the best nominee. Had I won Mike
19:57
Speaker 1: Lee as who I would have nominated U and the
20:00
Speaker 1: Trump campaign agreed to both. So they put out a
20:02
Speaker 1: new list. It's when it went from eleven to twenty one.
20:04
Speaker 1: They added ten names. Mike Lee was one of them,
20:08
Speaker 1: and they put out in writing, these twenty one are
20:10
Speaker 1: the only people from whom Scalia's choice will come. They
20:15
Speaker 1: put it out and within minutes I endorse. So we
20:17
Speaker 1: coordinated those two announcements simultaneously. I think there was a
20:21
Speaker 1: lot of information and misinformation going around at the time.
20:25
Speaker 1: You were criticized because you did not come out and
20:29
Speaker 1: explicitly endorse at the convention. Yeah, and we were told
20:32
Speaker 1: you didn't endorse at the convention like Ronald Reagan endorsed
20:35
Speaker 1: Gerald Ford, and I guess in the popular imagination I thought,
20:39
Speaker 1: so I thought Reagan had endorsed Ford. Then you look
20:41
Speaker 1: through the stage and you say he didn't do it.
20:43
Speaker 1: And so at that time it was being covered as
20:47
Speaker 1: though this was a huge insult to Trump and it
20:49
Speaker 1: was totally breaking with precedent. But then what you're saying
20:51
Speaker 1: is behind the scenes, you're talking to the campaign and
20:55
Speaker 1: you're saying, look, I'm willing to endorse as long as
20:58
Speaker 1: you agree to certain political promises. Here about political meaning,
21:02
Speaker 1: you're going to govern as a conservative and all of it.
21:05
Speaker 1: I mean, this is probably the most interesting thing of all,
21:07
Speaker 1: all of it's about the court. The book begins the
21:11
Speaker 1: day Scalia died, which happened to be the day of
21:14
Speaker 1: the South Carolina presidential debate in twenty sixteen. So I
21:18
Speaker 1: was actually huddled in a conference room prepping for the
21:21
Speaker 1: debate and my body guy comes in and interrupts us
21:27
Speaker 1: and says, hey, hey, you heard about the thing, and
21:30
Speaker 1: we're like, what thing? And he goes the Scalia thing.
21:33
Speaker 1: What Scalia thing? Oh, no, it was, Oh he died,
21:37
Speaker 1: And we're just like what and what had happened? So
21:41
Speaker 1: Scalia was a hunting lodge in West Texas, and the
21:44
Speaker 1: sheriff's office found him dead in his bed, and so
21:48
Speaker 1: the West Texas sheriff had called me and had called
21:51
Speaker 1: John Cordon, So the two Texas Senators, we both got
21:53
Speaker 1: calls from the sheriff saying we just found Justice Scalia dead.
21:57
Speaker 1: So when I found out about it, it was a
21:59
Speaker 1: couple hours before the news broke, and so that totally
22:03
Speaker 1: our debate preparation all shifted over to what to do
22:07
Speaker 1: about the scully of vacancy. And I wrote a statement
22:10
Speaker 1: calling on the Senate to keep this seat open, not
22:15
Speaker 1: to consider a nominee, and let the voters decide. And
22:18
Speaker 1: the instant the news broke publicly, I didn't want to
22:20
Speaker 1: break the news, but once it was public, I put
22:22
Speaker 1: the statement out instantaneously, and you may remember shortly thereafter
22:27
Speaker 1: a number of other Republicans followed suit, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley,
22:32
Speaker 1: And one of the things I describe in the book
22:34
Speaker 1: is that Mitch McConnell's former chief of staff later told
22:38
Speaker 1: a New York Times reporter that one of the reasons
22:41
Speaker 1: Mitch jumped out early and said we're not going to
22:43
Speaker 1: take up this nominee is he knew at the debate
22:46
Speaker 1: that evening, I would call for keeping the seat open,
22:50
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to be seen as following my lead,
22:53
Speaker 1: so he so my view is, look, I don't care
22:55
Speaker 1: why you did it. If you did the right thing,
22:57
Speaker 1: great hallelujah. I will cheer you on and sing your praises,
23:00
Speaker 1: of course, but it's remarkable we held the conference together
23:03
Speaker 1: in sixteen, and filling that scalia vacancy then became for
23:09
Speaker 1: me the number one reason I voted for Trump over Hillary,
23:12
Speaker 1: and I think it's the reason I got elected. I
23:13
Speaker 1: think there are many many more Americans like me that
23:15
Speaker 1: that was the biggest, single reason to vote for him.
23:18
Speaker 1: It was an earth shattering moment when Justice Scalia died.
23:21
Speaker 1: I remember, I think it was on Valentine's Day, where
23:23
Speaker 1: it was near Valentine's Day and I was in February.
23:27
Speaker 1: It was in February, so sometimes we're in there. I
23:29
Speaker 1: just remember I was going to go out to a
23:31
Speaker 1: romantic dinner with my wife, and right before we went out,
23:34
Speaker 1: I got the news, and it really put the kabbash
23:37
Speaker 1: on the romantic flavor of the evening because it occurred
23:42
Speaker 1: to me this was the most significant thing that could
23:45
Speaker 1: happen in that presidential race. And I also had absolutely
23:51
Speaker 1: no faith that the Senate was going to be able
23:53
Speaker 1: to hold that seat open. Very interesting here behind the scenes,
23:56
Speaker 1: what was going on. And it's almost eerie that a
24:00
Speaker 1: similar situation, obviously with a justice from the other side
24:03
Speaker 1: of the political spectrum, but that a totally analogous situation
24:08
Speaker 1: is happening again this time around. It's really the stakes
24:12
Speaker 1: of the election. And I will say on this book,
24:15
Speaker 1: you know, I put a lot of time into this book,
24:18
Speaker 1: and it really tries to tell what's going on. You
24:22
Speaker 1: not to be a lawyer to enjoy this book. I
24:24
Speaker 1: wrote it actually in the same spirit as we do
24:27
Speaker 1: the Verdict podcast, trying to assess complicated issues, issues that matter,
24:32
Speaker 1: but trying to explain them, giving the inside insight. And
24:36
Speaker 1: and and so let me just say that to everyone
24:39
Speaker 1: who who has so regularly listened to this podcast, downloaded
24:42
Speaker 1: this podcast, I want to ask you to please go
24:46
Speaker 1: go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Noble, go anywhere
24:48
Speaker 1: you get books, but but buy a copy of this book.
24:52
Speaker 1: It is it's significant. The information in this book I
24:58
Speaker 1: think will be really helpful to you as you're talking
25:01
Speaker 1: to your friends right now about this nomination, about the
25:05
Speaker 1: fight over Judge Barrett, about the fight at the Supreme Court,
25:09
Speaker 1: about the election in twenty twenty. I think the book
25:14
Speaker 1: will argue you with information that most people don't know.
25:18
Speaker 1: Most people don't realize just how broad the implications are
25:23
Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court and the presidential election, and so
25:25
Speaker 1: I think this book will be a really helpful tool
25:29
Speaker 1: and it will be really beneficial. Well, Senator, I intend
25:32
Speaker 1: no flattery here. This is totally unprompted, but I am
25:36
Speaker 1: reading the book right now and I'm really enjoying it.
25:38
Speaker 1: I recommend people buy it, mostly because it's a real book.
25:43
Speaker 1: It's an actual book that gives you information. And I
25:46
Speaker 1: hate to criticize, you know, some of your colleagues and
25:48
Speaker 1: other politicians, but usually politician books or something to the
25:52
Speaker 1: effect of the Courage to be American, the dreams and
25:56
Speaker 1: hopes of saluting American and America, and it's just like
26:00
Speaker 1: they're not that great, and this one is really great
26:02
Speaker 1: because you're you're focusing on pivotal cases that it really
26:06
Speaker 1: changed the course of history. And coincidentally, there cases that
26:09
Speaker 1: you have a personal insight into. So just totally unsolicited plug,
26:13
Speaker 1: I'm really enjoying it. And by the way, if you
26:15
Speaker 1: get a chance to go on Amazon and put a
26:17
Speaker 1: positive review. We've got some lefties going on right now
26:20
Speaker 1: that are that are blasting it, which is you know
26:23
Speaker 1: what they do. But it would be nice to read
26:25
Speaker 1: the book first and then put a positive review. But
26:27
Speaker 1: that would be helpful if if if you like it,
26:29
Speaker 1: that's right. I swiped a copy, obviously from the Verdict studio.
26:32
Speaker 1: I swiped the single copy. But now that I'm reading
26:34
Speaker 1: it and I know it's a good book, I would
26:37
Speaker 1: pay for it. You know, I'm a physical conservative, so
26:39
Speaker 1: I would swipe it, but I would I would pay
26:41
Speaker 1: for it and encourage all the other other people who
26:43
Speaker 1: are listening right now. I encourage you to read it
26:45
Speaker 1: as well. We've got to get to a little bit
26:46
Speaker 1: of nailbag. Speaking of those people who are listening right now,
26:49
Speaker 1: we have some excellent questions this week. First one is
26:52
Speaker 1: from John. Do you think the Supreme Court hearings will
26:56
Speaker 1: help Trump selectual chances like the Kavanaugh hearings did, or
26:59
Speaker 1: do you think it could backfire and help the Democrats.
27:05
Speaker 1: I think it will help Trump significantly. I think it
27:08
Speaker 1: will energize both sidespaces so the left is even more
27:12
Speaker 1: ticked off than they were before. But to be honest,
27:14
Speaker 1: they were already so mad that the left is showing
27:17
Speaker 1: up they hate Trump. They're going to show up even angrier.
27:20
Speaker 1: But I don't think it moves the needle substantially on
27:23
Speaker 1: the left because they were already maxed out. On the right.
27:27
Speaker 1: I think it energizes, just like the Kavanaugh hearings did.
27:30
Speaker 1: I think it energizes conservatives. It energizes people who care
27:33
Speaker 1: about the Constitution. I also think the Democrats are going
27:36
Speaker 1: to overplay their hands. I think they're going to be jerks.
27:39
Speaker 1: I think they're going to unfortunately mistreat Judge Barrett, and
27:43
Speaker 1: I think that has a real risk of backfiring to them.
27:46
Speaker 1: I think their base is demanding of the Democrats that
27:49
Speaker 1: they behave in a way that frankly, is not a
27:52
Speaker 1: great way to behave just just days or weeks before
27:55
Speaker 1: an election. Yeah, I think that's right. I think the
27:58
Speaker 1: smarter Democrats, the ones with the cool our heads, are saying, guys,
28:01
Speaker 1: cut it out with the attacks on the religion and
28:03
Speaker 1: the family. But unfortunately, unfortunately for them, I guess fortunately
28:07
Speaker 1: for Republicans, they haven't been resisting it. Very much. Next question,
28:11
Speaker 1: I kid you not. This is the Twitter user name
28:13
Speaker 1: comes from verdict Sir Noels Cbe. I guess that's Commander
28:18
Speaker 1: of the British Empire. Not my account, that's not my
28:21
Speaker 1: pier Delecto account, but it is someone who I imagine
28:24
Speaker 1: listens to the show asks hypothetically, what would happen if
28:28
Speaker 1: we inaugurated the winner of the election and then we
28:31
Speaker 1: found mail in ballots that would have made the other
28:34
Speaker 1: person win instead? This person's probably alluding to Recently there
28:37
Speaker 1: have been stories of boxes of ballots being found in
28:41
Speaker 1: ditches or mislabeled in other rooms. What happens if we
28:45
Speaker 1: a few months after the election find out that the
28:46
Speaker 1: wrong guy won. So at some point the election is
28:51
Speaker 1: final and you can undo it. And once the electors
28:55
Speaker 1: have cast their ballots, if there's uncertainty under the constitution,
28:59
Speaker 1: it goes to the House and Senate. How selects the president.
29:01
Speaker 1: The Senate selects the vice president. Once you have inauguration,
29:05
Speaker 1: Once you have the president sworn in and the vice
29:07
Speaker 1: president sworn in. If we've never seen the election challenged
29:12
Speaker 1: after the facts, so we would truly be in uncharted territory.
29:17
Speaker 1: We've seen disputed elections that have gone up to inauguration
29:22
Speaker 1: day but not afterwards. Look, the remedy at that point
29:28
Speaker 1: could conceivably be impeachment, although even impeachment doesn't allow a
29:31
Speaker 1: mechanism for putting the other party in and so at
29:36
Speaker 1: some point there is finality and a decision, even if
29:41
Speaker 1: after the fact someone raises another charge. That being said,
29:44
Speaker 1: we could get into some of this chaos this election.
29:46
Speaker 1: I'm really worried we will have an extended period of
29:51
Speaker 1: litigation and uncertainty after election day. Next question on that
29:57
Speaker 1: happy note, the constitutional crisis we're moving into. This is
30:01
Speaker 1: from sl This is totally off topic from what we've
30:04
Speaker 1: been talking about, but I think a lot of people
30:06
Speaker 1: are curious about it. Can someone please explain the New
30:09
Speaker 1: York Times Trump taxpiece to an elementary school aged child,
30:13
Speaker 1: because apparently it's too complicated for seemingly educated adults to understand.
30:18
Speaker 1: Do you have a sort of top level take on
30:20
Speaker 1: this of what it's all supposed to mean or if
30:21
Speaker 1: we're all supposed to care. So it's actually hard to
30:26
Speaker 1: know the facts because of what the New York Times
30:28
Speaker 1: has done. Yeah, they allege they have as tax returns,
30:32
Speaker 1: but they haven't actually released the underlying documents, so we
30:34
Speaker 1: don't know what the tax returns say. All we have
30:38
Speaker 1: is what The New York Times characterizes them as saying.
30:42
Speaker 1: I don't think it's crazy to say that The Times
30:45
Speaker 1: is not an impartial arbiter. Diplomatically put, they're not neutral
30:51
Speaker 1: on what they think about Trump. We do know that
30:54
Speaker 1: whoever gave them to The Times likely committed a crime,
30:58
Speaker 1: likely committed a federal crime of giving without authorization someone
31:02
Speaker 1: else's tax returns. But so the sort of headline news
31:08
Speaker 1: of Trump only paid seven hundred and fifty dollars taxes
31:11
Speaker 1: in I guess twenty sixteen or seventeen. It's difficult to
31:16
Speaker 1: tell without knowing the rest of the tax returns. I mean,
31:19
Speaker 1: you often have big sophisticated business people that if you
31:24
Speaker 1: have losses, you can carry losses over to another year.
31:26
Speaker 1: If you're in the real estate business, you're taking depreciation.
31:30
Speaker 1: You know, Amazon has years when it didn't pay any
31:33
Speaker 1: taxes at all. That are you know, multi billion dollar corporations.
31:37
Speaker 1: You know. I actually went yesterday on The View and
31:39
Speaker 1: the View, by the way, pretty surreal place to to
31:42
Speaker 1: to find a conservative Republican, But they were truly foaming
31:47
Speaker 1: at the mouth over the tax issue, and I said, listen,
31:52
Speaker 1: it's it's actually unfortunately a feature of our tax code
31:58
Speaker 1: that that people who are very, very wealthy time has
32:00
Speaker 1: managed to pay very little in taxes through using legal
32:03
Speaker 1: mechanisms to reduce their tax exposure. And it's why I'm
32:07
Speaker 1: such a big proponent of a flat tax. A simple
32:09
Speaker 1: flat tax where everyone pays ten percent, doesn't matter if
32:12
Speaker 1: you're rich or poor, who you are, it's even in
32:14
Speaker 1: fair and simple. And so I sort of laughed and said,
32:16
Speaker 1: I guess suddenly the New York Times is in favor
32:19
Speaker 1: of a flat tax. So that's that's great progress, because
32:23
Speaker 1: you know, there are a whole lot of rich people
32:25
Speaker 1: that pay a much lower percentage taxes than you or I.
32:30
Speaker 1: Do you know a senator in a year of wonders
32:32
Speaker 1: and all the craziness and the lockdowns, I think the
32:35
Speaker 1: New York Times endorsing the flat tax. I think that's
32:37
Speaker 1: the biggest one final question before I let you go
32:40
Speaker 1: from Sandman, why is the Senate waiting until October twelfth
32:44
Speaker 1: to bring about the ACB hearings? Why not just do
32:48
Speaker 1: it this week when you know the Democrats will stop
32:50
Speaker 1: at nothing to delay, delay, delay, You know, that's a
32:54
Speaker 1: fair question, and that was ultimately a decision for Lindsey Graham,
32:57
Speaker 1: the chairman of the committee. And the reasoning he laid
33:00
Speaker 1: out to us is that historically hearings of commenced typically
33:05
Speaker 1: ten days to two weeks after the announcement, sometimes later.
33:08
Speaker 1: But what he wanted to do is as much as possible,
33:12
Speaker 1: follow the precedent so that the Democrats are going to
33:15
Speaker 1: scream everything's unfair anyway. But I think what he was
33:19
Speaker 1: trying to do is follow the historical precedent so that
33:22
Speaker 1: so that it could be rightly said that a full,
33:25
Speaker 1: unfair process has been given here, a thorough examination is occurring,
33:31
Speaker 1: and so and I think that's reasonable. What well we
33:34
Speaker 1: talked about it. We had the Senate Judiciary Committee members
33:37
Speaker 1: meet privately, I guess last week talking about the expected
33:41
Speaker 1: timing and the concern I raised. I raised one concern.
33:45
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I'm fine with it if if we
33:48
Speaker 1: start on the twelfth, if if if we are absolutely
33:52
Speaker 1: certain we can get the nomination completed before election day,
33:56
Speaker 1: because the Democrats whole strategy is delayed after election day
34:00
Speaker 1: and then have the chaos end up killing the nomination,
34:04
Speaker 1: and so I press the lawyers pretty hard. For example,
34:08
Speaker 1: one of the things that that Pelosi and the Democrats
34:10
Speaker 1: are talking about doing is impeaching the president again, and
34:16
Speaker 1: it would be a total abuse of powers. As you know,
34:18
Speaker 1: as Verdict started by discussing at great length the test
34:22
Speaker 1: for impeachment. The standard for impeachment is high crimes or misdemeanors. Well,
34:28
Speaker 1: it ain't complicated that nominating a Supreme Court justice is
34:31
Speaker 1: not a high crime or misdemeanor. But it's possible that
34:36
Speaker 1: we'll see congressional Democrats try to use impeachment as a
34:40
Speaker 1: tool for delay. If they do that, the advice we've
34:44
Speaker 1: gotten from the Senate parliamentary experts is that the majority
34:47
Speaker 1: that we can set that aside, that it won't delay
34:51
Speaker 1: the confirmation. That if they want to, they can force
34:55
Speaker 1: us to sit on the floor and cast a number
34:57
Speaker 1: of votes. I mean, so they can waste a little
34:59
Speaker 1: bit of time, but they don't have the ability. And
35:03
Speaker 1: so given that that we can get it done before
35:06
Speaker 1: election day, I think it was reasonable to say will
35:09
Speaker 1: follow a comparable period of time as has been done before.
35:13
Speaker 1: Of course, it doesn't matter if the confirmation is on
35:16
Speaker 1: November two. For that matter, it could be on the
35:18
Speaker 1: morning of November third, as long as it just happens
35:21
Speaker 1: before the election. That has me feeling pretty good. I
35:24
Speaker 1: have to tell you. Usually we end these shows i'm
35:26
Speaker 1: kind of a down note. Things haven't been going that
35:28
Speaker 1: great necessarily in the country, but there is a little
35:31
Speaker 1: ray of hope. And of course we'll have the debate tonight,
35:34
Speaker 1: so I'll have lots more to talk about tomorrow. And
35:36
Speaker 1: until then, Senator I will be reading more of your
35:40
Speaker 1: book One Vote Away. I'm Michael Knowles. This is Verdict
35:43
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz
35:58
Speaker 1: is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
36:01
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
36:06
Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
36:10
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
36:13
Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.