Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Mmm, Ted Cruz

Transcript

Mmm, Ted Cruz · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Tweeting while on a family vacation. This week, Ted Cruz
0:03
Speaker 1: slammed his critics, claiming that those who hate on him
0:06
Speaker 1: are just sexually frustrated and unable to resist is raw
0:11
Speaker 1: sex appeal a. Cruz said that Democrats who are fixated
0:14
Speaker 1: on criticizing him all the time are obviously motivated by
0:17
Speaker 1: their quote deranged sexual frustrations. They are drawn to him,
0:23
Speaker 1: an alpha male whose powerful presence and distinct scent of
0:27
Speaker 1: a dusty Texas sunrise in September cause his haters to
0:31
Speaker 1: lash out in their unfulfilled desire. Ted Cruz, this is
0:39
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. Today's episode of Verdict with Ted
0:49
Speaker 1: Cruze is sponsored by American Hartford Gold. I'm sure I'm
0:52
Speaker 1: not the only one who's noticed everything is getting expensive.
0:55
Speaker 1: We are in the biggest economic crisis since two thousand
0:58
Speaker 1: and eight, with a government that's print trillions and trillions
1:01
Speaker 1: of dollars. Consumer prices are the highest we've seen in
1:03
Speaker 1: thirty years. Inflation is certainly here to stay, and if
1:07
Speaker 1: the government continues it's out of control printing and spending,
1:10
Speaker 1: the dollar could continue its free fall and lose its
1:12
Speaker 1: coveted role as the world reserve currency. So how do
1:16
Speaker 1: you protect your money, your retirement, your savings. Well, American
1:19
Speaker 1: Hartford Gold can show you how to head your heart
1:21
Speaker 1: earned savings against inflation by helping you diversify a portion
1:25
Speaker 1: of your portfolio into physical gold and silver. They'll even
1:28
Speaker 1: help move your existing IRA or four oh one K
1:31
Speaker 1: out of the volatile stock market into a precious metals
1:33
Speaker 1: IRA and they make it easy. They are the highest
1:36
Speaker 1: rated firm in the country, with an A plus rating
1:38
Speaker 1: from the Better Business Bureau and thousands of satisfied clients.
1:41
Speaker 1: And if you call them right now, they will give
1:43
Speaker 1: you up to fifteen hundred dollars of free silver on
1:46
Speaker 1: your first qualifying order. So don't wait, call them now.
1:49
Speaker 1: Call eight five five seven to six eight one eight
1:52
Speaker 1: eight three. That's eight five five seven six eight one
1:56
Speaker 1: eight eight three, or text Cactus to six five five
1:59
Speaker 1: three two Again that's eight five five seven six eight
2:03
Speaker 1: one eight eight three or text Cactus to six by
2:06
Speaker 1: five three two. Today's episode is also brought to you
2:10
Speaker 1: by stamps dot com. If you've got a small business,
2:13
Speaker 1: you know that there's nothing more valuable than your time,
2:15
Speaker 1: so stop wasting it on trips to the post office.
2:18
Speaker 1: Stamps dot Com makes it easy to mail and ship
2:20
Speaker 1: right from your computer. Save time and money with stamps
2:23
Speaker 1: dot Com. Send letters and packages for less with discounted
2:26
Speaker 1: rates from USPS, UPS and more. Since nineteen ninety eight,
2:30
Speaker 1: stamps dot Com has been an indispensable tool for nearly
2:33
Speaker 1: one million businesses. Stamps dot Com brings the services of
2:37
Speaker 1: the US Postal Service and UPS shipping right to your computer.
2:40
Speaker 1: Stamps dot Com will make your life easier. All you
2:43
Speaker 1: need is a computer and a standard printer, no special
2:45
Speaker 1: supplies or equipment. Within minutes, you're up and running printing
2:48
Speaker 1: official postage for any letter, any package anywhere you want
2:52
Speaker 1: to send, and you'll get excloosive discounts on postage and
2:55
Speaker 1: shipping from USPS and UPS. Once your mail is ready,
2:59
Speaker 1: you just schedule a pick up or drop it off.
3:01
Speaker 1: No traffic, no lines, so cut the confusion out of shipping.
3:04
Speaker 1: With stamps dot COM's new Rate Advisor tool, you can
3:07
Speaker 1: also compare shipping rates and timelines to easily find the
3:10
Speaker 1: best option. So save time and money with stamps dot Com.
3:12
Speaker 1: There's no risk and with our promo code Verdict, you
3:16
Speaker 1: get a special offer that includes a four week trial
3:18
Speaker 1: plus free postage and a digital scale. No long term
3:20
Speaker 1: commitments or contracts. Just go to stamps dot com, click
3:23
Speaker 1: on the microphone at the top of the homepage and
3:25
Speaker 1: type in verdict Welcome back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz.
3:29
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles. I'm just seeing now that that article
3:33
Speaker 1: was published by the Babylon b though I don't see
3:37
Speaker 1: what about it would be funny in any way that
3:40
Speaker 1: we now know from AOC among other people, that all
3:44
Speaker 1: political criticism is merely grounded in sexual frustration. So Senator,
3:49
Speaker 1: I think you would be perfectly justified in making those claims.
3:52
Speaker 1: You know. I gotta say, Michael, this has gone a
3:55
Speaker 1: little bit viral online, and I'm both puzzled and and
4:00
Speaker 1: I guess slightly offended that that people are finding it
4:03
Speaker 1: so amusing. I'm not really appreciating the comedy aspect to it. Um,
4:09
Speaker 1: you know, the reference to what is at the musk
4:13
Speaker 1: of a Texas sunset? I mean, I mean I thought
4:15
Speaker 1: that was required to get elected in the great state
4:18
Speaker 1: of Texas. And listen, I, for one, find AOC's reasoning compelling.
4:24
Speaker 1: She said, everyone who criticized her just wants to date her,
4:27
Speaker 1: and that's obviously the case, and and and I guess
4:32
Speaker 1: you know what's what's what's good for the goose is
4:34
Speaker 1: good for the gander. And so all of the MSNBC
4:38
Speaker 1: hosts and CNN hosts and Democrats who foam at the
4:40
Speaker 1: mouth are just you know, hot for teacher and and
4:44
Speaker 1: and you know they all want to be on this podcast.
4:46
Speaker 1: I guess that's what's going on. Liz is the only
4:49
Speaker 1: person with two X chromosomes on this show right now.
4:52
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about the cactus. Can you attest to
4:54
Speaker 1: the verity of what AOC has to say? Um, listen,
4:58
Speaker 1: is it? It's Oh, this is hilarious by the way,
5:01
Speaker 1: that Babylon Bee article is just it's hysterical. I actually
5:04
Speaker 1: texted Seth to see who wrote that particular line that
5:08
Speaker 1: just laid me the m Ted cruise line, Because Senator,
5:11
Speaker 1: with all due respect, this is the most hilarious thing
5:13
Speaker 1: that's ever been written about you. And I'm, like I said,
5:16
Speaker 1: I mean that with all respect, but it's actually more believable.
5:19
Speaker 1: The AOC thing is more believable if it actually were satire.
5:23
Speaker 1: It is hard to comprehend that a sitting member of
5:26
Speaker 1: US Congress made a comment about critics of her policies
5:30
Speaker 1: and said, well, you just have a crush on me,
5:31
Speaker 1: you just want to date me? Like, are we grown
5:33
Speaker 1: ups or we adults? Are we really politicians who believe this?
5:37
Speaker 1: It's it's unbelievable. Well, in honor of all the frustrated
5:41
Speaker 1: and angry lived this year, I'm pleased to announce that
5:45
Speaker 1: Verdict will be coming out with a swimsuit calendar, and
5:49
Speaker 1: it's just to to help relieve their tension. Yeah, well,
5:52
Speaker 1: I know, I know. We will be having some mail
5:55
Speaker 1: back questions coming later on. I assume most of them
5:57
Speaker 1: will be kind and polite, might be critical, and so
6:01
Speaker 1: I look forward to channeling all of those frustrations as
6:05
Speaker 1: sexual or otherwise. Absolutely, and anybody who wants to ask
6:08
Speaker 1: a question, we have some great questions today. This might
6:10
Speaker 1: be the best questions yet. Anybody who wants to ask
6:12
Speaker 1: a question of Senator Cruz, Michael Knowles, or me can
6:15
Speaker 1: do so on the Verdict plus community. That's Verdict with
6:18
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz dot com slash plus. Just head on over there.
6:21
Speaker 1: I have a post that says, you know the drill,
6:23
Speaker 1: ask the question and it will hopefully be answered on
6:26
Speaker 1: the episode. And we will get to that shortly wonderful.
6:28
Speaker 1: All right, we'll see you very soon, Liz Senator. I
6:32
Speaker 1: think when a lot of people were listening to AOC's
6:36
Speaker 1: reasoning here, they thought that she sounds a little bit desperate.
6:39
Speaker 1: The lady doth protests too much, methinks. And I can't
6:42
Speaker 1: help but notice that twenty four of AOC's Democrat colleagues
6:47
Speaker 1: in the House are not running for reelection, this compared
6:50
Speaker 1: with only eleven House Republicans who are not running for reelection.
6:54
Speaker 1: Are the Democrats afraid of facing an electoral tsunami in
6:58
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. Look, I think they're absolutely afraid of it.
7:02
Speaker 1: I would say virtually everyone in Congress expects that the
7:05
Speaker 1: election in November is going to be a red wave.
7:09
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be on the order of
7:10
Speaker 1: magnitude of two and ten. I think it's going to
7:12
Speaker 1: be on the order of magnitude of nineteen ninety four.
7:17
Speaker 1: That in both instances you had a Democrat president who
7:20
Speaker 1: feared too far to the left, and the American people
7:23
Speaker 1: said hold on a second, and we saw huge Republican
7:25
Speaker 1: majorities come in. I think we're headed the same direction
7:28
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. Now, if the Republicans retake the House,
7:32
Speaker 1: there is the prospect of impeachment. And actually this show,
7:36
Speaker 1: the Verdicts podcast, made news and possibly made history this
7:40
Speaker 1: past week because the White House had to respond to
7:45
Speaker 1: something that you said on this podcast. I think it
7:48
Speaker 1: may be the first time the White House has responded
7:50
Speaker 1: to a podcast because on our last episode you said
7:55
Speaker 1: that if the Republicans retake the houses, it looks like
7:58
Speaker 1: they will, they very well might impeach Joe Biden. Does
8:01
Speaker 1: the White House have a reaction to Senator Cruz saying
8:05
Speaker 1: President Biden may be impeached if the Republicans state got
8:09
Speaker 1: the House next year, specifically for the border policies, Well,
8:13
Speaker 1: our reaction is maybe Senator Crews can work with us
8:15
Speaker 1: on getting something done on comprehensive immigration reform and putting
8:19
Speaker 1: in place measures that will help make sure smart security
8:23
Speaker 1: is what we see at the border, taking a more
8:26
Speaker 1: humane approach to the border instead of name calling, accusation calling,
8:30
Speaker 1: and making predictions of the future. Go ahead, Thank you, Jack.
8:34
Speaker 1: Not much of an answer if you ask me, Well,
8:37
Speaker 1: you know, it's striking on several things. One, you know,
8:40
Speaker 1: she accuses us of name calling. At last I check,
8:42
Speaker 1: we did engage in any name calling, which just just
8:44
Speaker 1: observed the reality that if there's a Republican majority of
8:48
Speaker 1: the House, which I think is extremely likely, that there
8:51
Speaker 1: will be very significant pressure and a very significant likelihood
8:55
Speaker 1: that we will see impeachment proceedings. And you know, it
8:58
Speaker 1: was interesting when she talked about out the border, she says, well,
9:01
Speaker 1: we need quote smart security and talk about a euphemism.
9:05
Speaker 1: You know, we had two million people cross illegally last year.
9:08
Speaker 1: We had the highest rate of illegal immigration in sixty
9:12
Speaker 1: one year. She says, she wants a more humane policy.
9:15
Speaker 1: How about start with not having children physically and sexually
9:19
Speaker 1: assaulted by human traffickers. How about start by not having
9:24
Speaker 1: women physically and sexually assaulted by human traffickers. How about
9:29
Speaker 1: start by not having the highest amount of fentanol and
9:33
Speaker 1: illegal drugs trafficked in this country that we've ever seen
9:36
Speaker 1: in the history of this country. What they're doing, it
9:39
Speaker 1: ain't humane. And you want to work together on this, fine,
9:41
Speaker 1: let me give you a place to start. Enforce the
9:44
Speaker 1: damn laws. Of course, of course, enforce the laws. They
9:47
Speaker 1: have no interest in doing that. This is not just
9:49
Speaker 1: some cheap political shot. They have said they have no
9:52
Speaker 1: interest in doing that. They've reversed a lot of the
9:54
Speaker 1: border security measures. So on this question of impeachment, is
9:59
Speaker 1: this just a purely political partisan threat that now whenever
10:04
Speaker 1: the other party holds the Congress, they're going to impeach
10:07
Speaker 1: the president, or is there some constitutional legal basis for
10:11
Speaker 1: impeaching Joe Biden. Oh, look, a little bit of both.
10:14
Speaker 1: What we said in the last episode of Verdict is
10:18
Speaker 1: that one of the consequences of the Democrats in the
10:21
Speaker 1: last Congress so politicizing impeachment, impeaching Donald Trump not once
10:25
Speaker 1: but twice because they disagreed with him, because they hated
10:29
Speaker 1: his policies and they hated his politics even more. Verdict
10:33
Speaker 1: was launched on the first day of the first impeachment trial,
10:36
Speaker 1: and you and I said during that first trial over
10:39
Speaker 1: and over again when we were down in the basement
10:42
Speaker 1: at one in the morning, that if they make this political,
10:45
Speaker 1: if they go after Donald Trump because they hate him,
10:49
Speaker 1: that the inevitable consequence of what the Democrats are doing
10:52
Speaker 1: abusing the constitutional process of impeachment is the next time
10:57
Speaker 1: you get a Democratic president, the next time you get
10:59
Speaker 1: a Republican House, it's going to be almost inevitable that
11:03
Speaker 1: they're they're going to be forced to impeach him as well.
11:05
Speaker 1: That's not how the Constitution was meant to work. But
11:10
Speaker 1: the Democrats made the decision. Damn the torpedoes. They didn't
11:13
Speaker 1: care about the consequences. And you and I said at
11:18
Speaker 1: the time, this is a dangerous road to go down.
11:20
Speaker 1: You shouldn't use impeachment to express political disagreements, but the
11:24
Speaker 1: Democrats did so twice in a partisan charade. We get
11:30
Speaker 1: to January twenty three with a Republican House. I think
11:34
Speaker 1: the political pressure to do the same thing, just apply
11:37
Speaker 1: the same standard to Joe Biden that the Democrats applied
11:40
Speaker 1: to Donald Trump will be enormous. Now, it's interesting, Michael.
11:44
Speaker 1: After the podcast came out last week, the Twitter verse
11:50
Speaker 1: went nuts, MSNBC went nuts. Left wing journalists went nuts.
11:56
Speaker 1: They said, oh my gosh, this is terrible. This is terrible.
11:58
Speaker 1: And what you and I said when we talked about
12:00
Speaker 1: this last week is I said, they're multiple grounds on
12:05
Speaker 1: which the House could impeach Joe Biden. And it was funny.
12:09
Speaker 1: One of the MSNBC host came back and said, there
12:12
Speaker 1: are not multiple grounds. I thought it was amusing that
12:16
Speaker 1: apparently it wasn't disputing there were grounds, just not multiple grounds,
12:19
Speaker 1: and since none of these people actually do reporting or journalism,
12:24
Speaker 1: we can walk through a few of them and actually
12:26
Speaker 1: discuss them. The one I mentioned in the last podcast,
12:28
Speaker 1: the strongest ground is immigration is the president's utter failure
12:34
Speaker 1: and refusal to enforce the immigration laws and to create
12:40
Speaker 1: absolute chaos. And it's not just it's not just doing
12:45
Speaker 1: a bad job, it's utterly defying the law. And Article
12:49
Speaker 1: two of the Constitution gives the president a responsibility to
12:54
Speaker 1: quote take care that the laws are faithfully executed, and
12:58
Speaker 1: Joe Biden has decided he's not going to do that.
13:00
Speaker 1: Because during the first impeachment trial, when we launched Verdict,
13:05
Speaker 1: one of the arguments that the Trump team was making
13:09
Speaker 1: was that maladministration is not a grounds for impeachment. As
13:12
Speaker 1: you say, just doing a bad job is not grounds
13:15
Speaker 1: for impeachment. But you're saying there's a difference here between
13:17
Speaker 1: doing a bad job at enforcing the laws and flagrantly,
13:21
Speaker 1: intentionally consistently refusing to enforce the law. Well, that's right,
13:25
Speaker 1: and this touches on debates if you go back to
13:27
Speaker 1: early episodes of Verdict, we got into in great detail,
13:30
Speaker 1: which is what does high crimes or misdemeanors. Mean the
13:33
Speaker 1: constitutional standard for impeachment, impeaching the president is that he
13:37
Speaker 1: has to be guilty of high crimes or misdemeanors. And
13:40
Speaker 1: there was a robust debate about whether high crimes or
13:43
Speaker 1: misdemeanors constitute federal crimes, crimes that are on the books.
13:48
Speaker 1: And one of the ironies is that all the positions
13:51
Speaker 1: are switched. So when it was Donald Trump, all the
13:54
Speaker 1: Democrats says, no, no no, no, doesn't need to be a
13:56
Speaker 1: criminal defense doesn't need be a crime at all. Ukraine
13:58
Speaker 1: just just because we don't like what in Ukraine. Ukraine bad,
14:01
Speaker 1: so so impeach the guy. And we pointed out I
14:05
Speaker 1: think the better argument is that it should be a
14:08
Speaker 1: criminal offense. There's a dispute, and I would note, you
14:12
Speaker 1: know Justice Joseph's Story, who is one of the great
14:15
Speaker 1: early Supreme Court justices. He talked about this and Justice
14:19
Speaker 1: Story said, quote, our fathers adopted a constitution under which
14:25
Speaker 1: official mouthfeasance and nonfeasance, and in some cases cases misfeasance
14:33
Speaker 1: may be the subject of impeachment. That's an argument. It's
14:37
Speaker 1: an argument that the Democrats and they're going after Trump,
14:39
Speaker 1: could rely on. In the case of the border, it's nonfeasance.
14:45
Speaker 1: It's utterly refusing to follow the law. So that's one ground,
14:48
Speaker 1: but there are at least two other grounds, and they're
14:50
Speaker 1: probably more. The two other grounds on which a Republican
14:55
Speaker 1: House could consider impeachment are the utter and colossal disaster
15:00
Speaker 1: of the Afghanistan withdraw the president abandoning Americans behind enemy lines,
15:06
Speaker 1: the president sharing intelligence with the Taliban, the president abandoning
15:12
Speaker 1: Bogram releasing including as a result of Biden's abandoning Bogram
15:17
Speaker 1: releasing the terrorist who became a suicide bomber murdering thirteen
15:22
Speaker 1: American servicemen and women. That could easily be considered mouthfeasance
15:27
Speaker 1: and a ground of impeachment. And a third potential ground
15:31
Speaker 1: of impeachment is the president's lawless vaccine mandates. And what
15:38
Speaker 1: this would turn on it look, it's one thing to
15:40
Speaker 1: adopt a strained interpretation of the law, but what this
15:42
Speaker 1: would turn on is the extent to which the president's
15:46
Speaker 1: lawyers advised him this is contrary to law. And we've
15:50
Speaker 1: talked about on this podcast. I believe the Department of
15:53
Speaker 1: Justice and or the White House lawyers told the President
15:56
Speaker 1: and told his senior advisors. You don't have the authority
16:00
Speaker 1: to do this under OSIA. You don't have the authority
16:02
Speaker 1: to do this. You're going to be challenged and it
16:04
Speaker 1: will very likely lose in court. And I think he
16:06
Speaker 1: made the decision essentially, I don't care. I'm going to
16:10
Speaker 1: abuse my power and do it anyway because a bunch
16:12
Speaker 1: of people are going to comply. And you could make
16:15
Speaker 1: an argument that that to the extent, and that the
16:19
Speaker 1: full factual predicate hasn't been developed. You'd have to lay
16:21
Speaker 1: out that he was acting in open defiance of the law.
16:26
Speaker 1: But if you if you made out that predicate, that
16:28
Speaker 1: would be a third potential ground for impeachment. None of
16:33
Speaker 1: those at the end of the day, maybe a slam dunk.
16:37
Speaker 1: And if the Democrats had not gone down the road
16:39
Speaker 1: of impeaching Trump twice for political and policy disagreements, then
16:44
Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't see a Republican House respond using the
16:49
Speaker 1: same means. But once they started this process, we predicted
16:53
Speaker 1: at the outset that this was going to be a
16:54
Speaker 1: slippery slope, and unfortunately, I think that's that is where
17:01
Speaker 1: we are today. And what's good for the goose is
17:02
Speaker 1: good for the gander. And on this point of protections
17:07
Speaker 1: against pure mob rule, which the other political party seems
17:11
Speaker 1: to have been a little reckless about, you are now
17:14
Speaker 1: seeing that with the filibuster, So the filibuster a protection
17:19
Speaker 1: against majoritarianism is really seems to be at the heart
17:24
Speaker 1: of a lot of the debates going on at the Capitol.
17:28
Speaker 1: Build back better, build back broke, if you want to
17:30
Speaker 1: call it. That. The Biden budget seems dead on arrival
17:34
Speaker 1: as long as Joe Manchin holds firm, which he's doing
17:37
Speaker 1: right now. So many of the Democrat priorities have flopped.
17:41
Speaker 1: And yet it seems that right now Chuck Schumer and
17:44
Speaker 1: Senate Democrats are really really pushing to get rid of
17:47
Speaker 1: the filibuster. One do you think it's going to happen
17:50
Speaker 1: to What would it mean for the Senate and for
17:52
Speaker 1: the country if it does so? I hope that it doesn't.
17:55
Speaker 1: I don't know. The Democrats are under enormous political pressure
18:00
Speaker 1: because build back Broke failed. They're putting massive political pressure
18:06
Speaker 1: on Joe Mansion, Democrat from West Virginia, Kirsten Cinema Democrat
18:10
Speaker 1: from Arizona. Who are the two people that at least
18:12
Speaker 1: so far have taken down build back broke, and they
18:17
Speaker 1: want to end the filibuster. Now, now what is the filibuster?
18:20
Speaker 1: So there are a couple of different kinds of filibusters. One,
18:26
Speaker 1: it used to be the case that it required sixty
18:29
Speaker 1: votes to proceed to a nomination, to proceed to a
18:32
Speaker 1: judicial nomination, to proceed to an executive nomination. The Democrats
18:37
Speaker 1: ended that filibuster when Harry Reid was Majority leader. I
18:39
Speaker 1: was in the Senate at the time, and he did
18:41
Speaker 1: what's called the nuclear option, which is he broke the
18:45
Speaker 1: rules of the Senate in order to change the rules
18:48
Speaker 1: of the Senate. He eliminated the filibuster for executive nominations
18:53
Speaker 1: and for judicial nominations. Although he carved out judicial nominations
18:58
Speaker 1: except for the Supreme Court. Why did he do that
19:00
Speaker 1: because there wasn't a Supreme Court vacancy. Everyone knew if
19:02
Speaker 1: there was a Supreme Court vacancy, they'd immediately knuke it
19:05
Speaker 1: for the Supreme Court. But since there wasn't a vacancy,
19:07
Speaker 1: they only knuked it for judges short of the Supreme
19:10
Speaker 1: Court and executive vacancies. Fast forward to the Trump presidency,
19:15
Speaker 1: Republicans ended it for the Supreme Court as well. Applied
19:18
Speaker 1: the same standards to all nominations. The history actually of
19:25
Speaker 1: requiring sixty votes for nominations was relatively short. Most of
19:29
Speaker 1: the history of the Senate nominations proceeded only requiring fifty votes.
19:34
Speaker 1: So it was actually the reason why you had a
19:37
Speaker 1: filibuster for judicial nominations. You know who invented the filibuster
19:40
Speaker 1: for judges, Chuck Schumer. So when George W. Bush got elected,
19:47
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer was a rising ambitious Democrat and he hatched
19:53
Speaker 1: this plan. He did it actually with Larry Tribe, the
19:55
Speaker 1: Harvard law professor. He said, let's start filibustering judges. Prior
19:59
Speaker 1: to that, it had never been done. You didn't filibuster judges.
20:03
Speaker 1: That was not There had never been a partisan filibuster
20:09
Speaker 1: of a Supreme Court justice that. The only one who
20:11
Speaker 1: had ever been filibusters would eight was Abe Fortis, and
20:15
Speaker 1: Abe Fortis was not a partisan filibuster. Both Republicans and
20:18
Speaker 1: Democrats participated because it was corruption that was the basis
20:21
Speaker 1: of it. So the Senate from both sides of the
20:23
Speaker 1: aisle agreed, no, we're not going down this road. But
20:26
Speaker 1: Schumer concocted the plan, let's start filibustering judges. And if
20:30
Speaker 1: you remember, Bush had a slate of initial judges and
20:33
Speaker 1: Schumer and the Democrats filibuster them. But think back for
20:38
Speaker 1: a second. Clarence Thomas one of the most contentious Supreme
20:42
Speaker 1: Court nominations of our lifetimes. Justice Thomas, I think is
20:46
Speaker 1: in a great and extraordinary justice. The Democrats were massively
20:50
Speaker 1: opposed to him. Not a single Democrat filibuster Clarence Thomas.
20:54
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas was confirmed fifty two forty eight. I believe
20:59
Speaker 1: he didn't have six votes. A single Democrat could have
21:03
Speaker 1: bustered Clarence Thomas. Ted Kennedy did not filibuster Clarence Thomas.
21:08
Speaker 1: Joe Biden did not filibuster Clarence Thomas. Because you didn't
21:11
Speaker 1: filibuster judges. Schumer came up with the plan to do
21:14
Speaker 1: it that got ended. Contrast that with the legislative filibuster.
21:19
Speaker 1: The legislative filibuster for most of the history of the Senate,
21:24
Speaker 1: it has required sixty votes to proceed to legislation. Inevitably,
21:31
Speaker 1: that frustrates the majority. Whoever's in the majority. If they
21:34
Speaker 1: don't have a sixty vote supermajority, they're unhappy that they
21:38
Speaker 1: need to get sixty votes. What it does is it
21:41
Speaker 1: forces compromise. It slows down the legislative process, It forces
21:45
Speaker 1: some modicum of bipartisanship. It doesn't let a narrow majority in.
21:50
Speaker 1: Right now, the Democrats have the narrowest possible majority just
21:53
Speaker 1: ram through a partisan agenda. Schumer wants to nuke the filibuster,
21:58
Speaker 1: break the rules, and with a fifty fifty Senate with
22:01
Speaker 1: the narrowest possible majority, rammed through a partisan agenda, if
22:07
Speaker 1: he gets mansion and sent him to give in to it,
22:09
Speaker 1: he'll succeed. So this would be beyond the debates over
22:13
Speaker 1: the budget or the various proposals that have flopped. For
22:17
Speaker 1: the Democrats, this would be a big move for them,
22:19
Speaker 1: But it seems to me it's not the biggest news
22:22
Speaker 1: in DC this week, and it's not the biggest move
22:23
Speaker 1: coming out of the Democrats or the liberal establishment. That
22:27
Speaker 1: would be something that's totally outside of the lawmaking process. Frankly,
22:31
Speaker 1: it's even sort of beyond the White House. That would
22:33
Speaker 1: be the flip flop on coronavirus. Maybe it's just me,
22:38
Speaker 1: call me crazy, but I did happen to just recover
22:41
Speaker 1: from the coronavirus, so I'm clear. Now, I'm good, I've
22:44
Speaker 1: made it. Thank you all for your well wishes. Wonderful
22:47
Speaker 1: way to spend Christmas. It would seem that during this
22:49
Speaker 1: period the White House and the Democrats have done a
22:53
Speaker 1: complete one eighty on the virus, on the vaccines, on
22:56
Speaker 1: the lockdowns, on the isolation. What happened. It really is stunning.
23:01
Speaker 1: You've seen the CDC shortened the quarantine period. We've seen
23:05
Speaker 1: doctor Fauci suddenly discover some reasonableness, you know. You know,
23:09
Speaker 1: one of the things that was most striking. Fauci went
23:11
Speaker 1: on TV and he said, well, you know, there are
23:14
Speaker 1: children in the hospital with COVID, but many of them
23:18
Speaker 1: are not in the hospital because of COVID. And I
23:23
Speaker 1: couldn't help I literally laughed out loud because there's some
23:26
Speaker 1: of us. You and I have been saying that for
23:27
Speaker 1: a year, and when we said that, we were characterized
23:32
Speaker 1: as tinfoil hat wearing lounds and murders for pointing out
23:37
Speaker 1: you remember, we talked and we've talked about this on
23:39
Speaker 1: the pod um. There was a very funny meme online
23:42
Speaker 1: uh that that that that was a it was a
23:45
Speaker 1: fake headline. It was woman eaten by great white shark
23:49
Speaker 1: dies of COVID um And it's the same point that
23:53
Speaker 1: that that some of these statistics of someone who's positive
23:55
Speaker 1: for COVID, and even some of the some of what
23:58
Speaker 1: are called COVID deaths. Look, if there are people who
24:01
Speaker 1: have died because of COVID, but there are also people
24:02
Speaker 1: who had other horrible diseases and were dying anyway, who
24:07
Speaker 1: also happened to have COVID, And if we were being
24:10
Speaker 1: rational discussing it, we would make that distinction. When you
24:13
Speaker 1: and I made it, CNN, MSNBC, the CDC, the Biden
24:18
Speaker 1: White House, they all mocked it, and now suddenly Fauci's
24:22
Speaker 1: saying it. I think some of it is it's driven
24:26
Speaker 1: by a couple of things. Number One, the Democrats policies
24:30
Speaker 1: on COVID are deeply unpopular. Shutdowns are unpopular. Shutting down
24:34
Speaker 1: schools are unpopular. Mandates are unpopular. They've gotten too far
24:37
Speaker 1: out over the skis well, and you have seen, by
24:40
Speaker 1: the way, even President Biden probably had the biggest flip
24:43
Speaker 1: flop of all. He ran on the idea that he
24:45
Speaker 1: was going to shut down the virus. Now he's saying, verbatim,
24:49
Speaker 1: there is no federal solution. This will only be handled
24:51
Speaker 1: at the States, which again you and I said a
24:54
Speaker 1: year ago or more than a year ago, but now
24:56
Speaker 1: that seems to be the official line of the administration. Well,
24:59
Speaker 1: and ironically enough, when Trump said it, he was roundly
25:03
Speaker 1: denounced by the corporate median by Democrats. Is a horrible,
25:07
Speaker 1: heartless oath for saying word for word what Biden said
25:12
Speaker 1: at the irony is the most significant federal solution, or
25:16
Speaker 1: at least the most significant part of a federal solution,
25:21
Speaker 1: was Operation Warp Speed, which the Trump administration carried out,
25:24
Speaker 1: which was to cut through the red tape and dramatically
25:27
Speaker 1: speed up the development of vaccines. That that was a
25:30
Speaker 1: federal process because there was federal red tape in the
25:33
Speaker 1: way of getting the vaccines. But that federal solution Donald J.
25:36
Speaker 1: Trump implemented, so Biden can't claim credit for it. So
25:40
Speaker 1: at this point he acknowledged what was obvious. But another
25:46
Speaker 1: part of the flip flop. Look a'micron maybe, and I
25:52
Speaker 1: hope that it is the beginning of the end. You know,
25:55
Speaker 1: you mentioned you head COVID. I'll note you and I
25:57
Speaker 1: are social distancing by eight hundred miles and it's uh.
26:04
Speaker 1: But you know, over the Christmas holidays. It seems like
26:07
Speaker 1: everybody I knew had COVID. I mean, it was just everywhere.
26:12
Speaker 1: Um And but everyone I knew had it also said
26:18
Speaker 1: it was pretty mild. It was like a mild cold
26:20
Speaker 1: or flu. That this, this variant seems much more mild
26:24
Speaker 1: than some of the prior variants. Um. And this may
26:28
Speaker 1: well be the beginning of the end. And that if
26:30
Speaker 1: everybody or almost everybody catches it and it's fairly mild.
26:34
Speaker 1: If that's the case, Um that that is often how
26:39
Speaker 1: pandemics peter out. Once you once you get hurt immunity,
26:43
Speaker 1: once you get a large enough percentage of the population
26:47
Speaker 1: that has had it that immunity. Let us hope. And
26:50
Speaker 1: there's some early testing to suggest this is right, will
26:52
Speaker 1: be an immunity for other variants as well. Now, the
26:55
Speaker 1: thing could could mutate and we could see a new
26:58
Speaker 1: and more dangerous variant. But Amicron, I think part of
27:03
Speaker 1: the COVID gymnastics we're seeing from the Biden White House
27:07
Speaker 1: and the NIH and the CDC are due to the
27:10
Speaker 1: fact that everybody has in there. Like holy crap, we're
27:12
Speaker 1: like canceling airline flights and shutting down schools and like
27:15
Speaker 1: if everybody has to quarantine for like a long time,
27:20
Speaker 1: the entire world shuts down again, and that they're realizing
27:24
Speaker 1: that's not feasible. But what's fascinating is that's a political determination,
27:29
Speaker 1: not a medical determination or a scientific determtion. They have
27:34
Speaker 1: admitted this. Rachelle Wilenski, head of the CDC, Doctor Fauci,
27:37
Speaker 1: I think the Grand poobav the entire world at this point.
27:40
Speaker 1: They have both said that part of the decision was
27:44
Speaker 1: based on what people could tolerate. So they're explicitly saying
27:47
Speaker 1: this was political. And this raises another strange question, which
27:51
Speaker 1: is some of us, you know, I hate to say
27:54
Speaker 1: we told you so, but some of us have been
27:56
Speaker 1: saying a lot of these things a lot earlier than
27:59
Speaker 1: Joe Biden and doctor Facci and Rachelle Lenski. Many of
28:02
Speaker 1: us were censored for that. Episodes of my show over
28:04
Speaker 1: the Daily Wire have been censored for saying things that
28:07
Speaker 1: now doctor Fauci and Joe Biden say. Joe Rogan biggest
28:11
Speaker 1: podcaster in the world except for that week when we
28:13
Speaker 1: launched the Verdicts podcast. Joe Rogan has seen some of
28:17
Speaker 1: his episodes centered censored. Doctor Malone who is one of
28:21
Speaker 1: the scientists who helped to develop mRNA vaccine technology, who
28:25
Speaker 1: went on Joe Rogan's podcast, who has has made other
28:27
Speaker 1: media appearances, has been censored for saying things that plenty
28:33
Speaker 1: of scientists have agreed with. So I guess the question
28:36
Speaker 1: is who is allowed to say what? And how come
28:42
Speaker 1: different people are permitted to say one thing and other
28:45
Speaker 1: people who say the very same thing will be censored
28:48
Speaker 1: by by big tech or others. Well, Michael, I gotta
28:51
Speaker 1: start with a fact check and and and this is
28:54
Speaker 1: one where I got to say the fact checkers PolitiFact
28:56
Speaker 1: would be exactly right, and what you would said would
29:00
Speaker 1: objectively be misinformation because you just said that you hate
29:04
Speaker 1: to say I told you so, and that just is
29:09
Speaker 1: you love to say I told you so. Guilty is charged?
29:12
Speaker 1: You got me, got me absolutely. Look, it is utter
29:17
Speaker 1: and ridiculous hypocrisy. It's it's big tech is so shameless
29:22
Speaker 1: it would make orwell blush. You know, you know, you
29:27
Speaker 1: you think in in you know, nineteen eighty four, you
29:31
Speaker 1: think we're at war with Eurasia. We're always we've always
29:34
Speaker 1: been at war with Eurasia. And then when the operative
29:36
Speaker 1: facts change, immediately it changes and it's they don't blink,
29:40
Speaker 1: they don't you know, Big Tech would silence anyone who
29:43
Speaker 1: said that the that the evidence suggested that the virus
29:47
Speaker 1: came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, and then suddenly, miraculously,
29:53
Speaker 1: oh wait a second, the evidence shows that the virus
29:56
Speaker 1: came from a Chinese lab in Wuhan, which this podcast said.
29:59
Speaker 1: In March of last year, we laid out the evidence
30:02
Speaker 1: where one of the first podcast, one of the first
30:06
Speaker 1: media outlets, because the corporate media refused to cover it,
30:09
Speaker 1: so we went in depth in the podcast laying out
30:12
Speaker 1: the evidence that that it escaped from the wuhuant Institute
30:15
Speaker 1: of Rology, and and and what was behind all of that. Now,
30:19
Speaker 1: almost all of that's been been, if not fully confirmed publicly,
30:25
Speaker 1: heavily validated publicly. It's probably the fair fair way to
30:29
Speaker 1: say it. And and magically, I remember you had Fauci
30:33
Speaker 1: asking Mark Zuckerberg silence anyone who suggests this came from
30:38
Speaker 1: the Wuhan lab, and and and it is it is
30:44
Speaker 1: the absolute arrogance of we're going to silence any dissenting
30:49
Speaker 1: views even if they turn out right. And when they
30:51
Speaker 1: turn out right, they don't say they're sorry, they don't
30:54
Speaker 1: say they shouldn't have been Silence Hunter Biden Hunter Biden laptop.
30:58
Speaker 1: The New York Post was blocked by big tech for
31:02
Speaker 1: publishing a true story, true but damaging to the Democrats.
31:07
Speaker 1: And we're seeing this over and over again. You know,
31:11
Speaker 1: the idea that they blocked Rogan's latest podcast with one
31:16
Speaker 1: of the inventors of the technology that was used for
31:19
Speaker 1: the vaccine. That's insane. If you disagree with what the
31:24
Speaker 1: doctor says, disagree with it, but to step in as
31:30
Speaker 1: Big brother sensors. It's just it's a level of hubrists
31:34
Speaker 1: that's really staggered. This does before we get to the mailbag,
31:37
Speaker 1: this does raise I guess what happens next type question
31:41
Speaker 1: in DC, which is now that the facts of COVID
31:45
Speaker 1: and the lockdowns and the vaccines seem to be changing,
31:49
Speaker 1: or at least the narrative around them is changing. You're seeing,
31:52
Speaker 1: for instance, a judge granting a stay against the vaccine
31:56
Speaker 1: mandate for some Navy seals. Just use one one example.
31:59
Speaker 1: Do you think that the changing narratives on vaccine efficacy,
32:04
Speaker 1: on the virus, on the effectiveness of the lockdowns, do
32:08
Speaker 1: you think that is going to have any effect on
32:10
Speaker 1: these outcomes in the court cases, or the Seals going
32:13
Speaker 1: to be able to avoid taking the fauci auchie on
32:15
Speaker 1: the Seals case, I actually I am involved in that case.
32:18
Speaker 1: So I led a group of nine Senators and thirty
32:21
Speaker 1: eight House members and we filed an amicus brief supporting
32:25
Speaker 1: the Navy Seals and the Federal District Court and urging
32:28
Speaker 1: the Federal District Court to step in and stop Joe
32:31
Speaker 1: Biden is trying to fire Navy Seals. These are heroes
32:37
Speaker 1: who've gone through incredible training. Look, Michael, you and I
32:40
Speaker 1: couldn't last twenty minutes in Bud's training. We might not
32:44
Speaker 1: be able to last two minutes in Bud's training. These
32:46
Speaker 1: guys are our heroic warriors, and Biden just wants to
32:52
Speaker 1: fire them because they won't submit to his illegal vaccine mandate.
32:56
Speaker 1: And so a federal district court in Texas issue to
33:00
Speaker 1: issue to stay preventing them from being fired. The next
33:04
Speaker 1: step is is we'll see an appeal in the Fifth
33:07
Speaker 1: Circuit of that stay. It will depend to some extent
33:10
Speaker 1: on if there's a good panel in the Fifth Circuit,
33:12
Speaker 1: but the Fifth Circuit as a whole has been excellent
33:15
Speaker 1: on the mandate litigation. So I'm I have a decent
33:19
Speaker 1: level of optimism that stay will be upheld on appeal.
33:24
Speaker 1: But I think that is a big win that we
33:27
Speaker 1: saw this week in the Navy Seals litigation, and the
33:30
Speaker 1: legislature can take this up too. Worth pointing out that
33:33
Speaker 1: you are introducing legislation at least focused on mandates within DC.
33:41
Speaker 1: Now it's DC obviously is its own federal district, but
33:46
Speaker 1: the Congress and the Senate have some control over that,
33:49
Speaker 1: and it seems probably the mayor would push back again
33:53
Speaker 1: some of the control that the Senate has. So what
33:55
Speaker 1: is the likelihood that this is going to have an effect? Yeah,
33:58
Speaker 1: So what has happened is that the d City Council
34:01
Speaker 1: has passed an ordinance requiring school children to be vaccinated
34:04
Speaker 1: and forcing school children to be vaccinated regardless of what
34:07
Speaker 1: their parents want. I think that's a total abuse of power.
34:11
Speaker 1: That it ought to be up to parents whether or
34:13
Speaker 1: not your kids get vaccinated, and each parent can make
34:16
Speaker 1: that decision, can talk with your doctor and make the decision,
34:19
Speaker 1: but the local school board has no right to force
34:22
Speaker 1: you to vaccinate you're five year old. Of course, DC
34:27
Speaker 1: being DC being a bunch of Democrats there. They are authoritarians.
34:33
Speaker 1: They are the party of mandates. To hell with the science,
34:36
Speaker 1: to hell with reason, to hell with your rights, to
34:39
Speaker 1: hell with your body, your choice. We're going to force
34:42
Speaker 1: you to do it. So DC is unlike any city
34:45
Speaker 1: in the United States of America in that DC is
34:49
Speaker 1: explicitly in the Constitution given to Congress. Congress actually has
34:55
Speaker 1: plenary authority. Plenary is a fancy legal word for blanket
34:59
Speaker 1: authority over d Congress is actually in charge of DC. Now,
35:03
Speaker 1: we've passed a bill called the Home Rule Act that
35:06
Speaker 1: allows for a mayor and a city council, but that's
35:09
Speaker 1: delegated authority. The authority all remains with Congress because that's
35:13
Speaker 1: how the Constitution is written. The Home Rule Act explicitly
35:17
Speaker 1: provides that when the city council passes an ordinance, that
35:21
Speaker 1: a member of Congress can introduce a resolution of disapproval
35:25
Speaker 1: to essentially overturn that ordinance. So that's what I've done,
35:28
Speaker 1: is I've filed a resolution of disapproval to overturn the
35:33
Speaker 1: DC City Council's vaccine mandate for school children. And we'll see.
35:41
Speaker 1: I expect there will be battles in the Senate that
35:43
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer and the Democrats will not want to vote
35:46
Speaker 1: on my resolution of disapproval, but we'll see if we
35:49
Speaker 1: can get a vote on it or not. And I'm
35:51
Speaker 1: going to be fighting to get a vote and get
35:53
Speaker 1: every Democrat in the Senate on record. Do you support
35:58
Speaker 1: forcing parents to vaccine an eighth they're five year old,
36:02
Speaker 1: whether or not that parent wants to do so, because
36:04
Speaker 1: I think that is a really abusive position, and we
36:07
Speaker 1: ought to get every Senate Democrat on record. Well, you're
36:10
Speaker 1: hearing a lot of parents talking about this at school boards,
36:12
Speaker 1: and we should hear, by the way, from some of
36:14
Speaker 1: our listeners in the Verdict mailback. So shall we bring
36:17
Speaker 1: back our friend Liz for some mailback questions? Thanks Michael,
36:20
Speaker 1: We have As I mentioned earlier, we have some great questions.
36:23
Speaker 1: Before we get to the questions, though, I want to
36:25
Speaker 1: give everybody an updates on our viewer led special anniversary
36:30
Speaker 1: episode that's coming up this month. We are about to
36:33
Speaker 1: get to the two year anniversary of our inaugural episode
36:37
Speaker 1: on Verdict. That'll be January twenty first, and we in
36:40
Speaker 1: December for the hundredth episode, we announced giveaways as well
36:45
Speaker 1: as viewer led challenges or pulls if you will, and
36:47
Speaker 1: I want to give a little update on that. So
36:49
Speaker 1: we said, if we reach fifteen thousand members on the
36:52
Speaker 1: Verdict Plus community by January fifteenth, I believe, or January
36:56
Speaker 1: twenty first, that's the inaugural episode anniversary. Fifteen thousand members
37:00
Speaker 1: on the Verdict Plus community, then we will select we
37:03
Speaker 1: will randomly select one of our Verdict Plus VIPs, one
37:07
Speaker 1: of our subscribers to come to a live taping of
37:10
Speaker 1: Verdict when we are at a college campus. Well, we
37:13
Speaker 1: started out at about eight thousand members. We are all
37:15
Speaker 1: the way up to twelve thousand members on Verdict Plus,
37:18
Speaker 1: so we're almost there. This is a benchmark that we
37:20
Speaker 1: can hit. You still have time. Go to Verdict with
37:23
Speaker 1: tedcrus dot com, slash plus become a member. It's free
37:27
Speaker 1: to become a member, and you might just be the winner.
37:30
Speaker 1: You might just be the recipients of a trip to
37:34
Speaker 1: a live taping a Verdict if if you join in time.
37:37
Speaker 1: That's the first thing. The second thing is on YouTube.
37:39
Speaker 1: On episode one hundred on YouTube on the Verdict channel,
37:44
Speaker 1: we will be randomly selecting fifteen people who leave a comment.
37:47
Speaker 1: You must leave a comment. We will be randomly selecting
37:49
Speaker 1: fifteen people, and those fifteen people will be the lucky
37:52
Speaker 1: winners of a box of signed Verdict merch from our
37:55
Speaker 1: merch store. We're talking T shirts, We're talking that sweet
37:59
Speaker 1: cactus hat, talking stickers for the back of your laptop.
38:02
Speaker 1: If you leave a comment on episode one hundred on YouTube,
38:05
Speaker 1: so head on over there and leave that comment if
38:08
Speaker 1: you want signed merch. If you don't do it anyway,
38:11
Speaker 1: leave a comment. And then third, and finally on Apple
38:14
Speaker 1: on the podcast app. On Apple, we said, if we
38:16
Speaker 1: get to fifty thousand reviews on Apple Podcasts by January
38:19
Speaker 1: twenty first, then we will let you, the fans, pick
38:22
Speaker 1: what we do in one episode next year. So this
38:25
Speaker 1: is the idea of real truth Cactus. I think this
38:28
Speaker 1: is a fabulous idea. And so what I mean when
38:30
Speaker 1: I say we will let you pick what we do.
38:32
Speaker 1: We will have a pull. Once we have gotten to
38:34
Speaker 1: fifty thousand reviews on Apple podcast we will have a
38:37
Speaker 1: poll on the Verdict plus community and the poll will
38:40
Speaker 1: ask you would you rather see The Senator where a
38:43
Speaker 1: braves jersey for an entire episode See the Senator and
38:46
Speaker 1: Michael arm Wrestle bring the Cactus to make a guest
38:51
Speaker 1: appearance on the show, or to hear Michael roast Princeton
38:54
Speaker 1: and the Senator roast Yale in a throwdown episode. Now
38:57
Speaker 1: we've we've come a good ways on this when we
38:59
Speaker 1: are thirty eight thousand ratings and counting on Apple Podcasts,
39:03
Speaker 1: So you gotta get over there and give us a
39:06
Speaker 1: good five star rating, a glowing review, so that we
39:08
Speaker 1: had this benchmark. Because I don't know about you, but
39:09
Speaker 1: I would like to see an arm wrestling match. And
39:12
Speaker 1: we have just a few more days until we are
39:14
Speaker 1: at the deadline. So just a little update on our
39:16
Speaker 1: giveaway and our special two year anniversary coming up. And
39:21
Speaker 1: because I control the questions, Senator, because I'm the gateway
39:24
Speaker 1: to these questions, I'm going to throw a question from
39:26
Speaker 1: myself in here before we get Before we get to
39:28
Speaker 1: the rest of these questions, my question is, have you
39:30
Speaker 1: been following the Elizabeth Fulmes trial? And you know, Pharnos,
39:34
Speaker 1: this is the biggest fraud I think that's been perpetuated,
39:38
Speaker 1: the biggest medical fraud that's been perpetuated in at least
39:41
Speaker 1: my lifetime as long as I can remember. She's been
39:44
Speaker 1: on trial for dozens or over a dozen counts defrauding
39:48
Speaker 1: investors and patients, and she was found guilty of about
39:51
Speaker 1: half of them, not guilty on a few, and the
39:54
Speaker 1: jury could not come to a conclusion. They were deadlocked
39:57
Speaker 1: on several of those counts. As a lawyer, as an
39:59
Speaker 1: attorne yourself, what do you make of this? Yeah, no,
40:02
Speaker 1: it's it's been stunning. I'm gonna get to your question.
40:04
Speaker 1: Let me first of all say that that that that
40:06
Speaker 1: if the arm wrestling is what the what the verdict
40:11
Speaker 1: viewers select, Uh, Michael, can't alter that and make it
40:16
Speaker 1: thumb wrestling. It's it's got to be real and and
40:19
Speaker 1: and and throw down with an absolute result. This is
40:23
Speaker 1: what you go up against a Harvard trained lawyer and
40:25
Speaker 1: all your tricks go out the window. All right, fair enough?
40:30
Speaker 1: So yeah, look, the Elizabeth Holmes verdict is and and
40:33
Speaker 1: the trial and the whole scandal is is astonishing. You
40:36
Speaker 1: look at tharn Nos Elizabeth Holmes, she seems like a
40:40
Speaker 1: character invented in Hollywood, um, you know, with with a
40:44
Speaker 1: husky voice and the black turtlenecks, and and the obsession
40:49
Speaker 1: with Steve Jobs that she wanted to be Steve Jobs
40:52
Speaker 1: in a way that that that frankly is a little
40:55
Speaker 1: glen cut close, boil your rabbit in a pot, obsessive.
41:00
Speaker 1: But you look at the Parnos, you know, it became
41:02
Speaker 1: a billion dollar company. It raised money from all over
41:05
Speaker 1: the place. It brought in, you know, a blue chip
41:11
Speaker 1: board and board of advisors, including you know, Henry Kissinger,
41:15
Speaker 1: including George Schultz. I mean, it was it was an
41:19
Speaker 1: incredible pantheon. Jim Mattis, former Secretary of Defense, was was
41:26
Speaker 1: was on the board of advisors. And the whole thing
41:29
Speaker 1: was a common The whole thing was a croc. She
41:32
Speaker 1: claimed that they had this technology, these machines that you
41:35
Speaker 1: could take one tiny pinprick of blood from your finger
41:39
Speaker 1: and analyze it and predict if you have diabetes, if
41:42
Speaker 1: you have all these diseases. And do you know, you
41:44
Speaker 1: go to the doctor and they take blood, they stick
41:46
Speaker 1: the thing in and they do one test tube after
41:48
Speaker 1: another after another after another. She said, no, no, no no,
41:51
Speaker 1: we can't get rid of all of that and do
41:52
Speaker 1: just one little drop of blood. And she had you know,
41:55
Speaker 1: major drug stores, Walmartin and I think CBS and Walgreens
42:02
Speaker 1: all like wanting to be a part of this. And
42:05
Speaker 1: the whole thing was a croc. It didn't work. The
42:07
Speaker 1: the these boxes that were allegedly the machines chewing on it,
42:12
Speaker 1: they didn't do it, and they just kept digging and
42:15
Speaker 1: digging and digging, and so what happened is we just
42:19
Speaker 1: saw the conclusion of the federal trial. So she was
42:21
Speaker 1: charged with criminal fraud, with defrauding people, with lying about
42:27
Speaker 1: the results of their technology, and just just you know,
42:29
Speaker 1: basically being a crook um. You know, it's not not
42:33
Speaker 1: much different than than made off and a Ponzi scheme.
42:37
Speaker 1: It's raising money and lying to investors and engaging criminal fraud.
42:42
Speaker 1: There were eleven counts brought against her of different specific
42:47
Speaker 1: items of fraud, and the jury, it was in the
42:49
Speaker 1: Northern District of California. The jury convicted her and four
42:53
Speaker 1: of the counts. The jury acquitted her on four of
42:57
Speaker 1: the counts. So four of the counts they concluded the
42:59
Speaker 1: evidence and this was a multi week is a long trial.
43:04
Speaker 1: Four of the counts they said she's not guilty of,
43:06
Speaker 1: So those counts are gone. Four of them they convicted her,
43:09
Speaker 1: and then the three of the counts they deadlocked, so
43:11
Speaker 1: the jury couldn't agree those three counts. They'll likely be
43:15
Speaker 1: a mistrial on those counts. If the jury deadlocks, you
43:17
Speaker 1: don't have a result one way or the other. But
43:21
Speaker 1: the four counts on which she was convicted are serious,
43:25
Speaker 1: and potentially the maximum she could be sentenced to is
43:31
Speaker 1: eighty years in prison. Each of those four counts has
43:34
Speaker 1: a statutory maximum of twenty years in prison, So if
43:38
Speaker 1: the sentences ran consecutively, if she got the statutory maximum
43:42
Speaker 1: from all four and they were consecutive, it'd be eighty
43:45
Speaker 1: years in prison. That being said, that is a very
43:48
Speaker 1: very unlikely outcome. It's unlikely that the sentences will be consecutive,
43:53
Speaker 1: and under the sentencing guidelines, I think most of the
43:56
Speaker 1: analysts who have dug into this are predicting a sentence
44:00
Speaker 1: somewhere between one and two years in prison, so that
44:02
Speaker 1: she will serve, in all likelihood, real and meaningful prison time,
44:07
Speaker 1: but but not an eighty year sentence. And I gotta say,
44:13
Speaker 1: there's a there's a documentary that's a fabulous documentary. I
44:17
Speaker 1: recommend it that that I've I've watched, and they're making
44:19
Speaker 1: a movie where Jennifer Lawrence is playing her, and I
44:22
Speaker 1: mean it, holy cow, this this stuff is wild. Um,
44:26
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know if Jennifer Lawrence will have
44:28
Speaker 1: like a crossbow and like shoot Henry Kissinger in a
44:31
Speaker 1: Hunger Games reducts, which which which I think be a
44:35
Speaker 1: much more fun movie if you started, you know, mixing genres.
44:39
Speaker 1: But but but I'll probably watch the movie too, right,
44:42
Speaker 1: It's it's so insane. I read the book that was
44:44
Speaker 1: published by the journalist who actually exposed the fraud from
44:47
Speaker 1: the beginning. I think it's called Bad Blood, and it
44:49
Speaker 1: truly is insane. The most insane part is that she
44:52
Speaker 1: knew pretty much from the get go what she was doing.
44:54
Speaker 1: She knew that this did not work and that there
44:56
Speaker 1: was no possibility of this technology being developed. That's the
44:59
Speaker 1: part that's just so unbelievable. It's not like this technology
45:03
Speaker 1: was being developed and it just didn't end up working out.
45:05
Speaker 1: And you know, she led people on a little bit
45:08
Speaker 1: further than she should know. She knew from the get
45:10
Speaker 1: go that this was not going to work, and she
45:12
Speaker 1: still raised all this money. And like you said, her
45:15
Speaker 1: behavior about Steve Jobs is so sociopathic. You have to
45:18
Speaker 1: wonder if, even if she gets a year or two
45:20
Speaker 1: in prison, if this is justice given what she did. Honestly,
45:23
Speaker 1: I could probably talk about this. I've been following the
45:25
Speaker 1: story for years now. I could probably talk about this
45:27
Speaker 1: for a whole episode, but I do want to get
45:28
Speaker 1: to some questions from the verdict plus community because we
45:31
Speaker 1: have some really good ones. We have some really good ones,
45:33
Speaker 1: and the first one is from tm Ericson. Senator tm
45:37
Speaker 1: Erickson asked, what are the top ten legislative priorities that
45:40
Speaker 1: we should expect from a GOP Congress in twenty twenty three. Oh,
45:45
Speaker 1: that is a good question. So some of it depends
45:49
Speaker 1: on will we see a Republican House or House and Senate.
45:55
Speaker 1: And we've talked before. I'll handicap the odds of our
45:58
Speaker 1: take in the House at about ninety ten. I think
46:00
Speaker 1: it's extremely likely. The Senate's more of a coin flip.
46:03
Speaker 1: I think it's about fifty fifty. UM. I think it's
46:05
Speaker 1: going to be a really good year, but it's but
46:07
Speaker 1: it's a bad map. There are a lot more vulnerable
46:09
Speaker 1: Republican seats on the ballot than there are vulnerable Democrat seats.
46:14
Speaker 1: That being said, I think there's a very real possibility
46:17
Speaker 1: we come into twenty three with both a House and Senate. UM.
46:21
Speaker 1: I think the top priorities should be number one. Focusing
46:25
Speaker 1: on jobs, focusing on reducing the burdens on job creators,
46:30
Speaker 1: on getting people back back to work. UM. I think
46:34
Speaker 1: the focus should also be on reigning in the abuse
46:38
Speaker 1: of power from President Biden, and and that that means
46:45
Speaker 1: taking on the crisis of the border and securing the border.
46:48
Speaker 1: We ought to be passing bill after bill after bill
46:51
Speaker 1: and forcing Biden to veto forcing Biden to vito common
46:55
Speaker 1: sense legislation. UH. That actually responds to the overwhelming priorities
47:00
Speaker 1: of the country, forcing Biden to veto legislation on the boarder. Now,
47:08
Speaker 1: this actually keys up with a question Michael asked at
47:10
Speaker 1: the beginning of the pot He said, are the Democrats
47:12
Speaker 1: going to end the filibuster? I don't know. I hope
47:17
Speaker 1: that they don't. If they do, and Republicans then win
47:24
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, we'll be able to pass bill
47:27
Speaker 1: after bill after bill and force Biden either to veto
47:30
Speaker 1: them or sign them. If they don't end the filibuster,
47:33
Speaker 1: the House will be able to pass them, and we
47:35
Speaker 1: can go to the Senate and force Democrats either to
47:38
Speaker 1: filibuster them or have Biden veto them. I don't think
47:44
Speaker 1: there is a significant likelihood that we see big, major
47:47
Speaker 1: positive legislation passing in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty
47:53
Speaker 1: four and becoming law, because anything good Biden will veto
47:58
Speaker 1: a major tax cuts implifying what I'd like to see
48:01
Speaker 1: as a simple flat tax abolish the IRS. Well, Biden
48:05
Speaker 1: wants to put tens of millions of dollars more into
48:07
Speaker 1: the IRS and hire thousands of IRS agents to harass
48:11
Speaker 1: and hound families and small businesses. So he's not going
48:14
Speaker 1: to agree with tax simplification. He's not going to agree
48:18
Speaker 1: with border security. He's not going to agree with a
48:20
Speaker 1: lot of common sense legislation. But we ought to tee
48:24
Speaker 1: it up one after the other after the other. We
48:27
Speaker 1: also ought to engage in very real oversight and so
48:30
Speaker 1: holding hearings on the abuses of power from the Biden administration,
48:35
Speaker 1: particularly because if and when Republicans take the majority, I
48:39
Speaker 1: expect the Biden White House to shift their focus even
48:43
Speaker 1: more so to executive orders and regulations and so abusing
48:47
Speaker 1: the executive power, and so Congress needs to use our
48:50
Speaker 1: oversight power to rein that in. It's a whole different
48:54
Speaker 1: question if and when we get a Republican president elected
48:58
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, when we have a president who
49:00
Speaker 1: can sign legislation in a law. But even if we
49:05
Speaker 1: win in November, which I think we're going to, we're
49:07
Speaker 1: still going to be battling an incredibly partisan and incredibly
49:11
Speaker 1: lawless White House. And Michael, let me narrow this question
49:14
Speaker 1: for you. So the question was top ten. But as
49:16
Speaker 1: a voter, which obviously is different than an elected official
49:19
Speaker 1: in Congress, as the senator is. As a voter, if
49:21
Speaker 1: there's one thing that you want Republicans, if we do
49:24
Speaker 1: have the majority in both houses but are in opposition,
49:28
Speaker 1: of course to the Biden White House, what do you
49:30
Speaker 1: want to see from a Republican controlled Congress. Well, you know, unfortunately,
49:37
Speaker 1: as the Senator pointed out, we're just going to be
49:40
Speaker 1: shut down on a whole lot of things, even if
49:43
Speaker 1: you get a Republican House, even if you get a
49:45
Speaker 1: Republican Senate. So you'd say, first thing, you've got to
49:48
Speaker 1: stop the insane illegal immigration, which we've talked about on
49:51
Speaker 1: this episode and on many episodes of this podcast. Two
49:54
Speaker 1: million four nationals pouring over the border illegally is insane,
49:58
Speaker 1: and you cannot possibly remain a country if you don't
50:02
Speaker 1: even have the basic borders to stop millions of foreigners
50:06
Speaker 1: from illegally entering into your country. But then something that
50:09
Speaker 1: I think you are seeing from some conservatives who understand
50:14
Speaker 1: what time it is, and what you're seeing a lot
50:17
Speaker 1: of conservative voters calling for is for Republicans to wield
50:21
Speaker 1: the legitimate political power that they have, whether that means
50:25
Speaker 1: going in and telling schools that they can't teach crazy
50:30
Speaker 1: racial and sexual theories to their kids, whether this means
50:34
Speaker 1: going in and telling what corporations that they can't silence
50:38
Speaker 1: Americans that they can't silence in some cases, duly elected representatives,
50:42
Speaker 1: or even over the past year, the duly elected sitting
50:45
Speaker 1: president of the United States. For a long time, there
50:48
Speaker 1: was this idea that the only threat came from big government.
50:52
Speaker 1: And big government does pose a threat, but big corporation
50:55
Speaker 1: poses a threat too, big culture poses a threat to
50:58
Speaker 1: big tech poses a threat too. And so I think
51:01
Speaker 1: that serious conservatives and serious Republicans are willing to go
51:06
Speaker 1: in and actually wield legitimate power so that we don't
51:11
Speaker 1: just seed the whole culture to the left. And I'm
51:13
Speaker 1: not just flattering the host of this show here, but
51:16
Speaker 1: you know, Senator Cruz has done that in the US Senate.
51:18
Speaker 1: There have been a handful of governors and a handful
51:21
Speaker 1: of lower level of Republican politicians too, But I know
51:24
Speaker 1: that is one area where the voters are really calling
51:27
Speaker 1: for it, and unfortunately the GOP establishment sometimes seems to
51:31
Speaker 1: not want to actually do anything with the power that
51:34
Speaker 1: the people give them. Well, and Michael, let me jump
51:36
Speaker 1: in on that also to say, last week we saw
51:39
Speaker 1: a major threshold, which is that Twitter banned a sitting
51:43
Speaker 1: member of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Green. Now, look, you may
51:47
Speaker 1: not agree with her, you may disagree with what she says,
51:50
Speaker 1: but it's they've already banned the former president of the
51:53
Speaker 1: United States, which is astonishing and an abuse of power.
51:56
Speaker 1: They're now saying a sitting, currently elected member of Congress
52:00
Speaker 1: they're going to silence. And mind you, they're not silencing
52:04
Speaker 1: AOC who says we all want a dater that they're
52:07
Speaker 1: not silencing Ilan Omar, who is rapidly anti Israel and
52:14
Speaker 1: spewing far too often hateful sentiments online. They're not silencing
52:21
Speaker 1: represented to leave. They're silencing, once again, an elected official
52:26
Speaker 1: they disagree with. If you disagree with an elected official,
52:30
Speaker 1: say why they're wrong. Don't abuse your monopoly power. To
52:34
Speaker 1: silence them, and I think big Tech is going to
52:37
Speaker 1: get worse and worse and worse, and sadly, I think
52:41
Speaker 1: it's only a matter of time before they come after
52:43
Speaker 1: verdict and they you know, they they are going to
52:47
Speaker 1: The more they get away with silencing people they disagree with,
52:50
Speaker 1: they're moving the Overton window so that it is soon
52:55
Speaker 1: going to be maybe the only people you can listen to.
52:59
Speaker 1: They're willing to band Trump, They're willing to ban Joe Rogan,
53:01
Speaker 1: They're willing to ban Marjorie Taylor Green, and it makes
53:05
Speaker 1: you wonder who's next. Because the more they get away
53:08
Speaker 1: with no consequences, the worst it's going to get. That's
53:11
Speaker 1: why I think it's important. The one thing a Republican
53:14
Speaker 1: Congress can do and can do effectively even with a
53:17
Speaker 1: Democrat controlling the White House is oversights at accountability. And
53:22
Speaker 1: I think the American people there's not only an appetite
53:24
Speaker 1: for that, it's a necessity. It's a necessity when we
53:27
Speaker 1: have what we're facing in the radical left. So, Senator,
53:30
Speaker 1: the next question is from Alex Pinckney, and this is
53:33
Speaker 1: a question. This is a very practical question. It's not
53:35
Speaker 1: a policy question, but because you're a lawyer specifically, Alex asks,
53:39
Speaker 1: I'm considering going to law school here in Minnesota, but
53:41
Speaker 1: they have diversity, equity at inclusion, so I fear they
53:44
Speaker 1: are going to have a contorted view of the Constitution
53:47
Speaker 1: and what our founding fathers believed philosophically. Which law school
53:51
Speaker 1: do you recommend? So that's a very good question. I
53:56
Speaker 1: think if you're going in Minnesota, the odds are almost
53:59
Speaker 1: one hundred sent they're going to have a distorted leftist view.
54:02
Speaker 1: But you know, it's not just Minnesota, it's almost every
54:05
Speaker 1: state in the Union. The sad state of the legal academy,
54:10
Speaker 1: like universities across the country, is they're almost overwhelmingly hard left.
54:15
Speaker 1: You know, my general view on colleges, but especially on
54:19
Speaker 1: law school is go to the best school you can
54:22
Speaker 1: get into. That in many ways, what you're purchasing as
54:25
Speaker 1: a credential when you go, look at your responsibility to
54:33
Speaker 1: have a firm foundation, to develop, to learn, to to
54:37
Speaker 1: to study, and not just accept propaganda from professors. And
54:42
Speaker 1: that's true, it just been any place you go. But
54:45
Speaker 1: I do think particularly for law school. You know, lawyers
54:49
Speaker 1: are weird, weird in many respects, but one of the respects.
54:53
Speaker 1: And that's weird is you'll have a seventy year old
54:57
Speaker 1: lawyer who if you look at the firm bio, it
55:02
Speaker 1: will prominently state where they went to college in law school.
55:05
Speaker 1: Like it. It's a very odd they don't, you know,
55:09
Speaker 1: often as prominent as what they've done for the last
55:11
Speaker 1: fifty years. And you contrast that to say, someone in business.
55:18
Speaker 1: You know, Elon Musk, I don't even know where Elon
55:20
Speaker 1: Musk we went to school. Who cares? The guy's got
55:22
Speaker 1: to get zillion dollars and has done amazing things in
55:24
Speaker 1: business and he's got obvious results, so you know who
55:27
Speaker 1: cares where he went to school? Lawyers? I guess part
55:31
Speaker 1: of it is because many people can't make their own
55:38
Speaker 1: determination of the quality of their services. They rely on
55:43
Speaker 1: proxies instead. You know, if you're CEO of a big
55:47
Speaker 1: company and the company's printing money, that's objective and simple,
55:51
Speaker 1: and if you're not Elizabeth Holmes and engaged in fraud,
55:54
Speaker 1: the numbers are clear and transparent. Lawyers, there's an odd
56:00
Speaker 1: academic snobbery that is bizarre and kind of stupid. But
56:04
Speaker 1: that being said, for a young person thinking about going
56:07
Speaker 1: to law school, I think it makes sense to go
56:09
Speaker 1: to the best school you can get into and then
56:12
Speaker 1: take the time you know, read Justice Scalia, read Clarence
56:15
Speaker 1: Thomas read, Robert Borke read Conservatives Learn. But you're gonna
56:19
Speaker 1: have to go out of the way to learn on
56:21
Speaker 1: your own. The other side of the story, because the
56:23
Speaker 1: professor's just about everywhere are a train wreck. I think
56:27
Speaker 1: that's correct. That's true sadly for undergraduate two that most
56:31
Speaker 1: of the education that happens at a higher education level
56:36
Speaker 1: has to be done independently. That was even true for
56:39
Speaker 1: my undergraduate majoring in political science. Most of what I
56:42
Speaker 1: learned about the founding of our country and political philosophy
56:45
Speaker 1: and the history of the world and as it pertains
56:47
Speaker 1: to politics, and as it pertains to our country was
56:50
Speaker 1: based on my own independent study, not necessarily what I
56:52
Speaker 1: was being taught or what I learned in school. So
56:55
Speaker 1: I think that sound advice. If anybody wants to ask
56:58
Speaker 1: a question for next week's episode, you can do so.
57:01
Speaker 1: Ad Verdict with Ted Cruz dot com, slash plus. That's
57:04
Speaker 1: verdict with Ted Cruise dot com, slash plus. Thank you
57:07
Speaker 1: to all of our wonderful friends for listening. Thank you
57:11
Speaker 1: to all of our wonderful critics for your sexual frustrations.
57:15
Speaker 1: Until next time, I'm Michael Knowls. This is Verdict with
57:18
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is
57:30
Speaker 1: being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,
57:33
Speaker 1: a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
57:37
Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
57:41
Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
57:45
Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.