Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Massive School Choice WIN in Texas & Opportunity for Massive WIN Nationally, plus Stopping a Nuclear Iran

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Massive School Choice WIN in Texas & Opportunity for Massive WIN Nationally, plus Stopping a Nuclear Iran · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Good Monday morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Nice have you with us, It's verdict with Senator Ted Cruz,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson with you and Senator I hope you had
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: a great Mother's Day with your family. I will start
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: with that as well. Happy Mother's Day to all the
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: mothers out there listening. And I know you wanted to
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: say something as well.
• 0:16
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 0:16
  Speaker 4: I had a wonderful Mother's Day. We took my mom out.
• 0:19
  Speaker 4: My mom is ninety years old. We took her out
• 0:21
  Speaker 4: for a dinner in town. We took her out along
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: with Heidi and both the girls, and we had a
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: great dinner together as a family. We celebrated moms. My
• 0:31
  Speaker 4: mom is ninety and still going strong. HEDI is a
• 0:35
  Speaker 4: rock and I'm just grateful for all the moms in
• 0:38
  Speaker 4: our lives because there ain't nothing better.
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: Amen to that.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Am in too that We've got a big show today,
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: including a big victory in Texas that could have a
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: big impact on the country on the issue of school choice,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: which is something you've been championing now for years.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: Well, that's exactly right. We've got three big stories that
• 0:58
  Speaker 4: we're going to break down tonight. Number one, school choice
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: and school choice Texas just passed the biggest, the boldest,
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: the most significant school choice program in the entire country.
• 1:07
  Speaker 4: We're going to tell you all about it and what
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: it means for the school children in Texas.
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: We're also going to talk to you about on school choice.
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: We have an historic opportunity right now to win the
• 1:18
  Speaker 4: biggest victory in the country ever. On school choice is
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: part of budget reconciliation. I'm going to explain to you how.
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: We're going to talk also about Iran, and they're ongoing
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: negotiations right now with Iran. There are those who are
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: advocating for another Obama Iran nuclear deal, which would be disastrous.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: It would be terrible.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I agree with President Trump and the red line that
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: he has drawn that any agreement with Iran must include
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: total dismantlement of Iran's nuclear capability.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: All of that up next.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a great story and it's one that's important.
• 1:57
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• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So centator, let's start with this big story. It is
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: one that media really hasn't been covering. I think it's
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: because they're terrified that this is going to give parents
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: freedom to give their kids a great education. And there's
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: a bill that passed in Texas. It deals with school choice.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: It's something that you have been acting for for such
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: a long time. Now it's becoming a reality. Talk about it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: Governor Abbott just signed in a law in the state
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: of Texas the biggest, the broadest, the most significant school
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: choice program in the entire country. This has been the
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: result of decades of battle and hard work, decades that
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: I've been fighting in the field. So I'm going to
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: walk you through number one, the details of the bill.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: The details of the bill. It's a billion dollars that
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: the state is allocated as school choice. One billion dollars
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: that is going in the form of education savings accounts.
• 4:48
  Speaker 4: Education savings accounts that are going to be funded by
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: the state to the tune of just under eleven thousand
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: dollars for roughly ninety thousand school kids statewide. In addition,
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: kids with disability are education are eligible to get education
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: saving accounts that can be as high as thirty thousand dollars. Now,
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: these are not accounts that you're saving into. This is
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: the state putting funding, making it available to parents so
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: that they can choose the best school for their kids.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: It is historic. Many other states have done small, little
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: pilot programs. The breadth the scope of this is massive,
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: and it's worth remembering Texas comprises ten percent of the
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: entire American population. Texas comprises roughly ten percent of the
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: school kids in America, So having robust school choice for
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: ten percent of the school kids in America is a
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: massive and game changing victory, and I got to tell you, Ben,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: it's one that has been hard fought for a long time.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: You know, if you.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Look at school choice and over the past two decades,
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: the states that have led on it have been states
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: like Florida, Arizona, Ohio, and Texas had been lagging behind.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: And I got to say, for Texans, it is infuriating
• 6:13
  Speaker 4: not to lead. It is infuriating not to be standing
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: up doing the right thing. And Texas, it was a
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: big battle, and our challenge was not partisan. It wasn't
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: Republican or democratic. It wasn't even ideological conservative versus moderate.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: It was rather geographic in that Texas has a lot
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: of rural areas. And the challenge you faced is in
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: the Texas State House there were a number of rural
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: Republicans who were good guys, but the biggest employer in
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: their district is the public school district, and the school
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: superintendents in the rural districts vigorously opposed school choice, most
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: significantly because the urban superintendents and the teachers' unions hated
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: school choice. And so what we had in Texas for
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: a long time it is a bunch of urban Republicans
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: who would vote to kill choice programs. Now, I'll tell
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: you what changed that. What changed that was a massive
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: political effort and something I started six years ago. Six
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: years ago, I began intervening and making endorsements in primaries
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: all across the state. And I got to tell you, Ben,
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: out of one hundred US Senators, to the best of
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: my knowledge, ninety nine of them don't do that.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: They don't, yeah, because why take the political risk. And
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: it's where you said, this is how we get it changed.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: It is frankly politically stupid for a US Senator to
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: make endorsements in primary races in his own state. And
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: that's why none of my colleagues do so. Because when
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: you make an endorsement, the old rule of thumb is
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: you get half their friends and all their enemies, yep.
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: And so every time you do it, you're losing votes,
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: you're losing support. Well, what I've done for three cycles
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: in a row is I sit down with my team.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: I have to make an Excel spreadsheet and I say
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: I want to see every vote that they've cast, every
• 8:06
  Speaker 4: state repid, every state senator on school choice. And my
• 8:09
  Speaker 4: rule is, if you voted in favor of school choice,
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: and you're otherwise relatively conservative, you're very likely to get
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: my support. If you voted against school choice, the chances
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: of my supporting your zero. And if you have anything
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: resembling a credible primary challenger, I'm going to endorse your
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: primary challenger. And when I do so, I don't do
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: so gently.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: I come in and I hold on, are you saying
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: you're not subtle when it comes to your endorsing people?
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And it's shocking. This is so off brand for your centator.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: Look, I come in, I cut radio, I cut TV,
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: I get kinetic, and my view is all right, if
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: you're not going to support choice, that's fine, but you're
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: gonna find something else to do because you're not going
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: to be representing the people of Texas. Because the people
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: of Exis want and deserve school choice. I think school
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: choice is the civil rights issue of the twenty first century.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: And so for three cycles I've done that.
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: And there were a bunch of Republicans who voted against choice,
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: and you know what, we've beaten almost every one of
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: them that they came in, and we ran primary challengers
• 9:17
  Speaker 4: against them, and we beat them. And so this time
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: the state Senate passed a strong bill, they sent it
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: to the House, and I'll tell you, I went down
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: to the House. I spent an entire day on the
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: floor of the House.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: This wasn't that long ago, by the way, it was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: an April last week. Went all in.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: I spent an entire day on the floor of the House. Okay,
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: it is weird for a US Senator to be on
• 9:38
  Speaker 4: the floor of the State House. That does not happen
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: very often. I sat the Speaker's office, and I was
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: there trying to shore up the votes while they're considered
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: school choice.
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: And for everyone I'm in.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: I sat down and there's some great men and women
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: serving in the State House, and for those for those
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: that are there, I told every one of them, I said, listen,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: this is the single most important vote you will cast
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: in your time. I'm in the legislature. I'm here to
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: tell you. The teachers' unions they're going to spend millions
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: attacking you when you stand up for the kids of Texas.
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: And I wanted to tell them I've got your back.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: I'm going to support you. And in fact, when I
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: went and did that, I spent a quarter million dollars
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: in TV ads support Actually not TV as digital ads
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: supporting state reps and in particular freshman state reps who
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: were standing up for school choice, who were demonstrating courage.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: And I did that to say, look, you've got friendly
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: air cover, you've got support. But at the same time
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: people understood the flip side. If you vote on the
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: other side, I'm going to do everything I can to
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: retire you and put someone in that position who actually
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: is going to fight to do the right thing for
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: the kids of Texas.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: So let's talk about the practical aspect of this. What
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: does this mean for a parent moving forward when it
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: comes to their kid and practically apply school choice, Because look,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: the Teachers' Union center made this incredible. I guess the
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: best way to put is they've complicated it with doom
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: and gloom and extremism instead of simplifying it, which is
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: part of the reason why we've seen some of you
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: worried about schooltures, like it seems too complicated, let's not
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: Well, look, the Teachers' Union scaremonger. But the good news
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: is we now know the truth. So it was literally
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: thirty years ago that I got involved with the school
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: choice movement. I was a young lawyer and early on
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: in the nineteen nineties, I was the national chairman of
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: the School Choice and Education Reform Committee for the Federal Society.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: And I did that coming off of my clerkship with
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Chief Justice Renquist, where Leonard Leo, who was helping run
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: the Federalist Society, asked me, would you lead this because
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: you're passionate about this issue, and I'll tell you what
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: I said. Actually when he did, he said, look, I
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: said I'd love to, but I said, to be honest,
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: I don't have a record on this. I've never done
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: anything on choice. I was a twenty seven year old lawyer. Sure,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: and so I said, I'll do it, but I want
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: to have a co chair with me, and I asked
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: for the co chair to be a woman named Nicole Garnet.
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: Nicole is a good friend of mine. She was a
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: law clerk to Clarence Thomas. She was married to Rick Garnett,
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: who was my co clerk with Chief Justice Rehnquist. Both
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Rick and Nicole a professors at Notre Dame. But Nicole
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: at the time was a lawyer at the Institute for Justice,
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: and she was litigating school choice cases all over the country,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: and so she had been representing defending these programs and
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: winning victories. And I said, look, Nicole's got a record
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: on this, I've got passion, so I'm happy to do
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: the work.
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: But I didn't want to do it alone. We did
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: it together. I got to tell you.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: So in the nineteen nineties when you were debating school choice,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: like at nineteen ninety nine, all right, I had a
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: very odd speaking invitation. Where do you think I was
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: invited to speak in nineteen ninety nine?
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: I genuinely have no clue at all on this one.
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: I was the keynote speaker, or one of the keynote speakers.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: If you say the Democratic National Convention, I'm going to
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: laugh out.
• 12:57
  Speaker 4: Out worse at the National Convention of the ACLU, No
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: way in hell and the ACLU. They had a one
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: on one debate on school choice between me and Juan Williams.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, and you know Wan.
• 13:15
  Speaker 4: And it was moderated by Barry Lynn, who runs American
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: United for Separation of Church and State, who's a big
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: left to you hate school choice? And I did it
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: in San Diego. There were over five hundred hardcore left
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: wing ACLU activists, maybe the most hostile audience I've ever
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: spoken in front of my life, but I was out
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: there pounding it away.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: I will tell you in the nineteen.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Nineties, when you were arguing about school choice, the teachers
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: unions would say, if kids have a choice, it'll destroy
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: the public schools. And I got to say, that's a
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: serious and powerful argument. If that were true, Ben, I
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: would oppose school choice sure, because the vast majority of
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: kids are educated by the public schools, and for the
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: foreseeable future will continue to be educated by the public schools.
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: Back then, school choice was a theoretical idea of Milton
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Friedman and other free market economists that talked about it,
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: but it hadn't been implemented a lot of places. What
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: has happened in the last thirty years is we have
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: seen roughly thirty different school choice programs implemented all over
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: the country, and we now know the facts. Number one,
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: the claim that it destroys the public schools, we know
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: is objectively false because everywhere it's been implemented, that has
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: not happened. What has happened consistently when choices implemented.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: You see for the students.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: Who exercise a scholarship, who take another choice and leave
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: off of a failing school to go somewhere else.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: The results are unequivocal.
• 14:47
  Speaker 4: Their reading scores go up, their mass scores go up,
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: their high school graduation rates go up, their college admissions
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: go up. It has a profound effect on the students
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: that accept and use the scholarships or use the education
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: savings accounts to choose a preferred something they want more
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: than where they were already. But here's the striking thing
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: that is really important. We now know that choice is
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: also good for the public schools. So for the students
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: that never exercise choice, that stay at the same school
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: that had been struggling or failing, when the other students
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: have the ability to exercise choice, we've seen quality go up.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: That competition is good. It turns out when you have
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: to fight for your customers, for your clients, for your students,
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: or else they leave, you end up providing a better product.
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: We know that consistently across the country, and we're about
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: to see it. I believe powerfully in Texas, in numbers
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: that are frankly just bigger than any other state.
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: So, Santa, the next question I got to ask is
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: how do we get this federally? How do we have
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: the ability for so many people to get what we
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: just accomplish in Texas on the federal level.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: That seems like an uphill battle.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: It took you a long time to pull this off
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: in Texas, and you got your hands dirty in the process.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: Well, it is an uphill battle, and it's a battle
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: that I've been fighting for the past thirteen years. Since
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: I've been in the Senate, I've been the leading defender,
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: the leading advocate of school choice. The single biggest legislative
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: victory that I've had that I'm most proud of in
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: my entire time in the Senate concerned school choice. Back
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: in twenty seventeen, when we were passing the Trump tax cuts,
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: I introduced an amendment that expand expanded college five to
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: twenty nine savings plans to include K through twelve education.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: So five twenty nine savings plans let parents and grandparents
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: save in a tax advantage way for college expenses. And
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: I headed amendment to say this can now apply to
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: K through twelve, to public schools, private schools, parochial schools,
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: your choice. It ended up passing on the floor of
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: the Senate at one in the morning, was a fifty
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: to fifty vote. It was tied, and so the Vice
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: President came down at one in the morning and broke
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: the vote. It remains to date the single most far
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: reaching federal school choice bill that's ever passed. Now, when
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Trump was president, I then introduced a much broader school
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: choice bill, and it was a school choice bill that
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I introduced along with President Trumps Secretary of Education at
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: the Department of Education. And it would create a federal
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: tax credit for contributions given to scholarship granting organizations in
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: the States. The states would administer them, the states would
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: run them, but you would get a dollar for dollar contribution.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: So if Ben Ferguson gave money to a scholarship granting
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: organization in Texas, you would get a credit on your
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: federal income tax for the amount of your contribution. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: it was structured so it was ten billion dollars a year,
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: so one hundred billion dollars over ten years. Now there
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: are no federal strings on the money other than the
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: only requirement is that the scholarship granting organizations cannot discriminate
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: against private or parochial schools. They have to let the
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: parents and the kids actually decide. And as long as
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: the parents and kids are choosing. It is up to
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: the states to administer, and the parents and kids to administer.
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: So that bill I rolled out at the Department of Education.
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: President Trump in the State of the Union address called
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: on Congress to pass it, and we had a problem.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: The problem is every Democrat in the Senate opposes school
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: choice because the teachers' unions are the single most important
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: donors and the most important foot soldiers for Democrat candidates.
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: And so every one of the Democrats is more afraid
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: of the teachers' union bosses than they are motivated to
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: help the kids who are trapped in failing schools. So
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: we couldn't get it passed. Now, your question, Ben is
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: how can we get it done at a federal level. Well,
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: you know what we're doing right now, doing budget reconciliation.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: Budget reconciliation means that we can pass a tax bill
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: with only fifty votes of the Senate, with only Republican votes.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: So I'll tell you, I am making the hard run
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: at my colleagues that we have the chance right now,
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: as a part of one big, bold, beautiful bill to
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: pass the biggest federal school choice bill in history. We
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: can get it done right now. The Democrats cannot stop
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: it if Republicans stand together.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: So I'm urging my colleagues.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: We had this past week, we had a retreat of
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: all the Senate Republicans and we're talking about all the
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: different priorities for budget reconciliation that we're trying to pass.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: And one of the things I stood up and said
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: to my colleagues is, look, this bill is going to
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: be four trillion, four and a half trillion dollars. It's
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: going to be a big bill that impacts a lot
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: of things. A lot of what we're working on individual
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: individual tax cuts, corporate tax cuts, small business tax cuts,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: those are all massively, massively important. But I said, we
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: ought to focus at least a little bit on legacy.
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: We ought to focus on ten, twenty, thirty, forty years
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: from now, what in this bill do people remember? What
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: will make a difference forty years from now that people
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: will say this changed the country, This changed my family.
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: And the case I made to my colleagues is is
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: there's just about nothing we could do that would have
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: a bigger legacy than school choice. Ten billion dollars a
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: year in federal tax credits for contributions to scholarship granting
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: organizations in the States. You would see ten billion dollars
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: worth of new scholarships in all fifty states. We can
• 20:41
  Speaker 4: get that done if we simply stand together.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Right now, I want to talk about what we also
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: some big news that deals with the issue of Iran.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: You went on Life livertal event our good friend Mark
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: Levin show, and we're talking about Iran right now and
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: what they're actively trying to do.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Fill us in on that for a second.
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Well, right now, they're ongoing negotiation going on with the
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: nation of Iran and the Iyahtola is a theocratic lunatic.
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: He regularly regularly leads mobs chanting death to America and
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: death to Israel. And by the way, if history teaches
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: us anything it's that if somebody tells you they want
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: to kill you, believe them. Yeah, And when it comes
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: to Iran, I'll tell you there are some voices in
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: Washington and the administration that are pushing for another Iran deal.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: They really want an Iran deal and basically they want time.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Why did I got to ask, because as some of
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: you listening, they're going to say the same thing I'm
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: saying right now is why on earth would you want
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: an Iran deal if you know that they cheated on
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: the last deal.
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: So look, I don't know. I'm not Sigmund Freud. I'm
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: not their psychoanalysts. I just know they're advocating for it.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: If you look at the Obama Iran nuclear deal, the
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: elements of it, it lifted international sanctions, it allowed Iran
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: to sell oil on the global market, and it allowed
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: Iran to have its nuclear program continue unmolested. There are
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: voices within the administration, and by the way, I led
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: the charge to pull out of that disastrous deal, and
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: President Trump did exactly that.
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: He did the right thing.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: It was the single most important decision, national security decision
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: of his first term to pull out of the disastrous
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: Obama Iran nuclear deal. And right now there's a battle
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: within the administration. But I agree with the red line
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: that President Trump has drawn, and he has said that
• 22:37
  Speaker 4: any deal must include full dismantlement, dismantling the centrifuges, shutting
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: them down, that anything short of that is unacceptable.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: When you look at that deal.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: And I want to play part of what you said
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: on Mark Levin's show, because it is more background just
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: on how crazy the IETOA is in Iran and how
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: big of a threat it is and why you shouldn't
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: trust them.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Take a listen.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: It's my understanding that the vast majority Republicans in the
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: Senate in the House are saying Iran must dismantle its
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: nuclear program.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: It's not a joke. He know what it.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: Means when people talk about a civil or civilian nuclear program.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: We're not going to be fooled. They must dismantle their program.
• 23:24
  Speaker 5: Is that what you understand? That?
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: That is exactly right?
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: And I got to say, Mark, there's a real contrast
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: between the strength that President Trump has shown with respect
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: to Iran and the weakness and appeasement that Joe Biden
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: showed for four years the first term President Trump took
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: on Iran directly pulled out of the disastrous Obama Iran
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: nuclear Deal. He ended the civilian nuclear waivers, he ended
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: the oil waivers, and the result maximum pressure put the
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: Iranian economy into freefall. Their oil sales fell from a
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: million barrels a day of oil down all the way
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: down to three hundred thousand barrels of oil. When Joe
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: Biden came into office, the Iranian economy was in shambles
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: and the Iotola and the Mullahs were teetering and near collapse.
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: But sadly, Biden reversed everything he did complete appeasement. He
• 24:19
  Speaker 4: stopped enforcing the oil sanctions, and as a result, the
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Iatola's oil sales skyrocketed from three hundred thousand barrels a
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: day to two million barrels a day.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: That's one hundred billion dollars that.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden, the Democrats gave the Iatola, and the Iatola
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: is using it to fund the RGC to attack and
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: kill Americans. The Iatola is using that to fund Hamas
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: and Hezbola. In a very real sense, Joe Biden and
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: the money he gave the Iatola funded October seventh. Now
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: that Donald Trump is back in office, he's drawn a
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: clear red line. Iran must dismantle their nuclear capacity.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: They must shut down.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Their centrifuge, as it is the only thing that is
• 25:03
  Speaker 4: verifiable is full dismantlement. And I have every confidence confidence
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: the president is going to hold that line.
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: I do, But I don't have any confidence in the
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: Iranians who lie and cheat and still and murder.
• 25:15
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: And so the question is, how can we expect a
• 25:23
  Speaker 5: regime that does all those things. It is not abided
• 25:27
  Speaker 5: by anything, it's agreed to anything. It has promised over
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: the course of the last fifteen years. So here we
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: are at the eleventh hour. Here we are at the
• 25:34
  Speaker 5: eleventh hour trying to deal with this. How can we
• 25:38
  Speaker 5: trust them? Or, better put, we're not going to trust them.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: How do we make sure that they do what we
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: tell them they must do?
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: Well, listen, we can't trust them because we know that
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: they lie, and they lie over and over and over again.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: It's worth noting the IATOLA right now today is actively trying.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: To murder Donald J.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: Trump has hired hitmen trying to murder the President of
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: the United States. The IATOLA is also actively trying to
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: murder the former Secretary of State Mike Pompeio and the
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: former National Security Advisor John Bolton. They have hired hitmen
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: that are targeting former senior US officials and the sitting
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: president of the United States. These are not people who
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: can be trusted, which is why the objective must be
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: full dismantlement must be the centrifugeas disassembled, destroyed, taken out.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: And as President Trump said recently, we can do that
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: either nicely or not so nicely. Nicely if they agree
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: and we go in and dismantle them ourselves, or not
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: so nicely is if Iran refuses to negotiate, we have
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: the capability to take out these nuclear facilities. And I
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: got to say, Mark, you and I have talked about this.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: Listen.
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: There are some voices in the Trump administration that are
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: on the isolationist wing of foreign policy that say, let's
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: not worry about Iran. Let's not let's not do anything
• 27:01
  Speaker 4: about Iran. And listen, I am someone who is very
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: reluctant to use military force. But Iran is trying to
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: build nuclear weapons because Iran wants to be able to
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: threaten to use nuclear weapons, and they might even use them.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: And I believe a nuclear Iran is an unacceptable threat
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: of seeing an atomic bomb detonated in the skies of
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: New York or the skies of Los Angeles, and so
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: our commander in chief, President Trump, I don't think he's
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: going to.
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: Allow that risk.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: We are going to demand the centrifugas, the nuclear capability
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: be dismantled, and they either do so willingly or they'll
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: be dismantled unwillingly.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: It doesn't seem to be any gray area here from you,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: I will bend there and the president. It seems to
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: be y'all are all in lockstep on the same thing here.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: You cannot trust Iran at all.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Well, and you asked, what why do people oppose this
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: the rhetoric they use as they say, Well, if you're
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: standing up to Iran and you're a warmonger. And let
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: me be clear, as I mentioned to Mark Levin, I
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: have consistently been very reluctant to use military force. You know,
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: you go back to twenty sixteen, the presidential race. You
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: had seventeen Republicans running for president that year, set ran
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: policide because Rand's views are unique in the Senate. Of
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: the remaining sixteen, there were only two of us on
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: that stage who believed and said the Iraq War was
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: a mistake. Donald Trump and me. Both of us said
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: the Iraq War was absolutely a mistake. I believe it
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: was a mistake because you had a dictator, a cruel dictator,
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Saddam Hussein, who was killing terrorists. We came in and
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: we toppled that dictator, and the result was the terrorist
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: took over and they began killing Americans. That did not
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: help America. Toppling a dictator and putting the terrorists in
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: charge was a mistake. By the way, we made the
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: same mistake in Libya, where you had Kadafi and other
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: another very cruel dictator, but he was killing terrorists. We
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: came in and toppled him, and the terrorists took over
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: and they began killing Americans. I think that's a bad
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: trade off. So when I say that we need to
• 29:15
  Speaker 4: focus on American national security, it doesn't mean we should
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: invade other countries. It doesn't mean we should send the Marines.
• 29:23
  Speaker 4: It means we should look at serious, real threats to
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: our national security. And I think the single most acute
• 29:31
  Speaker 4: threat we face, the urgent threat we face right now,
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: is a nuclear Iran, because you've got a theocratic lunatic
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: who has said he wants to murder us, and by
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: the way, we know that he's willing to hire hitmen
• 29:47
  Speaker 4: to try to murder the president already, and if he
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: had nuclear weapons, I think the odds are unacceptably high
• 29:53
  Speaker 4: he would use them. And so in the first term,
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: what I advocated for and what President Trump agreed with,
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: was maximum pressure, using sanctions, cut cutting off their financial system.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: Their economy went into freefall because President's Trump stood up
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: against the iotolin. It was incredibly effective until Joe Biden
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: undermined it by embracing appeasement. That was a massive mistake,
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: and I hope and believe President Trump is turning that
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: around right now.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is really incredible to see him standing up
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: and saying, hey, there are certain things that we're just
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: not gonna deal with and certain things that we're not
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: going to negotiate on. That's exactly what you're hearing from
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: the President.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Now.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: Don't forget we did this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: So hit that subscriber auto download button wherever you're getting
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: this podcast, and make sure that you tell your friends
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: about it, put it up where you are on social media,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and then Senator I will see you back here on
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Wednesday morning.