Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / What Just Went Down

Transcript

What Just Went Down · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: A lot went down on Capitol Hill today, a lot
0:03
Speaker 1: of which you probably didn't hear about. But one man
0:05
Speaker 1: was there to do the job of many. He refuted
0:09
Speaker 1: the Democrats arguments for upending our election system, he shot
0:12
Speaker 1: down the Democrats arguments for taking all of our guns,
0:15
Speaker 1: and most impressively of all, he tweeted the whole time.
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm Michael Knowles, this is verdict with Ted Cruz. Senator Cruz,
0:28
Speaker 1: I want to hear everything that happened today. It seemed
0:32
Speaker 1: as if you were in multiple places at once, hearings
0:35
Speaker 1: on guns, hearings on the Corrupt Politicians Act. And there
0:40
Speaker 1: was a charge that while you were tweeting during all
0:43
Speaker 1: of this, that it was just your staff sort of
0:46
Speaker 1: tweeting on your behalf while you were in the Senate.
0:49
Speaker 1: I have to ask, I know, you'll shoot straight here.
0:52
Speaker 1: Were you the one tweeting? Oh yeah, that was me.
0:55
Speaker 1: I was live tweeting. The look when you're in a
0:59
Speaker 1: room with senator who are droning on and on and on,
1:02
Speaker 1: particularly when they're reading from like staff has written a
1:05
Speaker 1: couple of pages of like text for them to read.
1:09
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like the student and Charlie Brown
1:12
Speaker 1: listening to the teacher, and the teacher goes wa wah wah,
1:16
Speaker 1: wah wah. And the truth of the matter is, like
1:19
Speaker 1: most senators are on their phones and are scrolling through
1:22
Speaker 1: email or text or this, being the social media world
1:27
Speaker 1: that it is, I was on Twitter, and then of
1:29
Speaker 1: course some lefty publications saw me on Twitter on c
1:34
Speaker 1: SPAN and so tweeted about me being on Twitter on
1:37
Speaker 1: c SPAN, and so I promptly retweeted them and said, yep,
1:41
Speaker 1: that's exactly right, and they were sort of surprised, going,
1:43
Speaker 1: holy crap, is he retweeting us. It's like, yes, I am,
1:46
Speaker 1: and uh. And in fact that they made fun of
1:49
Speaker 1: me because Amy Klobuchar was giving some long, long speech
1:53
Speaker 1: that I suppose somebody somewhere listened to, but but nobody
1:57
Speaker 1: in the room did, and they were shocked that I
2:00
Speaker 1: was on my phone for that, and I just said, well,
2:02
Speaker 1: she's still reading her statement even after your tweet. Well,
2:06
Speaker 1: you obviously wear many hats. You're a senator, you're a
2:08
Speaker 1: podcast host, you are often the booking producer on this show.
2:12
Speaker 1: So I'm not at all surprised to hear that it
2:14
Speaker 1: was actually you on Twitter. So you were covering it. Actually,
2:17
Speaker 1: I mean, we're joking about the Twitter of it all,
2:19
Speaker 1: but it is important that you were communicating this and
2:21
Speaker 1: shedding light on what was going on. You were in
2:24
Speaker 1: multiple places. Yeah, look, and there's value to that. I was.
2:31
Speaker 1: So the day started off, I went to a TV
2:34
Speaker 1: studio and did did Fox News in the morning to
2:37
Speaker 1: talk about the markup that was coming on HR one
2:41
Speaker 1: or S one, which is the big election federal takeover
2:45
Speaker 1: of elections bill that is the top priority for Democrats.
2:49
Speaker 1: And what we had today was what's called the markup.
2:53
Speaker 1: The markup is when you actually take the bill and
2:57
Speaker 1: you consider amendments to it, and the rules could comte
3:00
Speaker 1: in the Senate as the committee that has jurisdiction. I'm
3:02
Speaker 1: on the Rules Committee. Actually, interesting bit of trivia. I
3:06
Speaker 1: was put on the Rules Committee as a brand new
3:10
Speaker 1: baby freshman, which is relatively unusual for newly elected senators
3:16
Speaker 1: in my case nine years ago, to be put on it.
3:19
Speaker 1: And actually the reason Mitch McConnell asked me to serve
3:22
Speaker 1: on the committee is that the Rules Committee has jurisdiction
3:25
Speaker 1: over campaign finance reform legislation. And he asked me at
3:28
Speaker 1: the time, he said, look, when the Democrats come with
3:31
Speaker 1: some horrible campaign finance legislation, Ted, I'd like you to
3:35
Speaker 1: lead the fight against this, and that's sort of like,
3:37
Speaker 1: you know, throw me in that briar patch. I am
3:40
Speaker 1: eager to defend the first Amendment to stop the Democrats'
3:44
Speaker 1: efforts to undermine democracy, and so I was happy to
3:47
Speaker 1: do it then. And this is the most dramatic time.
3:50
Speaker 1: And so the markup started at ten am and it
3:55
Speaker 1: wrapped up about seven pm. So it went about nine
3:58
Speaker 1: hours straight and during the course of it, we had, oh,
4:02
Speaker 1: I don't know thirty or forty different amendments. I filed
4:05
Speaker 1: forty six amendments, and so we brought up amendment after
4:09
Speaker 1: amendment debating the bill. The bill is a really bad bill,
4:13
Speaker 1: and I do hope and think that the markup today
4:17
Speaker 1: highlighted just how extreme, just how partisan the bill is,
4:21
Speaker 1: and I think the Democrats ended up casting some really
4:24
Speaker 1: bad votes today that underscores their top priority is staying
4:31
Speaker 1: in power. What this bill is all about is keeping
4:33
Speaker 1: Democrats in power for the next hundred years, and they're
4:37
Speaker 1: really trying to rig the game to do that. And
4:39
Speaker 1: I think the most important function of the markup today
4:42
Speaker 1: was to highlight how they're doing it. So you you
4:45
Speaker 1: mentioned here the campaign finance angle. It actually sort of
4:49
Speaker 1: surprised me because I had forgotten how broad this bill is.
4:54
Speaker 1: When I think of S one HR one, we're calling
4:57
Speaker 1: it the Corrupt Politicians Act. The In my mind, this
5:01
Speaker 1: was about changing the rules for congressional elections and federalizing
5:06
Speaker 1: those those rules that would ordinarily be made by the states.
5:09
Speaker 1: But then you're reminding me there's a campaign finance aspect
5:12
Speaker 1: to it. There. Could you just take us through a
5:14
Speaker 1: little bit of specifically that portion, but but sort of
5:17
Speaker 1: all the all the pieces of this legislation. Sure. So
5:20
Speaker 1: this thing is nearly nine hundred pages long, and it
5:24
Speaker 1: is every bad idea every left wing advocacy group has
5:27
Speaker 1: had over the last twenty years to try to change
5:31
Speaker 1: elections to make sure that Democrats always win. So what
5:35
Speaker 1: does the bill do? Well, let's start with what does
5:37
Speaker 1: it mean? HR one or S one. Nobody knows what
5:39
Speaker 1: that means. HR one means it is the very first
5:42
Speaker 1: bill filed by Democratic leadership in the House. S one
5:45
Speaker 1: means it's the first bill filed by Democratic leader leadership
5:49
Speaker 1: in the Senate. It means it's their number one priority. Yeah,
5:52
Speaker 1: and so just pause for a second and think about
5:55
Speaker 1: what the Democrats are telling you. Their top priority isn't COVID,
5:59
Speaker 1: it's not back nations, it's not jobs, it's not reopening schools.
6:03
Speaker 1: Their top priority is staying in power, and that trumps
6:07
Speaker 1: everything else. Now, what does this bill do. Well, it
6:11
Speaker 1: federalizes elections. It puts the federal government in charge of
6:14
Speaker 1: elections across this country. One of the things it does is, look,
6:18
Speaker 1: we've got fifty states. States generally administer of elections and
6:22
Speaker 1: they pass laws governing how elections are handled. This bill,
6:28
Speaker 1: which many of us are calling, as you noted, the
6:29
Speaker 1: Corrupt Politicians Act, what it does is it essentially repeals
6:35
Speaker 1: virtually every state voter integrity law. Now what does that mean. Here,
6:40
Speaker 1: here's some examples. Voter ID twenty nine states require some
6:46
Speaker 1: form of identification to vote. You think about it, it's
6:49
Speaker 1: a common sense provision. Seventy five percent of Americans support
6:53
Speaker 1: photoid for voting. By the way, that's true, sixty percent
6:58
Speaker 1: of Democrats support photo for voting. Seventy seven percent of
7:03
Speaker 1: Independence support photoid for voting. Sixty percent of African Americans
7:07
Speaker 1: support photo ID for voting. What does the Corrupt Politicians
7:11
Speaker 1: Act do It repeals every one of those laws. It
7:13
Speaker 1: makes it illegal for a state to require voter id Likewise,
7:18
Speaker 1: ballot harvesting, all right, what is ballot harvesting? It is
7:21
Speaker 1: a particularly corrupt practice where you send in a paid
7:25
Speaker 1: political operative to collect the ballots of other peoples. Why
7:29
Speaker 1: is that corrupt? Well, because let's say you have an
7:33
Speaker 1: operative from the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, who goes
7:37
Speaker 1: into a nursing home where you have a bunch of
7:39
Speaker 1: people who are elderly, some of whom may not even
7:42
Speaker 1: be capable of making decisions. With ballot harvesting, these operatives
7:46
Speaker 1: help them fill out their ballots, including people that may
7:48
Speaker 1: not be competent to make those decisions. And it invites
7:53
Speaker 1: voter fraud because number one, they can prompt the people
7:56
Speaker 1: to vote the way the operative wants them to. Number Two,
7:59
Speaker 1: if the operative sees how they vote, Let's suppose you
8:03
Speaker 1: have a senior who stubbornly votes for Donald Trump instead
8:06
Speaker 1: of Joe Biden, the corrupt operative can take that ballot
8:10
Speaker 1: and throw it in the trash. It is dangerous when
8:13
Speaker 1: you have an employee of a political campaign handling the
8:17
Speaker 1: ballots of other people. That's why thirty one states either
8:21
Speaker 1: prohibit or restrict ballot harvesting. What does the Corrupt Politicians
8:25
Speaker 1: Act do? It repeals every one of those restrictions, and
8:28
Speaker 1: it mandates ballot harvesting. Likewise, this bill mandates universal mail
8:35
Speaker 1: in ballots, It mandates drop boxes everywhere, both of which
8:38
Speaker 1: are very susceptible to fraud. It also provides for welfare
8:44
Speaker 1: for politicians. Is this one of the more egregious elements
8:47
Speaker 1: of it? That it provides for a six to one
8:51
Speaker 1: federal government match for money raised in increments under two
8:56
Speaker 1: hundred dollars. So if you raise two hundred dollars, the
8:59
Speaker 1: federal government gives you twelve hundred dollars to match that.
9:02
Speaker 1: That is a particularly idiotic proposal, as I observed at
9:07
Speaker 1: the hearing today. If you think of all of the
9:09
Speaker 1: populations in need of welfare and need of subsidies, in
9:12
Speaker 1: need of supports, politicians are really near the bottom of
9:16
Speaker 1: that list. Yeah. And I'll tell you, Michael, the provision
9:20
Speaker 1: that I think is most naked, that makes most obvious
9:23
Speaker 1: what the Democrats are doing is the Federal Election Commission.
9:27
Speaker 1: It was established after Watergates. So Watergate was a big scandal,
9:30
Speaker 1: campaign finance scandal. They created the Federal Elections Commission in
9:34
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies. It's a bipartisan commission. There are three
9:39
Speaker 1: Democratic commissioners, three Republican commissioners. The reason they did that
9:43
Speaker 1: is they wanted it to be for the FEC to act,
9:46
Speaker 1: it had to be bipartisan agreement. You had to get
9:49
Speaker 1: at least four commissioners, meaning you had to get at
9:51
Speaker 1: least one from the opposing party. What does the Corrupt
9:54
Speaker 1: Politicians Act do. It turns it into a partisan organization.
9:57
Speaker 1: It leaves it with three Democratic commissioners and only two
10:02
Speaker 1: Republican commissioners, which means the FEC becomes essentially the attack
10:07
Speaker 1: dog for Chuck Schumer. And it's designed. What the intention
10:12
Speaker 1: of this would be is to use it to target,
10:15
Speaker 1: to persecute, to investigate Republicans, and by the way, to
10:19
Speaker 1: do it in all likelihood a month or two before
10:22
Speaker 1: the election, right when they're vulnerable, to have an October
10:25
Speaker 1: surprise of guess what, every Republican in a close race,
10:28
Speaker 1: the Chuck Schumer Federal Election Commission is going to announce
10:31
Speaker 1: an investigation into some scandalous aspect of them. It's a
10:35
Speaker 1: really bad idea, and that's what this bill does. So
10:40
Speaker 1: it's amazing because I've been reading the headlines on this bill,
10:45
Speaker 1: but when you see it all laid out all of
10:47
Speaker 1: these things, it's it's such a major bill. And yet
10:53
Speaker 1: that's not all you were doing today. There was another
10:55
Speaker 1: major issue. So while the Democrats are trying to ram
10:57
Speaker 1: down which I think you put it very well, the
11:00
Speaker 1: most radical legislation you've seen in your time, there perhaps
11:04
Speaker 1: perhaps rivaled only by the Equality Act or something like that.
11:06
Speaker 1: And Michael, it's much more dangerous than the Equality Act
11:09
Speaker 1: because it's designed to rig the system. So two of
11:12
Speaker 1: the provisions that are most dangerous in the Corrupt Politicians Act.
11:16
Speaker 1: So one is automatic voter registration. So any individual that
11:22
Speaker 1: has any interaction with the government. So if you get
11:25
Speaker 1: a welfare check, get an unemployment check, if you get
11:28
Speaker 1: a driver's license, if you go to a state college
11:31
Speaker 1: or university, you're automatically registered to vote. Now, that is
11:37
Speaker 1: intended to and will, in fact, if it's enacted, register
11:41
Speaker 1: millions of illegal aliens to vote, because there are anywhere
11:46
Speaker 1: from eleven to twenty million illegal aliens in the country.
11:50
Speaker 1: The estimates vary a large a significant percentage of that group.
11:55
Speaker 1: We don't have an exact estimate, but it is in
11:57
Speaker 1: the millions by any way you assess it is interacting
12:01
Speaker 1: with the government. And all of these who are interacting
12:03
Speaker 1: with the government, this bill is designed to automatically register them.
12:09
Speaker 1: Not only that a number of states have very reasonable
12:13
Speaker 1: provisions that provide that criminals can lose their right to vote.
12:17
Speaker 1: That if you commit a horrific crime, a number of
12:21
Speaker 1: states have said you can forfeit your right to vote.
12:23
Speaker 1: What does the Corrupt Politicians Act do. It strikes down
12:26
Speaker 1: every one of those laws. It says criminals the instant
12:29
Speaker 1: they're released from jail can vote. And the reason for
12:33
Speaker 1: this is Democrats have decided, and I think quite reasonably,
12:39
Speaker 1: that having millions of illegal aliens vote, and thousands or
12:43
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands or millions of criminals and felons vote,
12:48
Speaker 1: that those individuals are likely to vote for Democrats and
12:52
Speaker 1: it will benefit Democrats. This is all about keeping Democrats
12:55
Speaker 1: in power. So during the course of the day, in
12:59
Speaker 1: the markup, as I said, I had forty six amendments.
13:01
Speaker 1: I introduced an amendment to provide that before anyone is
13:05
Speaker 1: automatically registered to vote, you have to verify citizenship, that
13:08
Speaker 1: you're not registering someone illegal. Of course, every Democrat voter
13:12
Speaker 1: know that amendment was voted down. I introduced another amendment,
13:15
Speaker 1: so a portion of this law grants amnesty, grants immunity
13:20
Speaker 1: to any illegal alien who's illegally registered to vote because
13:23
Speaker 1: of the automatic registration. Look at the bill anticipates millions
13:27
Speaker 1: of illegal aliens are registered to vote, and so it
13:29
Speaker 1: grants amnesty. It says they're not liable. There's no criminal liability,
13:33
Speaker 1: no civil liability. They're completely immune from any exposure for
13:38
Speaker 1: being illegally registered to vote. I introduced it amendments to
13:42
Speaker 1: just strip that. That is so radical, and I feel
13:45
Speaker 1: people may not appreciate that. On the one hand, Democrats
13:49
Speaker 1: are saying this bill absolutely will not register illegal aliens
13:54
Speaker 1: to vote, and also when they are, they'll get amnesty
13:57
Speaker 1: for it. That's in the same bill. It is the
14:00
Speaker 1: same bill. The Democrats argued, no illegal aliens will be
14:04
Speaker 1: registered to vote. I said, great, then you should vote
14:05
Speaker 1: for my amendments. If it's not registering anyone, then you
14:08
Speaker 1: ought to welcome these amendments. They're like, no, no, no, no,
14:10
Speaker 1: we can't have that. Have the amendments so I introduced
14:15
Speaker 1: a narrow amendment, just say, let's get rid of the amnesty.
14:18
Speaker 1: If nobody's registered illegally to vote, what's the value of
14:21
Speaker 1: creating a special amnesty for people who are illegally registered
14:24
Speaker 1: to vote. Every Democrat voted no. They voted it down
14:28
Speaker 1: on the criminals. All right, here's a very funny thing.
14:30
Speaker 1: So I had a whole series of amendments allowing states
14:35
Speaker 1: to prevent criminals from voting. The first amendment that got
14:39
Speaker 1: called up was from Senator Hyde Smith, and it was
14:44
Speaker 1: an amendment focused on child molesters, and it said, people
14:49
Speaker 1: that commit crimes against children, states can prevent them from voting.
14:53
Speaker 1: And one of the things I did going into this meeting,
14:56
Speaker 1: I sat down before the markup with Mitch McConnell. I said,
14:59
Speaker 1: down with Roy Blonde, who's the ranking Republican on the committee,
15:02
Speaker 1: and we lay it out a strategy for fighting this.
15:04
Speaker 1: And so I drafted a whole bunch of amendments. And
15:06
Speaker 1: one of the things I did is gave a number
15:09
Speaker 1: of amendments to other Republican senators for them to drive forward.
15:12
Speaker 1: So Cindy Hide Smith, Senator from Mississippi, introduced this amendment
15:16
Speaker 1: that said, if you've committed a crime against children, states
15:20
Speaker 1: can prevent you from voting. Miraculously, Michael, this amendment passed,
15:25
Speaker 1: and Angus King, who is an independent from Maine, although
15:29
Speaker 1: he votes exactly like a Democrat, he voted yes. He said,
15:32
Speaker 1: I'm a parent, and so if you commit a crime
15:34
Speaker 1: against kids, states can say you can't vote. And I argued, forcefully, like,
15:40
Speaker 1: why is it Democrats think our democracy would be better
15:43
Speaker 1: if child molesters were voting. When I think of what
15:45
Speaker 1: the country needs, the enlightened views of child molesters is
15:49
Speaker 1: not high on the list. So once Angus voted for that,
15:54
Speaker 1: and he's like, well, you're not going to have a
15:55
Speaker 1: whole bunch of other amendments onto other crimes. And I said, well, yeah,
15:59
Speaker 1: I do have a whole bunch of others, but I'll
16:00
Speaker 1: just do one. So I pulled up mine, which was murderers.
16:04
Speaker 1: I said, okay, you've agreed child molesters. States can say
16:07
Speaker 1: they can't vote. How up murders people convicted of the
16:09
Speaker 1: felony a murder. Angus King voted, noted that the Democrats
16:14
Speaker 1: voted it down. So every Democrat of the committee voted
16:18
Speaker 1: that it should be illegal. For states to say murderers
16:22
Speaker 1: can't vote. That that's how radical these guys are. Well,
16:25
Speaker 1: and it's not even to say, because people will you
16:28
Speaker 1: confuse the federalism of it all. All you're suggesting here
16:33
Speaker 1: is that states should have the right to determine whether
16:37
Speaker 1: or not murderers can vote. That even that was too
16:40
Speaker 1: much for the Democrats. Yeah, to be clear, my amendments
16:44
Speaker 1: were not requiring a standard, whether it is photoid for voting,
16:49
Speaker 1: whether it is barring criminals from voting. Under the Constitution,
16:53
Speaker 1: the principal responsibility for those decisions of the states. Now,
16:58
Speaker 1: I will say this in discussing it, there is an
17:01
Speaker 1: argument that some on the writer making, which is that
17:04
Speaker 1: this whole bill is on constitution. I actually think that
17:07
Speaker 1: argument is probably not right. That the way the Constitution
17:10
Speaker 1: is drafted, the states have significant responsibility for structuring elections,
17:17
Speaker 1: but Congress also has the authority to promulgate standards, and
17:22
Speaker 1: so it's a concurrent jurisdiction. So I think it is.
17:26
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a valid argument to say Congress
17:29
Speaker 1: can't legislate here. What I do think is a valid
17:32
Speaker 1: argument is that Congress shouldn't be repealing the laws of
17:37
Speaker 1: twenty nine states when it comes to voter ID thirty
17:40
Speaker 1: one states when it comes to restricting ballot harvesting, that
17:43
Speaker 1: Congress should respect the state laws that in turn reflect
17:48
Speaker 1: the values of their citizens. This is an important point
17:51
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of conservatives, I think, who
17:53
Speaker 1: just want to say, oh, well, we don't need to
17:55
Speaker 1: worry too much, because because the courts will strike it down,
17:58
Speaker 1: and so you're making the point, actually that might not
18:01
Speaker 1: be a bulletproof argument. But then there's also the practical
18:05
Speaker 1: political reality here, which is that when we rely on
18:08
Speaker 1: the courts very often we're disappointed. So probably we're gonna
18:11
Speaker 1: want to fight against this now. Well, and it's worse
18:14
Speaker 1: than that. I don't think the courts will strike this down.
18:16
Speaker 1: And here's why. If the Corrupt Politicians Act passes into law,
18:22
Speaker 1: it will be because the Democrats have ended the filibuster,
18:26
Speaker 1: because they have rammed it through on fifty votes. It
18:29
Speaker 1: will be because Joe Manchin and Christen Cinema gave in.
18:33
Speaker 1: If that happens, the Democrats will also pack the US
18:37
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. They'll put four left wing justices on the court,
18:41
Speaker 1: and a packed Supreme Court with four left wing justices
18:45
Speaker 1: will uphold the Corrupt Politicians Act. So the current Supreme
18:48
Speaker 1: Court would certainly strike down significant elements of this bill,
18:55
Speaker 1: but a packed Supreme Court with four new left wing
18:57
Speaker 1: justices will rub or stamp this. And so the filibuster
19:02
Speaker 1: is the whole ball of wax in terms of stopping this.
19:05
Speaker 1: And this is really about, you know, Michael, if you
19:08
Speaker 1: look at what the Democrats are trying to do, I'd
19:10
Speaker 1: really break it into two baskets. What is bad policy?
19:14
Speaker 1: They want to do things that are just bad policy.
19:17
Speaker 1: Massively high taxes, massively high regulations, open borders, massive trillions
19:21
Speaker 1: of dollars in spending. All of that is bad, it's harmful. Yeah,
19:24
Speaker 1: but all of that can be undone. If Republicans take
19:27
Speaker 1: majorities again. We can cut taxes again, we can cut regulations,
19:30
Speaker 1: we can try to cut spending all the Historically that's
19:32
Speaker 1: harder to do. But bad policy can be undone. There's
19:38
Speaker 1: a whole separate, separate category that the Democrats are trying
19:41
Speaker 1: to do that is rigging the game, that is changing
19:44
Speaker 1: the rules. And what falls into that HR one the
19:48
Speaker 1: Corrupt Politicians Act, making DC a state to get two
19:53
Speaker 1: new Democratic senators and packing the US Supreme Court, and
19:56
Speaker 1: those are designed to change the rule because I think
20:00
Speaker 1: Democrats believe if they enact those, they stay in power
20:04
Speaker 1: the next hundred years. That Republicans can't win if millions
20:08
Speaker 1: of illegal aliens and millions of criminals are voting. And
20:11
Speaker 1: that's why they want to do it, particularly if you
20:13
Speaker 1: have a partisan federal election commission that is a political
20:18
Speaker 1: weapon going after Republicans at the behest of Chuck Schumer.
20:22
Speaker 1: They believe, I think quite reasonably, that that will ensure
20:25
Speaker 1: they win for a long time to come. That's why
20:28
Speaker 1: this is the whole edgelata. Senator, you've sufficiently depressed me
20:31
Speaker 1: about the corrupt politicians act. So now, because a wise
20:35
Speaker 1: man once said that it is always darkest before it
20:38
Speaker 1: goes totally pitch black, we have to address the other
20:41
Speaker 1: topic that you were working on today, which is the
20:45
Speaker 1: gun grab. Democrats are trying to pass big gun control.
20:51
Speaker 1: You were there, you were in the room. What's it
20:52
Speaker 1: look like and how do we stop it? Well, it's
20:55
Speaker 1: the Constitution Subcommittee, the Senate Judiciary Committee. I've been the
20:58
Speaker 1: chairman of that committee for a number of years. I'm
21:00
Speaker 1: now the ranking member because we're in the minority, so
21:02
Speaker 1: center Richard Bloomenthal from Connecticut is now the chairman. He
21:06
Speaker 1: had a hearing on so called ghost guns. I mean
21:09
Speaker 1: you said it's always darkest before it goes pitch black.
21:11
Speaker 1: I guess it's fitting that pitch black is when the
21:13
Speaker 1: ghosts come out. I showed up. Irritatingly enough, this hearing
21:17
Speaker 1: was at the exact same time as the markup for
21:20
Speaker 1: the Corrupt Politicians Act. So what I talked about on
21:23
Speaker 1: the hearing unquote ghost guns and what is a ghost gun?
21:26
Speaker 1: I mean, to be honest, who the hell has heard
21:28
Speaker 1: of a ghost gun? I mean, you want to talk
21:30
Speaker 1: about a made up phenomenon, and it's designed to be
21:33
Speaker 1: really scary, like, oh, ghost guns? What? What? What the
21:36
Speaker 1: heck are those? They're handmade guns. They're they're people, they're
21:39
Speaker 1: hobbyists who make handmade guns. They make guns from kits.
21:43
Speaker 1: They order different kits online and they assemble them. And
21:48
Speaker 1: the reason this is a made up problem is there
21:50
Speaker 1: is zero evidence, like, like nothing, nada, that handmade guns
21:57
Speaker 1: are producing any violent crime at all. Like it It's
22:00
Speaker 1: a totally made up And so I kind of unloaded
22:04
Speaker 1: on the Democrats this morning, and I said, look, you've
22:06
Speaker 1: got a hearing on a totally bogus threat, but it's
22:09
Speaker 1: designed to be scary and frankly, they're taking advantage of
22:14
Speaker 1: ignorant liberals who don't really know anything about guns and
22:18
Speaker 1: a ghost gun that they want to use a term
22:20
Speaker 1: that sounds really frightening. Yeah, but I said, what are
22:23
Speaker 1: you next going to hold a hearing on civil war
22:27
Speaker 1: replica canons? I mean, they're not being used in crimes.
22:30
Speaker 1: You want a hearing, You want a hearing on gun crime.
22:32
Speaker 1: Gun crime is a serious problem. How about have a
22:34
Speaker 1: hearing on Chicago and New York and Philadelphia and how
22:38
Speaker 1: left wing gun control laws aren't working. That's actually a
22:40
Speaker 1: real hearing. But they don't want to do that. And
22:45
Speaker 1: what I talked about also in my opening comments, I said, listen,
22:49
Speaker 1: why is it the Democrats are trying to do this?
22:51
Speaker 1: Because number one, their objective is not going after actual
22:53
Speaker 1: gun crime. It is stripping the Second Amendment rights from
22:57
Speaker 1: law abiding citizens. That the people that build homemade guns
23:00
Speaker 1: are collectors. Frankly, if you're a gang banger in Chicago,
23:04
Speaker 1: you're not making a homemade gun. You're buying an illegal
23:07
Speaker 1: gun on the black market that you're murdering people with.
23:10
Speaker 1: I mean that's where the guns come from. But here's
23:13
Speaker 1: what this is all about. And it was interesting Bloomenthal
23:16
Speaker 1: at his opening statement, he said, look, these are untraceable,
23:20
Speaker 1: and untraceable is meant to be scary. They want to
23:25
Speaker 1: be able to trace every firearm in America because they
23:28
Speaker 1: want a registry of every firearm in America. And I
23:30
Speaker 1: put it out. I said, listen, Heidi and I own
23:33
Speaker 1: a number of firearms. There is no government list of
23:36
Speaker 1: the firearms we own. It's none of your damn business
23:39
Speaker 1: what firearms we own. You want to find out what
23:41
Speaker 1: firearms we own. Come into our house at night, you'll
23:43
Speaker 1: find out what firearms we own. Look like it is.
23:47
Speaker 1: And for the big government liberals, they want a registry.
23:51
Speaker 1: And the reason they want a registry is if you
23:53
Speaker 1: look at countries throughout history that have confiscated firearms, it
23:57
Speaker 1: always starts with a registry, a list of what guns
24:01
Speaker 1: does Michael Knowles own, so that when they come knock
24:03
Speaker 1: on the door, they say, okay, mister Knowles, you've got
24:07
Speaker 1: a rifle, you've got a shotgun, and you've got a
24:10
Speaker 1: thirty eight revolver. Produced the guns now we're seizing them.
24:14
Speaker 1: And so I am fighting tooth and nail against a registry.
24:18
Speaker 1: This whole ghost guns thing is a made up bass topic. Yeah,
24:24
Speaker 1: because what they want is a registry of every gun
24:26
Speaker 1: to be able to confiscate. Before we go. We're as
24:30
Speaker 1: always pressed for time before we go, We've got to
24:32
Speaker 1: touch on this Israel issue. We have to touch on
24:36
Speaker 1: it because I don't understand anything about it, and I
24:39
Speaker 1: think most people, frankly, are looking at this conflict, the
24:42
Speaker 1: Israel Palestine conflict. It seemed to have been fine. Everything
24:46
Speaker 1: seemed to be going pretty well for the past four years.
24:48
Speaker 1: You had lots of new peace treaties. We happened to
24:50
Speaker 1: be doing episodes. We were in DC during those peace treaties.
24:54
Speaker 1: You were there at the signing of them. And now
24:57
Speaker 1: everything's gone to hell in a handbasket. What went wrong?
25:01
Speaker 1: Weakness causes violence and aggression. Terrorists like weakness. They're encouraged
25:09
Speaker 1: by weakness. You know, I had dinner, I think week
25:11
Speaker 1: before last, with David Friedman, who was the former US
25:14
Speaker 1: Ambassador to Israel under President Trump. David is a good friend.
25:19
Speaker 1: Four years of President Trump, you saw the Palestinian attacks
25:22
Speaker 1: on the Israelis on Americans dropped dramatically and it was
25:26
Speaker 1: because I believe President Trump drew a line in the
25:29
Speaker 1: SANUS as we stand with Israel. There was no ambiguity
25:32
Speaker 1: about it. What did Joe Biden do when he came
25:34
Speaker 1: in immediately put ambiguity about it. Immediately. One of the
25:37
Speaker 1: things Biden started to doing is he sent over one
25:41
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars to the Palestinian Authority. Now, the Palestinian
25:44
Speaker 1: Authority is the quasi government of the Palestinians within Israel.
25:50
Speaker 1: It is in what's called a unity government with Hamas.
25:53
Speaker 1: Hamas is a terrorist organization. It's explicitly a terrorist organization.
25:57
Speaker 1: Hamas and the Palestinian Authority they pay bounties to terrorists.
26:03
Speaker 1: So if you're a Palestinian terrorist and you strapped dynamite
26:06
Speaker 1: on a vest and you walk into a mall and
26:09
Speaker 1: you detonate the dynamite and you murder women and children
26:13
Speaker 1: a moss and the Palestinian Authority will pay your family
26:17
Speaker 1: a ongoing stipend for the rest of their lives. And
26:22
Speaker 1: it's a major budget item that they want to encourage.
26:26
Speaker 1: So it's the government spending money to pay the families
26:30
Speaker 1: of terrorists as rewards for them murdering Israelis. And murdering Americans. Yeah,
26:35
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, Congress passed a law called
26:38
Speaker 1: the Taylor Forsac. Taylor Force was a Texan. He was
26:40
Speaker 1: a veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Israel.
26:45
Speaker 1: And the Taylor Forsack says, US tax collet dollars will
26:48
Speaker 1: not go to any organization that rewards terrorists, that pays
26:52
Speaker 1: the families of terrorists as a reward for them committing
26:55
Speaker 1: terror What did Joe Biden do in the first couple
26:58
Speaker 1: of months in office. Base basically ignored the Tailor Force
27:01
Speaker 1: Act and started paying hundreds of millions of dollars to
27:04
Speaker 1: the Palestinian authorities. So Joe Biden is sending your tax dollars,
27:07
Speaker 1: my tax dollars to fund hamas in their payments to terrorists.
27:11
Speaker 1: And you know what, the terrorists see that and say, Okay,
27:15
Speaker 1: this Biden administration is weak. They won't stand with Israel.
27:19
Speaker 1: So let's start firing rockets. And they're firing rockets. They're
27:22
Speaker 1: firing hundreds of rockets at Jerusalem, at Tel Aviv, all
27:26
Speaker 1: up and down Israel. And by the way, not only
27:28
Speaker 1: is the Biden administration not doing anything meaningfully about it.
27:32
Speaker 1: But you've got democrats like Ilhan Omar and Rashid Tali.
27:37
Speaker 1: Omar accused Israel of carrying out acts of terrorism because
27:43
Speaker 1: it's trying to defend itself against rocket attacks aimed at
27:47
Speaker 1: civilians and it's trying to take out the terrorists. And listen,
27:50
Speaker 1: I tweeted this week, why is a member of Congress
27:53
Speaker 1: acting as the press secretary for Hamas? And this is
27:57
Speaker 1: contrast at six months ago, we were seeing historic peace
28:01
Speaker 1: in the Middle East. Why because the President of the
28:03
Speaker 1: United States and the US government was clear and unequivocal,
28:06
Speaker 1: We stand with Israel, and no one wanted to screw
28:08
Speaker 1: with us. Now because Biden is not able to be
28:11
Speaker 1: clear and unequivocal, suddenly they want to screw with Israel
28:14
Speaker 1: and they want to screw with us. And this is
28:16
Speaker 1: it's a manifestation of the failures of Biden's foreign policy.
28:20
Speaker 1: It's night and day. I remember when John Kerry, but
28:23
Speaker 1: before he was trapesing all over the world stopping the
28:26
Speaker 1: sun monster. When John Kerry was the Secretary of State,
28:29
Speaker 1: he said that it is not possible to solve the
28:33
Speaker 1: Israel Palestine conflict. It is not possible. Rather, to solve
28:37
Speaker 1: the Middle Eastern conflict more broadly, without first dealing with
28:41
Speaker 1: the Palestinian conflict. And the Trump administration comes in and says,
28:45
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think that's true. I think we're
28:48
Speaker 1: going to just deal with all of these other Arab
28:49
Speaker 1: states and we're gonna get peace deals with those separate states.
28:53
Speaker 1: And the Democrats said that was not possible. What happened
28:56
Speaker 1: for the last several years, we've seen lots and lots
28:59
Speaker 1: of peace. Three now that seems to be falling apart.
29:02
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, Senator, a bit of a
29:04
Speaker 1: depressing show on the voting rights, on the guns, on
29:07
Speaker 1: the international diplomacies. Is there any glimmer of hope here?
29:10
Speaker 1: I think the markup today on the Corrupt Politicians Act
29:13
Speaker 1: was very beneficial in one since it showed just how
29:17
Speaker 1: radical and extreme the Democrats were. I mean, when every
29:21
Speaker 1: Democrat on the committee voted to allow murderers to vote,
29:25
Speaker 1: that's a pretty extreme vote. When every Democrat on the
29:28
Speaker 1: committee voted to allow millions of illegal aliens to vote,
29:31
Speaker 1: that's an extreme vote. When every Democrat voted to maintain
29:35
Speaker 1: the amnesty for millions of illegal aliens voting illegally, that's
29:39
Speaker 1: an extreme vote. You know, there's another provision we talked about,
29:42
Speaker 1: the six to one match of federal funds, which is,
29:46
Speaker 1: you know, welfare for politicians. One of the things I
29:50
Speaker 1: did at the markup today I went through what every
29:53
Speaker 1: Democrat on the committee had raised in Q one in
29:56
Speaker 1: the first quarter of this year, and I went through
29:59
Speaker 1: how much they would get under the match, and some
30:01
Speaker 1: would get a million. Angus King I think would get
30:04
Speaker 1: like seven hundred fifty dollars, he got virtually nothing. The
30:07
Speaker 1: Democrat who got the most was John assaf who was
30:10
Speaker 1: just elected out of Georgia, and he would get a
30:13
Speaker 1: little over eleven million dollars in federal funds. I mean,
30:16
Speaker 1: that's a bunch of money, eleven million dollars. So the
30:20
Speaker 1: senator who would get the most on the committee was
30:24
Speaker 1: yours truly. And last quarter in Q one of this year,
30:29
Speaker 1: I raised five point three million dollars five point three
30:33
Speaker 1: million dollars. Ninety eight percent of that came from contributions
30:36
Speaker 1: under one hundred dollars. I think the average contribution, if
30:38
Speaker 1: I remember Wright, it was either forty one or forty
30:40
Speaker 1: seven dollars. I forget which one it was, but it
30:42
Speaker 1: was forty something five point three million dollars six to
30:47
Speaker 1: one match. Now there's a cap. So what it would
30:49
Speaker 1: have meant is I would have gotten twenty four million
30:53
Speaker 1: dollars from the federal government. And I asked the Democrats,
30:56
Speaker 1: I said, why do my Democratic colleagues want to give
30:58
Speaker 1: my campaign twenty four million dollars in federal funds? This
31:04
Speaker 1: is asinine. I don't want the funds. I'd like to
31:07
Speaker 1: go raise the funds. By the way, if you're watching this,
31:09
Speaker 1: go to Ted Cruz dot org and make contribution. I
31:12
Speaker 1: welcome those funds, but I'm not interested in taking federal
31:15
Speaker 1: taxpayer money. And every Democrat voted to give my campaign
31:20
Speaker 1: twenty four million dollars in federal funds. I mean it's
31:23
Speaker 1: asinine because their priority is staying in power, and so
31:29
Speaker 1: they want billions of dollars of federal funds going to
31:34
Speaker 1: their campaign. So as incumbents, they have massive amounts of
31:38
Speaker 1: money and they can crush any challenger. And I gotta say,
31:41
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer began the hearing by the markup by giving
31:45
Speaker 1: this this sanctimonious speech, and it was a speech about
31:49
Speaker 1: Jim Crow. And I responded shortly thereafter, and I said, look,
31:55
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer rightly talked about Jim Crow. Jim Crow was shameful,
31:58
Speaker 1: it was racist, it was big. Jim Crow laws were
32:01
Speaker 1: written by Democrats, they were implemented by Democrats, and the
32:06
Speaker 1: purpose of Jim Crow laws was to keep Democrats in
32:09
Speaker 1: power forever. Now I recognize today's Democrats and the corrupt media.
32:16
Speaker 1: Their narrative was, well, that was the Democrats of a
32:18
Speaker 1: long time ago, but not today. I said, listen, this
32:22
Speaker 1: bill today is Jim Crow two point zero. This is
32:25
Speaker 1: designed for the same purpose, which is to prevent the
32:28
Speaker 1: voters from throwing the bumbs out, to prevent the voters
32:32
Speaker 1: from voting Democrats out when they embrace socialism, when they
32:36
Speaker 1: embrace open borders, when they pack the Supreme Court, when
32:39
Speaker 1: they advocate abolishing the police. The Democrats want the voters
32:44
Speaker 1: not to have the power to vote them out. And
32:46
Speaker 1: how do they do that. They do that by registering
32:49
Speaker 1: millions of illel aliens, allowing criminals to vote, and making
32:53
Speaker 1: the Federal Election Commission a partisan weapon to target Republicans.
32:57
Speaker 1: This is all about disenfranchising voters, just like Jim Crow.
33:01
Speaker 1: And I gotta admit to say Democrats didn't like that
33:05
Speaker 1: would be something of an understatement, and I think there
33:09
Speaker 1: is value just shining the light and explaining what it
33:13
Speaker 1: is they're trying to do. I think that's true. And
33:15
Speaker 1: you know, a guy who's going to turn down twenty
33:17
Speaker 1: four million bucks probably doesn't care what the Democrats say
33:20
Speaker 1: about him on the committee. Twenty four million bucks. You know.
33:23
Speaker 1: I guess there is the glimmern thing. I guess the
33:26
Speaker 1: glimmer of hope is no matter. If they'd upped it
33:28
Speaker 1: to twenty five, I might have been up open to it,
33:32
Speaker 1: That's exactly. And I suppose there's got to be a
33:34
Speaker 1: number somewhere. But if you think you're having a bad day,
33:37
Speaker 1: you're looking at the politics all around the world, you
33:39
Speaker 1: say everything's going to hell in a hand basket. At
33:41
Speaker 1: least you didn't have to turn down twenty four million
33:43
Speaker 1: dollars today like Senator Cruz did. We have to leave
33:45
Speaker 1: it their senator. But we will be back soon. I'm
33:48
Speaker 1: Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode
34:00
Speaker 1: of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you
34:03
Speaker 1: by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee
34:06
Speaker 1: dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the
34:11
Speaker 1: country in twenty twenty two. Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack
34:15
Speaker 1: plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and
34:18
Speaker 1: help the Republican Party across the nation.