Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Holy Crap, What a Week

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Holy Crap, What a Week · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: The media have declared Joe Biden the winner of the
0:03
Speaker 1: twenty twenty presidential election. But under our constitutional system, it
0:08
Speaker 1: turns out that the media don't actually get to pick
0:11
Speaker 1: who the president is. Fortunately, we are joined by a
0:15
Speaker 1: constitutional expert, somebody who knows a lot about elections. He
0:19
Speaker 1: will help us understand the nitty gritty and who, in
0:22
Speaker 1: fact will be the president. This is a verdict with
0:25
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz. Welcome back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz. I
0:35
Speaker 1: am Michael Knowles, Senator. I am no constitutional expert. I
0:39
Speaker 1: did not go to law school, but I think I
0:41
Speaker 1: am right in saying this. The media don't get to
0:44
Speaker 1: pick the president, right, thankfully, although lord knows they're trying.
0:50
Speaker 1: It is the voters who decide. And you know, I
0:52
Speaker 1: got to say so. You and I are filming this
0:56
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night. Election Day was a week ago. We
1:00
Speaker 1: haven't done a podcast since before election Day. I kind
1:04
Speaker 1: of feel like Thomas Jefferson in the musical Hamilton coming
1:08
Speaker 1: back saying so what did I miss? Like, Holy crap,
1:14
Speaker 1: what a week this has been. There's never been a
1:19
Speaker 1: week like this in politics, in media, in life, and
1:27
Speaker 1: the consequence for the nation are enormous. You know, we've
1:32
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of messages of people asking why didn't
1:35
Speaker 1: you do an episode during the election or the day
1:37
Speaker 1: after the election. And I think people sometimes forget you
1:40
Speaker 1: are a sitting US senator. You know, you do have
1:42
Speaker 1: a pretty busy schedule, and the events have been changing
1:46
Speaker 1: in real time. Obviously, on election night, you had certain
1:50
Speaker 1: cable networks calling Arizona, for instance, for Joe Biden. Then
1:54
Speaker 1: it seems like people were walking that back. Now it
1:56
Speaker 1: seems unclear who's going to get Arizona. You had a
1:59
Speaker 1: lot of vote coming really late in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin
2:03
Speaker 1: and Michigan, you had the polls counting stopping just at
2:08
Speaker 1: ten o'clock at night, and then it was supposed to
2:10
Speaker 1: not resume until the morning. Other reports that resumed in
2:12
Speaker 1: the middle of the night. There's just so much disinformation, misinformation,
2:17
Speaker 1: and on the legal front, obviously, there are so many questions.
2:21
Speaker 1: So I know you have been through this actually before.
2:24
Speaker 1: You were a lawyer on President George W. Bush's team
2:27
Speaker 1: during the Florida recount and the questions of the two
2:30
Speaker 1: thousand presidential election. What are we looking at here in
2:34
Speaker 1: terms of President's Trump's chances for a second term in
2:38
Speaker 1: terms of the ability to find fraud in Philadelphia, for instance.
2:42
Speaker 1: Where are we on the legal front. Well, I'll start
2:45
Speaker 1: with a radical proposition, which is that elections are decided
2:51
Speaker 1: when the results have been counted and the legal proceedings
2:54
Speaker 1: are over that that didn't used to be a controversial proposition.
3:00
Speaker 1: You know, think back to election night. I was here
3:04
Speaker 1: in Houston, was an election party with a number of friends.
3:08
Speaker 1: That night was a great night. Republicans were winning, We
3:13
Speaker 1: were winning the Senate, we were winning House seats, and
3:17
Speaker 1: President Trump was winning re election. Early on Florida was
3:21
Speaker 1: called for the president. Early on Ohio was called for
3:24
Speaker 1: the president, and we were leading. I went home to
3:27
Speaker 1: go to bed about two in the morning, and we
3:29
Speaker 1: were leading in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. I mean,
3:33
Speaker 1: it looked like a really strong night. And then I
3:37
Speaker 1: suspect a lot of us went to bed and we
3:39
Speaker 1: woke up in the morning and it's like what happened.
3:46
Speaker 1: There are multiple lawsuits all over the country right now
3:49
Speaker 1: playing out. There were going to be recounts in multiple states.
3:56
Speaker 1: All of those proceedings have to be concluded before we
3:59
Speaker 1: know who actually will be the winner state by state.
4:02
Speaker 1: By state, and that's going to take, in all likelihood
4:06
Speaker 1: several weeks. It's not going to take six months, but
4:10
Speaker 1: the litigation is not going to be over by tomorrow.
4:12
Speaker 1: And the night of the election. Number one, the media,
4:16
Speaker 1: two outlets, Fox News and AP were really precipitous calling Arizona.
4:21
Speaker 1: That was clearly a mistake. You know, when when CNNA
4:25
Speaker 1: is calling out Fox for being too anti Trump, you know,
4:30
Speaker 1: somebody's jumped the shark somewhere. I mean, I mean that
4:32
Speaker 1: that's a problem. But the instant the vote totals shifted
4:39
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden. We've seen virtually the entire mainstream media
4:43
Speaker 1: try to engage in an immediate coronation, big tech engage
4:48
Speaker 1: in total censorship of any view to the contrary. And
4:52
Speaker 1: and they're behaving with this weird you know. I mean,
4:57
Speaker 1: it's almost like their persecuting heritage. If you dare say, well,
5:02
Speaker 1: let's wait till the litigation is resolved, they scream at
5:05
Speaker 1: you your undermining democracy. That's nutty. No democracy means if
5:13
Speaker 1: they're legal challenges, you resolve the legal challenges. And by
5:16
Speaker 1: the way, this happens in elections all the time. We
5:20
Speaker 1: see recounts, we see litigation. We see disputes over if
5:25
Speaker 1: there were votes that were illegally cast, that litigation has
5:29
Speaker 1: to be resolved. And you know the way it plays out.
5:33
Speaker 1: Their cases in state court, their cases in federal court.
5:35
Speaker 1: The cases in state court will be adjudicated in a
5:40
Speaker 1: trial court. They will, they will in many instances go
5:43
Speaker 1: up to an intermediate court of appeals. They would go
5:45
Speaker 1: up maybe to the state Supreme Court, and then the
5:49
Speaker 1: US Supreme Court can take it from the state system.
5:52
Speaker 1: There will also be cases in federal court that start
5:54
Speaker 1: in federal district court, maybe go up to the Court
5:56
Speaker 1: of Appeals, and they can go up to the Supreme Court.
5:59
Speaker 1: So if you look at Bush versus Gore, as you
6:03
Speaker 1: know my book One Vote Away, it's a whole chapter
6:05
Speaker 1: on Bush versus Gore, and it goes into great detailed
6:09
Speaker 1: Bush versus Gore took thirty six days when we arrived
6:13
Speaker 1: in Florida. Within days, we had a chart of seven
6:18
Speaker 1: different cases that we're all pending just in one state,
6:21
Speaker 1: justin Florida, any one of which could have cost the
6:24
Speaker 1: presidency of the United States. And it was chaos. We
6:27
Speaker 1: went to the Florida Supreme Court twice. We went to
6:29
Speaker 1: the US Supreme Court twice. And when I say went
6:31
Speaker 1: to the US Supreme Court, I mean brief the case,
6:34
Speaker 1: argued it, and got a written decision from the Supreme
6:38
Speaker 1: Court twice in those thirty six days. And by the way,
6:42
Speaker 1: we also tried a full case in the Florida Trial
6:46
Speaker 1: Court in addition to multiple other arguments. So the court
6:50
Speaker 1: system can operate, but all of us should expect the
6:54
Speaker 1: courts to resolve these claims. There are lots of claims
6:58
Speaker 1: of voter fraud. I don't know which claims are accurate
7:03
Speaker 1: and which aren't. You don't know which claims are accurate
7:05
Speaker 1: and which aren't. That's why we have a legal system.
7:08
Speaker 1: That's what courts do. And in today's world where you
7:13
Speaker 1: see you know, this Twitter allegation, that Twitter allegation, all
7:16
Speaker 1: sorts of things, it's really hard to know, all right,
7:18
Speaker 1: what really is the state of affairs? Well, we ought
7:23
Speaker 1: to allow the legal system to actually hear evidence, to
7:27
Speaker 1: examine the data, to listen to witnesses, to examine evidence,
7:31
Speaker 1: and to make factual determinations. That's why we have a
7:35
Speaker 1: judicial system, of course, And the idea that there was
7:38
Speaker 1: no fraud whatsoever seems to me very difficult to believe.
7:41
Speaker 1: You called this out right, and I have to tell you,
7:44
Speaker 1: I don't mean to flatter you, Senator, but you were
7:46
Speaker 1: one of the few elected Republicans who actually came out
7:48
Speaker 1: strongly on this. Specifically in Philadelphia, you had Republican poll
7:53
Speaker 1: watchers show up every election. You got poll watchers from
7:56
Speaker 1: both campaigns. They show up, they make sure there are
7:58
Speaker 1: no shenanigans going on. Republican poll watchers were turned away.
8:02
Speaker 1: There was then a court order that said you have
8:03
Speaker 1: to let the Republican poll watchers in. What happened, they
8:06
Speaker 1: still encountered resistance trying to take a look at these polls.
8:10
Speaker 1: That is outrageous, That is illegal, and who knows if
8:14
Speaker 1: that's through an election. We can't know that. Obviously a
8:16
Speaker 1: legal process has to play out. But to say that
8:18
Speaker 1: there is no evidence whatsoever and we need to certify
8:21
Speaker 1: these results and move on and waiting even five days
8:24
Speaker 1: is too long and unprecedented. That just seems to be
8:27
Speaker 1: not in correspondence with reality. Well, and let's take that
8:31
Speaker 1: component for a moment. I've been trying to be very
8:34
Speaker 1: active both on social media and also on media media,
8:43
Speaker 1: engaging in these issues and leading the fight it's interesting
8:48
Speaker 1: the media talking points and the dem talking points on
8:51
Speaker 1: the Pennsylvania ballot observers is, well, no, no, no, they
8:53
Speaker 1: were in the room. What they ignore is that they
8:58
Speaker 1: were being kept twenty feet away or twenty five feet away.
9:01
Speaker 1: If you've ever tried to actually look at a ballot
9:04
Speaker 1: twenty five feet away, you can't see the damn ballot.
9:06
Speaker 1: You are not actually an observer if you're twenty five
9:09
Speaker 1: feet away. Ultimately, they went to a Pennsylvania state court
9:13
Speaker 1: and got an order to be six feet away. To
9:15
Speaker 1: be honest, it's hard to observe a ballot six feet
9:18
Speaker 1: away if you're trying to see are the guy's cheating?
9:22
Speaker 1: And that's a second point to understand. It couldn't sound like, oh,
9:27
Speaker 1: it's a technicality. It's a procedural issue whether there were
9:30
Speaker 1: observers there. But the reason that the law mandates the
9:35
Speaker 1: observers be there is to prevent people from engaging in fraud,
9:39
Speaker 1: to prevent people from stealing votes. You look at Bush
9:43
Speaker 1: versus Gore. One of the first things the Democrats did
9:46
Speaker 1: is they sought recounts in four overwhelmingly Democratic counties in Florida,
9:54
Speaker 1: and I talk about in my book one vote away.
10:00
Speaker 1: How on the Bush legal team and I was a
10:02
Speaker 1: young lawyer at the time. I was in my late
10:04
Speaker 1: twenties and was part of it. Was an incredible legal
10:06
Speaker 1: team that came together for George W. Bush. We had
10:10
Speaker 1: a big debate about, Okay, do we counter by asking
10:14
Speaker 1: for recounts and four overwhelmingly Republican counties. So if they're
10:18
Speaker 1: going to go seek recounts and Democratic counties, does it
10:21
Speaker 1: help us to do get recounts and Republican counties? We
10:24
Speaker 1: didn't do so we decided no, let's not do so.
10:27
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you the reason why. Because we believe
10:31
Speaker 1: to a person that in the Democratic recounts that the
10:34
Speaker 1: hard leftist partisans would cheat, that they'd be sitting there
10:39
Speaker 1: those had chads that they literally we've poked them out
10:41
Speaker 1: with their fingernails, like if you didn't look, boom, there
10:43
Speaker 1: you go another vote for Gore. And what we said is, look,
10:47
Speaker 1: our guys won't cheat. Like, if we do a recount
10:49
Speaker 1: in a Republican county, it doesn't help us because the
10:53
Speaker 1: guys counting us are going to come up with basically
10:56
Speaker 1: the same count that. Thankfully, I'm glad our guys won't cheat.
11:00
Speaker 1: Now look, some observers may say, oh, that's a pretty
11:03
Speaker 1: partisan view of things. I can't prove as a conclusive
11:09
Speaker 1: fact that the Democratic counters cheat significantly more than the
11:12
Speaker 1: Republican accounters do. What I can tell you is the
11:15
Speaker 1: reason we didn't seek a recount in the Republican counties
11:18
Speaker 1: is that all of our lawyers, all of George W.
11:20
Speaker 1: Bush's lawyers, believe that right, and so we didn't seek
11:24
Speaker 1: a recount. It. As they recounted it, you kept seeing
11:27
Speaker 1: the numbers for Gore grow and grow and grow. I mean,
11:29
Speaker 1: it clearly played out in the pattern we anticipated. And
11:34
Speaker 1: just for people who think there isn't historical president here,
11:37
Speaker 1: obviously you've got Bush, bigre you've got the two thousand recount,
11:40
Speaker 1: but actually your predecessor in the Senate from Texas, Lyndon Johnson,
11:44
Speaker 1: who obviously went on to become president. There's great controversy
11:47
Speaker 1: about his nineteen forty eight election to the Senate, where
11:51
Speaker 1: I think it was about a million votes cast and
11:53
Speaker 1: he won by something like eighty seven votes. You know,
11:56
Speaker 1: it was fewer than one hundred votes, and it all
11:58
Speaker 1: came from back thirteen Box thirteen, a box of ballots
12:03
Speaker 1: from a notoriously corrupt county, and there's allegations that it
12:07
Speaker 1: had been stuffed at. President Roosevelt actually joked about stuffing
12:12
Speaker 1: ballot boxes at the time. This is an American tradition.
12:15
Speaker 1: Unfortunately it is. There has been significant voter fraud. And
12:20
Speaker 1: by the way, in these big democratic cities, cities like Pennsylvania,
12:24
Speaker 1: cities like Philadelphia, cities like Detroit in Michigan. In Detroit,
12:28
Speaker 1: they put poster board and covered up the ballot county
12:32
Speaker 1: areas to hide them. You know, an analogy I use
12:36
Speaker 1: this weekend on one of the Sunday shows, I said, listen,
12:39
Speaker 1: if someone goes into a bank and shuts off all
12:42
Speaker 1: the security cameras, what is the natural inference that leads
12:49
Speaker 1: It's not that they're intending to do nothing wrong. I mean,
12:52
Speaker 1: if you're shutting off the mechanism for observing it, that
12:56
Speaker 1: people naturally say, well, there's a reason you don't want
12:58
Speaker 1: people to see what you're doing. But but let me say, okay,
13:03
Speaker 1: in terms of where we are, I mean a lot
13:05
Speaker 1: of people are asking, all, right, where do we go?
13:07
Speaker 1: What's next? Let me give you good news and bad news. Okay,
13:12
Speaker 1: give me the good news first. Okay, the good news. First,
13:16
Speaker 1: there is reason for some optimism because listen, this was
13:20
Speaker 1: a weird election with COVID and you had massive mail
13:24
Speaker 1: in votings and in person voting. The data show that
13:29
Speaker 1: on election day the people that went physically to the
13:31
Speaker 1: polls and voted in person, that Trump won those by
13:35
Speaker 1: a significant margin. The data also show that in many
13:38
Speaker 1: states on the mail in votes that Biden won those
13:42
Speaker 1: by a significant margin. So here's the good news, and
13:45
Speaker 1: a recount or in an election contest litigation, in person
13:51
Speaker 1: election day votes are significantly less likely to be deemed
13:57
Speaker 1: illegal rights it's hard to cheat those votes. Generally, the
14:01
Speaker 1: count is what it is, and the in person election
14:04
Speaker 1: good point votes rarely change mail in votes if you
14:08
Speaker 1: look at recounts. If you look at election contests, some
14:11
Speaker 1: significant percentage of mail in votes fairly predictably are excluded
14:16
Speaker 1: as this doesn't meet the legal standards. This is whether
14:19
Speaker 1: it's you know someone, a dead person, whether it is
14:23
Speaker 1: someone who didn't sign the thing like for whatever reason.
14:26
Speaker 1: That varies state by state, but mail in voters have
14:29
Speaker 1: a significantly higher percentage of being excluded. In this instance,
14:34
Speaker 1: mail in voters are predominantly for Joe Biden, so we
14:39
Speaker 1: may well see as these recounts go forward, a larger
14:43
Speaker 1: percentage of Biden votes being deemed illegal than Trump votes.
14:47
Speaker 1: We don't know that, but there's reason to have optimism.
14:52
Speaker 1: Now let me give you the flip side. Okay, I'm
14:54
Speaker 1: braced for it. What's the bad news for the Trump
14:57
Speaker 1: team to prevail? They can't just win in one state.
15:02
Speaker 1: They've got to run the table. So let me give
15:06
Speaker 1: you some of the numbers, because it's this is the
15:09
Speaker 1: challenging piece. So right now, all right, I'm using the
15:13
Speaker 1: New York Times election results as one source. New York
15:16
Speaker 1: Times has Biden with a two seventy nine electoral lead
15:20
Speaker 1: to two hundred and fourteen. You need two seventy to
15:23
Speaker 1: be elected president. So it has Biden with two seventy nine.
15:27
Speaker 1: So the Times hasn't called Georgia right now. Biden has
15:31
Speaker 1: a fourteen thousand vote lead in Georgia, so we need
15:34
Speaker 1: to pick up fourteen thousand votes in Georgia. The Times
15:38
Speaker 1: hasn't called Arizona right now. Biden has a twelve thousand
15:41
Speaker 1: vote lead in Arizona. Now let's talk about the states
15:45
Speaker 1: that they have called for Biden. Wisconsin with ten electoral votes.
15:50
Speaker 1: Biden has over a twenty thousand vote lead in Wisconsin.
15:54
Speaker 1: Nevada with six electoral votes. Biden has over a thirty
15:57
Speaker 1: six thousand vote lead in Nevada. Michigan with sixteen electoral votes.
16:03
Speaker 1: Biden unfortunately has one hundred and forty eight thousand vote
16:07
Speaker 1: lead in Michigan. That's a big lead. And then Pennsylvania,
16:12
Speaker 1: which is the big Enchilada in terms of the most
16:14
Speaker 1: electoral votes of the states we're talking about, Biden has
16:18
Speaker 1: right now about a forty five thousand vote lead. That
16:22
Speaker 1: is a lot of votes to shift in a recount
16:25
Speaker 1: or a contest litigation. If you look at Florida and
16:28
Speaker 1: Bush versus Gore, the whole course of it, we were
16:31
Speaker 1: talking about a few thousand votes. Right at the end
16:33
Speaker 1: of the day, George W. Bush won by five hundred
16:35
Speaker 1: and thirty seven votes. Right, the totals in Florida started
16:40
Speaker 1: out much much closer than where these totals are, And
16:44
Speaker 1: if we were talking about one state, you could be
16:50
Speaker 1: more optimistic about what the result would be. In this instance,
16:54
Speaker 1: the Trump team's got to win in a whole bunch
16:57
Speaker 1: of states, right, I suppose even when you hear those numbers,
17:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing how thin some of Michigan accepted,
17:05
Speaker 1: how thin some of the margins are in Georgia, for instance,
17:08
Speaker 1: or Arizona or Wisconsin even But you know that that
17:12
Speaker 1: is very tricky because time is running out. I suppose
17:14
Speaker 1: one cause for hope is that we are in this
17:17
Speaker 1: bizarre year of the universal unsolicited maland so perhaps that
17:21
Speaker 1: gives a greater opportunity to flip them, but perhaps not.
17:23
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a lot of votes in a lot
17:25
Speaker 1: of states. So what you're saying is, let the legal
17:29
Speaker 1: process play out. Do not in no way declare the winner,
17:32
Speaker 1: you know it, or go along with the media, but
17:34
Speaker 1: maybe don't pop the champagne. Yet, there's still a long
17:36
Speaker 1: hill to climb. Well, and look there instances. Let's take
17:39
Speaker 1: there was a county in Michigan that has publicly admitted
17:43
Speaker 1: that there was a what they called a software glitch
17:48
Speaker 1: that shifted six thousand votes from Trump to Bide. Now,
17:54
Speaker 1: thankfully they caught it. They caught it and they did
17:57
Speaker 1: a hand recount and discovered weight our results are way
18:00
Speaker 1: off what we anticipated. And they said it's a glitch.
18:04
Speaker 1: This software is used I believe in forty seven counties
18:08
Speaker 1: in Michigan. So look, if there were six thousand votes
18:11
Speaker 1: shifted in all forty seven counties, that would be enough
18:13
Speaker 1: to move the margin. What the Michigan officials are arguing, however,
18:19
Speaker 1: is that this quote glitch is idiosyncratic to just this
18:24
Speaker 1: county and that it's not present more widely. Now, this
18:29
Speaker 1: is an example of there's a reason to be skeptical
18:35
Speaker 1: of their sort of self serving explanation. But it actually
18:40
Speaker 1: is going to take the lawyers proving this in court.
18:44
Speaker 1: It's going to take right now. And I've been on
18:48
Speaker 1: the phone with the President. I've been on the phone
18:50
Speaker 1: with Jared Kushner. I've been on the phone with the
18:52
Speaker 1: White House. I have been urging them to bring in
18:57
Speaker 1: a stronger legal team, more curious, high powered litigators, and
19:03
Speaker 1: to go make their case. At this point, yelling about
19:07
Speaker 1: it isn't going to change it. You got to go
19:10
Speaker 1: into court, Yeah, and you got to put on evidence
19:14
Speaker 1: and demonstrate to a court a legal basis that the
19:21
Speaker 1: margins we're talking about state by state, that that portion
19:25
Speaker 1: of the votes were illegally cast and that's got to
19:27
Speaker 1: be proven with cross examination, with evidence. And we're not
19:32
Speaker 1: there yet. I hope we get there but that's not
19:35
Speaker 1: an easy task and it takes some real hard, careful,
19:42
Speaker 1: diligent work, right right, Okay, you have not completely thrown
19:46
Speaker 1: me into despair. There is still some cause for hope,
19:49
Speaker 1: and obviously we'll see that play out. One of the
19:51
Speaker 1: reasons I think a lot of people want President Trump
19:53
Speaker 1: to get reelected is because they are so infuriated at
19:58
Speaker 1: the blob, the deep state, the administrative state, the out
20:03
Speaker 1: of control agencies, whatever you want to call it. And
20:06
Speaker 1: you know, speaking of legal questions, I was wondering if
20:09
Speaker 1: you were going to be arrested for murder earlier today
20:12
Speaker 1: because you eviscerated mister Andrew McCabe, one of these corrupt
20:16
Speaker 1: officials who was involved in the entire hoax and the
20:20
Speaker 1: scandals of twenty sixteen surrounding that election and thereafter. It's
20:24
Speaker 1: not getting any play. I noticed the testimony of Andrew
20:26
Speaker 1: McCabe is not getting any play because everyone's focused on
20:28
Speaker 1: the presidential But I thought it was extraordinarily telling. It's
20:31
Speaker 1: one of the most important issues of the past four years.
20:33
Speaker 1: And maybe going forward, could you just take us through
20:36
Speaker 1: a little bit of what happened. First, we'll just play
20:38
Speaker 1: a little clip of your grilling of mister McCabe. Mister mcabe.
20:43
Speaker 1: Yesterday on MSNBC, Ben Roods, the former deputy National Security
20:47
Speaker 1: advisor to President Obama, said that foreign leaders are already
20:50
Speaker 1: having conversations with Joe Biden quote, talking about the agenda
20:55
Speaker 1: they're going to pursue January twenty. It's mister McKay. Based
20:58
Speaker 1: on that testimony, do you believe Joe Biden is violating
21:01
Speaker 1: the Logan Act. I'm not aware of Ben Rhodes's statements,
21:05
Speaker 1: or take it on faith he said what I read,
21:07
Speaker 1: assuming he's that quote is accurate, and so a verbatim quote,
21:11
Speaker 1: is that a violation of the Logan Act under any
21:13
Speaker 1: plausible theory? I am not prepared to take your statement
21:17
Speaker 1: on faith, and I am also not prepared to conduct
21:21
Speaker 1: legal analysis. All right, you're a lawyer. Have you ever
21:24
Speaker 1: answered a hypothetical in court? If it is correct that
21:28
Speaker 1: I am accurately quoting, it's something the Department of Justice
21:31
Speaker 1: frequently did wrong in this investigation. If that is what
21:35
Speaker 1: Ben Rhodes said, If Joe Biden is talking with foreign
21:38
Speaker 1: leaders right now, does it violate the Logan Act? Yes?
21:40
Speaker 1: Or no. I'm not going to opine on a hypothetical
21:44
Speaker 1: question about what him he is talking with foreign leaders,
21:48
Speaker 1: and it doesn't violate the Logan Act because the Logan
21:50
Speaker 1: Act is unconstitutional, which is why it's never been used
21:52
Speaker 1: to prosecute anyone. You authorized using it to go after
21:56
Speaker 1: General Flynn as part of a political persecution. I can
22:00
Speaker 1: give you the answer. Hell, no, Joe Biden is not
22:02
Speaker 1: violating the Logan Act. The reason you won't say it
22:05
Speaker 1: is because that was your flimsy political basis to go
22:08
Speaker 1: after a decorated war hero because you disagreed with politically
22:12
Speaker 1: with President Trump. Well, look, McCabe was the deputy director
22:15
Speaker 1: of the FBI. Today was significant because there's been a conflict.
22:21
Speaker 1: There's been a conflict for a couple of years between
22:23
Speaker 1: McCabe and James Coomy, his boss, over whether Comy authorized
22:29
Speaker 1: him and directed him to leak to the press. Comy's
22:33
Speaker 1: testified now repeatedly under oath under penalty of perjury, that
22:37
Speaker 1: he did not, that he never has, that he didn't.
22:40
Speaker 1: McCabe had told the press that Comy had authorized to
22:46
Speaker 1: But today was the first time McCabe ever said that
22:49
Speaker 1: under oath. So that's a big deal. It's one thing. Look,
22:55
Speaker 1: it ain't a crime. Delight of the press. May i'd
22:57
Speaker 1: be a good idea. It may not be honorable or ethical,
23:00
Speaker 1: but it is not. It doesn't carry a prison term
23:04
Speaker 1: to lie to the press. If you lie to Congress
23:07
Speaker 1: under oath, that is a crime. And so my objective
23:14
Speaker 1: in this cross examination was to get and and Comy
23:17
Speaker 1: testified before the election. I got him on record again saying, no,
23:22
Speaker 1: he didn't authorize McCabe to do this. McCabe, now he
23:26
Speaker 1: you want to talk about a slippery witness. Boy, This guy,
23:29
Speaker 1: he's smarmy and political and hates Trump and is a
23:32
Speaker 1: hardcore Democrat and it was up to his eyeballs in
23:37
Speaker 1: the political persecution of the president. But finally, after trying
23:42
Speaker 1: to wriggle away repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, he said on the record, Yes,
23:46
Speaker 1: Coomy did authorize me. And critically. I ended this cross
23:51
Speaker 1: examination by saying, mister McCabe, the FBI has the records
23:57
Speaker 1: to demonstrate who's telling the truth. Either you're telling the
24:01
Speaker 1: truth or Comy's telling the truth. You can't both be
24:03
Speaker 1: one of you's lying. Do you think the FBI should
24:08
Speaker 1: release the records, whether emails or remember and or whatever
24:13
Speaker 1: documents they have to if you're telling the truth, to
24:17
Speaker 1: vindicate you, to tell show that you're telling the truth,
24:19
Speaker 1: and if Comey's telling the truth, to vindicate him. Do
24:21
Speaker 1: you think the FBI should release the materials? And McCabe said, yes,
24:25
Speaker 1: they should release the materials. Well, hot diggity damn, I
24:29
Speaker 1: can tell you. I pulled my chief counsel aside right
24:31
Speaker 1: after the hearing and said, all right, I want you
24:32
Speaker 1: to draft a letter to Bill Barr and to Chris Ray,
24:35
Speaker 1: which we will send in the next day or two,
24:39
Speaker 1: quoting Comy's testimony, Quoting McCabe's testimony, pointing out there directly
24:45
Speaker 1: in conflict that the FBI has records demonstrating who's lying
24:48
Speaker 1: and who's telling the truth. And now even McCabe is
24:52
Speaker 1: calling for them to be released. And I'm going to
24:54
Speaker 1: ask Barr and Ray release them now and let us
25:00
Speaker 1: know who committed perjury because they can't both be true true.
25:04
Speaker 1: One said yes, one said no. It is impossible for
25:08
Speaker 1: both to be testifying truth truthfully. And this is the issue.
25:11
Speaker 1: We hope, in Secretary of State Mike Pumpey's words, we
25:15
Speaker 1: hope for a smooth transition into a second term for
25:17
Speaker 1: the president. But in any case, there is no reason
25:20
Speaker 1: not to get this information out. Now you know that
25:23
Speaker 1: you won't get it under a democratic administration, So very important,
25:26
Speaker 1: I thought. I thought the grilling was just terrific to watch,
25:30
Speaker 1: and I do hope that we can see the release
25:33
Speaker 1: of this kind of material, and I do hope that
25:36
Speaker 1: these people are held to account. Speaking of these agencies
25:39
Speaker 1: that are out of control, we'll want to get to
25:41
Speaker 1: two mail bad questions. First, one from Kim Joe. Biden,
25:45
Speaker 1: if he is named president, wants to issue a lot
25:47
Speaker 1: of executive orders that would overturn Trump's executive orders. How
25:51
Speaker 1: easy is that to do? After the Supreme Court upheld
25:53
Speaker 1: one of Obama's unconstitutional executive orders, doesn't that make it
25:57
Speaker 1: harder for Biden to overturn Trump's owes if Biden actually
26:01
Speaker 1: gets elected. That is what is the deal here. We've
26:04
Speaker 1: always told, you know it lived by the executive order,
26:06
Speaker 1: die by the executive order, that they're easy to overturn.
26:09
Speaker 1: But sometimes the court has shown us that they're not
26:11
Speaker 1: so easy to overturn. So that is a really smart,
26:14
Speaker 1: savvy question. If we were living in a world of
26:19
Speaker 1: principle and reason, the answer to that should be yes,
26:24
Speaker 1: it does make it harder. All right, let me step
26:29
Speaker 1: back and answered a little bit differently. In any ordinary
26:33
Speaker 1: world where you're following the law, a president condissue an
26:37
Speaker 1: executive order, the next president can rescind the executive order,
26:40
Speaker 1: and the power to do so is unlimited. Now it's
26:43
Speaker 1: a different question whether the executive order is legal, but
26:45
Speaker 1: the power to rescind an executive order is complete in total.
26:51
Speaker 1: And an executive order, by the way, should not be
26:54
Speaker 1: making law. It is directing the executive their executive orders,
26:58
Speaker 1: going back to George Washington. But those are instructions from
27:01
Speaker 1: the president to the executive branch. Here's how you are
27:05
Speaker 1: to execute the law. So it's so, and that's an authority.
27:11
Speaker 1: Obama abused it by trying to change the law, which
27:14
Speaker 1: an executive order can't do. The Supreme Court lawlessly, and
27:22
Speaker 1: the most egregious example of it was this past summer
27:24
Speaker 1: in June, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's revoking
27:31
Speaker 1: Obama's amnesty executive order, and it was John robertson the
27:35
Speaker 1: Four Liberals, and John Roberts wrote what I think was
27:38
Speaker 1: a deeply unprincipled opinion where the Chief Justice didn't dispute
27:45
Speaker 1: that Obama had no authority to issue the executive order,
27:48
Speaker 1: and he said, of course Trump can rescind it, but
27:53
Speaker 1: he didn't provide enough explanations as to why. So we're
27:57
Speaker 1: going to call a process foul and send it back.
28:00
Speaker 1: And the thing that is utterly and completely hypocritical is
28:04
Speaker 1: the chances that John Roberts holds a Joe Biden presidency
28:07
Speaker 1: to the same standards or zero. It was clearly a
28:12
Speaker 1: pretext to reinstate amnesty, and it's frankly it's the same
28:19
Speaker 1: pretext John Roberts and the four liberals did the prior
28:25
Speaker 1: term in the census case, where the Trump administration was
28:28
Speaker 1: going to ask in the census, are you a US citizen?
28:31
Speaker 1: A question that has been asked for two hundred years.
28:35
Speaker 1: It's been asked over and over and over again in censuses.
28:38
Speaker 1: Are you a citizen? Well, left wing activists don't like
28:41
Speaker 1: that question because they don't want how many people are
28:43
Speaker 1: here illegally? Yeah, and Roberts played the same game, said, well,
28:49
Speaker 1: of course you can ask that question, but the memo
28:53
Speaker 1: laying it out you didn't have good enough reasons, So
28:56
Speaker 1: we're striking it down and saying, show your work, Go
28:59
Speaker 1: show your homework a little more. And it was a
29:01
Speaker 1: political game because they ran out of time, and so
29:03
Speaker 1: I didn't ask the question. That game has been ship
29:08
Speaker 1: will only apply to Trump Biden? Will I think repeal
29:13
Speaker 1: executive orders? I think if Biden as president, he will
29:16
Speaker 1: re enter the Paris Climate Agreement. If Biden as president,
29:23
Speaker 1: I think he will reinstate many aspects, if not the
29:27
Speaker 1: entirety of the Iran nuclear deal. There's a lot the
29:30
Speaker 1: president can do unilaterally. If Republicans keep the Senate, we
29:35
Speaker 1: can stop the worst legislative things. That's also something I
29:39
Speaker 1: supposed to hope for now. Senator, I know you don't
29:42
Speaker 1: want me to bug you about future plans, so I
29:45
Speaker 1: will not. But I felt this was a very important question,
29:47
Speaker 1: so I'm going to include it. This is from Tommy.
29:50
Speaker 1: If Senator Cruz ever seeks higher office, will he keep
29:54
Speaker 1: the beard? I think he should. Senator. Your answer, damn
29:59
Speaker 1: define out. The Beard's been fun. I grow it on
30:02
Speaker 1: a whim. I've had fun with it. At some point.
30:06
Speaker 1: Heidi is not crazy about the beard, so there is
30:09
Speaker 1: some pressure to get rid of it. Well, we'll see
30:13
Speaker 1: how it shakes out. I'm fun with it, right now, Senator,
30:16
Speaker 1: I would like on the record you know I won't
30:18
Speaker 1: be like Andy McCabe here. I won't try to be
30:20
Speaker 1: weasily about my answers. I am fully one hundred percent
30:24
Speaker 1: pro beard. I think if for the Verdict listeners, if
30:28
Speaker 1: you agree with my position on this, please let us
30:30
Speaker 1: know on Twitter. I think it's great, it's very has
30:33
Speaker 1: lots of Abraham Lincoln vibes. I think it's cool. If
30:35
Speaker 1: I were able to grow a beard, I would. Unfortunately
30:38
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite work out on me, but maybe someday
30:41
Speaker 1: in the future. Well, I will say that the baby
30:43
Speaker 1: face is a good look for you. Well, that's very kind,
30:47
Speaker 1: Thank you, Senator. I appreciate that very much, and I
30:49
Speaker 1: will I will try to keep the baby face. We will.
30:52
Speaker 1: I'm sure the next time we speak have a million
30:54
Speaker 1: more developments in this crazy, crazy end to a crazy
30:58
Speaker 1: crazy year. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles. This is
31:01
Speaker 1: Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict with Ted
31:13
Speaker 1: Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and
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Speaker 1: Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
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Speaker 1: and candidates across the country. In twenty twenty two, Jobs
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Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates
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Speaker 1: running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.