Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Do Something

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Do Something · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

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Speaker 1: Do something, do something, do something. That is the loudest
0:07
Speaker 1: refrain of demagogues in the wake of the tragic elementary
0:11
Speaker 1: school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. But what exactly are we
0:16
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Speaker 1: text the word cactus to six five three two. Welcome
4:05
Speaker 1: back to Verdings with Ted Cruz. I'm Michael Knowles, Senator.
4:10
Speaker 1: Everyone is debating, not just the horrific incident that happened
4:15
Speaker 1: in Uvaldi, the shooting at this elementary school. But it
4:18
Speaker 1: seems like from the very second that this happened, you
4:22
Speaker 1: had demagogues pushing their own pre existing political agenda and
4:28
Speaker 1: yelling and saying do something, do something, and mocking and
4:31
Speaker 1: deriding anyone who suggested that we ought to pray about
4:35
Speaker 1: this and we ought to let people grieve and mourn.
4:38
Speaker 1: You have not just been observing this from Afar. You've
4:41
Speaker 1: been down in Uvaldi. What have you seen Yesterday morning?
4:48
Speaker 1: I flew into Yuvaldi. I went first to meet with
4:51
Speaker 1: the local leaders in law enforcement, met with a mayor,
4:55
Speaker 1: met with a county judge, met with a sheriff who's
5:00
Speaker 1: absolutely distraught, met with TEXASDPS and the FBI, the district
5:05
Speaker 1: attorney's office, and the superintendent of the school board and
5:11
Speaker 1: the chief of the school police. And we started the
5:16
Speaker 1: day with about a two hour briefing of what we
5:19
Speaker 1: knew at that point. You know, what we know is evolving.
5:22
Speaker 1: We know more today than we knew yesterday. But the shooter,
5:29
Speaker 1: eighteen years old, as you know, in the morning, got
5:34
Speaker 1: up and shot his grandmother in the face, and then
5:38
Speaker 1: he got in a car, a truck, actually her truck,
5:42
Speaker 1: and drove the truck just down the street. So her
5:45
Speaker 1: house is just a couple of blocks from the school,
5:48
Speaker 1: so he didn't go very far, and he crashed the
5:53
Speaker 1: truck into a drainage ditch, and the drainage ditch goes
5:59
Speaker 1: down about six to eight feed And I saw I
6:01
Speaker 1: was at the school yesterday. I saw the truck which
6:04
Speaker 1: is still down in the drainage ditch. He had gone
6:06
Speaker 1: through a fence and down into the ditch and crashed there,
6:09
Speaker 1: broken the tires off the axles, and then he got
6:13
Speaker 1: out of the truck and it was right next to
6:15
Speaker 1: the elementary school. And he went into the elementary school.
6:20
Speaker 1: And the facts are still unfolding about when exactly law
6:25
Speaker 1: enforcement encountered him. What we were told yesterday appears to
6:29
Speaker 1: be different from what the facts are today. But he
6:32
Speaker 1: entered the back door of the elementary school, and it
6:36
Speaker 1: was a door that's right next to the teacher's parking lot.
6:41
Speaker 1: And by all appearances, that back door was unlocked, and
6:44
Speaker 1: he walked directly into it. He walked into it carrying
6:48
Speaker 1: a gun. He went down the hallway and entered a classroom,
6:54
Speaker 1: was a fourth grade classroom. That classroom was adjoining to
6:58
Speaker 1: another classroom, so there were two classrooms that were joining,
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Speaker 1: connected by a door in between, and he terrorized those
7:06
Speaker 1: children and executed those children, and law enforcement arrived. What
7:14
Speaker 1: they're saying today, what DPS has said today, is that
7:19
Speaker 1: law enforcement arrived twelve minutes after he crashed the truck
7:23
Speaker 1: into that ditch, and he barricaded himself into that classroom
7:32
Speaker 1: and a gunfight ensued. That gunfight lasted some time anywhere
7:39
Speaker 1: between forty minutes and an hour. And when I met
7:41
Speaker 1: with the FBI and law enforcement, they were reviewing the
7:44
Speaker 1: footage and they're trying to set the precise timeline. But
7:47
Speaker 1: it was an extended it was a protracted gunfight. Three
7:51
Speaker 1: law enforcement officers were wounded, although thankfully none of them
7:56
Speaker 1: were seriously wounded. And I got to say all day yesterday,
8:00
Speaker 1: from meeting with the first responders, to going to the school, UH,
8:05
Speaker 1: to seeing the wreckage firsthand, to going last night to
8:10
Speaker 1: a prayer vigil. You know, the community had a prayer
8:13
Speaker 1: vigil and it was packed. It was inside this this
8:17
Speaker 1: UH big indoor barn where they have bull riding and
8:21
Speaker 1: they have rodeos there. You know, Vivaldi is a small town.
8:24
Speaker 1: It's in South Texas. It's it's a pretty rural town. Um,
8:29
Speaker 1: it's outside of San Antonio, but it's it's it's not
8:34
Speaker 1: a big city, it's not a big suburb. It is
8:36
Speaker 1: a small South Texas town and the community is just shattered.
8:43
Speaker 1: Is the grief, the agony. You could see. You could
8:50
Speaker 1: see parents just just in tears, whaling. You could see grandparents,
8:56
Speaker 1: You could see students, high school dudents walking in with
9:01
Speaker 1: just this look of a sort of glazed shock. You know,
9:04
Speaker 1: this was the first school shooting since I became a parent.
9:08
Speaker 1: And obviously there have been lots in my lifetime when
9:11
Speaker 1: I was a kid, starting with Columbine and then so many,
9:13
Speaker 1: so many others unfortunately that have occurred. But this was
9:16
Speaker 1: the first one since I became a parent, and I
9:19
Speaker 1: I didn't get it. Yeah, Before I was a parent
9:22
Speaker 1: and I you would always hear people say, you're hugging
9:24
Speaker 1: your kid closer tonight. This is the worst thing you
9:26
Speaker 1: could possibly imagine. I always thought, obviously, this is incredibly tragic,
9:31
Speaker 1: but what does that mean. You hug your kid closer
9:33
Speaker 1: because you just if you, if you are a parent,
9:35
Speaker 1: you just you think this is this is the singular
9:38
Speaker 1: horror that you can imagine, and it is in part
9:41
Speaker 1: why my reaction just to the politics of it and
9:45
Speaker 1: the coverage in the media was a little different this time.
9:47
Speaker 1: I thought, you can you let people more in a
9:50
Speaker 1: little bit? Can you let people grieve a little bit?
9:52
Speaker 1: Can you just give it two seconds before this has
9:56
Speaker 1: to become some national debate on anyone's pet project. And
9:59
Speaker 1: I to tell you it's it's frustrating for me because
10:02
Speaker 1: this is not the first time I've been on the
10:03
Speaker 1: ground where some psychopath has carried out unactive mass murder.
10:09
Speaker 1: I've represented Texas for ten years and we've had way
10:13
Speaker 1: too many of these. Santa Fe High School is less
10:16
Speaker 1: than an hour outside of Houston. When that lunatic began
10:20
Speaker 1: murdering high school kids there, I was at home. I
10:24
Speaker 1: got a call at home, I jumped in a truck
10:26
Speaker 1: and headed down to Santa Fe. I was there within
10:29
Speaker 1: an hour of when the shooting happened. Sutherland Springs, there's
10:34
Speaker 1: another small town, rural town outside of San Antonio, worst
10:39
Speaker 1: church shooting in US history. I was there the day
10:42
Speaker 1: after Sutherland Springs. I was in that beautiful little sanctuary
10:47
Speaker 1: when there was still blood and shattered glass, shattered iPhones,
10:52
Speaker 1: pews thrown in chaos as that lunatic executed people, including
10:58
Speaker 1: that lunatic executed a child that was eighteen months old
11:03
Speaker 1: he shot and murdered. I was there in Midland, Odessa
11:07
Speaker 1: with another mass murderer. There. I was there in El Paso, Texas,
11:10
Speaker 1: with another mass murderer. There. I was in Dallas with
11:13
Speaker 1: another mass murderer who targeted police officers. There are broader
11:18
Speaker 1: causes that we can and should discuss, causes that we've seen.
11:23
Speaker 1: Whether it's the destruction of the nuclear family, whether it
11:25
Speaker 1: is the loss of strong and loving father figures and families, Many,
11:30
Speaker 1: if not most, of these murderers come from a home
11:33
Speaker 1: without a strong and loving father, Whether it is the
11:38
Speaker 1: deterioration of faith and community in a church life. And
11:45
Speaker 1: it seems almost all of these people are detached from
11:48
Speaker 1: their community. And there are lots of things that have
11:52
Speaker 1: nothing to do with government and policy that have led
11:56
Speaker 1: to angry teenage boys being filled with murderous rage. But
12:03
Speaker 1: what your political opponents are going to say is they're
12:05
Speaker 1: going to say, well, okay, yeah, enough, we'll do something
12:07
Speaker 1: about it. And I almost I mean I guess now
12:11
Speaker 1: there is this national debate going on, and so it's
12:13
Speaker 1: been a couple days after this shooting, and people are
12:17
Speaker 1: just going to be debating all of these policies. But
12:19
Speaker 1: it seems almost tired at this point to recite the
12:23
Speaker 1: same old litany because it's the same old debate every time.
12:26
Speaker 1: But the do something is not enough. In the proposals
12:30
Speaker 1: that have been made by the Democrats, almost exclusively to
12:35
Speaker 1: regulate guns, none of them would have prevented any of
12:39
Speaker 1: these mass shootings. Even the Washington Post admitted that when
12:41
Speaker 1: Marco Rubio said it in twenty fifteen, even the Post
12:44
Speaker 1: fact checker had to admit that that point was right.
12:47
Speaker 1: Then you get onto other proposals that could possibly even
12:51
Speaker 1: be made here. What would that be, to ban guns entirely, Well,
12:54
Speaker 1: you're going to run up against a constitutional problem, a
12:57
Speaker 1: practical problem. There are more guns than people in this country.
13:00
Speaker 1: There's no political will whatsoever to ban guns, and there's
13:03
Speaker 1: not a lot of evidence that banning guns would reduce
13:05
Speaker 1: the murder rate. When they banned handguns in the UK,
13:07
Speaker 1: the murder rate increased significantly, almost doubled in about six years.
13:11
Speaker 1: So it's it's the same old litany of issues, and
13:13
Speaker 1: I think I think this is why the people who
13:16
Speaker 1: criticize thoughts and prayers and the people who say will
13:19
Speaker 1: do something do something. It's why they don't tend to
13:21
Speaker 1: get very specific, because they don't have any more of
13:23
Speaker 1: an answer on what to do than anybody else does.
13:26
Speaker 1: They're just demogoguing the issue and pretending that their sympathetic
13:30
Speaker 1: outrage is somehow productive. So let's assess how do we
13:35
Speaker 1: stop these? Inevitably, when there's a mass murder, within seconds,
13:41
Speaker 1: democrats and the media begin calling for the exact same
13:46
Speaker 1: policies they were calling for the day before, which which
13:49
Speaker 1: they're objective. And more and more the left is quite
13:51
Speaker 1: candid about it is to disarm law abiding citizens throughout
13:55
Speaker 1: this country, to take away your firearms, by firearms and
13:59
Speaker 1: those of law fighting citizens. There are many problems with that,
14:03
Speaker 1: but let's just start with a basic one. It doesn't work.
14:07
Speaker 1: Taking away every firearm that Michael Knowles owns would not
14:11
Speaker 1: have stopped this psychopath from murdering children in Uvaldi. And
14:17
Speaker 1: by the way, we see that in Chicago and New
14:20
Speaker 1: York and DC, in California where they have very strict
14:22
Speaker 1: gun control, and the criminals still have guns and still
14:27
Speaker 1: carry out murders. If you could wave a magic wand
14:32
Speaker 1: and eliminate all firearms in America, there would be substantially
14:37
Speaker 1: more murders than there are today. I'll give you a
14:40
Speaker 1: statistic from the Obama White House. Now, the Obama White
14:43
Speaker 1: House is hardly a right wing source. Here's what the
14:47
Speaker 1: Obama White House concluded is that firearms are used in
14:50
Speaker 1: the United States defensively between five hundred thousand and one
14:56
Speaker 1: million times per year, used to stop the commission of
15:01
Speaker 1: a crime. So if the Left succeeds and taking away
15:04
Speaker 1: everyone's firearms all of the instances, now, that doesn't mean
15:09
Speaker 1: that there are between five hundred thousand and a million
15:11
Speaker 1: gun fights. Many many times firearms are used to stop
15:15
Speaker 1: a robbery, to stop and attempted murderers, to stop a
15:18
Speaker 1: kidnapping where the gun isn't fired, but simply brandishing the
15:23
Speaker 1: gun causes the criminal to abandon the criminal effort, and
15:26
Speaker 1: that happens, according to the Obama White House, between five
15:30
Speaker 1: hundred thousand and a million times a year. So eliminating
15:34
Speaker 1: all firearms, I believe would cause far more loss of
15:38
Speaker 1: life because it would mean that criminals would be able
15:41
Speaker 1: to Maraud would be able to commit assaults and not
15:45
Speaker 1: be worried about people defending themselves. And by the way,
15:47
Speaker 1: the data, if you look at the jurisdictions with the
15:50
Speaker 1: strictest gun controls, almost without an exception, they have among
15:56
Speaker 1: the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates. And
16:00
Speaker 1: places with lower rates of gun control, in other words,
16:03
Speaker 1: with more widespread firearms among the citizenry, you have typically
16:09
Speaker 1: much lower crime rates, much lower murder rates. But let's
16:12
Speaker 1: not skip this question. Is there something we can do
16:15
Speaker 1: to stop these And I believe the answer is yes.
16:17
Speaker 1: When I first arrived in the Senate, I got elected
16:19
Speaker 1: in twenty twelve. Just after I arrived, Sandy Hook, the
16:25
Speaker 1: horrific school shooting in Connecticut occurred, and so we had
16:28
Speaker 1: this debate ten years ago. And when I looked at it,
16:31
Speaker 1: I said, then we need to do something. What do
16:33
Speaker 1: we need to do. Let's get the guns out of
16:36
Speaker 1: the hands of the violent criminals, the felons and fugitives
16:39
Speaker 1: and those with serious mental illness. And so I authored legislation.
16:42
Speaker 1: It was called Grassly Cruise. Grassly Cruise was legislation targeting
16:48
Speaker 1: the bad guys. And so one of the things it did,
16:51
Speaker 1: is it improve the background check system. If you look
16:54
Speaker 1: at we have a background check, so if you or
16:56
Speaker 1: I go by a gun, you got to run a
16:57
Speaker 1: background check. It runs the check to see if you
17:00
Speaker 1: have a felony conviction. That database is only as good
17:04
Speaker 1: as the information in it, and a lot of the
17:06
Speaker 1: federal government has been lousy at reporting felony convictions to
17:10
Speaker 1: the database, and a lot of states, interestingly enough, many
17:14
Speaker 1: of them Blue states, have terrible records reporting the felonies
17:19
Speaker 1: to the background check database. You look at Sutherland Springs,
17:22
Speaker 1: which was the church shooting in Texas. In that instance,
17:25
Speaker 1: that crime should have been prevented. Why because the shooter
17:29
Speaker 1: there it was already illegal for him to buy a firearm.
17:32
Speaker 1: He was a felon and he had domestic violence conviction,
17:35
Speaker 1: so it was doubly illegal. So why was he able
17:37
Speaker 1: to buy his firearm? Well, the reason is that the
17:40
Speaker 1: Obama Air Force never reported the conviction to the background
17:44
Speaker 1: check database. So he went into a gun store to
17:47
Speaker 1: buy his gun. He filled out the background check form
17:50
Speaker 1: and he live. He was asked, do you have a
17:52
Speaker 1: felony conviction? He checked the box and said no. He
17:55
Speaker 1: was asked, do you have a domestic violence conviction. He
17:57
Speaker 1: checked the box and said no, they in the background check.
18:00
Speaker 1: And because the federal government, the Obama administration, never reported
18:05
Speaker 1: his felony conviction to the database, the background check came
18:08
Speaker 1: up clean, and they sold him the firearm. So one
18:11
Speaker 1: of the things Grassly Crews did is mandated the federal government,
18:15
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice, to do an audit of every
18:17
Speaker 1: federal agency to ensure that all felony convictions were in
18:21
Speaker 1: the database. It also provided funds for states to do
18:25
Speaker 1: the same thing for state convictions. But beyond that, every
18:30
Speaker 1: year there's a vast number of felons and fugitives who
18:33
Speaker 1: try to illegally buy firearms. The Department of Justice prosecutes
18:39
Speaker 1: almost none of them. In fact, i'll give you the
18:40
Speaker 1: stats from twenty ten, which was the last year there
18:43
Speaker 1: were stats from before when I drafted Grassly Cruse. In
18:46
Speaker 1: that year, there were forty eight thousand felons and fugitives
18:53
Speaker 1: who tried to illegally buy firearms. Forty eight thousand of those.
18:57
Speaker 1: Do you know how many the Department of Justice prosecute
19:01
Speaker 1: forty four And by the way, that continues to this day.
19:04
Speaker 1: The Biden Justice Department still is not prosecuting felons and
19:08
Speaker 1: fugitives who try to illegally buy firearms. Grassly CRUs mandated
19:13
Speaker 1: the creation of a Gun Crime Task Force at the
19:16
Speaker 1: Department of Justice to go and prosecute and put in
19:21
Speaker 1: jail felons and fugitives who illegally buy firearms. Now, what
19:26
Speaker 1: happened to Grassley Cruz. We voted on the Senate floor
19:30
Speaker 1: on that bill. It got a majority. It got fifty
19:34
Speaker 1: two votes in favor of it. Nine Democrats voted in
19:38
Speaker 1: favor of Grassly Cruise got the most bipartisan support of
19:41
Speaker 1: any of the comprehensive legislation that was voted on. So
19:45
Speaker 1: why didn't it pass? Well, it was the Harry Reid
19:48
Speaker 1: Democrats Senate, and the Democrats filibustered it. They demanded sixty votes.
19:54
Speaker 1: So even though I had fifty two votes, we didn't
19:57
Speaker 1: have sixty, and so it failed. Becau as Harry Reid
20:00
Speaker 1: and Chuck Schumer and the Democrats filibuster did. They're not
20:03
Speaker 1: really focused on this issue, right, They're focused on pushing
20:06
Speaker 1: the same legislation that they've wanted to push for decades now,
20:09
Speaker 1: and they'll use any circumstance to try to push that.
20:12
Speaker 1: But what we're seeing here in the specifics of this
20:14
Speaker 1: actual shooting is, in some ways it seems like it's
20:17
Speaker 1: a repeat of the Parkland shooting. You've got a kid
20:20
Speaker 1: who was showing serious signs of trouble. He should have
20:24
Speaker 1: been identified much sooner. There should have been safeguards placed
20:27
Speaker 1: around this kid, much much sooner. There are now questions
20:31
Speaker 1: about when law enforcement got there, if law enforcement did
20:34
Speaker 1: enough in the moment you're seeing I'm not saying it's
20:38
Speaker 1: a repeat of history, but you're seeing lots and lots
20:39
Speaker 1: of similarities, none of which you're addressed by the legislation
20:43
Speaker 1: that the Democrats are proposing. I sat down and participated
20:46
Speaker 1: in round tables with the families of the victims who
20:49
Speaker 1: were murdered in Santa Fe, and it included families who
20:52
Speaker 1: were in Parkland, families who were in other mass shootings,
20:55
Speaker 1: and we talked about how do you prevent them? And
20:58
Speaker 1: as you talk to experts, one of the things they
21:01
Speaker 1: said is for schools, many schools are very, very vulnerable,
21:07
Speaker 1: and there are concrete steps we can take to harden
21:11
Speaker 1: schools and make them safer. In particular, here's what the
21:13
Speaker 1: experts have recommended they've said, you don't want multiple means
21:18
Speaker 1: of entering the school. You don't want lots and lots
21:21
Speaker 1: of open doors. If you look at how the shooter
21:26
Speaker 1: got in Uvality, he went into a backdoor that was unlocked.
21:30
Speaker 1: That's exactly how the shooter went in in Santa Fe.
21:33
Speaker 1: A backdoor that was unlocked. He was able to get in,
21:36
Speaker 1: and then he was able to get right into a classroom.
21:39
Speaker 1: Same thing in Santa Fe. So twice the same thing happened.
21:42
Speaker 1: What the recommendations were is have a single point of
21:47
Speaker 1: entry for the school, one door that everyone comes through.
21:51
Speaker 1: If you think about it, a secure facility, a courthouse,
21:54
Speaker 1: a federal building, they often have a single point of
21:57
Speaker 1: entry because from a security perspective, that much safer at
22:02
Speaker 1: that point of entry. The single most effective security step
22:07
Speaker 1: you can take is to have armed police officers there
22:10
Speaker 1: at that point of entry. That has a greater impact
22:16
Speaker 1: on keeping kids safe than just about anything else you
22:18
Speaker 1: can do on school safety. Funding for school safety should
22:23
Speaker 1: be a no brainer. There's not a single Democrat who
22:26
Speaker 1: opposes it on principle, But every time I've tried to
22:32
Speaker 1: force a vote on it, Schumer has blocked it because
22:37
Speaker 1: his view is if he can't take away law abiding
22:39
Speaker 1: citizens guns, he's not willing to do anything. I hope
22:43
Speaker 1: after this that changes. But you know, part of the problem, Michael,
22:49
Speaker 1: the press are active advocates and partisans. I've never seen
22:56
Speaker 1: one Democrat asked why they vote against in filibusters school
23:00
Speaker 1: safety funding funds for police officers in schools, funds to
23:04
Speaker 1: put bulletproof doors and bulletproof glass and classrooms and locks
23:08
Speaker 1: that an assailant can't enter the classroom. If this guy
23:11
Speaker 1: had entered the school and the school classrooms had been
23:13
Speaker 1: locked and he couldn't get in, he couldn't have murdered
23:15
Speaker 1: these children. Last night, when I was at the prayer vigil,
23:18
Speaker 1: there was this British reporter, this this kind of you know,
23:22
Speaker 1: ran and chase me and stuck his TV camera in
23:24
Speaker 1: my face and I'm walking out of the door. And
23:26
Speaker 1: the first he asked me about what we were seeing there,
23:32
Speaker 1: and I said, look, this is horrific. This is their
23:36
Speaker 1: nineteen sets of parents who are not going to be
23:38
Speaker 1: able to hug their child tonight or see their child,
23:42
Speaker 1: and it is it's the most unspeakable evil we could imagine.
23:45
Speaker 1: And he immediately jumped into what don't we need to
23:47
Speaker 1: pass gun control? And I didn't want to argue with
23:50
Speaker 1: this guy, and I'm disengaging. He's a British guy who
23:52
Speaker 1: was an obnoxious leftist, and he's like, why does this
23:56
Speaker 1: only happen in America? Doesn't happen anywhere else in the world.
23:59
Speaker 1: It's only America. Why is American exceptionalism so horrible? The
24:04
Speaker 1: premise of his question is factually false. And I actually
24:09
Speaker 1: Newsweek just published something which which I'll point out. I'm
24:15
Speaker 1: quoting from Newsweek that says since nineteen eighty eight, there
24:19
Speaker 1: have been a total of nine attacks similar to the
24:21
Speaker 1: rob elementary school shooting. Nine is nine too many, But
24:25
Speaker 1: once you adjust for population, there are many other countries
24:28
Speaker 1: from Germany to Russia to Finland that have comparable rates
24:31
Speaker 1: of school shootings, and in fact, it goes in and
24:34
Speaker 1: it breaks down. According to a Crime Prevention Research Center
24:38
Speaker 1: report from twenty twenty, and this is a quote, the
24:41
Speaker 1: US is well below the world average in terms of
24:44
Speaker 1: the number of mass public shootings, and the global increase
24:47
Speaker 1: over time has been much bigger than for the United States.
24:51
Speaker 1: And it goes on to say that by our account,
24:55
Speaker 1: the US makes up less than one point one three
24:58
Speaker 1: percent of the mass public shooters, one point seven seven
25:01
Speaker 1: percent of the murders, and two point one nine percent
25:05
Speaker 1: of their attacks. All of these are much less than
25:08
Speaker 1: the United States is four point six percent share of
25:11
Speaker 1: world population. And it goes on to say, again, this
25:15
Speaker 1: is a quote out of the one hundred and one
25:17
Speaker 1: countries where we have identified mass public shootings occurring, the
25:22
Speaker 1: United States ranks sixty sixth in per capita frequency of
25:27
Speaker 1: these attacks and fifty sixth in the murder rate. And
25:32
Speaker 1: on this issue in particular, the press is so wildly
25:36
Speaker 1: dishonest that I understand why people at home don't understand
25:44
Speaker 1: what to do about it. Most people at home don't
25:48
Speaker 1: know that their laws we could pass that would stop
25:52
Speaker 1: felons and fugitives from illegally buying guns and put them
25:55
Speaker 1: in jail, but the Democrats are blocking that. Most people
25:58
Speaker 1: don't know that. Most people don't know the Democrats have
26:00
Speaker 1: been blocking more funding for school safety for years, and
26:04
Speaker 1: the press will not report it. And that's why things
26:07
Speaker 1: like this podcast I think matters. If this show and
26:10
Speaker 1: other shows like it can do nothing else beyond breakup
26:14
Speaker 1: what is an extremely dishonest uniform narrative that could be
26:17
Speaker 1: politically quite productive. Now this is this isn't the only
26:21
Speaker 1: venue on which you can discuss these sorts of things.
26:24
Speaker 1: As you know, you Senator and you all of you
26:27
Speaker 1: out there in podcast land, there is another series where
26:30
Speaker 1: you can go even further if you are a Verdict
26:33
Speaker 1: Plus subscriber. That is The Cloak Room with Liz Wheeler. Liz,
26:37
Speaker 1: what will you be talking about, Hi, Senator Hi, Michael.
26:40
Speaker 1: Unfortunately we have to talk about Betto O'Rourke's shameful stunt
26:44
Speaker 1: at the press conference. Senator, you were there at press
26:46
Speaker 1: conference when Betto interrupted Governor Greg Abbott. We're going to
26:50
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about that. We're also going to
26:51
Speaker 1: talk about the police response or lack thereof, to this shooting.
26:55
Speaker 1: What happened, what went wrong, what could have been done,
26:57
Speaker 1: what should have been done that could have potentially saved
27:00
Speaker 1: the lives of these children. Please join us for this
27:02
Speaker 1: important conversation on Verdict Plus. You can go to Verdict
27:06
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus for this special
27:09
Speaker 1: episode of The Cloakroom. There is lots more coming up
27:12
Speaker 1: on The Cloakroom and of course on the next episode
27:14
Speaker 1: of Verdict, so make sure to get your mail back,
27:16
Speaker 1: questions and Senator, thank you very much. I'm Michael Knowles.
27:19
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict
27:31
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs,
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