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A Senator, a Catholic, and a Cactus Walk Onto a Campus · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Now thank you. We have now been to two schools.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: This is the third stop on the Full Verdict Live
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: tour in partnership with Young America's Foundation, special thanks to
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the Logan family. We started out on Governor Walker's home
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: turf of Wisconsin. We moved on Well, we were supposed
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: to be out of college campus. That didn't quite work out.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: They don't like us up there, but we still made
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that podcast work. We then moved on Senator to your
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: home turf of Texas. We are now on my home turf,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: this very popish place. Here, a Southern Baptist and a
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: Catholic and a cactus walk onto a university campus. This
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: is Verdict with Ted Cruz. It is really terrific to
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: be here, a Catholic University of America. You know, we
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: just came from the Land of Freedom in Texas and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I landed here, and I got to tell you, I
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: was I was pretty shocked because there's this mask mandate
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in place. Every single person in Washington, DC needs to
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: wear a mask except the President of the United States.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Do I have that right? Look, only if he's out
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: at a restaurant powering around with rich people. That then
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the mask mandate doesn't work it And to be fair,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: he didn't know there was a camera. Most importantly, you
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: didn't know about it. Yeah, this is a very tricky virus.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: You put a camera on you, my god, you need
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: sixteen masks. You take the camera off, no problem at all.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I have to say it is pretty audacious. Right now.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: We've been talking about this vaccine mandate, the mask mandates
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: that is actually shutting down segments of our economy, and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: amid all of this, with such hubris, with no shame
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: at all, the President and his wife walk into this restaurant.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: The security detail is masked. Everyone else there is mask
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: but the rules don't apply to him. By the way,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: you know that is the same restaurant are actually the
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: sister restaurant of If you remember a couple of years
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: ago when Heidi and I were going out to dinner
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: in DC and this group of Antifa protesters surrounded us,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: yelled at us, ended up following us out of the restaurant,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: exact same restaurant that Joe Biden is walking around in
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: without masks, you know. To Biden's credit, though, I think
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: we need to give him credit. He, unlike the Transportation Secretary,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: has ostensively been showing up for work over the past
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: two months. But the Transportation Secretary, amid the worst supply
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: chain crisis certainly of my lifetime, he's on two months,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: going on three months of paternity leave. You know, I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: gotta say this story actually pisses me off. Look. Number one,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: people are walking on eggshells around this story. Yeah, they're
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like nervous about Oh well, it's paternity leave. You're not
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: supposed to say anything bad about that. You know, we're
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: really we're we're woke, we're sensitive, and you know he's gay,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: so that I really can't hit you can't talk about
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: don't say it, senator, And like, Okay, our country, it
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: is over two hundred years old. I am pretty sure
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Pete Bootage Edge is the first and only cabinet secretary
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: in the history of our country to take a paternity early. Yes, yeah,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: that's fair, you know, not just okay, stay home, be
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a few days with the kid, be a week with
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the kid, but two damn months. Yeah, and and counting.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And he said he won't he won't stop, he won't
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: come back to work even with the supply chain crisis.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: I suppose the only thing you have to recommend it
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: is that probably if Bootage Edge were doing his job,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the crisis would be worse. I have to assume. Look,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: this story actually encapsulates a lot of the things that
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: are infuriating. Number One, Buddha Jedge doesn't show up to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: work for two months. Ye. Number two, they keep it
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: a secret. They don't tell anyone. There's no public announcement,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: there's no he's a cabinet member. If you're a cabinet member,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you've got a responsibility to show up to work. Number Three,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it was fascinating none of the press reports on it. Ye.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: Is there any reporter at the Department of Transportation who
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: sixty days in would say, you don't know, we haven't
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: seen in sixty days. That's Secretary guy. Does he still
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: work here? And it's okay? Look, you might say, the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Secretary of Transportation doesn't show up to work, and it's
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: like a tree falling in the woods. Who noticed? Who cares? Right?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: But it happens to be right in the middle of
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: a transportation crisis that is impacting the whole country. Well, now, listen,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not an economist, so I would like to hear
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: your thoughts as a as a lawmaker, someone who sees
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: this up close. I have been reliably informed that historic
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: inflation and an historic supply chain crisis is one a
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: high class problem. That's what the White House Chief of
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Staff said. And two it's actually a good thing. That's
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: what Jensaki at the White House and Pee Boodha judge
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: have both said in the last two days. Look, there
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: is an arrogance to this, and all of these themes
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: are connected together. The arrogance is that this administration wants
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to implement policies on working people, on the little people
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that they themselves don't follow. Ye and when you look
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: at something like inflation. So the White House Chief of
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Staff Ron Clane tweeted out that that it's it's a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: high class problem inflation. You know, last I checked, buying
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: food is not a high class problem. Yea. The last
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I checked, rent isn't a high class problem. Gas isn't
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a high class problem. Diapers aren't a high class problem.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: You know. It's easy to sit back and say, oh,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: what difference does it make as inflations going up and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: up and up. But listen, and I gotta say, we're
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: with mostly college students. By the way, I loved the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: astros shirt. Awesome shirt, by the way. In nineteen when
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: the Astros played the Nationals. I went to one of
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: the games here in DC. Sat behind home plate was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the lone orange shirt in a sea of red. And
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: remember that was a weird series where the away team
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: won every game. So I was literally surrounded by Nationals fans.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: I'm wearing Astros. It is a miracle I didn't get
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: my ass kicked. I'm seeing a theme here that restaurant
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: in DC with Antifa, and then you're the orange shirt
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: at the game. It had nothing to do with politics.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: It was all baseball and we were winning, and so
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: I was pretty loud and obnoxious about it. But look
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the double standard. You know, for all of y'all in college.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: The last twenty years, we've lived in this sort of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: weird holiday from history because inflation hasn't really exist. We've
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: had inflation one and two percent for about twenty years now.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, I remember the nineteen seventy So I
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: was born in seventy. I was a kid in the seventies,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and I mean, I remember when we had double digit inflation.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I remember when you had home loans, home mortgage loans
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: of twenty one and twenty two percent. That's massive. And
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the thing about inflation, we're up at about five or
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: six percent now, so we're several times higher than what's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: historically been true. And I'll tell you really gets hit
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: by that our seniors. If you're a senior year on
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: a fixed income and suddenly all your expenses are going up, rent, food, gas, utilities,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: everything you're paying for and so the income doesn't move,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the outflow goes up. You know, there's an irony where
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: the White House Chief of Staff and the whole Biden
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: apparatus now is trying to pretend that inflation and supply
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: chain issues are a high class problem. Actually the opposite
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: is true. These issues disproportionately affect poorer people. You know,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: historically speaking, wealthier people can just make they tend to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: make more money even as inflation goes up. But also
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: basic goods gas, heating your home, food. I mean, that
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: will disproportionately affect people on smaller incomes. But it's the
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: speaking of gas. It's the it's the gas lighting that's
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: going on. Now. We're being told that up is down
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and black is white and right is left. And meanwhile,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, while we're debating paternity leave for our
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: transportation secretary. And let me be clear about something, because look,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you and I are both fathers. In fact, you're you're
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: a new father. I am, yeah, thank you. You know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: babies always get applause, and a Catholic university, you can
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: count on it. So you know, I remember when when
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: our girls were born. So our girls are thirteen and ten.
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Katherine's about turn eleven, um and listen, I'm a maternity
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: leave is awesome. Heidi took a full maternity leave. It
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: was wonderful with a newborn. So our girls were born
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: ten and thirteen years ago. I have to admit ten
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and thirteen years ago, i'd never heard a paternity leave.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Ten months ago, i'd never heard of. We didn't talk
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: about it. It wasn't like we made a conscious decision
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: not to talk about it. It was okay. She was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: caring and I love my girls, but we just it
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't a thing, all right. So now it's a thing,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: and that's fine. You know a lot of jobs that
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: can be fine, but but being in the cabinet is different. Yeah,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: but like you have a responsibility not to disappear from
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: the job for two months. Yeah, and you know, what
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: it's not that damn hard to pick up a zoom
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: in the in the in the middle of in the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: middle of a pandemic. You can zoom. You can be
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: on the job at home, and it says something that
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: that there's a view that this is not a problem.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: We can do what we want. And it's the same
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: double standard that applies in a lot of contact. And meanwhile,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: if you zoom out and you look at the geo
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: political picture, here we're sitting around debating whether cabinet secretary
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: should just disappear for family time for more than two months,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: we're debating whether it woke. Generals in the military ought
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: to be sending critical race theory texts to the troops. Me. Look,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: it's not like there's anything important to monitor. No, there's nothing.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: It's not like the Chinese or testing hypersonics or anything. Yeah,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that's the thing I just read about. So our greatest
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: geopolitical foe is testing out weapons that are blowing us
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: away that we didn't know we're possible at the moment,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile we're twiddling our thumbs. So look a hypersonic
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: You look at a ballistic missile that goes up in
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the air, goes up into the atmosphere, comes down, and
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: missile defense systems to take them out. I mean, you
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: put a nuclear warhead on the top of an ICBM
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: and you can Our missile defense systems are designed to
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: try to take them out. A hypersonic is very dangerous
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: because in what China tested is something that goes up
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: on a rocket, but then very load of the atmosphere
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: goes about five times the speed of sound and is
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: able to orbit the Earth is able to steer. Suddenly
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: missile defense doesn't work that well, and they were testing
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: it with the ability to put a nuclear warhead on
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: the front end of it. It also means one of
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: the potentials. So our missile defense is all keyed on
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: missiles coming over the North Pole. Look, a lot of
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: it was developed with the Soviet Union, where naturally the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: North Pole is the shortest distance there. With China also
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: the North Pole is the most natural, So you've got
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in Alaska big missile defense batteries. With a problem with
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a hypersonic is they can now come over the South Pole.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: They can come over the potentially the technology would let
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: them come over the South Pole where we don't have
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: the missile defense on our southern border, or for that matter,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: our southern border of the real Grand They could just
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: give it to a drug cartel and carry an That's
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: probably the easiest way. It's the most direct way, far
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: closer than the South Pole. And listen, hypersonics technologies moving forward.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: We're developing them, our enemies are developing them. But I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: gotta say, reading the stories, the Biden administration repeatedly said
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: we were shocked, we were astonished, we had no idea
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: they had this technology. And it reminded me of the
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: disaster and Afghanistan, where they said we were shocked, we
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: were astonished, we had the no idea. The Taliban were
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: bad guys. Yeah, if only someone had told us, and
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: maybe they should be shocked a little less. Look like
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: if they weren't concentrating on putting out cartoon recruiting ads. Yeah, yeah,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: maybe we could be focused on our enemies who want
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: to kill us. Right. You know, when you look at
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the current crop of leadership, whether it's in agencies, or
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it's in the White House or wherever, or it's the
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Joint chiefs of Staff, it's pretty depressing when you look
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: at the future of America. Though, when you look at
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the young people, especially the ones assembled here. It gives
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: you a little more hope. Should should we get to
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: their questions? That's what I'm here for. Should we bring
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: out our friend Liz Wheeler to moderate an open discussion.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be taking all of your questions, so make
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: sure that you line up. If you disagree with us,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: all of them, not not all. If they're tough, please,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: we don't want it. We don't need to hear that. Okay,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: And just for the role, if you if you start
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: with with lnear algebra, I'm gonna make the Yale graduate
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: answer that one. That's great. Yeah, you know I mostly
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: studied lesbian dance theory, underwater basket weaving, you know, all
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the top majors at Yale. So but you know what
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: we can do. We'll kick it to Liz. She can
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: answer those questions. You know. If you make that promise,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: we may demand performance. Good to see you would just
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: see you good to see a senator. Whinney said that
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a Catholic, a senator, and a cactus. We're coming to
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: a campus that I hope you weren't talking about me
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: when you say you are not the cactus. You are
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: the second Catholic. Actually we brought reinforcements. Should we take
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some questions? Good? Yes. Do we know the rules of
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the questions. We know the rules of the questions. Ask
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: one question, not two, not three, not two, part not three,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: part one question. Make it succinct so that we can
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: get to as many questions as possible. If you disagree
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: with the senator, if you disagree with Michael, our producers
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: will bring you to the front of the line, because
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: that's why we're here. We're also going to while everyone
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: gets lined up, I want to talk to you for
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: just a second about Verdict Plus. It's a portal for
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: access to Senator Ted Cruise where not just tonight, but
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: every night, or not every night, but frequently we will
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: get together and do question an answer, So you can
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: submit questions through that portal. It's Verdict with Ted Cruise
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: dot Com slash plus. You probably have a little card
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: that was on your seat when you sat down. There's
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a promo code on that car. I think the promo
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: code says live you will get a month free trial
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to Verdict Plus if you use that promo code. So
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that's Verdict with Ted Cruz dot Com slash plus and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the promo code is live, and while everyone is lining up,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: we're actually going to take our first question directly from Verdict.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Plus there's some great questions that have already been already
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: been submitted. So this first question, Senator, is directed obviously
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: at you. It's from an Iraqi war veteran, and he says,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: as we all know, there have been over one hundred
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and sixty thousand quote unquote migrants released into the country
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: since March. With that being said, why are we still
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: not processing k one fiance visas? Why punish those who
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: are trying to do immigration the legal way? Yeah, look,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's a very good question. You know, my
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: view and immigration I've always summarized in four words legal, good,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: illegal bad. I think there's a right way to come
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: to this country. The right way is to stand in line,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to follow the rules and come here legally, and fiance
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: visas have been one of the long and traditional ways
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: of doing that. You know. One of the strange things
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: about how the Biden administration has handled immigration is on
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: the southern border. We have an open border. We've had
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: over one point three million people cross illegally just since
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Biden has become president. But at the same time, they've
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: shut the border down to legal commerce. It's it's a
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: very strange combination where where they're not allowing So you
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: have Mexican citizens, for example, who routinely would come up
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: to Texas and they'd go shopping, they go out to dinner,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: they would come there. There's a heavy traffic back and forth.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: That is a legal commerce back and forth. The Biden
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: administration shut that all down. So it is a bizarre.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: If you're coming with a cartel to break the law,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: they're fine with it. If you're actually coming legally to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: drive the economy, they're not. I think that's backwards and
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: we ought to be prioritizing doing it the right way.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But do you think, Senator, I mean to the viewer's question,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: is it incompetence from the Biden administration? Were to quote
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: your colleague Marco Rubio from the campaign? You know, does
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Biden know exactly what he's doing. Let's dispel with the
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: fiction that he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: is is this intentional? So? I think the open borders
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: are intentional, and it's because it's two things. One, Biden
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and Harris essentially made promises to the radical left in
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party that they would have open borders, that
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: they wouldn't enforce the law, and so far they haven't
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: been willing to renege on those those promises. But secondly,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I think more broadly, they view unlimited illegal immigration as
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: as future Democratic voter. Yeah. I think this is a
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: crass political decision, and I got to tell you it's horrific.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I've spent a lot of time at the border. The
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: kids who are coming in are being brought in by traffickers,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: They're being abused. It is. It takes your breath the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: way to see what's happening, you know, on the legal side,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have a good answer for it. So why,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: for example, they shut down legal commerce across the bridges.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It doesn't make any sense, you know.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I actually I've called for them to open it up.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Democrats have called for them to open it up, but
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: they don't do it. I have never been able to
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: get a good answer as to why. It's interesting too.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I think to note that the Biden administration tried to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: prevent the media from covering this. They tried to prevent
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: the drones that were showing footage in del Rio. I mean,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: you were actually the first one. You can talk your
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: cell phone down there to show the American people what
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was happening. Because clearly the Biden administration knows that what's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: happening isn't just arbitrarily happening, that it's happening as a
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: direct result of their political choices. So it does beg
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the question whether it's being done or for what intention
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: it is being done, since they know that their choices
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: are causing that problem. Yeah, all right, are you guys ready?
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So when you step up to the mic, introduce yourself first,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: and then you can address your question to the senator,
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to Michael or to me. What's your name? Hi, My
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: name's Nick. I'm a senior history major here at CUA,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: and for the record, the history department rocks here. Great.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: I love to hear it. So, Senator Um, I want
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to ask you about freedom. You talk a lot about freedom,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: you talk a lot about liberty, but with all respect,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard you talk a lot about throughout your career.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: What is the purpose of human freedom? So I want
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: to ask you tonight what is the purpose of human freedom?
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: And is it the ultimate virtue as human beings that
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: we should seek or is there something more. Wow. So Nick,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: let me say you have just demonstrated your first statement,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: which is the history department rocks here that that is
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a great and profound question, and we're starting with depth.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Look at at the end of the day, I think
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: every human yearns for meaning, yearns for a purpose larger
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: than ourselves, a purpose larger than our lives. That is
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a purpose that that for billions for the time of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: humanity has been filled for many with faith. As for me,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a Christian and my faith is a very important
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: part of who I am. But I think when it
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: comes to freedom, there's a different role. If you're assessing
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: how am I going to live my life, then there
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: is a question of what are the governmental policies that
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: should be in place. And and you know, if you
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: look at the founding of our country, we were founded
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: by people fleeing religious oppression and coming to a place
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: where where we could live according to our faith and
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: worship God and live live our lives according to our faith,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: according to our conscience. And from a governmental perspective, I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: think government should not have its finger on the scale
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: one way or the other. We should protect rules that
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: allow everyone to go and seek whatever faith questions, whatever
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: faith journey. And by the way, look I'm a Christian now,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: but but all of us have had a faith journey.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: I was raised as a Christian. I had a period
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: when I was in school where I was probably fairly
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: described as an agnostic. I had doubts, which which a
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: lot of young people certainly do. Actually, Heidi had a
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: similar journey questioning her faith when she was in school.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I think that's a very common part of life. I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: think we ought to have legal rules in place that
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: protect the ability of each of us to try to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: answer the ultimate question, to try to answer what has
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: our purpose. I can tell you one thing I point
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: out a lot, particularly when I talk to young people,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: as I say, look, think about what people will say
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: at your funeral, little macab But but when you're dead
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and buried, what are they going to say? And nobody
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: is going to remember how big of a flat screen
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: TV you had. Nobody is going to remember if you
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: had a fancy car or not. I mean the material
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: possessions in life. Look, you need enough money to have
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: food and shelter and provide for your family. But the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: only thing anyone ever talks about at a funeral are
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the lives that you touched. Are the people whose lives
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: were made better because you lived? Are the people you inspired?
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Are the people you helped, Are the people whose world
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: was bettered because of your effort. And so I think
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: that's a big part of having a higher purpose is
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: making a positive difference in your home and your family,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and your neighborhood and your community and your state in
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: your country. And I think each of us is on
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: a journey to figure that out. It's also worth remembering
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: aligned from Saint Paul when we're trying to make sense
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of what do we really mean by freedom? Saint Paul says,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the things that I want to do I don't do,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: and the things that I don't want to do I do.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Now is that is he just speaking gibberish? Is what
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: does that even mean? Well, what he's describing as the
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: difference between his appetite, his base desires, and his higher
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: rational will. And we all know, I mean, the clearest
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: example of this, I guess, would be a drug addict,
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: right who at the very base appetite level, wants to
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: shoot up a bunch of drugs, but at the higher
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: level he does he wants to quit. He wants to
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: be in control of himself and have freedom. You know
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: that the Founding Fathers describe this distinction as one between
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: liberty and licentiousness. And you know, we all used to understand,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: not just conservatives, everybody in this country used to understand that.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: And I think recently we've kind of redefined liberty as
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: this idea of just doing whatever you want, you know,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: no matter how base that is. And you know, the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Founding Fathers warned that this would be the end of liberty.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: This is why when John Adam says that the Constitution
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: is built for a moral and religious people and it's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: not fit to the government of any other, he's not
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Bible thumping. John Adams was not a Bible thumper, and
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: he's not being superstitious. He's describing this this complex fact
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of human freedom. And I mean, I think that's what
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: you're speaking to, Senator. I suspect that's what the question
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: is getting at. That if we if we want self government,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: if we want to keep the project of the republic going,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: we need to be able first to govern ourselves, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: in recent years we've had trouble doing them. And on
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the question of licentiousness, for what it's worth the brownies
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: here we're provided by the state of Colorado. I think too,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: if I may interject here, I think to as Catholics
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: and as Christians, we should recognize that freedom as protected
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: by the government is a vehicle for us to make
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: the right decision. It allows us, as Christians and as
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Catholics to choose virtue, to choose Christ. It almost mirrors
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: the choice that Christ gives us, you know, giving us
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: free will. We can choose Him or we can choose
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to reject Him. And that's why it's incumbent on us,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: as both Catholics and Christians, but also political activists, to
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: defend freedom in as many aspects of life as we can,
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: because it allows us to be, as Christians and Catholics
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: closer to God by making those decisions. So it's also
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: a vehicle that mirrors our faith. I think, thank you, Hi.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: What's your name? Hi? I'm Jane Edwards. So I actually
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: have a question regarding immigration. I am a history major
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: here at Catholic University, and my question for the immigration
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: is for legal immigration, because it is often on a
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: case by case basis. Will you actively seek to fund
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: immigration courts and lawyers? So it's a great question. The answer,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: at least on the court side, is yes. And I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: can tell you so back a couple of years ago.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: You remember when suddenly the news was dominated with the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: phrase kids and cages, and it was said over and
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: over again. Look, I was very concerned then and now
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: about the kids in cages, and and I actually introduced
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: legislation to address it. And in particular, you had a phenomenon.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: So if you go back to the history of where
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: this came from, why is it that there are kids
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: in cages? The initial cages were built by Barack Obama.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: And what happened if you go back to and my
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: numbers are if you go back to I believe it's
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: twenty thirteen, the number of unaccompanied children that came to
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the US in that year was I believe six thousand.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Shortly thereafter, as when Obama announced Dhaka, which was the
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: executive amnesty for people who came illegally to the country
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: as children. Now, if you announce amnesty for people who
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: come as kids, you create a massive incentive for people
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: to come as kids kids, And the very next year,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: the number of unaccompanied children that came illegally to this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: country went from six thousand all the way up to
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: ninety three thousand. It was a massive explosion. And so
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the first time I saw the kids in cages was
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. They were in Texas. Barack Obama was president.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: They were in Lackland Air Force Base, and they built
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: them because the numbers, the massive numbers were coming in
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: as a response to the executive amnesty. And actually the
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: border patrol interviewed the kids and said why are you coming,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: and the kids said, over and over again, they said,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: because we get a permiso, which is if we come,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: we get to stay. It's very difficult to get the
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: press to cover all of the kids that were in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: cages that and kids, by the way, that we're being
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: physically assaulted, sexually assaulted. The traffickers that are bringing them
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: in are bad, bad guys. Fast forward to the Trump presidency,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: then suddenly the kids in cages that were still there.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: That became a major issue, and we saw a new phenomenon,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: which was family units coming over. And so that was
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a different form of migration. And what drove that is
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: something called Flores So Flores was a lawsuit that the
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: Obama administration had settled, and it's a settlement that they
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: entered into in the Ninth Circuit that provided a strict
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: time limit on how long a child could be kept
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: in detention if they came illegally, and the Obama administration
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: agreed to it. It was entered into as a consent
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: decree by the Federal Court under Flores. What it then
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: became the case was that if an adult came with
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a child, all of them would be released within the
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: time limits of Flores, and so it would force them
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: all to be released. And we started to see a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: phenomenon that was a terrible phenomenon where adults were showing
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: up with kids that were not their kids, so they
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: would present as a family unit, and border patrol would
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: do a DNA test and a very significant percentage of
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: them were completely unrelated to the kids. And in fact,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: we were seeing a horrific phenomenon of children being rented
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: out that if you were a single adult man who
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: wanted to come to the United States, if you brought
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: a kid, that kid was a get out of jail
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: free card. Well, in light of all of that, I
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: introduced legislation and I tried to team up with a Democrat,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: so I spent oh probably twenty hours negotiating with Diane
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Feinstein and trying to say, Diane, Okay, let's not have
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: family separation. I agree emphatically family should stay together. That
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: if you have a mom and dad and kids, they
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: should all stay together. No one wants to see the
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: kids separated from the family. But the answer can't be
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: so release everybody, because that creates much more illegal immigration.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: So the bill I introduced kept families together. It created safe,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: secure family detention facilities where you would you would keep
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: a family all together. And then it funded if I
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: remember correctly, I think it was five hundred new immigration
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: judges to provide for expedited hearings, so that if you
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: have a family presenting a claim of asylum, presenting a
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: credible fear of persecution, that you would have the courts
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: right there to adjudicate it right then get a swift answer,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: and if they meet the legal standard, they stay, and
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: if they don't meet the legal standard, you put them
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: on a plane and send them home. And so I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: filed this legislation. You can read the bill. You know.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It was interesting negotiating with Diane. When she and I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: would talk, we actually had quite a bit of agreement,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: and she was when we talk about what was happening
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: at the border, and she was disturbed by it. You know,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I have to say her staff, I think was far
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: to the left of where she was, and actually democratic
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: leadership they sent Dick Durbin to basically monitor Diane because
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: they didn't want her to greet anything with me. We
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: ended up not being able to get bipartisan agreement. So
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: I filed my bill, but no Democrats joined together. I said, look,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: we can end family separation right here, and we can
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: also fund the immigration courts to resolve these claims. There
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: was no democratic appetite to do that. Thank you, all right.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: For those watching online, those watching the event live streaming
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the Young America's
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Foundation YouTube page and ring that bell. I'm talking to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: you those who are watching online right now. Before we
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: got to your question, I do want to take another
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: question from Verdict Plus. Is a little bit of a
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: saucy question about big tech, and I'm very interested to
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: hear your answer. Actually, and this is the user name
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: of this individual I thought was very funny too. It's
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: a real truth captus. Yes, I love the real truths
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: um he asks, is it's a yeah, oh well, my
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: apologies of course. Um this is what she asks. Is
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: it a coincidence that Facebook shut down the same day
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: that Francis Howan, that's the Facebook whistleblower that testified in
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Congress blew the whistle on them? Or am I just crazy?
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: You know? I have to admit I thought the same thing,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: and and that day tweeted out a gift of uh
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Facebook headquarters running through the hallways going shred it all.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I don't know, but it was. It sure
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: was an interesting quinkydink. You know, if the last few
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: years have taught us anything, I think it's that the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: difference between a wild, crazy conspiracy theory and the truth
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is about six to twelve months. You know, that would
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: be the big distinction. So here here's my follow up question.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: That was I have it on good authority. It came
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: from Russia to begin with. Here's that's a joke for
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the Internet censors. That's a joke. I didn't get it
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: on good authority. I got it from the Hillary Clinton campaign.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: You can't can't stand when we call him out for subscriptions.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: So we got to balance that out a little bit.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: Let's get to your question. What's your name? Hi? My
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: name's Ali Trust. I'm a double major here in philosophy,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: pre law, and history. I have thank you. I have
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: a question about immigration regarding the humanitarian crisis at the border. Um,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: what are you or what would you do regarding all
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the abuse and sexual assault going on at the border
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: right now with those kids in cages. Yeah, look, it's
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: it's what is happening now. I've been to the border
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of times that I've represented Texas nine years
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: in the Senate. Going down to the border something I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: do frequently. I've never seen it remotely this bad, and
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: it's worth noting, you know, when you ask what can
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: we do about it? Sometimes when the press asked that question,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: what they mean is there's no way to solve it.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting that's what you mean by it, but
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that's what the press means when they ask it. And
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: we know that's actually not true because last year we
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty five years.
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: So what we were doing a year ago was working.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: What were we doing a year ago? Well, the best
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: way to understand how we got into this crisis now
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: is the first week Joe Biden was in office, he
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: made three decisions on immigration that had massive consequences. First
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: thing he did is he immediately halted construction of the wall.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: And so if you go down to the wall there
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: portions of it they're built that are big, beautiful wall,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: as someone might say. And then on January twentieth, they
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: literally dropped their tools. You see rebar that's just rusting
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: that down on the ground. You see bulldozers that are
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: just parked, and they we are paying contract actors millions
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of dollars not to build the wall. That was step
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: number one. Step number two is the Biden administration reinstated
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: catching release. Catching release was the policy where you apprehend someone,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you give him a court date sometime in the future,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: you let them go, say hey, please show up at court.
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: The vast majority of them are never seen again. Catching
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: release doesn't work. If you want a secure border, you
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: can't have catching release. The third decision, and this was
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: probably the most significant, was that Joe Biden ended the
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Remain in Mexico policy. Now Remain in Mexico was an
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: agreement that President Trump negotiated with the government of Mexico
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: and Mexico agreed that people crossing illegally into the United
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: into Mexico, typically from Central or South America, would remain
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: in Mexico where the US asylum case was cases were proceeding.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Remain in Mexico proved to be an incredible success and
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: it's what produced I mentioned a moment ago. We had
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the lowest rate of illegal immigration last year in forty
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: five years because of remain in Mexico, our government working
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: cooperatively with the government of Mexico. On day one Biden
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: tour that into pieces and we have today the highest
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: rate of illegal immigration in twenty one years. And let
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: me take a minute to talk about So what is happening?
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: You know? A few weeks ago, I was down in
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: South Texas, did a bunch of roundtables and sat down
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: with law enforcement and sheriffs and ranch owners and farmers
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and local elected officials. So the ranchers, I remember there
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: were two different ranchers, both women, who described almost the
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: exact same thing. They said, they don't allow their teenage
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: kids to go out on their property without an armed firearm,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: that they're just so many traffickers crossing their property on
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a daily basis, that it's not safe for their kids
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to be out there and they were mad, they were
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: ticked off. You know, how is my country not allowing
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: these criminal cartels just to ignore the law with impunity.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: We also heard from law enforcement who describes so many
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: of the illegal immigrants who come across, they're wearing a
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: colored wristband and the color corresponds. So to cross the border,
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: you have to pay the cartels. You can't if you're
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: in Mexico. You want to cross in the US. If
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: you try to swim on your own, they'll kill you.
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: The cartels have a total monopoly, and you pay them
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: anywhere between three and eight thousand dollars. And what happens
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: when people come across is typically they get put in
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: stash houses just north of the river. The stash houses
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: are really violent, dangerous places. There are a lot of
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: physical assaults there. There are a lot of rapes that
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: happen in these stash houses, and often they will extort
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: thousands more once you're there. And so the color coded
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: wristbands correspond to how many thousands of dollars you paid
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and how many you owe. Now what happens next. Many
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: of these folks then go turn themselves in to the
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: border patrol, and the Biden administration sends them to cities
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: throughout the country. So you may think, you know, maybe
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: you're from New York or LA or Chicago, or maybe
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: you're from DC. You may think, well, gosh, I'm not
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: on the border, this is not a problem that impacts me. Well,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: there are hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants that the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Biden administration is sending to every city across the country.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: And you get, for example, teenage boys that arrive here
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: in DC who owe the cartels several thousands of dollars,
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: and so they're working for the cartels and they have
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: to pay it off. Remember the cartels they know who
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: their families are. And so if you're a teenage boy
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: and you owe four thousand dollars, if you don't pay
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that all, they will kill your mother, they'll kill your sister.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: And so you now have all of these, many of
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: them are teenagers working for the drug cartels in every
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: city across the country. You also tragically have, particularly with
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: teenage girls, many of them are put into forced prostitution
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and it is horrific. So the prostitution houses that the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: cartels have set up are like an old plantation. They
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: keep a ledger of every expense. So they charge you
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: for your room, they charge you for your board, they
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: charge you for utilities, they charge you for every different fact.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I was told the cost for the scissors to cut
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: the ankle monitor bracelet off your ankle was thirty dollars.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: They charge you thirty dollars to cut the bracelet off.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: And so if you can imagine a fifteen year old
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: girl from Hondura, Sir Nicaragua, Guatemala, who came north because
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: she wanted to come to the Promised Land. She wanted
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to live free. She was inspired by America and a
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: few months later she is living in Hell enforced prostitution
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in an establishment run by the drug cartels. This is
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: horrific and it's one of the things that frustrates me
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: politically when we talk about it, is that the defenders
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: of this policy say they're being humane and compassionate. There's
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: nothing humane about what is happening to these people. I
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: think the answer to fix it is reversed the three
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: decisions Joe Biden made, which is returned to building the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: border wall, end catch and release, and reinstate the remain
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: in Mexico policy. And we know that worked because it
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: worked last year dramatically well. But right now, at least
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden Kamala Harris don't want to do it. There
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: was an incredible statific stick. It came out a few
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: years ago. It was actually reported in the Huffington Post,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: left wing outlet. It was relying on data from Fusion
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: and Amnesty International that sixty to eighty percent of women
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and girls who crossed the border illegally are raped or
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: otherwise sexually assaulted on the journey. Senator, to your point,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: there are politicians in this country, and I'm not going
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: to both sides it. It's politicians on the left, overwhelmingly
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: on the left, who are incentivising people to do this
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and incentivizing this perilous, violent journey because they think they
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: can score some votes out of it, in some cases
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: cheap labor, but mostly it's votes. And if you are
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: doing that, if you are opposing a border wall, if
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: you are opposing border enforcement, if you are doing all
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: the things that the left is doing in this country,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, you've got blood on your hands.
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: And it's not going to be solved as a both
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: sides question. It's the left needs to grow a conscience
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: and look at the numbers and look at the reality
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: of what's happening and cut it out. Yeah, and Michael,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: I think too. It's especially pertinent being at Catholic University
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: that sometimes the leadership in the church misunderstands the church
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: doctrine on compassion, on humanitarianism, and teaches instead social justice.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Because we know Biblically we're taught to welcome the traveler,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: welcome the stranger, and that the church. Sometimes the leadership
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of the church teaches that this is equal to an
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: open borders policy. Speak to why this is not correct, Well,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you have a right to a country. You know, there's
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: nothing in Catholic doctrine saying that you don't have a
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: right to have your own country, or that patriotism is wrong,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: or that enforcing the law is wrong. Actually, the civil
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: authority is instituted with the authority of God, and the
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Saint Paul writes about this. You see this throughout the Bible.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: And the love of country is an extension of the
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: love of one's own family. It's perfectly natural and it's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: perfectly right. So we want to be very kind and
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: very welcoming, and we do all of these things. We
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: do it in private charity, and we do it at
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: the national level too. But this does not mean tearing
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: down borders. That actually can have a very negative consequence because,
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: by the way, if you erase the borders of this country,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you're erasing the national identity itself. And then where is
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: it exactly that the people are fleeing to. It's an
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: incoherent action. Well, and Liz, I think you raise a
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: good question, and I'd say a couple of things on
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that point. Number one, I will say that charities and churches,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: but in particular Catholic charities in South Texas does an
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: incredible job caring for these children, caring for these women
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: who are abused. That there is in the Rio Grand
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Valley sister Norma who leads that effort, and I know her.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: She is there constantly, She works tirelessly, and you know,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: these children who are going through unspeakable horrors. It's not
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the kid's fault. And we should certainly show these children
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: and these people love and compassion. But the real love
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and compassion would be not to create a legal system
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: that incentivizes hundreds of thousands or millions of people to
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: be brutalized by these cartoons. And you know, it is
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: absolutely true that that that the Catholic Church and the
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Bible teach to welcome the traveler. But often what has
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: missed there is no country on the face of the
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: planet that welcomes more immigrants than the United States of America.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: We are the most generous and welcoming country in the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: history of the world. And in fact, the countries that
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: that lecture us on how dare you secure your borders,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: they don't let people in. I mean, it's utter and
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: complete hypocrisy. We're a country built by Look, my dad
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: came as an immigrant from Cuba. I love that. We
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: are a melting pot and and we are built by
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: people seeking freedom. We should keep that. But but simply
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: having a lawless system where innocent people are abused, used
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: by vicious criminal cartels. That's not compassionate. That is being
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: willfully blind to the horrific crimes that are being carried
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: out as a result of failed government policies. Yep, I
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: think that's I think that's correct, and it's it's the
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: right thing to do to note which side of the
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: aisle those policies are being carried out. Thank you for
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: your question. All right, Well, we're teeing up at the
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: next very good. While we're teeing up the next question.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: That card that I mentioned before that's on your seat
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that has that promo code, make sure to visit verdict
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: with Ted Cruise dot com slash shop. You can see
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: this hat that's sitting very comfortably back here on the cactus.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: We have some pretty cool cactus merch that's now for sale.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: You can get ten percent off that merch by using
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: that promo code live if you get a Verdict with
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  Speaker 1: Ted Cruise dot com it slash So. I gotta say
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: that's very churesque of the cactus wearing a hat with
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: a cactus on it. It just sort of just folding
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: in upon itself. And I don't know if I was
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: supposed to mention tonight that the cactus beat both of
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: your faces onto the surprised. I'm not surprised. We have
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: a face for podcast, but the cactus is the real
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: star of the show. Yeah, that's exactly right. All right,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: are you ready with your question? Introduce yourself clear body.
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I'm Sam, I'm a working professional, but Senator Cruz, I
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: was actually one of your interns back in college in Houston.
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I see Grant over there, So hey, Grant, I don't
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: know if he remembers me, but hey, and you know,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: Michael and Liz obviously were both your All of us
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: are part of the mystical body of Christ. So I
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: feel like I already know you guys are ready here.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: That's where I knew you from. Okay, So my question
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: is to both Michael and Senator Cruz and Liz as well,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: if you'd like surrounding the definition of liberty. Liberty is
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: a word that's kind of used as a buzzword on
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: the right, but it is also used by many on
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: the right to justify and perhaps even passively allowed the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: cultivation of very vicious acts. So I was wondering if
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: Michael and Senator Cruz, if you could both give your
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: own definition of the word liberty and maybe comparing contrast,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: because something tells me you might not perfectly agree on
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: the definition. Sure, I'll borrow my definition of liberty from
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: Lord Acton. Winston Churchill famously said that if you don't
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: have a good education, you should just quote really smart people.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: So i'll quote quote Michael knows all the time. So
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Lord Acton points out that liberty is not the ability
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: to do whatever you want to do, but rather the
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: right to do what you ought to do. And we
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: touched on this a little bit earlier when we talked
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: about how liberty and licentiousness are not the same thing,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: about how the rational will exists to mediate between the appetite,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: the base passion, and the divine will, and it's what
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: separates us from from the beasts. So I guess the
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: example I would use to bring all of that down
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: to earth is education. The point of education is to
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: make us free, right, That's why we call it liberal education.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: We call it the liberal arts. So the whole point
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of it is to make us free. And when you
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: are free, you are not being coerced, right. That's I
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: think that's probably the basic thing we would all say
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: about freedom. But the iron here, or the complication, is
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: that in order to attain this freedom, you need to
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: be coerced by your teachers, by the exams, by the grades.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're coerced for twelve years, thirteen year, oh, fifteen,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: depends on how much schooling you're going to go through.
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: By the time that this administration is over. With free
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: college in PreK, it's going to be thirty five years.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: So it's a lot of coercion, but it does serve
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: a purpose. You do actually have to train your will,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and this is a difficult process. And when people are
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: in college sometimes they make some mistakes. They let their
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: appetites run away with them. It's not so good. The
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush famously said, when I was young and
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: ear responsible. I was young and ear responsible. But the
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: idea is, you want to mature and grow up. And
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: so I think we have this mistaken conception of liberty
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that really comes from Freud. We have this kind of
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: steam engine idea of liberty, which is that I've got
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: all of these appetites and desires, and if I don't
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: engage in even the base ones, even the one the
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: naughty ones that I'm not supposed to do, if I
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: don't let off a little steam every once in a while,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: then I'm just going to explode. This is different from
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: say Aristotle's understanding of behavior of vice and virtue, and
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the Catholic understanding and my own understanding, which is that
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: when you practice the virtues, which are habits, they get
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: a little bit easier. This is a fallen world. We're
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: all sinful. It's we're going to stumble. We're probably not
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: going to act perfectly in this world. In fact, I
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: know that we're not, but it is going to become
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: easier the more you practice these virtues. And the same
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: is true of the vices. And I say this with
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: a great deal of experience. When you practice the vices,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to do it the first couple
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: of times, and then it's easier and easier, and then
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: it's harder to stop. And this I think it would
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: be the description of addiction. And so any coherent understanding
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of liberty I think has to take into account virtue.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: It certainly did for the founding fathers, it has for
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: statesmen for all time. You mentioned the mystical body of Christ.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Christ says in the Gospels the man who sins is
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: a slave to sin, and we just know that to
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: be true in our own lives. Anyone who's ever sinned
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: knows that that is the case. And so I think
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think sometimes and just in
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: recent decades, we've taken a more shallow view of liberty,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: and liberty is not a shallow thing. And to quote
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan, it's not passed in the bloodstream either, Okay,
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: it's one generation away from being lost, which is why
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: it's so important to educate people in freedom. That's what
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: YAF is trying to do. That's part of the purpose
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: of this podcast. And while the left, I think wants
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to really suppress our freedom by appealing to all of
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: our vices. Senator Cruz and I talked about this on
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: the Prager Yu book show. We talked about Brave New
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: World and the conquering of a people by cultivating vice.
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I think we need to recognize that to have true freedom,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: we have to have some idea of what's good. So
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that was an amazingly erudite and well thought out answer.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: You know, I will say that the number one Michael
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: talked about practicing vices, um And I will note that
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: after the last verdict we did at Texas a at
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: M that you and the entire team came back to
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: my house in Houston and we practiced vices until about
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: three in the morning. We had some very expensive scotch
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and some very cigars. Um And and I'll say, you know,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: your practice makes perfect. This is the thing I keep
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: working on it. Um. You know. But but Senator, to
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: be fair, the body is a temple, and the temple
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: needs incense, Okay, so I'm gonna defend that. So one
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: of the things I find interesting in your question is
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you said you guys may disagree on this, And I
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: think that was insightful because I listened to what Michael
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: said and I thought it was quite learned, and yet
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't really agree with it. Um. And and you know,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: I would say there's a distinction. It may be the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: Catholic Protestant distinction. Um. I would say I have a
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: more libertarian bent, perhaps than Michael. I would say most people.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: I think at Tilla the Hume has a more libertarian look.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: When you ask what liberty is, Liberty is the right
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: to make your own choices in your own life, to think,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: to speak, to the right too. As as John Locke
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: put it, life, liberty, and property the liberty. One of
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the famous formulations of liberty is my right to swing
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: swing my fist ends at the tip of your lip.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Knows you have a right to do whatever you wish
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: with your life. You don't have a right to impinge
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: on the liberties of others. You don't have a right
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: to impinge on the rights of others. There's some in
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: the philosophical world or legal world that a positive distinction
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: between negative liberties and positive liberties. Negative liberties are essentially
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: lead me alone, don't silence my speech, don't prevent me
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: from practicing my faith, don't take away my right to
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: keep in bare arms. Those are negati of liberties positive liberties,
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: and they're typically folks on the left that are advocating this.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Are a liberty to have healthcare, a liberty to have housing,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: a liberty to have and there it's an entitlement that
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: is framed as a liberty. In my view, liberty as
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: the former and not the latter. Liberty is the right
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: to be left alone. Now what Michael said about the
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: right to do as you ought. Look, I yes, I
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: think you ought do as you ought. That's what ought means,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the power of tautology. But I also think you have
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: every right not to do as you ought. And so
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: if you want to exercise your free will to be
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: a sloth or a drunkard, or to fritter away your life,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you have a right to do that. Now, I would
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: hope you wouldn't. I would encourage you not to, but
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: it is within the realm, the realm of choice for
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: you to make it so in the legal world, and
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: I'll shift to law. There's a big debate in constitutional
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: law that is sometimes viewed as a debate between Scalia
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: and Thomas, and it is whether the law protects whether
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: the Constitution protects natural rights. And my view is that
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the Constitution limits the power of government. And they're a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: host of things. So, for example, school choice is an
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: issue I am deeply passionate about. I've spent twenty five
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: years of my life fighting for school choice. As much
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: as I believe in school choice, I don't think you
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: should have judges mandating school choice, even though it would
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: help kids enormously, because I don't think we should be
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: reading into the Constitution a mandate for our own personal
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: policy choices. So when it comes to what liberty is,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: I would say I have a more capacious framing of it,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: and I would leave in terms of urging the virtuous
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: life as a very Aristotilian call on your part. I
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: think that's a great That is a great calling for
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: pastors and priests and motivational speakers and anyone seeking to teachers,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: anyone seeking to help people find their calling in life.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, we shouldn't force it. And
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: by the way, a natural area. This is playing out
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: as vaccine mandates, where you have government trying to force
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: people to make a healthcare decision. I've been vaccinated. I
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: believe in vaccines. I encourage people to get the vaccine.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: I also believe you have individual liberty and the right
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: not to get the vaccine if you choose not to,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and you're an adult and make your own choices. And
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: I will say in response to that, I did tweet
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: out the hashtag your body, your choice, and left lost
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: their mind and they just say they're no, you're not
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: allowed to say that. I'm like, why are you telling
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: people they got to stick a damn shot in their arm.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I think liberty should have a lot of flexibility and
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of room in it, including the liberty to
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: make stupid decisions, because, to be honest, we learn more
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: by mistakes anyway, and you have the right to do
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: dumb things too, right, And I think it matters to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: what liberty is in relation to. So if you're talking
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: about liberty in a community, or liberty and a culture,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: or liberty in your you know, church group, that's different.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: You know, the cultural stigma that might be on certain
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: actions versus whether it's legal. And we know, you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: many politicians are abusive. We know people in power like
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: to exercise that power, and so we have to we
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: have to, I think take the more libertarian view on
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: liberty to allow us to make the choice to be holy,
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: because that's what liberty should be for conservatives and Christian conservatives,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: is the ability for us to choose that virtue that
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: you're talking about, because it's like, it's like personal charity
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: versus welfare. Right. You know, if you are forced by
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: the government to give money, it's it does nothing for you.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: You're not giving up your own free will, You're not
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: giving up your heart versus when you know you're giving
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: by your own choice, that is an act of charity
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: that benefits both you as the giver and the recipient
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of that. So I lean more libertarian on liberty too,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: to make sure that your right to live your life,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: or as the Founders say, life liberty, the pursuit of happiness,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: which obviously means property, which means the extension of person,
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the fruits of your labor, is protected because that allows
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: us the right to make the right choices. Well, you know,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: while I may disagree with that particular libertarian view. I
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: will point out to the senator's point on our staying
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: out late and smoking cigars and you know, having with
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: scotch and things like that, we burn the evidence and
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: burn and burning the evidence. I will say, I have
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: always relied on the compatientiousness of libertarians when I myself,
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: I am indulging in this behavior. And in my defense,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I went home and fed my baby, did virtuous thing. Yes,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for your question. I appreciate it. All right,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: this is going to be the final question. But for
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: everybody who I appreciate getting in line. If you didn't
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: get a chance to ask your question, you can go
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: to Verdict with Ted Cruise dot com slash plus and
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: you can submit your questions there. And like I said,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: Senator Cruise and I will be taking questions on a
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: fairly regular basis from those who are part of that community.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: So Hi, what's your name? Hi there, my name is Peter.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: I actually work here in the DMV area. I have
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: a question for you, Senator, for mister owls um, why
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: does it not like you work better to work across
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: the aisles with people that have a platonic idea of
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: the way that the world works versus us as a
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: as an Aristotilian view we have. We both have the
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: theme idea of you diamond Ea, but it doesn't seem
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: like you work well across the aisle enough to do
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: meaningful changes. So Peter that that again is a very
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: learned question, and I will say Catholic University is coming
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: through powerfully strong look In many ways, the failure of
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: both parties to work across the aisle is a symptom
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: of a broader phenomenon that's playing out in our society
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and culture, which is that we're getting more and more
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: polarized and tribalized and atomized. And I think social media
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: contributes to that powerfully. You know, it used to be
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that we had homogenizing institutions in our lives, that we
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: might be a Republican, we might be a Democrat, and
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: yet we went to work with someone of the opposite party,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: we went to church with someone of the opposite party.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: Our kids played together on the playground, and it's hard
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: to believe someone's the devil if you're sharing a burger
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: at a backyard barbecue. Today we're so separated that the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: right listens to right wing news. The left listens to
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: left wing news on social media. If someone disagrees with you,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: just unfriend them. They disappear, and we end up in
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: these feedback loops where we only hear views we agree with,
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: and we think that's the only thing. We began this.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: This podcast got a couple of questions and immigration. If
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: you watch Fox News or Newsmax or o An, you
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: know about the immigration crisis. If you watch and it
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist, it's simply there is no immigration crisis. That
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: is a really harmful dynamic. How does it play out
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill? I'll say in the Senate at least,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: here here's an encouraging thing. By and large, the senators
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: get along pretty well. There's very little direct personal incivility
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: one to the other, which is good. There's more of
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: that in the House. The House is a more bare
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: knuckle place, and people can be nastier to each other.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: There's very little of it in the Senate. There are
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: a number of Democrats I get along with very well.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: You know, Corey Booker and I are friends. Kirston Gillibrand
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: and I are friends. Actually three different Democratic candidates for president,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Corey Kirston and Amy Klobuchar all campaigned and used as
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a laugh line in the Democratic primary. Heck, I can
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: even work with Ted Krits. But it was just kind
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: of like, Okay, apparently I'm unifying Democrats somehow obliquely, there
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: are and there is some bipartisan cooperation. So let's take,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: for example, Kirsten Jellabrand. Kirston and I have worked on
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: a number of matters together. We started working together my
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: first year in the Senate where we're both on Senate
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Armed Services Committee, and she's been really heroic in leading
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the fight to change how the military handles rape and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: sexual assault. And there's been a long persistent problem in
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: the military of far too many instances of sexual assault
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: and victims of assault being afraid to come forward and report.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: And what Kirston had been advocating was moving the decision
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: and the prosecution of sexual assault out of the direct
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: chain of command rather than the commanding officer making that decision,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: moving the decision to a professional, career military prosecutor. And
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: then that's a change other countries, our allies, the United
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Kingdom has done that. Israel has done that, and it's
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: seen significant improvements in terms of preventing us AL. Kirsten
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: made those arguments, actually went into we were having a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: hearing in a markup. I went in with an open mind.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: I listened to the arguments she made, thought that were persuasive,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: and I teamed up with her. And so for eight
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: years we've been working side by side. She's been leading
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: the Democratic efforts, I've been leading the Republican efforts. I
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: think we're likely to finally win that victory this year.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: I think we're right on the cusp of victory. That
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: was an example where we were able gradually to build
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: bipartisan support. The problem more broadly, because the electorate is polarized.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: Let's take right now the Bernie Sanders budget. We're getting
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: ready to vote on the Bernie Sanders budget. It's a
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: five point five trillion dollar budget. It is massive in size,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: it has trillions of dollars in tax increases, and the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: congressional Democrats have decided they want to use route power
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: to ram it through. So there are no Democrats talking
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: to Republicans about this. They don't intend to get a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: single Republican vote in the House. They don't intend to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: get a single Republican vote in the Senate. Right now,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: they're trying to pound the living daylights out of Joe
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Mansion and Kirsten Cinema, the two loan Democratic holdouts in
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: the Senate, to get them to submit. They're talking to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: an echo chamber that is amplifying the extremes, and to
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: be honest, the right as too. That ends up producing
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: far less cooperation and common ground. I think we can
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: move beyond this. I'll tell you I am in terms
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: of the polarization and fighting we've had, I am short
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: term pessimistic and I'm long term optimistic. Short term, I
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: think that the Democratic leadership in Congress in this administration
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: are really radical right now. That I think, and in
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: many ways that's an outgrowth of the Trump presidency. Is
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the left hated Trump so much that it radicalized them
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and that's being reflected in policy after policy after policy.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: I don't see a whole lot of common ground right now.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: As they're trying to ram through the Bernie Sanders budget,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get Republicans going along with that.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: I do think, however, going forward, there is the potential
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: for common ground, particularly if we don't demonize or vilify
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: each other. So this is a nasty business. I mean
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: you get in alt you get, I mean they go
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: after your family, to go after your kids. It is.
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: It is brutal. And by the way, like I'm on Twitter,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: I read just about every nasty thing people say on
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: me about Twitter, and there are a lot of them.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I mean, you get and the funny ones I enjoy,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Like if someone just says f you, it's like, oh,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: that's that's very clever. You know, let's go brandon um.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: But I try, and I hope others try not to
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: engage in nasty personal slanders. I mean, even as we
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: discussed things here, I'll disagree on policy, I'll explain why
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: a policy decision I think is a bad idea, and look,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I will tell a joke. So, I mean, it doesn't
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: the fact that you don't you know, you don't have
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: to talk like you got a ruler inserted somewhere. I mean,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have some fun. But but if you're criticizing,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I think it's better to have a light touch and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: a smile rather than you know, the typical political attack
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: at is this you know, super deep voice. My opponent
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: hates kitten ten crew. Gosh, what do I sounds scary?
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: So across the aisle though with them on meaningful changes
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: to bring this back to a republic from the democracy
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: than it is, say using the can you hold the
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: microphone ups saying phasing out the phasing out the positive
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: human rights that the federal government does, to increase, say
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: like a UBI, phasing out the rest of the positive
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: human rights that the federal government does. Doing that, and
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: to restructure the to restructure the IRS to be to
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: do ah attacks on the velocity of money. And that's it.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: So I think those are creative ideas. I think those
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: are when it comes to the IRS. I've long advocated
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: abolishing the IRS and simply having a simple flat tax.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: And by the way, to understand the dangers of it,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: we didn't get into it. But one of the elements
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: of the Bernie Sanders budget right now is requiring your
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: bank to the report to the IRS every single transaction
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: you make of six hundred dollars or more. And you
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: want to talk about big brother monitoring that that is
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: a terrifying thing. And I'll say, you know, the press
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: will characterize that is, oh, that's just monitoring big money
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: rich people. Look, we're the room of college kids. Every
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: one of you that has an apartment. If you're in DC,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: you're paying more than six hundred bucks and rent unless
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you got forty two roommates. That I am very skeptical
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: of government power, and I think the more you can
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: protect liberty against government power, against government spying, against government control,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: the better. Those are ideas that get a lot of resonance.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: I think when you talk to people, and it's frankly,
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: it's one of the purposes of this podcast is that
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: we try to engage in substance on issues. You know,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: as Michael knows, my wife Heidie listens to the podcast
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: and if if she thinks we get too dogmatic, if
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: we're suddenly like pounding the table and repeating Republican talking points,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: she'll call Michael or me and say that sucked. You know,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: it's never compliments when the number comes up, I don't
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: think it's not true. Sometimes she'll say, Michael was really good,
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: not much. But you know, frankly, I appreciate the honesty
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: because you do want to make sure that you're engaging
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: with real issues. You're not just straw manning the other side.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: You're not. Increasingly it's we're not even speaking the same language.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Very we can't even agree on the definition of man
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: and woman these days, so it can be difficult to
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: communicate with the other side, and you want to be
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: engaging with the best arguments that they have. But there
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: is another side to it, which comes from Ronald Reagan.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: He was famously asked his strategy on the Soviet Union
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: and the Cold War, and they were waiting for some
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: three hour lecture on the Cold War, and he said,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: my strategy is simple, we win and they lose. Is
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: there is there some element here of is? And let
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: me suggest, I mean, look, you you invoke Reagan, and
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Reagan has been my political hero my whole life. You look, well,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: you're going back a little further than I am. You
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: look at Reagan, and let's take Reagan came in in
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: nineteen elected eighty, came in in eighty one. You know,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: in Washington, there's a little bit of a folklore which
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: is that Reagan and Tip O'Neill, it was the Democratic
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: Speaker of the House. They were good old Irish pauls,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: and they'd sit around and they'd have a drink and
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: they'd yuck it up, and they were friends and they
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: reached common ground. And that's usually told in contradistinction to
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the horrible crass s obs we have today. That was
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: always a bit of a rose colored glasses telling. You know,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: go back and read what Tip O'Neill said about Ronald Reagan.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I mean he unloaded on him bare knuckles. And so
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: let's take, for example, the Reagan tax cuts. So Reagan
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: passed major tax cuts in eighty one eighty six, he
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: came back with major tax simplification. Both of them were
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: overwhelmingly bipartisan. How did they get get done. The way
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: they got done is Reagan made the case to the
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: American people, and he directly went to the American people
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: and said, if we cut taxes, we need to get
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: the economy moving. Under Jimmy Carter, it was stagnant. If
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: we cut taxes on families and small businesses and job creators,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: we're going to get jobs back. At the economy movie.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: And what happened was he persuaded millions of Americans who
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: proceeded to pick up the phone and call their congressmen,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: call their congresswomen, and a bunch of Democratic House members
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: Bolton crossed over and and and voted for the tax
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: cuts because it was overwhelmingly popular with the people, And
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: I think the most powerful tool in all of politics
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: is the bully pulpit of the presidency is the ability.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan would go on TV and he wasn't mean
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: about it, and in fact, maybe this is a good
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: thing because we've got a little bit long, but but
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: a good story to wrap up one of my favorite
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: Reagan stories. He was doing a press conference, so a
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: bunch of reporters there, and one of the reporters was
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: Sam Donaldson, and Sam Donaldson was the kind of tough
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: ABC reporters, you know what, kind of mean and Donaldson goes,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: mister President, mister President, you have blamed the problems in
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: this country on everybody else. You blame them on Tip O'Neil,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: you blame them on Democrats in Congress, you blame them
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: on everybody else. But you're president of the United States.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: Don't you bear any of the responsibility for the problems
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: we have in this country? And Reagan smiled and they
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: leaned forward, or the twinkle in his eye, and he said, well, Sam, yes, yes,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I do. I bear considerable responsibility because for many years
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: I was a Democrat. Ladies and gentlemen, on that note,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: I want to thank our friend Liz Wheeler, host of
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: the Liz Wheelers Show. You can bring her to your
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: campus with Young America's Foundation head on over to YF
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: dot org. Thank you, Liz, I want to thank Senator Cruz,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: and I mostly want to thank all of you. Thank
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: you for being here. This is Verdict Vitech Cruiz