Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / How Screwed Are We?

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How Screwed Are We? · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

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0:47
Speaker 1: For now, I am Michael Knowles. This is Verdict with
0:49
Speaker 1: Ted Cruise. Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz. I'm
0:58
Speaker 1: going to jump right in. I'm not going to allow
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Speaker 1: myself to say one extra word from Eddie. First question, Senator,
1:05
Speaker 1: what was your least favorite part of Joe Biden's terrible
1:10
Speaker 1: State of the Union speech? Well, it disturbed my nap.
1:13
Speaker 1: That was irritating, but but look the part I hated
1:19
Speaker 1: the boast was a line that he had where he
1:23
Speaker 1: said we the people and then he said that's us,
1:28
Speaker 1: that's the government, and that just pissed me off because
1:32
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that is utter and complete crap. That. Look,
1:36
Speaker 1: I know that Joe Biden was not a very good
1:38
Speaker 1: law student, but he needs to go back and take
1:42
Speaker 1: con law again, because we the people, which is how
1:46
Speaker 1: the Constitution begins, means us the people. Damn it, It's
1:52
Speaker 1: not government. It's the opposite of government. And you know,
1:56
Speaker 1: this is Joe Biden being a totalitarian and like justifying
2:01
Speaker 1: massive government power by saying, you know, I am we
2:05
Speaker 1: the people. I mean, you know, it reminded me of
2:08
Speaker 1: Louis the fourteenth LAMI LETI okay, And you did actually
2:13
Speaker 1: get me to to to mangle French on the podcast.
2:15
Speaker 1: So we I've been hanging around with Gayle's too much.
2:18
Speaker 1: It's clearly clearly a problem. It's far into But but
2:22
Speaker 1: you know, Joe Biden thinks he's the sun God. I mean,
2:24
Speaker 1: I mean, it is the arrogance and ignorance of that statement,
2:31
Speaker 1: and it is what big government democrats believe. But I
2:35
Speaker 1: think a lot of people think this, Senator, and I
2:39
Speaker 1: will try to refrain from ascribing to malice that which
2:42
Speaker 1: is equally explained by stupidity. True enough, Barack Obama said this.
2:45
Speaker 1: Do you remember Barack Obama said, the government, that's that's
2:48
Speaker 1: what we do together, That's that is us. It was
2:50
Speaker 1: what Joe Biden said was basically a plagiarized line from
2:54
Speaker 1: Obama and Joe Biden. Biden. Biden would never plagiarized. No
2:57
Speaker 1: could come on. Joe would not do that, not him,
3:00
Speaker 1: not him. What do you say to people who say, look, yeah,
3:03
Speaker 1: the government is when we all get together, you know,
3:06
Speaker 1: we the people get together, and then the thing that
3:08
Speaker 1: we do that expresses our unity together is the government.
3:12
Speaker 1: And you you're just some crazy conservative who has an
3:15
Speaker 1: irrational fear of government. So we the people is the
3:19
Speaker 1: boss of government. Look, for most of human history, government
3:24
Speaker 1: was the monarch, was the ruler, and the power of
3:29
Speaker 1: government came from God Almighty and and and it was
3:33
Speaker 1: a top down vision. And when the Framers rested sovereignty
3:39
Speaker 1: with the people and the people lent government power to
3:44
Speaker 1: officeholders for a temporary period of time, that transformed the
3:49
Speaker 1: face of the planet. I mean that was a revolutionary idea.
3:54
Speaker 1: You know. Thomas Jefferson put it really well when he
3:56
Speaker 1: said that the Constitution serves as chains to bind the
4:02
Speaker 1: mischief of government. Yeah, it's all about restraining government. Now.
4:06
Speaker 1: We want a government strong enough to defend the nation,
4:10
Speaker 1: to do the essential functions that the government needs to do.
4:13
Speaker 1: But the Constitution and Bill of Bright are all about
4:16
Speaker 1: protecting we the people from the Joe Biden's of the
4:20
Speaker 1: world that want to take our freedom's away. And there
4:23
Speaker 1: seems to be this total blurring of the distinction between
4:27
Speaker 1: the different parts of the government. I'm no con law expert,
4:30
Speaker 1: but I have read the document once or twice, and
4:32
Speaker 1: it seems to me you have the people, and you
4:35
Speaker 1: have the states, and you have the federal government, and
4:39
Speaker 1: you have a separation of powers, and you have checks
4:42
Speaker 1: and balances, and you have federalism. And yet when you
4:44
Speaker 1: hear Joe Biden talk about it, it's all just kind
4:47
Speaker 1: of the same blob. And we got to do whatever
4:49
Speaker 1: it tells us to do. Yeah. Look, the modern left,
4:55
Speaker 1: it is openly socialist. The people driving the agenda in
5:01
Speaker 1: the Biden administration are Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren an AOC.
5:06
Speaker 1: Bernie an AOC explicitly or socialists, and Warren is not
5:10
Speaker 1: too far behind that, and that means they believe their
5:14
Speaker 1: solution to everything is government and government power. Now, one
5:19
Speaker 1: of the consequences, I will say, the Biden guys, they
5:21
Speaker 1: came in on January twentieth. They immediately fire everyone connected
5:25
Speaker 1: with the Trump administration. They immediately start rescinding rules. And
5:29
Speaker 1: they are frankly much more effective at doing this, yeah,
5:33
Speaker 1: than Republicans are. But but for them, this is religion.
5:38
Speaker 1: Government is religion, it is faith, It is what they do.
5:43
Speaker 1: You know, too often Republicans treat treat politics like a
5:47
Speaker 1: game of croquet at the back lawn, and the differential
5:51
Speaker 1: and seriousness is it's a problem. So speaking of the
5:55
Speaker 1: differential and seriousness between the Republicans and the Democrats, this
5:59
Speaker 1: question comes from Jonathan Caitlyn twenty twenty one. Are you
6:05
Speaker 1: with her? Um? Look, I think it will be interesting
6:10
Speaker 1: to see see how California resolves that. UM. I find
6:14
Speaker 1: it wonderfully beautiful that Gavin Newsom is getting recalled. UM.
6:25
Speaker 1: I mean it. You know, karma has a way of
6:28
Speaker 1: coming back on you. You know, it says something that
6:31
Speaker 1: his shut everything down policies were so extreme that even
6:35
Speaker 1: the people California said enough of this nonsense. Um, that's good,
6:40
Speaker 1: that's good. That's actually good for hope in America. So
6:44
Speaker 1: I don't know Caitlyn. I I met Caitlin back oh
6:48
Speaker 1: twenty thirteen. I think it was when I came out
6:52
Speaker 1: to LA to speak to the Friends of ABE, the
6:54
Speaker 1: conservative group in Hollywood, and and then Caitlyn was Bruce,
6:59
Speaker 1: and Bruce Jenner was openly conservative, which was a really
7:04
Speaker 1: risky position to take in Hollywood. People don't know this,
7:08
Speaker 1: but but Bruce Jenner would go to conservative events. It's
7:11
Speaker 1: not exactly hiding this sort of thing. It Bruce had
7:16
Speaker 1: demonstrated real courage. Now Caitlyn is running. You know, in
7:20
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, when I was running for president, Caitlyn Jenner
7:23
Speaker 1: publicly said that she wanted to be my trans ambassador,
7:28
Speaker 1: the trans ambassador for Ted Cruz, which which caused a
7:31
Speaker 1: lot of the LBGT world to lose their minds that
7:35
Speaker 1: that Caitlyn said such a thing listen to. I don't know.
7:38
Speaker 1: I don't know who all's going to run and what's
7:40
Speaker 1: going to happen, but but I think it's great. Democracy
7:43
Speaker 1: is all about standing up for what you believe in.
7:45
Speaker 1: And if the people of California choose anybody who is
7:51
Speaker 1: more protective of liberty than Gavin Newsom. That's a step
7:55
Speaker 1: in the right direction. There is a real world because
7:57
Speaker 1: obviously it would raise lots of questions about and just
8:00
Speaker 1: the pronouns. What pronouns do you use? What does this
8:02
Speaker 1: mean for these broader issues of gender and sex? But
8:05
Speaker 1: it may simply be the case that in California that's
8:08
Speaker 1: about as conservative as you get. And so yes, I
8:11
Speaker 1: suppose we all have to wait and see a lot
8:12
Speaker 1: of other people are going to be part of this
8:15
Speaker 1: race as well. We have a question, Senator, that is
8:20
Speaker 1: that just cuts right to the point from the Panda
8:22
Speaker 1: Tribune when no one is watching or any members of
8:26
Speaker 1: Congress actually productive public servants, Yeah, I would say there
8:31
Speaker 1: there are. Look, there are actually a number of members
8:34
Speaker 1: of Congress who work pretty hard. It varies, and there's
8:38
Speaker 1: a wide variance. You know. I remember when I was
8:42
Speaker 1: first elected to the Senate's probably I don't know, twenty thirteen,
8:45
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, first couple of years I'm up there, and
8:47
Speaker 1: I went out to dinner with John McCain and John
8:51
Speaker 1: McCain he and I had a famously combative relationship. Was
8:59
Speaker 1: that the time he I believe he called you a
9:01
Speaker 1: wacko bird. That was that the phrase he did. He
9:03
Speaker 1: publicly called me a wacco bird. And actually when he
9:07
Speaker 1: called me a wacco bird, I went to the Senate
9:09
Speaker 1: floor and I gave a speech praising John McCain. And
9:13
Speaker 1: it so happened. It was the fortieth anniversary of his
9:17
Speaker 1: release from the Hanoi Hilton, and so I gave a
9:21
Speaker 1: speech just unambiguously praising him. He served our nation, he
9:25
Speaker 1: was shot down, he was a prisoner of war, and
9:27
Speaker 1: most incredibly, he was offered early release, and he said
9:31
Speaker 1: no because he thought it would be dishonorable. And I said,
9:35
Speaker 1: you know, genuinely and from the heart, that I admire
9:39
Speaker 1: and revere that service and sacrifice. I hope in the
9:43
Speaker 1: same situation I would do the same thing. Ye, But
9:46
Speaker 1: you and I we've never been tortured, we've never been
9:48
Speaker 1: in prisoned. I don't know what I would do in
9:50
Speaker 1: that circumstance. And so every word I said praising him
9:53
Speaker 1: in that speech was heartfelt. I didn't praise him for
9:55
Speaker 1: the terrible liberal policies he supports. There's lots of things
9:58
Speaker 1: John McCain did that I and like, but I praised
10:01
Speaker 1: him for that, which was praiseworthy. But I also meant
10:05
Speaker 1: it to be a statement that if you go low road,
10:08
Speaker 1: if you go nasty and personal and in the gutter, yeah,
10:11
Speaker 1: I'm not going to respond in kind. And so I didn't.
10:15
Speaker 1: But anyway, the story I was going to tell, because
10:17
Speaker 1: this is a digression from the very good question. Some
10:21
Speaker 1: months later, John and I went out and had had
10:23
Speaker 1: dinner and we're talking just about the Senate, and he
10:25
Speaker 1: made a point to me. Then he said, you know,
10:27
Speaker 1: in the Senate, like in most places in life, the
10:31
Speaker 1: eighty twenty rule applies, which is that eighty percent of
10:35
Speaker 1: the work is done by twenty percent of the people.
10:38
Speaker 1: That the Senate is a place where if you really
10:40
Speaker 1: want to roll up your sleeves and you want to
10:42
Speaker 1: lead and you want to engage, that you can and
10:46
Speaker 1: you can very quickly lead. You don't have to. You know,
10:49
Speaker 1: the House can be tougher. The House. Seniority matters a lot.
10:53
Speaker 1: They're four hundred and thirty five members. Take it can
10:56
Speaker 1: take a while to have an impact in the House.
10:59
Speaker 1: You know, in the Senate there only one hundred senators.
11:01
Speaker 1: It's not that big a place. Right now, they're fifty Republicans.
11:05
Speaker 1: If you care about an issue, you can stand up
11:07
Speaker 1: and lead and make a difference. So there are number
11:09
Speaker 1: of Senators that make a big difference. Mike Lee. I
11:13
Speaker 1: adore Mike Lee. He is a constitutionalist, he is passionate,
11:17
Speaker 1: he works hard. You know someone who had just retired,
11:21
Speaker 1: Lamar Alexander. Lamar a lot more moderate than I am.
11:26
Speaker 1: But actually Lamar and I got along very well. He
11:29
Speaker 1: was a hard working, He delved into details, he delved
11:34
Speaker 1: into substance, and he would drive a legislative agenda. There
11:41
Speaker 1: are other Senators that frankly just go to cocktail parties. Yeah,
11:45
Speaker 1: like it is a job. I mean, the eighty twenty
11:47
Speaker 1: rule means also that eighty percent of the folks are
11:50
Speaker 1: not working that hard. But you know what, that's true.
11:54
Speaker 1: That's true most places you go. That's true in most companies.
11:59
Speaker 1: And if you resolve. So when I'm talking to potential
12:03
Speaker 1: candidates who are thinking of running for Senate, and I
12:05
Speaker 1: talked to a fair number of peopleho are looking at
12:07
Speaker 1: Senate seats, and they'll ask They'll be like, well, can
12:10
Speaker 1: you make a difference in the Senate? Can you do anything?
12:13
Speaker 1: And with the right person, I'm very encouraging because I say, look,
12:18
Speaker 1: if you want to, if you're willing to do the work,
12:21
Speaker 1: this is to a significant part self directed. How many
12:25
Speaker 1: issues are you going to lead on? What are you
12:26
Speaker 1: going to do? Are you gonna you know, how hard
12:28
Speaker 1: are you going to work? But if you're willing to
12:30
Speaker 1: work and lead and you've got courage, can you can
12:33
Speaker 1: make a big difference? Yes? And I actually can attest
12:36
Speaker 1: to your complement of Senator Alexander because just about a
12:40
Speaker 1: month ago, my newborn son was baptized in Lamar Alexander's
12:44
Speaker 1: punch bowl. This was a very strange circumstance. It said
12:48
Speaker 1: Lamar Alexander, Businessman of the Year nineteen eighty or something.
12:51
Speaker 1: Somehow a Catholic church in Nashville fell into this sort
12:54
Speaker 1: of thing. And so Lamar Alexander is still doing good work,
12:58
Speaker 1: including bringing my son into the body of Christ that
13:02
Speaker 1: I'm almost speechless on that. I will say, Lamar owns
13:05
Speaker 1: something that that is a unique connection between your new
13:10
Speaker 1: home and my longtime home, which is that Lamar has
13:14
Speaker 1: a walking stick that was owned by Sam Houston. And
13:19
Speaker 1: Sam Houston was governor of Tennessee and was governor of Texas.
13:24
Speaker 1: The only person in US history to be governor of
13:26
Speaker 1: two different states. And so it's a very cool walking
13:29
Speaker 1: stick that Sam Houston had. By the way, on the
13:32
Speaker 1: question of senators doing things productive, I'll give you an
13:37
Speaker 1: example that might surprise folks, which is a Democrat. Okay,
13:41
Speaker 1: Kirston Gillibrand. So I like Kirston. She and I are friends,
13:44
Speaker 1: We get along and and actually just today I did
13:48
Speaker 1: a press conference with Kirston Gillibrand on an issue that
13:53
Speaker 1: she has been relentlessly leading on and that I've been
13:56
Speaker 1: working with her for about eight years. And it's sexual
13:59
Speaker 1: assault the military. It's a real problem. The numbers are
14:03
Speaker 1: very discouraging that far too many servicewomen and even some
14:07
Speaker 1: servicemen are subjected to sexual assault in the military. And
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, I twenty thirteen I started on the Senate
14:16
Speaker 1: Armed Services Committee. She was on it, and she's passionate her.
14:22
Speaker 1: She has legislation that would move the decision about whether
14:26
Speaker 1: to prosecute sexual assault from the commanding officer to a
14:32
Speaker 1: military prosecutor who is outside the chain of command. And
14:37
Speaker 1: the top brass that the Pentagon hate this idea and
14:40
Speaker 1: they argue vehemently against it. And so I'm brand new
14:43
Speaker 1: on the Armed Services Committee and I go to a
14:45
Speaker 1: hearing and you know, sometimes you think, well, debate doesn't
14:48
Speaker 1: make a difference, that's all just play acting and everyone
14:50
Speaker 1: knows what they think. Yeah. Well, I went into that
14:52
Speaker 1: hearing genuinely not knowing what I thought and wanting to
14:55
Speaker 1: listen to the arguments on both sides, and the brass say, well,
15:03
Speaker 1: moving the prosecuting decision out of the chain of command,
15:05
Speaker 1: it would undermine good order and discipline. It would make
15:08
Speaker 1: it harder for the commanders to lead their troops. Kirsten
15:13
Speaker 1: came back with a number of facts, one of which
15:17
Speaker 1: is that multiple of our allies have done exactly this reform.
15:21
Speaker 1: So Canada has done it, the United Kingdom has done it,
15:24
Speaker 1: Israel has done it, and they studied it and it
15:27
Speaker 1: has not had an effective undermining good order and discipline.
15:31
Speaker 1: And the real challenge is that the rates of reporting
15:35
Speaker 1: in the military are very very low, that when someone
15:37
Speaker 1: is a victim of assault, they are far too frequently
15:42
Speaker 1: unwilling to come forward and report it. And one of
15:45
Speaker 1: the biggest reasons is they don't believe the commanding officer
15:49
Speaker 1: will be fired and partial that they're worried that the
15:51
Speaker 1: commanding officer may be buddies with the guy who committed
15:55
Speaker 1: the assault and will be reluctant to bring charges. And
15:59
Speaker 1: so I listened to those arguments and was persuaded by them,
16:04
Speaker 1: and so back in twenty thirteen signed I signed up
16:07
Speaker 1: and co sponsored the legislation with Kirsten and have been fighting.
16:13
Speaker 1: And she's been fighting for eight years and I've been fighting.
16:15
Speaker 1: And so we sit down with whiplists, where she goes
16:18
Speaker 1: and looks for Democrats to support it, I go and
16:20
Speaker 1: look for Republicans to support it. We just did a
16:23
Speaker 1: press conference this morning. I think the bill is likely
16:26
Speaker 1: to pass in the next two years, that we're seeing
16:29
Speaker 1: really growing momentum. But I use that as an example
16:32
Speaker 1: where she has, I mean just tirelessly bird dogged this issue.
16:38
Speaker 1: And I think if we can reduce the incidents of
16:41
Speaker 1: sexual assault in the military and do a better job
16:44
Speaker 1: protecting our servicemen and women, that's very worthwhile. Certainly, next
16:50
Speaker 1: question comes from Pancake Robot. I assume this is mister
16:54
Speaker 1: Robot's Christian name after Saint Pancake of Alexandria. Question is
17:00
Speaker 1: I want to hear Senator Cruz's take on the paradox
17:03
Speaker 1: of Republican power. We elect Republicans to make the federal
17:06
Speaker 1: government less powerful, but in practice that just means that
17:10
Speaker 1: Republicans are reluctant to wield power to achieve that objective.
17:15
Speaker 1: It's a very insightful question. How do we resolve that?
17:19
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of things that drive
17:21
Speaker 1: at one we mentioned just just earlier in the pod.
17:28
Speaker 1: Democrats are ruthlessly serious. Government is life or death to them.
17:33
Speaker 1: They spend every waking moment thinking about how to be effective.
17:39
Speaker 1: Republicans often politics, if they do it it's a hobby,
17:43
Speaker 1: it's not It doesn't have the same seriousness. So when
17:46
Speaker 1: it comes to wielding power, you don't get people that
17:49
Speaker 1: are nearly as serious about moving a policy agenda because
17:55
Speaker 1: they don't necessarily have the same passion to it. There
17:59
Speaker 1: are a couple full of different challenges. Let me only
18:01
Speaker 1: up break this down a couple of ways. Number one,
18:04
Speaker 1: how do you run a federal agency? And so a
18:06
Speaker 1: challenge that Republican appointees having an agency is if you're
18:10
Speaker 1: in an agency that you think should be abolished, that
18:15
Speaker 1: can be a real problem for running it. You know,
18:17
Speaker 1: you remember Rick Perry famously at the debate, you know,
18:20
Speaker 1: forgot one of the agencies that he wanted to abolish
18:23
Speaker 1: and said, oops, the irony is the agency he forgot
18:26
Speaker 1: was the Department of Energy, which he later became Trump's
18:29
Speaker 1: Secretary of Energy. So he literally led the department that
18:33
Speaker 1: he forgot that he wanted to abolish, undermining it from within.
18:37
Speaker 1: One of my first jobs in politics was in the
18:41
Speaker 1: George W. Bush administration, where I was at the Federal
18:44
Speaker 1: Trade Commission. And my boss was a guy named Tim Muris,
18:48
Speaker 1: who was the chairman of the FTCs of brilliant guys
18:51
Speaker 1: the lawyers would economist, and he recruited me in to
18:55
Speaker 1: be the head of policy at the FTC. And this
18:57
Speaker 1: is two thousand, two thousand one to two thousand and three.
19:02
Speaker 1: And what Tim understood if you go into an agency
19:06
Speaker 1: as a Republican political appointee and you tell every person
19:08
Speaker 1: at the agency your job is meaningless. Everything you've done
19:12
Speaker 1: with your life is worthless. I hate the mission of
19:15
Speaker 1: this agency and you suck. Now follow me. They're going
19:18
Speaker 1: to fight back. They're going to resist you at every turn.
19:23
Speaker 1: What Tim understood instead, a government bureaucracy is like a fire,
19:27
Speaker 1: and you can direct the fire in a positive direction.
19:30
Speaker 1: But if you if you just try to kill it,
19:33
Speaker 1: it will try to kill you. And so, for example,
19:37
Speaker 1: at the FTC, my office, the FTEC is charged by
19:42
Speaker 1: statute with defending competition and defending consumers. They're seventy five
19:47
Speaker 1: PhD economist at the FTC. And so one of the
19:51
Speaker 1: things that I led is something called competition advocacy where
19:54
Speaker 1: we would study a state legislature or a state regulatory
19:58
Speaker 1: body would request our views on particular and a competitive
20:02
Speaker 1: bill they were considering that was typically restricting competition, favoring
20:07
Speaker 1: big business and hurting consumers, and we would study it.
20:11
Speaker 1: The PhD economists would study it, and then we would
20:14
Speaker 1: go and provide testimony or provide expert guidance on if
20:18
Speaker 1: you do this, prices will rise twenty percent for consumers.
20:25
Speaker 1: And the competition advocacy people were eager to do it.
20:28
Speaker 1: It was beneficial, but it was expanding freedom and it
20:31
Speaker 1: was reducing the footprint of government. Another example class action lawsuits.
20:37
Speaker 1: There were plaintiffs lawyers that were bringing abusive class action
20:42
Speaker 1: lawsuits where they'd have a big class, they'd negotiate what's
20:47
Speaker 1: called a coupon settlement, which is you know, anyone who
20:50
Speaker 1: ever bought a bag of Doritos gets a coupon for
20:53
Speaker 1: ten cents off Doritos. And but you know, as fifty
20:57
Speaker 1: million people, so everyone gets a ten cent coupon, and
21:00
Speaker 1: the lawyers take home seventy million dollars. And the coupon settlements, frankly,
21:05
Speaker 1: are a croc many times because they're designed to make
21:09
Speaker 1: lawyers fees and not actually to help the ostensible clients.
21:14
Speaker 1: And so what we did in the FTC is we
21:17
Speaker 1: began intervening in cases that involved coupon settlements and arguing
21:22
Speaker 1: to the judge that the judge ought to chop down
21:24
Speaker 1: the lawyer's fees and give the money to the consumers.
21:27
Speaker 1: And you know, Michael, on the question of the Republican paradox,
21:31
Speaker 1: I like that the way that was put it also
21:35
Speaker 1: sometimes is a conservative paradox. And I'll give an example.
21:40
Speaker 1: Many times moderates in government have been much better than
21:47
Speaker 1: the conservatives. They've been better prepared, they've taken it more seriously,
21:51
Speaker 1: and they've won bureaucratic battle. So I'll give an example.
21:55
Speaker 1: One of my favorite books in politics is Jim Baker's
21:59
Speaker 1: book his autobiography, and it's called work, hard, study, and
22:02
Speaker 1: stat of politics, which was actually the advice his grandfather
22:07
Speaker 1: gave him. And you know, you think about it. So
22:10
Speaker 1: Baker was the campaign manager of five presidential campaigns, I mean,
22:15
Speaker 1: pause and like you know, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary
22:18
Speaker 1: of State. I mean, the guy had an extraordinary career.
22:21
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty, Baker was the campaign manager of George
22:24
Speaker 1: Herbert Walker Bush's campaign running against Ronald Reagan. And that
22:29
Speaker 1: was a bitter primary. That's where Bush accused Reagan of
22:34
Speaker 1: voodoo economics. I mean, they were pounding the heck out
22:36
Speaker 1: of each other. Reagan wins, and Jim Baker becomes Reagan's
22:43
Speaker 1: chief of staff in the White House. I mean that's
22:48
Speaker 1: I don't know of any other circumstance where the campaign
22:50
Speaker 1: manager for your primary opponent becomes your chief of staff
22:54
Speaker 1: when you win. That that is an extraordinary thing. And
22:57
Speaker 1: so Baker recounts in his book, right at the beginning
23:00
Speaker 1: of the Reagan White House, he sits down with Ed Meese. Now,
23:03
Speaker 1: Ed mess is someone who's a dear friend. He was
23:05
Speaker 1: a longtime confident of Reagan's. It's this principal conservative. When
23:10
Speaker 1: I first ran for Senate, Ed Meese was the chairman
23:13
Speaker 1: of my national leadership team. He's an extraordinary guy. Baker
23:18
Speaker 1: recounts how he sat down with Mee to divide responsibilities
23:21
Speaker 1: in the White House, and he pulls out a yellow
23:24
Speaker 1: notepad and he draws a line down the middle and
23:26
Speaker 1: so on, and he says, all right, Ed, let's let's
23:29
Speaker 1: divide responsibilities. And he says, look, Ed, you've been with
23:33
Speaker 1: the president for so long. You have his trust, you
23:37
Speaker 1: have his confidence, you know his heart. Ed, you need
23:40
Speaker 1: to drive the substance. You need to drive the meat.
23:42
Speaker 1: You need to drive really the important stuff that we're doing.
23:45
Speaker 1: So you need to lead the Domestic Policy Council, you
23:49
Speaker 1: need to lead the National Economic Council. All of the
23:51
Speaker 1: substance you should be in charge of. And Baker says, look,
23:56
Speaker 1: I'll just do the admin stuff. And he said, I'll
23:59
Speaker 1: tell the schedule, and I'll take personnel, and I'll take budget,
24:05
Speaker 1: and I'll take ledge affairs and so Actually, in his
24:08
Speaker 1: book he reproduces he has a xerox copy of the
24:11
Speaker 1: actual yellow pad that says Ed and Jim, and it
24:14
Speaker 1: has that on there. And in his autobiography Baker admits
24:18
Speaker 1: he says, look, I knew I was eating niece's lunch. Because,
24:26
Speaker 1: all right, if he controls the schedule, he controls every
24:30
Speaker 1: minute of the president's time. That's a big deal. If
24:34
Speaker 1: you decide how the president spends every day, all day long.
24:38
Speaker 1: If he controls personnel, there's an old saying that I
24:41
Speaker 1: think is very true that personnel is policy. If Baker
24:46
Speaker 1: is picking the people that are throughout the administration, he
24:48
Speaker 1: controls the administration. On budget, everything that happens in government
24:54
Speaker 1: happens through budget. If he controls budget, the dollars drive
24:59
Speaker 1: the substance. And then finally on ledge affairs. The way
25:02
Speaker 1: he put it, he said, listen, if I'm the one
25:05
Speaker 1: sitting in the room with the Senate Majority leader and
25:09
Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House, and I'm negotiating the bill,
25:12
Speaker 1: ed can have whatever he wants and his cute little
25:15
Speaker 1: policy counsel, and they can write as many white papers
25:17
Speaker 1: as they want, but I get to decide what gets done.
25:21
Speaker 1: And Jim Baker extraordinarily capable guy, but not a conservative,
25:26
Speaker 1: very much a moderate, and conservatives suffered because he was
25:30
Speaker 1: so good. Dick Darman, who worked for Baker, likewise not
25:34
Speaker 1: a conservative, but ruthlessly effective, really understood the machinery of government.
25:39
Speaker 1: And I'm a big believer that conservatives need to be
25:46
Speaker 1: just as effective as the other guys. That we need
25:48
Speaker 1: conservatives who are as good as Jim Baker, who understand
25:52
Speaker 1: how to drive an agenda and actually get it accomplished.
25:55
Speaker 1: You know, there is a lot to be said for
25:58
Speaker 1: the philosophical debate among conservatives. You can throw a hundred
26:02
Speaker 1: conservatives into a room. They would somehow find a way
26:04
Speaker 1: to disagree with every single other one and how much
26:07
Speaker 1: they've read, and how much they think, No, they wouldn't, No,
26:09
Speaker 1: they wouldn't and there. But you know, actually you've proven
26:14
Speaker 1: this too, not just the philosophical aspect. There is a
26:19
Speaker 1: basic competence question here to politics as well. And you
26:24
Speaker 1: have gotten things done. There have been conservatives who haven't
26:26
Speaker 1: gotten things done. You have why because it's not enough
26:29
Speaker 1: to just sit in the Freshman bull session, Yeah, and
26:32
Speaker 1: argue about philosophy all day. You actually have to know
26:35
Speaker 1: how to wield the levers of power and accomplish the
26:38
Speaker 1: tangible aspect of the job. No, that's exactly right. And
26:41
Speaker 1: if you want to change the trajectory of the country,
26:46
Speaker 1: you look at Ronald Reagan did a phenomenal job of
26:48
Speaker 1: it because he understood, he understood the power of vision,
26:52
Speaker 1: he understood the power of personnel, and and he understood
26:56
Speaker 1: how to drive that vision throughout. And so you know,
26:59
Speaker 1: Reagan ran on winning the Cold War, defeating the Soviet Union.
27:04
Speaker 1: He ran on cutting taxes and bringing the economy back,
27:07
Speaker 1: and he ran on cutting government spending. He achieved two
27:11
Speaker 1: of those three. So he was successful in winning the
27:15
Speaker 1: Cold War, defeating the Soviet Union. He rebuilt the military
27:19
Speaker 1: and bankrupted the Soviet Union. No one thought that was possible.
27:22
Speaker 1: He was successful in cutting taxes and reducing regulations that
27:26
Speaker 1: produced enormous economic growth. Where he wasn't successful was reigning
27:30
Speaker 1: in government spending. And frankly, his own party fought him
27:34
Speaker 1: on that. Democrats fought him on that, and he at
27:39
Speaker 1: times slowed the rate of growth of spending. But that
27:42
Speaker 1: was about it. Yeah, not two out of three ain't
27:45
Speaker 1: so bad. Let's say, you know, it could be we
27:47
Speaker 1: could we could try to get the rest now, which
27:49
Speaker 1: actually leads into my final question, A quick question in
27:53
Speaker 1: our last moments here. This is from Ben. How screwed
27:56
Speaker 1: are we very very, very very But I believe not
28:06
Speaker 1: permanently And let me break into a couple of things.
28:10
Speaker 1: Taxes are going up. They're going up a ton every tax,
28:15
Speaker 1: every tax is going up by trillions of dollars, and
28:19
Speaker 1: there's nothing Republicans can do to stop it because they
28:21
Speaker 1: will use budget reconciliation that can't be filibustered to raise taxes.
28:27
Speaker 1: The only question is how massive will the tax increase be,
28:32
Speaker 1: and that will be decided by the fifty Democrats in
28:34
Speaker 1: the Senate. They won't talk to Republicans, they won't care
28:37
Speaker 1: what we have to say, and it's going to be
28:39
Speaker 1: in the trillions. The only question is how big. Regulations
28:42
Speaker 1: are going to be horrific. They're going to be terrible.
28:44
Speaker 1: They're going to kill jobs, They're gonna be really harmful.
28:47
Speaker 1: Foreign policy, I think, is going to be a mess.
28:49
Speaker 1: Biden is going to kiss up to our enemies and
28:52
Speaker 1: alienate and antagonize our friends. This is the worst motivational
28:57
Speaker 1: speech I've ever heard. But no, go on, I want
28:59
Speaker 1: the truth. I want the truth. Looks it's bad. There
29:03
Speaker 1: there are consequences when you elect Biden, Pelosian Schumer and
29:07
Speaker 1: you give the Democrats control of all three of the
29:11
Speaker 1: elected parts of government. Really bad Stuff's gonna happen. We're
29:16
Speaker 1: gonna see some terrible judges put on the bench, terrible
29:20
Speaker 1: judges who are radical leftist, who will consistently vote to
29:24
Speaker 1: undermine our constitutional rights. All of that's going to happen.
29:29
Speaker 1: The big unknown to me is whether they end the filibuster.
29:35
Speaker 1: If they end the filibuster, we might be permanently screwed.
29:41
Speaker 1: That's actually what frightens me. If they end the filibuster
29:45
Speaker 1: and they have forty eight votes that there are two
29:48
Speaker 1: Democrats who say they won't don't, won't end the filibuster
29:52
Speaker 1: Joe Mansion from West Virginia Kirsten Cinema from Arizona. If
29:56
Speaker 1: they hold the line, everything I just said there is bad,
30:00
Speaker 1: but it can be undone. It can be undone when
30:02
Speaker 1: we win the next elections and take over. If they
30:06
Speaker 1: end the filibuster, what they will try to do as
30:08
Speaker 1: structural changes to make it so you can never unwind it.
30:11
Speaker 1: So if they end the filibuster, they'll add DC as
30:15
Speaker 1: a state, and they'll add Puerto Rico as a state.
30:17
Speaker 1: They believe that will elect four new Democratic senators. DC
30:21
Speaker 1: certainly will Puerto Rico might. The Democrats believe it definitely
30:24
Speaker 1: will actually think Republicans could compete in Puerto Rico, but
30:30
Speaker 1: at a minimum its two new Democratic senators from DC.
30:34
Speaker 1: If they end the filibuster, they will pass hr one,
30:37
Speaker 1: the Corrupt Politicians Act, that will federalize elections, that will
30:41
Speaker 1: massively expand voter fraud, that will register millions of elial
30:45
Speaker 1: aliens and felons. That's designed that will weaponize the Federal
30:50
Speaker 1: Election Commission to target Republicans. That's designed to keep Democrats
30:54
Speaker 1: in power for a hundred years. And if they end
30:56
Speaker 1: the filibuster, they'll pack the Supreme Court. They'll grow the
30:59
Speaker 1: Supreme courts from nine justices to thirteen justices. That is
31:05
Speaker 1: the greatest threat to our constitutional liberties we're facing. So
31:11
Speaker 1: on the question of how screwed we are it the
31:13
Speaker 1: biggest thing that hinges on that, in my mind, is
31:17
Speaker 1: whether the filibuster goes or not. I'm worried. I think
31:20
Speaker 1: the filibuster they might end it. But if you're a
31:23
Speaker 1: person of faith, pray for spinal fortitude for mansion and cinema.
31:29
Speaker 1: But let me you know, you said this was a
31:31
Speaker 1: lousy pep talk, so let me try to take it around.
31:36
Speaker 1: I'm actually very optimistic. The crazier they get politics always
31:41
Speaker 1: has a pendulum to it. When one side gets in
31:44
Speaker 1: power and they go too far, the country moves back
31:46
Speaker 1: the other direction. These guys are bat crap crazy like
31:50
Speaker 1: like they are. They're not just going left, They're going
31:53
Speaker 1: off the charts extreme left. Every time they do something
31:59
Speaker 1: like that, I think that makes it more likely that
32:01
Speaker 1: we have a very good election in twenty twenty two
32:03
Speaker 1: and a very good election in twenty twenty four. And
32:06
Speaker 1: the analogy that I draw often is it took Jimmy
32:08
Speaker 1: Carter to give us Reagan, and I think Biden going
32:11
Speaker 1: radically left sets us up to move back in the
32:15
Speaker 1: direction of freedom, back in the direction of the Constitution
32:18
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two and in twenty twenty four. Senator,
32:20
Speaker 1: I'm relieved to hear that, because when you said that
32:23
Speaker 1: you had some hope and you said I'm an optimist,
32:26
Speaker 1: I feared you were going to say, I'm an optimist.
32:28
Speaker 1: I think things can get much much worse than they
32:30
Speaker 1: are right now. You know, I think I absolutely do.
32:33
Speaker 1: So I'm pleased to hear a little glimmer of hope.
32:35
Speaker 1: Many more questions to get too. We will have to
32:37
Speaker 1: hold them until the next episode of Verdict. I'm Michael Knowles.
32:40
Speaker 1: This is Verdict with Ted Cruz. This episode of Verdict
32:53
Speaker 1: with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs,
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Speaker 1: Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to
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Speaker 1: supporting conservative causes, organizations, and candidates across the country. In
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to
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Speaker 1: donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the
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Speaker 1: Republican Party across the nation.