Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Path Forward: How to Fund DHS, Secure the Border, Pass Election Integrity & Win Historic Conservative Victories

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The Path Forward: How to Fund DHS, Secure the Border, Pass Election Integrity & Win Historic Conservative Victories · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome in as Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:03
Speaker 1: with you, and we've got a pack show for you,
0:05
Speaker 1: including predictions that we made in the last show that
0:08
Speaker 1: are spot on, and if you could be king for
0:11
Speaker 1: a day. I've got something I want to make that
0:14
Speaker 1: we should just banon politics.
0:15
Speaker 2: We'll deal with that a little bit later, but we
0:17
Speaker 2: have big news.
0:18
Speaker 1: It looks like Republicans are actually going to stand up
0:21
Speaker 1: and win on a big issue in the Senate.
0:23
Speaker 2: Center fill us in.
0:25
Speaker 3: Well, let's say, first of all, Monday's Pod, we made
0:28
Speaker 3: a prediction. We made a prediction that number one Eric
0:30
Speaker 3: Swalwell would resign from Congress and number two Tony Gonzalez,
0:35
Speaker 3: a Republican, would resign from Congress as well. It is
0:39
Speaker 3: Tuesday night, it is twelve twenty two in the morning,
0:43
Speaker 3: and both of them are gone. Both of them have resigned.
0:46
Speaker 3: Both are in scandals. Look, Gonzalez's scandal was really ugly.
0:51
Speaker 3: It was not pretty. He had an affair with staffer. Tragically,
0:56
Speaker 3: the staffer took.
0:57
Speaker 4: Her own life. She literally poured gasoline on herself and
1:01
Speaker 4: lit herself on fire. She was the mom of an
1:03
Speaker 4: eight year old child. It was horrific, and so his
1:09
Speaker 4: stepping down it is not a surprise to anyone that
1:12
Speaker 4: needed to happen. And then Swallwell.
1:15
Speaker 3: Swalwell almost like pushed Gonzales aside, said, hold my beer,
1:20
Speaker 3: I can be more slimy, I could be more nasty
1:22
Speaker 3: than you. At this point than the number of women
1:26
Speaker 3: who have worked for him who've come out and accused
1:28
Speaker 3: him of sexually harassing them, sexually assaulting them, raping them,
1:33
Speaker 3: the number keeps spiraling, and so it is fairly amazing.
1:36
Speaker 3: A few days ago, Eric Swalwell was the leading candidate
1:39
Speaker 3: to be the next governor of California. He is now
1:43
Speaker 3: unemployed and I think there's a good likelihood he'll be
1:45
Speaker 3: facing criminal prosecution. So wow, the world can change, and
1:50
Speaker 3: it turns out if you're a dirt bag, it can
1:53
Speaker 3: change really really fast. That prediction we told you about
1:57
Speaker 3: on Monday, we were accurate. And look, part of what
2:00
Speaker 3: we laid out is the hesitancy Democrats. A day ago,
2:05
Speaker 3: we're calling on Swallwell to suspend as a good manatorial campaign,
2:08
Speaker 3: but they were not calling on him to leave Congress.
2:11
Speaker 3: And that's because the balance of power in Congress is
2:15
Speaker 3: exceptionally close. I think part of why this happened today
2:19
Speaker 3: is Gonzales stepped down as well, so you had one
2:21
Speaker 3: Republican one Democrat, both stepped down, so it didn't alter
2:24
Speaker 3: the balance of power. And I believe every one of
2:29
Speaker 3: the members of Congress is glad they did so that
2:32
Speaker 3: was the right decision.
2:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it.
2:34
Speaker 1: We've also got a big deal that's going to be happening,
2:36
Speaker 1: it looks like with Republican leadership, and I want to
2:40
Speaker 1: talk about what that looks like. But before we get
2:42
Speaker 1: to that, I want to tell you about our dear
2:44
Speaker 1: friends a Compassion International. I want to be honest with
2:48
Speaker 1: you for a second about how an act of compassion
2:51
Speaker 1: really feels. A couple of years ago, I made the
2:53
Speaker 1: choice to partner with an amazing organization called Compassion International.
2:59
Speaker 1: Why because I wanted to sponsor a child in need.
3:03
Speaker 1: It was a nice idea, sure, but I had no
3:05
Speaker 1: idea just how much that simple act would change my
3:09
Speaker 1: life as well. I sponsored Nadia and got to watch
3:13
Speaker 1: your life change right in front of my eyes, going
3:16
Speaker 1: from starving literally alone on the streets, to getting the
3:20
Speaker 1: healthcare and education she needs to reach her God given
3:24
Speaker 1: full potential. I got to be a part of that change.
3:28
Speaker 1: And the light of that compassion not only illuminates in her,
3:31
Speaker 1: it illuminates now in me. That is the power of compassion.
3:36
Speaker 1: The light of Christ shines on all of us. Feel
3:40
Speaker 1: it for yourself and change literally a child's life, change
3:44
Speaker 1: the world, and you also change yourself. You can sponsor
3:48
Speaker 1: child today. Visit compassion dot com. That's compassion dot com.
3:55
Speaker 1: All right, senator, So you're there in DC. It's basically
3:58
Speaker 1: just list.
3:58
Speaker 2: Round numbers here about one in the morning.
4:01
Speaker 1: John Thune seemed too as I was it was described
4:05
Speaker 1: to me earlier, got some cojones and said he's had
4:07
Speaker 1: enough and and by golly, we're going to fight now,
4:09
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get funding that we needed. It's gonna
4:12
Speaker 1: be done through reconciliation, is what it's looking like. Can
4:15
Speaker 1: you explain what has been being said behind the scenes,
4:19
Speaker 1: how we finally got to this point, and now what
4:21
Speaker 1: actually happens moving forward?
4:23
Speaker 3: Well, Ben, I want to start by saying, you said
4:25
Speaker 3: it's about one in the morning. I said, literally three
4:28
Speaker 3: minutes ago that it was twelve twenty two in the morning.
4:30
Speaker 2: I said, rounding.
4:31
Speaker 3: I said, round, o, kid, that's not how you round
4:34
Speaker 3: you round down to twelve.
4:35
Speaker 4: I'm just saying that.
4:37
Speaker 1: Round up here. I was giving you more credit. Your
4:39
Speaker 1: dedication to the show at a sounds better.
4:41
Speaker 3: And you're in Texas, so it's barely eleven o'clock in Texas.
4:45
Speaker 2: Barely eleven twenty five if we're going to get right
4:47
Speaker 2: at it right, so it's time for you.
4:51
Speaker 3: This is a podcast that's going to insist on truth
4:54
Speaker 3: and advertising.
4:55
Speaker 4: It's going to insist on accuracy. So it is now
4:58
Speaker 4: what times now twelve.
5:00
Speaker 1: I love that he gets off the mic to get
5:02
Speaker 1: his phone to make sure that he knows my.
5:04
Speaker 4: Phone is down there. I got to see what time
5:06
Speaker 4: it is.
5:06
Speaker 1: So those glasses and those here and aids, we just
5:09
Speaker 1: got to get him for your next birthday.
5:11
Speaker 2: But keep going. I'm ready, all.
5:13
Speaker 3: Right, you know man, I'm tempted to hold up a
5:16
Speaker 3: finger foot to you, and it's not the thumb.
5:19
Speaker 1: It's not the thumb, and we're gonna save that for
5:21
Speaker 1: later in the show. We're gonna save that for later
5:23
Speaker 1: in the show.
5:24
Speaker 3: I was trying to give you a segue there make
5:27
Speaker 3: your day.
5:28
Speaker 1: So I'll give this segue before the show started today.
5:30
Speaker 1: We'll just pull back the curtain. I said, I would
5:33
Speaker 1: like to see a poll that is done on how
5:36
Speaker 1: untrustworthy people think politicians are both sides out if in
5:41
Speaker 1: every picture you take, you're doing the thumbs up post, like,
5:45
Speaker 1: maybe it's just me because I see more political pictures
5:47
Speaker 1: than than average Americans, but I despise all of them.
5:51
Speaker 1: I find a picture of me with a thumbs up like,
5:54
Speaker 1: you will not find that on the internet anywhere. I'm
5:57
Speaker 1: not gonna do that pose. I don't care who's standing
5:59
Speaker 1: next to me. And I think you would trust Americans
6:02
Speaker 1: more as you described it with a middle finger than
6:04
Speaker 1: you would like a politician with a thumbs up picture.
6:06
Speaker 2: So if I was king for a day, I would
6:08
Speaker 2: ban it.
6:08
Speaker 4: So I will confess, Ben, I.
6:11
Speaker 2: You've done the thumbs up picture. I googled it. Yeah.
6:14
Speaker 4: I don't do a lot of it.
6:16
Speaker 3: And the most common place I do a thumbs up
6:18
Speaker 3: picture is if I'm taking a picture with Aggie's. So
6:21
Speaker 3: Aggie's will do a gigam and that's that's the symbol
6:25
Speaker 3: for Texas A and M, and I'll do a hook
6:26
Speaker 3: them for longhorns as well.
6:29
Speaker 4: So I my guess is neither of those.
6:31
Speaker 2: Just for the record, you.
6:33
Speaker 3: Know that's that's okay, you came to Texas, but it
6:37
Speaker 3: took you a while.
6:38
Speaker 4: That's true.
6:39
Speaker 1: That's true.
6:40
Speaker 4: And so.
6:42
Speaker 3: My guess is eighty percent of the pictures that are
6:45
Speaker 3: thumbs up that I've done have been with Aggie's and
6:47
Speaker 3: then there's been a handful where someone really occasionally someone
6:50
Speaker 3: was like, hey, will you do a thumbs up?
6:51
Speaker 4: And I'm like, all right, fine, like if you really
6:53
Speaker 4: want to.
6:53
Speaker 2: But that is not my thumbs up.
6:56
Speaker 4: But I will tell you an interesting.
6:58
Speaker 1: By the way, do you know I feel about this
7:02
Speaker 1: not really In the first Trump administration, when I was
7:05
Speaker 1: in the Oval, somebody said, are you going to do
7:08
Speaker 1: the thumbs up? I was like, I will not. I
7:09
Speaker 1: will not do the thumbs up. And if you look
7:11
Speaker 1: at the picture that they sent, I did not do
7:13
Speaker 1: a thumbs up.
7:13
Speaker 2: I smiled. I did not do this.
7:16
Speaker 3: I'd do the thumbs up very rarely. But I will
7:18
Speaker 3: tell you a funny story about thumbs up. So it
7:20
Speaker 3: is like six seven years ago, I was down at
7:23
Speaker 3: the border, and I was at a border patrol checkpoint
7:26
Speaker 3: at our southern border where there were a bunch of
7:28
Speaker 3: eighteen wheelers crossing from Mexico over to the United States
7:32
Speaker 3: over to Texas, and I was just standing at the checkpoint,
7:35
Speaker 3: and I got to say, if you're a truck driver
7:37
Speaker 3: and you're driving across the border, there are a lot
7:40
Speaker 3: of things you may be expecting to see at the
7:41
Speaker 3: border patrol checkpoint, but the US senator from Texas is.
7:46
Speaker 4: Not one of them.
7:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not on the list.
7:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so the looks of startled shock from every
7:54
Speaker 3: truck driver. It was really quite amusing because I stood
7:56
Speaker 3: there probably an hour or so and like geted every
7:58
Speaker 3: truck driver, and I took an informal survey. So a
8:03
Speaker 3: number of the truck drivers gave me a thumbs up
8:06
Speaker 3: and the remaining one gave me a middle finger. Yeah yeah,
8:09
Speaker 3: And it was I gotta say, I actually felt pretty
8:12
Speaker 3: good about the truck driver survey because I think it
8:14
Speaker 3: was about eighty twenty, so about eighty percent got the
8:17
Speaker 3: thumbs up and about twenty percent flipped me off. And
8:19
Speaker 3: I was like, all right, I'll take those odds. Like,
8:22
Speaker 3: truck drivers are my peeps.
8:25
Speaker 2: The rod number.
8:26
Speaker 3: That's the Republican Party has become a blue collar party,
8:30
Speaker 3: like truck drivers, steel workers, construction workers, cops, firefighters, waiters
8:34
Speaker 3: and waitresses. That's our base. But it was still a
8:37
Speaker 3: fun because it literally was. It's amazing. Almost every truck
8:41
Speaker 3: driver it was one of two fingers, and I got it.
8:45
Speaker 3: You know, I don't remember how much, but it felt
8:47
Speaker 3: like close to one hundred percent that they would give
8:49
Speaker 3: me one finger or the other.
8:51
Speaker 2: You know what.
8:51
Speaker 1: That's good odds there By the way, on Saturday, I
8:54
Speaker 1: worked out, I did get a middle finger in the
8:56
Speaker 1: gym from a liberal. And I mean, I'm I'm sitting
9:00
Speaker 1: there and I have my headphones in and I'm listening
9:03
Speaker 1: to music and this guy just you just you could
9:05
Speaker 1: just tell he just was wanting to talk and he
9:08
Speaker 1: just decided he'd had enough and he just he just
9:10
Speaker 1: put it right out there.
9:11
Speaker 2: And I was like, all right, well, I'm going to
9:12
Speaker 2: go back to lifting weights now.
9:14
Speaker 4: Okay.
9:14
Speaker 3: But that was a random dude. And it wasn't like
9:16
Speaker 3: Anna who was pissed at you.
9:17
Speaker 2: No, it was not that at all.
9:18
Speaker 1: No, it was just a random liberal who, if he's
9:21
Speaker 1: listened to the show like that was probably the highlight
9:24
Speaker 1: of his whole year. And I'm glad he had that moment.
9:26
Speaker 1: I'm glad I could facilitate that for him.
9:28
Speaker 4: All Right.
9:28
Speaker 3: I feel confident we don't have a lot of random
9:30
Speaker 3: liberals listen to this podcast. We have reporters because when
9:35
Speaker 3: I walk on Capitol Hill and people ask me questions,
9:38
Speaker 3: I'll say, oh, I just addressed that in the podcast.
9:40
Speaker 4: Why don't you listen to the podcast?
9:41
Speaker 3: And then they go listen to the podcast and they
9:43
Speaker 3: write stories and like break news because we break news.
9:45
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk reconciliation because we're actually going to
9:48
Speaker 3: talk about real and hard news. So Department of Homeland
9:53
Speaker 3: Security has been shut down for two months. Yep, the
9:56
Speaker 3: Democrats do not care. So understand, for two months, Coast
10:01
Speaker 3: guardsmen have not been paid, Secret Service agents have not
10:05
Speaker 3: been paid. FEMA has not been paid. Department of Homeland Security,
10:11
Speaker 3: the people that are fighting cyber terrorism, the people that
10:13
Speaker 3: are fighting bioterrorism, they have not been paid. About two
10:16
Speaker 3: hundred thousand federal employees have not been paid for two months.
10:20
Speaker 3: And the sad reality is not a Democrat I believe
10:23
Speaker 3: cares And a big part of the reason they don't
10:26
Speaker 3: care is the media is not holding them accountable, so
10:28
Speaker 3: they're having no consequence. So Brian Schotz, who is Democrat
10:33
Speaker 3: senator from Hawaii, he's widely viewed as the Democrat leader
10:36
Speaker 3: in waiting after Chuck Schumer. He said about a month ago,
10:39
Speaker 3: he said, Democrats are serene during the shutdowns, the longest
10:43
Speaker 3: shutdown in American history. About six weeks ago, I stood
10:49
Speaker 3: up to my colleagues in the Senate and I said
10:53
Speaker 3: the Republicans, and I said, look, the Democrats are wildly unreasonable.
10:58
Speaker 4: It is bizarre.
11:00
Speaker 3: But I think where Democrats are right now is I
11:03
Speaker 3: think they will never ever ever vote again to fund Ice.
11:06
Speaker 3: Their base just hates Ice, and this is an open border's,
11:10
Speaker 3: pro violent criminal party, and I think from their perspective,
11:16
Speaker 3: they will vote against funding ICE forever, and they're perfectly
11:20
Speaker 3: happy to shut down all of DHS to do it.
11:22
Speaker 4: Now.
11:22
Speaker 3: The irony is DHS is defunded. You know what is
11:26
Speaker 3: funded Ice?
11:29
Speaker 4: Ice. So when we took Plaine.
11:31
Speaker 2: That quickly ToView the man missed those episodes.
11:33
Speaker 3: When we passed the Reconciliation Bill last summer, the working
11:37
Speaker 3: Family's tax cut, we funded ICE, and we funded customs
11:41
Speaker 3: and border patrol for the next three years because we
11:44
Speaker 3: knew Democrats were getting unreasonable. And so the rest of
11:48
Speaker 3: DHS is shut down, but ICE is alive, and it
11:51
Speaker 3: is literally the case that Democrats are voting to cut
11:53
Speaker 3: off funding for Coast Guarden, FEMA and Secret Service and
11:56
Speaker 3: all the rest because they're mad at ICE and ice
11:58
Speaker 3: get is fully funded. That being said, here's what I
12:02
Speaker 3: said six weeks ago to my colleagues. I said, listen,
12:05
Speaker 3: this is where Democrats are. It is wildly unreasonable, it
12:08
Speaker 3: is indefensible, but it's where they are. So here's the
12:11
Speaker 3: approach forward. There were some Republican senators. They're saying, oh,
12:15
Speaker 3: let's do nothing. The pressure will build on Democrats and
12:18
Speaker 3: eventually they'll cave. And I said, you know what, they
12:20
Speaker 3: will never cave. They will leave DHS shut down for
12:23
Speaker 3: the entire year. And part of it is if the
12:25
Speaker 3: media were functional and real, they wouldn't because they'd feel heat.
12:29
Speaker 3: But nobody in the media is blaming them. And by
12:31
Speaker 3: the way, the standard media trick is they blame both parties. Oh,
12:34
Speaker 3: Congress is broken. That's how they give cover to the Democrats.
12:38
Speaker 3: To be clear, I have voted sixteen times in the
12:41
Speaker 3: last two months to fund DHS. Democrats have voted sixteen
12:44
Speaker 3: times to defund DHS. It's not both parties. The people
12:49
Speaker 3: who are voting to fund it are not responsible. In
12:53
Speaker 3: the way that the people are voting to defund it
12:55
Speaker 3: are The reason DHS is shut down is it takes
12:58
Speaker 3: sixty votes. We only have fifty three Republicans, which means
13:01
Speaker 3: the Democrats can shut it down and they're doing so.
13:04
Speaker 3: Now what I urge is, I said, you know what,
13:07
Speaker 3: let's pass a bill that funds DHS, and if the
13:10
Speaker 3: Democrats are so unreasonable they will not fund ICE and CBP,
13:15
Speaker 3: let's exclude them. Let's fund everything else. That's what the
13:19
Speaker 3: Senate did two weeks ago. It then went to the
13:22
Speaker 3: House and I got to say, House Republicans, they kind
13:24
Speaker 3: of lost their minds and they began screaming, We're not
13:26
Speaker 3: going to defund ICE. Now that claim was always false
13:30
Speaker 3: because ICE is fully funded. ICE is funded through the
13:33
Speaker 3: Reconciliation Bill. But I understand the sort of shock because
13:37
Speaker 3: the position of the Democrats is so wildly unreasonable that
13:41
Speaker 3: House Republicans were pissed. But the consequence they voted down
13:46
Speaker 3: the Senate bill and it meant DHS stay shut down.
13:49
Speaker 3: And I just think House Republicans had not gotten to
13:52
Speaker 3: the point where they have accepted, where they've internalized these
13:55
Speaker 3: are the crazy ass Democrats of the Senate we're dealing
13:58
Speaker 3: with and they're never ever ever going to fund ICE again.
14:02
Speaker 3: So here's what I suggested. Fund all of dhs except
14:06
Speaker 3: ICE and CVP, and then immediately take up a budget reconciliation.
14:10
Speaker 3: Budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered. The Democrats cannot block it.
14:14
Speaker 3: We can pass it with just fifty Republicans in the Senate,
14:18
Speaker 3: and we should fully fund ICE.
14:20
Speaker 4: And I will tell you today.
14:22
Speaker 3: So every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, when the Senate is
14:25
Speaker 3: in session, Senate Republicans have lunch together. So today Tuesday,
14:29
Speaker 3: we had lunch and we had.
14:31
Speaker 2: Let me ask you a question.
14:32
Speaker 1: When you say you guys have lunch, is it working
14:35
Speaker 1: groups at tables or is there like a big speaker?
14:37
Speaker 2: How does the lunch actually work? So people understand.
14:40
Speaker 3: So there are two rooms that you have lunch in
14:44
Speaker 3: in the Senate. One is the LBJ room. That's a
14:46
Speaker 3: smaller room, it's just off the Senate floor. The minority
14:49
Speaker 3: gets the LBJ room, and then the bigger room is
14:51
Speaker 3: the Michael Mansfield Room, named after Montana Senator Senate Majority
14:56
Speaker 3: Leader Michael Mansfield, and it's a larger room. So whoever's
14:58
Speaker 3: in the majority gets the man's fe old room, so.
15:01
Speaker 2: I know, for personal reasons, what do you eat there?
15:05
Speaker 4: So there's actually different.
15:08
Speaker 2: Centers that do it. How's that like? Is there a host?
15:11
Speaker 3: So Tuesday and Wednesday there is Senate catering and there's
15:15
Speaker 3: like a catering office in the Senate that brings in food.
15:17
Speaker 3: It ferries like today we had some beef and some
15:20
Speaker 3: chicken and broccoli and green beans. I mean, catering is
15:23
Speaker 3: actually pretty good. I mean one of the things that
15:25
Speaker 3: I'm surprised, just like the food they provide at the
15:28
Speaker 3: Senate lunches is surprisingly decent. And those are Senate employees
15:33
Speaker 3: that do the catering on the Capitol and so events there.
15:36
Speaker 3: They provide catering for any meal and we have dinners
15:39
Speaker 3: and lunches and things that are on the Capitol. So
15:42
Speaker 3: Tuesday and Wednesday the Senate Catering provides that, and then Thursdays.
15:47
Speaker 3: The way it works among Republicans is it rotates among
15:49
Speaker 3: different senators who hosts. So typically like I host about
15:54
Speaker 3: once a year, and when you host, you usually fly
15:59
Speaker 3: in food from your home state. So for example, when
16:03
Speaker 3: I host, I fly in food from Texas. It's typically
16:06
Speaker 3: either barbecue or Mexican or the two things that I've done.
16:09
Speaker 4: I've done. I usually do barbecue.
16:11
Speaker 3: I sometimes do Mexican, so I'll fly in either you know,
16:15
Speaker 3: different barbecue places in Texas where we'll'll fly the food in.
16:19
Speaker 3: And then what actually happens when you host is you
16:23
Speaker 3: send a gift bag to your other senators. And the
16:26
Speaker 3: gift bag is usually a collection of stuff from your state.
16:30
Speaker 3: So I'll usually pick up some stuff like some you know,
16:34
Speaker 3: HB tortilla chips and salsa and you know, kind of
16:39
Speaker 3: different and you kind of put a gift bag together
16:41
Speaker 3: that I don't know. It's about one hundred bucks worth
16:44
Speaker 3: of different stuff from the state that you collect and
16:48
Speaker 3: you send it. Oddly enough, senators send a lot of
16:52
Speaker 3: booze to each other, so I actually have I have
16:54
Speaker 3: a whole shelf in my office filled with booze that
16:56
Speaker 3: senators have sent me. And I don't drink the booze
16:58
Speaker 3: very much, so it just sits there. It collects faster
17:01
Speaker 3: than I drink it. But you have varying senators that
17:04
Speaker 3: will send like the Kentucky senators will usually send it.
17:06
Speaker 1: Burban around to win that ball game, right, And then
17:09
Speaker 1: I'm assuming Texas jo like, here's some Tito's.
17:12
Speaker 3: I've done Tito's. I've done Schiner back is what I
17:14
Speaker 3: usually send. I'll off and send a six pack of
17:16
Speaker 3: schiner Bach. I have done Tito's in the past. Those
17:19
Speaker 3: those have been the two that are kind of you
17:21
Speaker 3: pick a collection of stuff that sort of reflects your state.
17:26
Speaker 3: And so today we had and the Tuesday lunch is
17:30
Speaker 3: the leadership lunch, so leadership runs it. The Wednesday lunch
17:34
Speaker 3: is the steering lunch. Steering are the more conservative senators.
17:38
Speaker 3: Rick Scott is right now the chairman of Steering. There's
17:41
Speaker 3: about a dozen of us that are on the Executive
17:43
Speaker 3: Committee of Steering. I'm on the Executive Committee. They are
17:47
Speaker 3: by design the most conservative senators. So the Wednesday lunch
17:50
Speaker 3: tends to be more policy driven. But we typically meet
17:54
Speaker 3: from about twelve thirty to two, so it's anywhere from
17:59
Speaker 3: an hour to hour and a half. A lot of
18:00
Speaker 3: people get there about one, so it's typically one to two.
18:02
Speaker 3: Sometimes it's twelve thirty or too. But you have a
18:05
Speaker 3: good hour of robust discussion and it's not it's not
18:09
Speaker 3: a bunch.
18:10
Speaker 1: Of say it room where someone has a four and
18:12
Speaker 1: is talking then someone else.
18:13
Speaker 2: So it lunch.
18:13
Speaker 1: It's not like you're sitting there hanging out with your
18:15
Speaker 1: buddies and then for fifteen minutes someone speaks.
18:18
Speaker 2: It's the floor. It's actually a real working lunch.
18:21
Speaker 3: It is a working lunch, and actually a lot of
18:23
Speaker 3: work gets done. And so I try to make the
18:25
Speaker 3: lunch every day because you have real debates and discussions
18:29
Speaker 3: with your colleagues. And so today we had this was
18:32
Speaker 3: the leadership lunch today, and so you had a presentation
18:35
Speaker 3: from John Thune and from Lindsey Graham about the plan.
18:38
Speaker 3: And the plan is to take up a reconciliation bill,
18:40
Speaker 3: which is what I proposed six weeks ago. They are
18:43
Speaker 3: planning right now to fund DHS and ICE for three
18:47
Speaker 3: and a half years through fiscal year twenty twenty nine.
18:52
Speaker 3: And they want to keep the bill very narrowly limited
18:55
Speaker 3: to just ICE and CBP, And so I stood up.
19:00
Speaker 4: I actually talked at.
19:01
Speaker 3: Length today and I made a pretty vigorous argument. I said, listen,
19:04
Speaker 3: this is a no brainer. We need to do it.
19:06
Speaker 3: It's the right thing to do. Absolutely all of us
19:08
Speaker 3: agree with us. But I said, I think we're making
19:11
Speaker 3: three very serious mistakes. Number one, I think the proposal
19:15
Speaker 3: to fund icen CBP for three and a half years
19:18
Speaker 3: is a mistake.
19:20
Speaker 2: We should enough.
19:21
Speaker 3: Yes, we should fund them for ten years. Ten years
19:24
Speaker 3: is the limit under the statute for how long you
19:27
Speaker 3: can fund anything under budget reconciliation. And I said, the
19:30
Speaker 3: Democrats are going to vote against border security, against ICE
19:33
Speaker 3: and CBP for the foreseeable future. If that's the case,
19:36
Speaker 3: let's fund it for a decade. Let's take the opportunity
19:38
Speaker 3: we have right now to ensure that border security is
19:41
Speaker 3: funded for ten years.
19:42
Speaker 4: I said.
19:43
Speaker 3: Secondly, if we simply respond to the Democrats' legislative terrorism
19:50
Speaker 3: shutting down DHS by funding what we would have funded ordinarily,
19:55
Speaker 3: I think that's really dumb. What I have argued is
19:59
Speaker 3: we ought to increase the funding for ICE by ten percent,
20:02
Speaker 3: so that the consequence and this is it's a policy decision,
20:06
Speaker 3: but it's also a political decision. The consequence of Elizabeth
20:09
Speaker 3: Warren and Bernie Sanders shutting down the government for two
20:12
Speaker 3: months and going nuts on border securities. Congratulations, Elizabeth, you
20:16
Speaker 3: just increased the funding for ICE by ten percent. That's
20:20
Speaker 3: just rather than beyond defense, let's go on offense and say,
20:24
Speaker 3: you know what, we are the Party of Border Security.
20:26
Speaker 3: We're going to fund it. And because you guys were
20:28
Speaker 3: wildly unreasonable, we had a bipartisan agreement on DHS funding
20:32
Speaker 3: until the Democrats backed out of it. So the consequence
20:35
Speaker 3: of your stupidity is you increase the funding of ICE.
20:38
Speaker 3: I think that's a no brainer. I don't know if
20:40
Speaker 3: my colleagues will agree with either of those points, the
20:42
Speaker 3: ten years or increase in the work.
20:44
Speaker 1: By the way, why would they not agree the ten years?
20:46
Speaker 1: And my cynical view is always I'm going to go
20:49
Speaker 1: there first. Is it because they'd want it to be
20:51
Speaker 1: an election your issue within the next ten years, or
20:54
Speaker 1: therefore they're saying, now, hey, let's fight on this in
20:56
Speaker 1: a couple of years.
20:56
Speaker 4: Again, No, it's not that, it's it's.
21:00
Speaker 2: Cynical politics has made me certain this want to be clear. Yeah, Like, look.
21:03
Speaker 1: Immediately, I'm like, I could see something like I don't
21:05
Speaker 1: I don't want to. I like this issue I wanted
21:08
Speaker 1: to come up every couple of years. I can fight
21:09
Speaker 1: over it.
21:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.
21:10
Speaker 3: Look that there's a natural instinct of essentially playing small ball,
21:15
Speaker 3: and this is the outcome of negotiations between John Thune,
21:20
Speaker 3: Lindsey Graham, and the White House. And I think the
21:22
Speaker 3: White House is playing small ball too, and so I
21:25
Speaker 3: am urging the White House. Let's go ten years, let's
21:27
Speaker 3: up the budget. I've made this case to the White House.
21:30
Speaker 3: They're not there yet, and so they're focused on the
21:33
Speaker 3: challenge right in front of us rather than the challenge tomorrow.
21:36
Speaker 4: But here's the big case.
21:37
Speaker 3: That I made, and I leaned in really aggressively. I said, listen,
21:43
Speaker 3: we should do a reconciliation bill. We should fund ICE,
21:46
Speaker 3: do it for ten years. We should fund CVP, do
21:48
Speaker 3: it for ten years. We should up the budgets, but
21:50
Speaker 3: we shouldn't limit it to just those two. We should
21:55
Speaker 3: do a much broader reconciliation bill. In the case I
21:58
Speaker 3: made to my colleagues, I said, this, this is the
22:00
Speaker 3: last meaningful chance we will have to pass Republican priorities.
22:07
Speaker 3: And there's a very real chance right now. It's substantially
22:10
Speaker 3: more likely than not that we will lose at least
22:13
Speaker 3: the House in November. We may lose the Senate to
22:16
Speaker 3: If that's right, then we have just the remainder of
22:20
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six to pass conservative victories, because starting next year,
22:25
Speaker 3: the House will be nothing but all impeachment and all
22:27
Speaker 3: investigations all the time, and so we will not be
22:29
Speaker 3: able to pass conservative priorities. So my case to my
22:32
Speaker 3: colleagues was, we ought to take this up and use reconciliation,
22:36
Speaker 3: just like we did last year on the fourth of
22:38
Speaker 3: July where we passed the Working Families tax gut and
22:40
Speaker 3: had a massive number of conservative victories. We ought to
22:43
Speaker 3: do it again, and I suggested there are a lot
22:45
Speaker 3: of things we can do. So for example, I have
22:47
Speaker 3: a bill called Keep America Flying that says the Democrats
22:52
Speaker 3: will never again be able to shut down civilian air traffic.
22:56
Speaker 3: So they won't be able to defund air traffic controllers,
23:00
Speaker 3: they won't be able to defund the TSA, they won't
23:02
Speaker 3: be able to defund the federal workers that are critical
23:06
Speaker 3: to keep planes in the air. By the way, September
23:09
Speaker 3: thirtieth budget funding is going to expire again right now,
23:12
Speaker 3: the Democrats are going to force another shutdown. One hundred percent.
23:15
Speaker 3: I will wager in some money right before the elections
23:19
Speaker 3: they will force a shutdown. I think we are idiots
23:23
Speaker 3: to do nothing to prevent them. But the problem is
23:25
Speaker 3: a lot of folks in Congress just look an inch
23:28
Speaker 3: in front of their nose and they can't look ten
23:30
Speaker 3: inches in front of their nose. So if we're headed
23:33
Speaker 3: to a shutdown in September, we'd be morons not to
23:36
Speaker 3: do something to forestall it. So one of the things
23:38
Speaker 3: we can do is make sure that the four hour
23:41
Speaker 3: lines at airports, the people missing their flights for spring break,
23:44
Speaker 3: that doesn't happen again. We could pass funding that says
23:47
Speaker 3: we're going to keep planes flying. Democrats no longer get
23:51
Speaker 3: to destroy your vacation or destroy your work trip just
23:54
Speaker 3: because they're mad. That I think makes a lot of sense.
23:58
Speaker 3: What I've verged is we had to do things that
24:00
Speaker 3: make sense for the economy. So, for example, an idea
24:05
Speaker 3: that I have been pushing hard is indexing capital gains
24:08
Speaker 3: to inflation. So the way it works, let's say ten
24:11
Speaker 3: years ago you bought a stock for one hundred dollars,
24:16
Speaker 3: and in the course of ten years, inflation has driven
24:19
Speaker 3: the cost of that stock to two hundred dollars. Now,
24:23
Speaker 3: if that's all inflation, you don't have any meaningful gain.
24:27
Speaker 3: But if you sell that stock at two hundred dollars,
24:29
Speaker 3: you pay capital gains tax on the difference between one
24:32
Speaker 3: hundred dollars and two hundred dollars. And that's a phantom gain.
24:35
Speaker 3: And so what I believe is you ought to index
24:38
Speaker 3: capital gains to inflation, which means whatever the inflation is
24:42
Speaker 3: you base, you raise the basis, you raise the cost
24:45
Speaker 3: of whatever it is you've invested. That would have a
24:48
Speaker 3: massive positive stimulus effect for the economy, and affordability is
24:53
Speaker 3: a huge issue for the voters. It has an enormous
24:57
Speaker 3: impact on housing. So here's what's in interesting. If you
25:00
Speaker 3: have a house. Let's say you bought a house and
25:02
Speaker 3: the house is appreciated massively in value, the same principle
25:07
Speaker 3: is true if you sell it. If the appreciation is
25:09
Speaker 3: due to inflation, you pay taxes on that. Yeah, and
25:12
Speaker 3: so what happens is a lot of people don't sell
25:14
Speaker 3: their house when you die. If you pass your house
25:19
Speaker 3: onto your kids, the basis steps up, which means your
25:23
Speaker 3: kids take it not at the cost you paid, but
25:25
Speaker 3: whatever the cost is when they inherit it, so that
25:28
Speaker 3: capital gains tax disappears when you die. What it results in,
25:33
Speaker 3: particularly in high tax states, is people holding onto houses
25:37
Speaker 3: a really long time in not selling them.
25:40
Speaker 4: Here's an amazing question.
25:41
Speaker 3: Man, California, which has among the highest taxes in the country. Yes,
25:46
Speaker 3: what percent of hopes do you think are passed on it?
25:50
Speaker 3: Death and other words are held on too so long
25:53
Speaker 3: because the capital gains tax would be so high.
25:57
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm going to totally guess. I would
26:00
Speaker 1: say at least forty percent. Now I may be wrong,
26:02
Speaker 1: but I know people that they get they that's how
26:05
Speaker 1: they got their parents' house for the same reason you
26:07
Speaker 1: just described it.
26:08
Speaker 3: So you are wrong. That's a little too aggressive. It's
26:10
Speaker 3: about twenty five percent. But twenty five.
26:12
Speaker 1: Percent saying, by the way, because like in Texas, what
26:15
Speaker 1: is it three percent, four percent.
26:17
Speaker 3: It's much lower. I don't know the Texas number, but
26:20
Speaker 3: it's much lower. And the consequence, Let's say you have
26:23
Speaker 3: a family that has a bunch of kids. They buy
26:25
Speaker 3: a big house and they raise their kids in it,
26:27
Speaker 3: and then their kids graduate, go off into the world,
26:30
Speaker 3: and you've just got an older, retired family. Now, many
26:34
Speaker 3: like an older required couple, doesn't need a big house
26:37
Speaker 3: with a bunch of bedrooms. In a normal world, they
26:40
Speaker 3: would sell that house. They'd put it on the market
26:42
Speaker 3: and they'd buy like they'd buy a smaller little town
26:45
Speaker 3: home or condo. They'd buy something that is more appropriate
26:47
Speaker 3: to their stage in life, but especially in California and
26:51
Speaker 3: other high tax states, they don't do that because their
26:53
Speaker 3: tax bill would be huge. So the effect of this
26:57
Speaker 3: would be the lower the cost of housing for people
26:59
Speaker 3: that buying. What it means is a young married couple
27:02
Speaker 3: that wants to buy that first house. If there were
27:05
Speaker 3: more houses on the market, it would drive the prices
27:07
Speaker 3: down and they could afford it more. So that's an
27:09
Speaker 3: example of something we can do. I also suggested we
27:12
Speaker 3: could plus up the school choice provisions. We could plus
27:15
Speaker 3: up the Trump account provisions. There are lots of things.
27:20
Speaker 3: Ron Johnson is advocated for the Shutdown Fairness Act, which
27:24
Speaker 3: says that number one, when there's a shutdown, all essential
27:27
Speaker 3: workers will be paid. Number Two, there's another bill that
27:30
Speaker 3: says we won't have shutdowns in the case that you
27:32
Speaker 3: don't have funding, you will continue at the prior levels,
27:35
Speaker 3: or maybe you'll ratchet down slightly. My point, look what
27:39
Speaker 3: I stood up to my colleagues and I said, listen,
27:43
Speaker 3: I am not today advocating for any one particular policy.
27:48
Speaker 3: And I told them the story. So back in twenty eighteen,
27:52
Speaker 3: we had a Republican House, a Republican Senate, we had
27:55
Speaker 3: a Republican President Donald Trump. And in August of twenty eighteen,
27:59
Speaker 3: I gave a presentation to the Senate Republicans and it
28:01
Speaker 3: was a PowerPoint. It was about fifty pages long, and
28:04
Speaker 3: I called it Carpe DM Seize the Day. And I
28:08
Speaker 3: went through in the last hundred years what had happened
28:11
Speaker 3: every time the Democrats had had the House, the Senate,
28:14
Speaker 3: and the White House, and they pass fundamental transformations of
28:19
Speaker 3: this country. They passed the New Deal, they passed the
28:22
Speaker 3: Great Society, they passed Obamacare and Dodd Frank like, when
28:25
Speaker 3: they have control, they push the pedal to the metal
28:28
Speaker 3: and they floor their socialist left wing plans. Republicans, we
28:32
Speaker 3: are piddly. We don't do nearly as much. We did
28:35
Speaker 3: the working Family's tax cut. That was a big, big victory,
28:38
Speaker 3: but we haven't done a whole lot since then. And
28:42
Speaker 3: the case I made in twenty eighteen is I said
28:44
Speaker 3: we ought to take up another reconciliation. It was the
28:47
Speaker 3: vehicle for the biggest legislative victories we have. And I
28:51
Speaker 3: had a chart that I put together of like fifty
28:53
Speaker 3: bills that different Republican senators had introduced, and I said, listen,
28:57
Speaker 3: I'm not being crazy. I'm not saying we should pass
28:59
Speaker 3: all fifty of these. I'm saying, let's pick five. My
29:03
Speaker 3: case was not we should do something specific. My case
29:07
Speaker 3: was simply, we should do something. And I turned to
29:10
Speaker 3: my colleagues, I said that what I said it in
29:12
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen, I talked in particular the class of twenty fourteen.
29:17
Speaker 3: There was a big class. Nine new senators Republicans were
29:19
Speaker 3: elected in twenty fourteen, and I said, listen, you guys,
29:24
Speaker 3: if we don't take this opportunity, we had one hundred
29:28
Speaker 3: and eighty three days left in the Congress, this may
29:31
Speaker 3: be the last opportunity you ever get to pass.
29:34
Speaker 4: Meaning meaningful legislation.
29:36
Speaker 3: If we lose the House, you're done, no more legislation,
29:39
Speaker 3: forget about it. If that's the case, don't we have
29:42
Speaker 3: an urgency to do something? And as I look back
29:48
Speaker 3: at my entire tenure in the Senate, the most indefensible
29:51
Speaker 3: legislative decision was Mitch McConnell's decision in twenty eighteen not
29:55
Speaker 3: to take up another reconciliation.
29:58
Speaker 4: And I fear that we're repeating them.
30:00
Speaker 3: And by the way, so look for the last couple
30:03
Speaker 3: of months, I have been searching around for how do
30:06
Speaker 3: we do another reconciliation. I've been making this case for
30:08
Speaker 3: a while, but I've said, what we need is a
30:12
Speaker 3: tent pole. What do I mean by a tentpole. I
30:14
Speaker 3: mean an idea that is big enough, that is bold enough,
30:17
Speaker 3: that is important enough that it will unify fifty Republicans
30:21
Speaker 3: in the Senate and two it or eighteen.
30:22
Speaker 4: Republicans in the House. Because we have really narrow majority.
30:25
Speaker 3: So you've got to have something big enough that everyone
30:28
Speaker 3: gets behind, and then you could have other provisions carry
30:31
Speaker 3: along if you have a tentpole. In my view, ICE
30:36
Speaker 3: and CBP are the tentpole. There is not a Republican.
30:40
Speaker 3: I don't care if you're the most rock rip conservative
30:43
Speaker 3: or completely squishy mod No Republican wants to vote against
30:47
Speaker 3: funding ICE and CBP. That is a tent pole that
30:51
Speaker 3: can carry the rest of it. And so that's the
30:53
Speaker 3: case I'm making to my colleagues right now. The White
30:56
Speaker 3: House is not on board, and my intention is I'm
30:58
Speaker 3: going to make this case to President Trump directly. I
31:00
Speaker 3: have not done so yet. Today was the beginning of it,
31:04
Speaker 3: making it to my colleagues in the Senate. But I
31:06
Speaker 3: think this is a decision do we swing for the
31:10
Speaker 3: fences and get victories, economic victories that we can campaign
31:14
Speaker 3: on and win elections in November, or do we play
31:17
Speaker 3: small ball? And by the way, one of the things
31:19
Speaker 3: that leadership is saying is no, no, we'll do another
31:21
Speaker 3: reconciliation after this. Well, you know what, the next reconciliation
31:25
Speaker 3: will fail because without a tent poll, without something like
31:28
Speaker 3: iceon CBP, you ain't getting fifty and you ain't getting
31:32
Speaker 3: to eighteen because the Republicans will scatter on all sorts
31:35
Speaker 3: of different grounds. So you've got to have something big
31:38
Speaker 3: enough to bring them together and then we can win
31:40
Speaker 3: real victories. That's the case I'm trying to make to
31:43
Speaker 3: my colleagues.
31:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's going to be really interesting how this plays out.
31:48
Speaker 1: And you're right, I think Americans are like, what are
31:50
Speaker 1: you doing for me right now? I wish all the
31:52
Speaker 1: Republicans would understand that and be bold like you described it.
31:56
Speaker 2: We'll see if that happens.
31:57
Speaker 1: Otherwise some of your colleagues may not be your colleagues
32:00
Speaker 1: after the election this coming November.
32:02
Speaker 3: And Ben, by the way, one of the things that
32:04
Speaker 3: I'm also urging my colleagues to include is election integrity,
32:07
Speaker 3: to include as much of the Save America Act as
32:10
Speaker 3: we can now. Now it is limited because of reconciliation.
32:14
Speaker 3: There are rules under statute as to what you can
32:16
Speaker 3: include in reconciliation. It has to be budgetary and not policy.
32:21
Speaker 3: And so how you get you can't get the full
32:24
Speaker 3: Save America Act in reconciliation, but you can get election
32:27
Speaker 3: integrity provisions. You can, for example, condition federal grants, for example,
32:33
Speaker 3: the Help America Vote Act grants, which are grants that
32:35
Speaker 3: go to help fund elections. You can condition those on
32:38
Speaker 3: election integrity. You can condition those. You can take those
32:41
Speaker 3: away from sanctuary cities. So I'm arguing we ought to
32:44
Speaker 3: be using like, let's take this opportunity to pass legislation
32:49
Speaker 3: that Republicans agree with. Let's win victories. Let's not give
32:53
Speaker 3: up the chance to win victories.
32:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, great point.
32:55
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep covering it and we'll keep you up
32:57
Speaker 1: to day on what's happening in Washington, d C. Don't
33:00
Speaker 1: forget the show. We do on YouTube as well, so
33:02
Speaker 1: you can watch on YouTube. You can also download it
33:05
Speaker 1: as a podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We do
33:08
Speaker 1: the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and a weekend review on
33:12
Speaker 1: Saturdays as well for what you may have missed during
33:14
Speaker 1: the week and the Cina and I will see you
33:15
Speaker 1: back here on Friday morning.