Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Debt Ceiling Showdown, the 14th Amendment, plus a Beer Company Goes Woke & Markets to Kids?!?

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Debt Ceiling Showdown, the 14th Amendment, plus a Beer Company Goes Woke & Markets to Kids?!? · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome.
0:01
Speaker 2: It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with you,
0:05
Speaker 2: and we have got a very important show.
0:07
Speaker 1: First, we're going to deal with the debt ceiling.
0:10
Speaker 2: Then we're going to deal with what Barack Obama said
0:12
Speaker 2: back in twenty eleven about the fourteenth Amendment that everyone
0:15
Speaker 2: seems to be really excited about right now in Washington.
0:19
Speaker 2: And also bud Light could they be in trouble for
0:22
Speaker 2: marketing themselves potentially to children. We're going to deal with
0:26
Speaker 2: all of that, plus the passing of a great Republican
0:30
Speaker 2: leader who passed away today will tell you about his
0:33
Speaker 2: story in life as well. But Senator, let's first start
0:36
Speaker 2: with this debt ceiling. The debt ceiling issue is confusing
0:40
Speaker 2: too many and there's a lot of Americans that say,
0:44
Speaker 2: I just want to know what's gonna happen, where we're
0:46
Speaker 2: going to be, what happens if we default, and is
0:50
Speaker 2: that a real possibility, because we've seen this circus happen
0:54
Speaker 2: quite a few times. You've been in Washington when this
0:57
Speaker 2: circus comes to town leaves, and it's also you there's
1:00
Speaker 2: this political leverage many times by the party that's in
1:02
Speaker 2: power in the White House. So where are we on
1:05
Speaker 2: the debt ceiling before we get to the fourteenth Amendment.
1:08
Speaker 3: Well, right now, we're in a showdown, and we're in
1:10
Speaker 3: a showdown between Joe Biden and Republicans, in particular House
1:14
Speaker 3: Republicans who've passed a bill to raise the debt ceiling,
1:19
Speaker 3: but they put meaningful spending cuts as an attachment to
1:22
Speaker 3: the debt ceiling, and Joe Biden and the Democrats don't
1:25
Speaker 3: want to have any spending cuts. It's worth stepping back
1:29
Speaker 3: and saying, right, what is the debt ceiling? Because this
1:31
Speaker 3: is these are terms that get bannied about. We usually
1:34
Speaker 3: hear about them once or twice a year. And the
1:37
Speaker 3: death ceiling is a cap on how much money the
1:39
Speaker 3: federal government can borrow, and Congress passes it periodically, and
1:44
Speaker 3: then because we keep seeing budgets that are deficit spending,
1:48
Speaker 3: the debt grows and grows and grows, and when it
1:50
Speaker 3: hits the death ceiling, in order for the federal government
1:53
Speaker 3: to borrow more money, Congress has to raise the debt ceiling.
1:57
Speaker 3: And so that's the battle that's happening right now. The
2:01
Speaker 3: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen estimates that what's called the x state,
2:05
Speaker 3: which is when we will hit the debt ceiling is
2:09
Speaker 3: honor around June first. Now, it's honor around that because
2:13
Speaker 3: the Treasury Department has some what are called extraordinary measures.
2:17
Speaker 3: It has steps that can take where that date is
2:22
Speaker 3: typically not carved in stone, but is a little bit flexible,
2:25
Speaker 3: and they can delay it. But what's happening right now.
2:28
Speaker 3: For months, Joe Biden in the White House has said
2:32
Speaker 3: he will not negotiate at all. He's not willing to
2:36
Speaker 3: cut any spending at all, that the only thing he
2:38
Speaker 3: will take is a blank check to borrow unlimited money. Now,
2:42
Speaker 3: that was always an unreasonable position, that was always an
2:45
Speaker 3: extreme position, and one of the best evidences of that
2:49
Speaker 3: is that Biden's been forced to back away from that.
2:51
Speaker 3: That On April twenty sixth, so several weeks ago, the
2:57
Speaker 3: House by a vote of two hundred and seventeen to
2:59
Speaker 3: two hundre fifteen pass their bill to raise the debt
3:02
Speaker 3: ceiling and yet at the same time to cut four
3:06
Speaker 3: point eight trillion dollars from the budget over ten years,
3:10
Speaker 3: and so the two were attached together. Right now, the
3:14
Speaker 3: two sides appear to be very far apart. Joe Biden
3:17
Speaker 3: is insisting instead of cutting spending, he wants to do
3:20
Speaker 3: guess what, raise taxes. And so they're fighting on a
3:24
Speaker 3: lot of different issues. One of the big sticking points
3:28
Speaker 3: is work requirements for welfare. The House Republicans are insisting
3:32
Speaker 3: that if you're going to get welfare, if you're an
3:35
Speaker 3: able bodied adult, you should have to look for work
3:37
Speaker 3: or go to work. The Democrats don't want people to
3:40
Speaker 3: go to work. They're adamantly opposed to work requirements. So
3:43
Speaker 3: that's a sticking point. And if the two sides reach
3:48
Speaker 3: an impass, if they can't reach an agreement, I do
3:52
Speaker 3: think right now the chances of a default are higher
3:55
Speaker 3: than they have been any time in recent memory. And
3:58
Speaker 3: that's dangerous because a fault would be very bad for
4:01
Speaker 3: the economy.
4:02
Speaker 2: When you say it's bad for the economy, there's a
4:04
Speaker 2: lot of people that fearmonger over this. But the reality
4:08
Speaker 2: of a default, people say, right, well, if it happened,
4:11
Speaker 2: what does that really look like? And then how fast
4:15
Speaker 2: would you be able to undo it and fix it?
4:17
Speaker 2: Is that even possible to fix it? Or once you default,
4:20
Speaker 2: is a damage done and then there's a new normal.
4:23
Speaker 3: Well, if the United States defaulted, our debt. What it
4:27
Speaker 3: would mean is that there would be interest due on
4:29
Speaker 3: bonds that the Treasury Department had sold that the Treasury
4:32
Speaker 3: Department would fail to pay, and that would be called
4:36
Speaker 3: a default. And the reaction to that would be that
4:40
Speaker 3: the credit agencies would downgrade the credit of the United
4:43
Speaker 3: States government. And when you downgrade the credit, it would
4:47
Speaker 3: mean that going forward, the federal government would have to
4:50
Speaker 3: pay a higher interest rate and potentially a significantly higher
4:53
Speaker 3: interest rate to borrow money in the future. Historically, the
4:57
Speaker 3: very best credit rating has been the government of the
5:00
Speaker 3: United States of America, and so shaking that gold standard
5:04
Speaker 3: is dangerous and it potentially has lots of repercussions throughout
5:10
Speaker 3: the economy. Now, we should never default on the debt,
5:15
Speaker 3: and this is an important thing to understand because there's
5:18
Speaker 3: a lot of scare mongering on this. Even if the
5:22
Speaker 3: debt ceiling is not raised on June first, we should
5:26
Speaker 3: not default on the debt. And do you know who
5:30
Speaker 3: could ensure that? Ben Who's that? Joe Biden? Joe Biden
5:35
Speaker 3: could stand up. Let me tell you what a responsible
5:37
Speaker 3: president would say. A responsible president would say, the United
5:41
Speaker 3: States of America will never, ever, ever default on our debt,
5:45
Speaker 3: and no matter what happens, we will pay the interest
5:48
Speaker 3: on our debt. Now, how could he do that? Well,
5:51
Speaker 3: because every month the revenue that the federal government takes
5:55
Speaker 3: in is significant and is significantly larger than the interest
6:01
Speaker 3: on the debt. So through what's called prioritization, essentially, the
6:05
Speaker 3: president could say we're going to pay interest on the
6:08
Speaker 3: debt first. That would ensure we didn't default. Now, why
6:13
Speaker 3: doesn't Biden do this? Because he wants to scare people.
6:16
Speaker 3: He wants to threaten the stock market, he wants to
6:18
Speaker 3: threaten the bond market. He wants to get people scared
6:21
Speaker 3: that their four oh one k is going to drop
6:22
Speaker 3: in value, that there's going to be damage to the economy.
6:25
Speaker 3: And he's doing this because he's counting on the dishonest
6:31
Speaker 3: corporate media to blame any risk of default on Republicans.
6:36
Speaker 3: Right now, it seems to be backfiring. If you look
6:38
Speaker 3: at the polling right now, a large majority of Americans
6:43
Speaker 3: believe that we should reign in spending as part of
6:47
Speaker 3: any effort to raise the debt ceiling. Amazingly enough, and
6:51
Speaker 3: here's polling numbers in particular that ought to worry the
6:54
Speaker 3: White House fifty eight percent of Democrats believe we should
7:01
Speaker 3: reign in spending as part of any agreement to raise
7:03
Speaker 3: the death ceiling. And so Biden is not just to
7:06
Speaker 3: the left of Republicans, not just to the left of Independence.
7:09
Speaker 3: He's to the left of a majority of Democrats in
7:12
Speaker 3: this country. And I think that shows that his position
7:15
Speaker 3: is really irresponsible and unsustainable.
7:18
Speaker 2: Senator, I want to ask you a question about the
7:20
Speaker 2: substance of what Republicans want to do in the House.
7:24
Speaker 2: The White House has tried to label this and get
7:26
Speaker 2: the media to label it as extreme. And before you
7:30
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7:45
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8:53
Speaker 1: I go back to the media.
8:54
Speaker 2: They've really tried to label Republicans and the Republicans ideas
9:01
Speaker 2: plan as extreme, imply that somehow they've gone rogue and
9:06
Speaker 2: they're going to destroy our economy, and if they're the
9:09
Speaker 2: ones that would cause these failures to happen and take place,
9:13
Speaker 2: talk about the Republican plan and why it is not crazy,
9:17
Speaker 2: it is not extreme, it's actually physically responsible what they're
9:20
Speaker 2: advocating for.
9:21
Speaker 3: Well, that that is exactly right, and let's put this
9:26
Speaker 3: into context. Let's step back for a second and look
9:28
Speaker 3: at the overall numbers. In twenty seventeen, total federal spending
9:34
Speaker 3: in the budget was four trillion dollars. That was the
9:37
Speaker 3: entire federal budget. Total federal revenue was about three point
9:43
Speaker 3: three trillion dollars, so that means the deficit, doing some
9:46
Speaker 3: quick math, was about seven hundred million dollars. That was
9:49
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. Then we had the pandemic hit. Then
9:53
Speaker 3: after the pandemic, we had the second pandemic, which was
9:56
Speaker 3: the pandemic of Democrats hit. With Joe Biden and Schumer
9:59
Speaker 3: and Pelos taking over Congress. We went from total federal
10:05
Speaker 3: spending in twenty seventeen of four trillion dollars to today
10:10
Speaker 3: total federal spending of six point four trillion dollars. So
10:17
Speaker 3: that's more than a fifty percent increase from twenty seventeen
10:20
Speaker 3: to today on revenue. So remember twenty seventeen, revenue was
10:25
Speaker 3: three point three trillion. The Trump tax cuts passed. I
10:28
Speaker 3: remember the Democrats of the media all says this is
10:30
Speaker 3: going to devastate federal revenues. It's going to result in
10:33
Speaker 3: shortchanging the federal government. It was three point three trillion
10:36
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen. What do you think federal revenues are
10:38
Speaker 3: this year.
10:40
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are new records, and I'm sure we're
10:43
Speaker 2: going to waste every time of it.
10:45
Speaker 3: Four point eight trillion dollars. So after the tax cuts,
10:49
Speaker 3: the economy boom. By the way, revenue increased every year
10:51
Speaker 3: since the tax cuts. That didn't go at down even
10:54
Speaker 3: for a year. So federal revenues went from three point
10:58
Speaker 3: three trillion to four point eight brillion. But if you
11:01
Speaker 3: do the math, the difference between four point eight trillion
11:05
Speaker 3: in revenue now and six point four trillion in spending
11:09
Speaker 3: means the deficit is one point five trillion. And what's
11:11
Speaker 3: happened to the debt. The debt in twenty seventeen was
11:14
Speaker 3: just over twenty billion. The debt now is thirty one
11:18
Speaker 3: point eight billion, So it's increased more than fifty percent.
11:23
Speaker 3: It is massively. I mean, when you look at these numbers,
11:26
Speaker 3: they're shocking, which is why, thank god, House Republicans are
11:32
Speaker 3: standing together and they passed I think a very reasonable bill.
11:36
Speaker 3: They didn't try to solve the whole problem overnight, but
11:39
Speaker 3: rather they passed a bill that would result in saving
11:42
Speaker 3: four point eight trillion over ten years. Four point two
11:45
Speaker 3: trillion of that is in savings directly, and five hundred
11:50
Speaker 3: and forty seven billion is in savings on interest because
11:53
Speaker 3: when you save money, you also save on interest over
11:55
Speaker 3: the ten years going forward. Now, what does it include.
11:58
Speaker 3: The single biggest piece of it is it reduces discretionary spending,
12:04
Speaker 3: which is everything that's not mandatory. Mandatory is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,
12:11
Speaker 3: but discretionary spending is most of the rest of the budget.
12:15
Speaker 3: It rolls back spending levels from what they are today
12:19
Speaker 3: to what they were in December of twenty twenty two. Now,
12:24
Speaker 3: last I checked, December of twenty twenty two is five
12:26
Speaker 3: months ago. Remember this, when you see Democrats screaming about
12:31
Speaker 3: these horrible draconian cuts that they're going to picture Granny
12:35
Speaker 3: being thrown off a cliff. They're going to picture people
12:37
Speaker 3: starving in the streets. This budget cuts spending to what
12:41
Speaker 3: it was five months ago, what it was at Christmas
12:44
Speaker 3: time of last year. And it's worth asking anyone if
12:50
Speaker 3: you're at work, if you're talking to your uncle Joe,
12:52
Speaker 3: if you're talking to your next door neighbor, and they say, gosh,
12:55
Speaker 3: these are big spending cuts, it's worth asking them, was
13:00
Speaker 3: it the apocalypse five months ago? Would the world end
13:04
Speaker 3: if we spent as much in the federal government today
13:07
Speaker 3: as we spent five months ago. That's what Joe Biden
13:10
Speaker 3: is freaking out about and calling extreme. What this budget
13:14
Speaker 3: does is it cuts spending to what it was in
13:16
Speaker 3: December of twenty twenty two, and then it allows spending
13:20
Speaker 3: to grow at one percent per year going forward. And
13:22
Speaker 3: what else does it do? It rescinds unspent COVID money.
13:28
Speaker 3: So there's roughly about thirty billion dollars that Congress appropriated
13:32
Speaker 3: to deal with COVID. Now, look, even Joe Biden admits
13:35
Speaker 3: the COVID pandemic the emergency's over. So the Democrats are
13:39
Speaker 3: saying it is radical and extreme not to spend money
13:43
Speaker 3: on a pandemic that's over. That doesn't make any sense.
13:47
Speaker 3: What else does it do it cuts the spending for
13:51
Speaker 3: the eighty seven thousand new IRS agents that the Democrats
13:55
Speaker 3: really want to harass the enemies of the White House,
13:59
Speaker 3: to attack the middle class and the working class. An
14:03
Speaker 3: overwhelming majority of Americans would love to see those eighty
14:07
Speaker 3: seven thousand new IRS agents not materialize. And then one
14:13
Speaker 3: of the biggest things that Democrats are freaking out about
14:17
Speaker 3: is the work requirements for welfare. And this is just
14:22
Speaker 3: a real divide. Look, you want to know what today's
14:24
Speaker 3: Democrats are all about. They're all about paying people not
14:28
Speaker 3: to work. And I got to say, I think, not
14:31
Speaker 3: only is that bad policy, but it's cruel. I think
14:34
Speaker 3: people want to work, they want the dignity of work,
14:37
Speaker 3: they want to self respect. One of the most amazing
14:40
Speaker 3: policy results we had when Trump was president we had
14:43
Speaker 3: Republican majorities in both houses, is seven million Americans came
14:47
Speaker 3: off of food stamps, which meant seven million people got
14:51
Speaker 3: to experience the joy of going to work and providing
14:56
Speaker 3: for their family. And you know, you think about it,
14:57
Speaker 3: that meant like a single mom would be coming home
15:01
Speaker 3: in Dallas, Texas, and she'd be carrying two bags of
15:05
Speaker 3: groceries and she'd set the groceries on the kitchen table,
15:08
Speaker 3: and her kids would look at her with a newfound
15:12
Speaker 3: respect because she'd worked and she'd provided for the family,
15:16
Speaker 3: and she'd look in the mirror and have a new
15:19
Speaker 3: self respect. I think everyone wants to work, and everyone
15:25
Speaker 3: who is able to do so should work. And if
15:29
Speaker 3: you look at welfare reform, which when Bill Clinton was president,
15:33
Speaker 3: Republicans in the House forced Bill Clinton to sign, and
15:36
Speaker 3: by the way, Joe Biden voted for. Ironically enough, today
15:39
Speaker 3: he says work requirements for welfare are extreme and draconian.
15:43
Speaker 3: He voted for them when he was in the Senate,
15:46
Speaker 3: and they were an incredible policy success in the nineteen nineties,
15:50
Speaker 3: just like under Trump. They resulted in millions of people
15:54
Speaker 3: going back to work and people re entering the workforce
15:58
Speaker 3: providing for their families. That is unambiguously good and it
16:02
Speaker 3: helps them in addition to helping everybody else.
16:06
Speaker 1: No doubt about that.
16:07
Speaker 2: I want to ask you also about the fourteenth Amendment,
16:09
Speaker 2: because a lot of people have been hearing about that.
16:11
Speaker 1: What does it actually mean?
16:14
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Speaker 2: Mobile dot com. Senator, let's talk a little bit about
17:47
Speaker 2: the fourteenth Amendment. Joe Biden's been talking about this, says
17:50
Speaker 2: he thinks he has the authority to use the fourteenth
17:52
Speaker 2: Amendment on the debt ceiling. What's funny about that is
17:56
Speaker 2: Janet Yellen went on TV on Sunday morning and actually
17:58
Speaker 2: contradict to that, saying, no, I don't think that we
18:01
Speaker 2: can use that. There's a lot of mixed signals coming
18:04
Speaker 2: out of this White House. What is the fourteenth Amendment
18:07
Speaker 2: and why are Democrats all of a sudden obsessed with it?
18:10
Speaker 3: Well, democrats hate the debt ceiling. They don't want anything
18:13
Speaker 3: that constrains spending or that constrains debt. And so this
18:18
Speaker 3: is an extreme legal theory. I think it's a frivolous
18:21
Speaker 3: legal theory, but it's something that the radical left is
18:24
Speaker 3: seizing upon right now. Now, what is the fourteenth Amendment?
18:27
Speaker 4: Say?
18:28
Speaker 3: Then, in particular, this focus focuses on section four the
18:31
Speaker 3: fourteenth Amendment. So the fourteenth Amendment was one of three
18:35
Speaker 3: amendments that was passed right after the Civil War. The
18:38
Speaker 3: Thirteenth Amendment end of slavery, the fifteenth Amendment gave African
18:44
Speaker 3: Americans the right to vote. Their foundational landmark amendments. The
18:49
Speaker 3: fourteenth Amendment was likewise absolutely foundational, and its most important
18:54
Speaker 3: provisions ensure everyone gets the equal protection of the laws.
18:59
Speaker 3: That's called the equal Protection Clause, and also protects the
19:03
Speaker 3: rights to due process that you cannot have life, liberty,
19:07
Speaker 3: or property deprived from you by states without due process
19:11
Speaker 3: of law. And that was incredibly important protection of rights
19:15
Speaker 3: and especially rights for African Americans who had been enslaved
19:19
Speaker 3: prior to the Civil War, and the fourteenth Amendment was critical.
19:22
Speaker 3: It was the first major step and constitutional step to
19:26
Speaker 3: protecting people's civil rights. Now Section four dealt with something different,
19:31
Speaker 3: which we'd just come through a civil war. It was
19:32
Speaker 3: very expensive, and there were a bunch of debts that
19:35
Speaker 3: the United States had incurred fighting against the Confederacy, and
19:39
Speaker 3: there were also a bunch of debts the Confederacy had
19:42
Speaker 3: incurred fighting against the Union, and what the Congress wanted
19:48
Speaker 3: to do in the fourteenth Amendment is to say, we're
19:51
Speaker 3: going to pay all the debts of the Union, the
19:54
Speaker 3: debts that were incurred fighting to keep America whole. But
19:58
Speaker 3: we're not going to pay the debts of the Confederates.
20:00
Speaker 3: See the money they borrowed to wage civil war. We're
20:03
Speaker 3: not going to charge the taxpayers for that. We're not
20:05
Speaker 3: going to pay that. You're out of luck if you
20:07
Speaker 3: loan money to fuel the rebellion. So here's what Section
20:11
Speaker 3: four says. Quote, the validity of the public debt of
20:15
Speaker 3: the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for
20:20
Speaker 3: payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection
20:26
Speaker 3: or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United
20:32
Speaker 3: States nor any States shall assume or pay any debt
20:36
Speaker 3: or obligation incurred in aid of an insurrection or rebellion
20:41
Speaker 3: against the United States, or any claim for the loss
20:45
Speaker 3: or emancipation of any slave. But all such debts, obligations,
20:50
Speaker 3: and claims shall be held illegal and void. Now, notice
20:54
Speaker 3: part of that was saying, Okay, there's no debt for
20:56
Speaker 3: the slaves who are liberated. It's not like the prior
20:59
Speaker 3: slave holders could bring a legal claimer say pay us back.
21:02
Speaker 3: It's like, no, slavery was horrible and evil and it
21:05
Speaker 3: is ended, and you ain't get nothing. That's what section
21:08
Speaker 3: four of the Fourteenth Amendment said. Now what has happened
21:13
Speaker 3: is is the far left has seized upon that, and
21:18
Speaker 3: in particular the language that says the validity of the
21:22
Speaker 3: public debt of the United States shall not be questioned.
21:26
Speaker 3: And they say, well, that means the debt ceiling is
21:28
Speaker 3: unconstitutional and Biden can just borrow anything he wants. That
21:32
Speaker 3: position is absurd. It's not what it says. What it
21:36
Speaker 3: says is that the United States was going to pay
21:38
Speaker 3: our debts from fighting the Civil War. But and to
21:44
Speaker 3: be clear, two people who agree with that are Barack
21:50
Speaker 3: Obama and Joe Biden.
21:52
Speaker 2: Two days ago, back in the day, in twenty eleven,
21:57
Speaker 2: Barack Obama actually said this typically about the Fourteenth Amendment
22:02
Speaker 2: and the debt ceiling.
22:03
Speaker 1: Listen to Obama back in twenty eleven.
22:06
Speaker 4: Now, the gentleman asked about the Fourteenth Amendment.
22:09
Speaker 3: There is.
22:12
Speaker 4: There's a provision in our constitution that speaks to making
22:19
Speaker 4: sure that the United States meets its obligations. And there
22:22
Speaker 4: have been some suggestions that a president could use that
22:26
Speaker 4: language to basically ignore this debt ceiling rule, which is
22:31
Speaker 4: a statutory rule, it's not a constitutional rule. I have
22:37
Speaker 4: talked to my lawyers. They do not they are not
22:43
Speaker 4: persuaded that that is a winning argument.
22:46
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the President of United States of America,
22:49
Speaker 2: Joe Biden, back in twenty and eleven. Excuse me, Barack Obama,
22:52
Speaker 2: I say, back in twenty eleven saying that.
22:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, Obama, the same thing. The left was pressing
22:59
Speaker 3: Obama do this, and Obama was willing to stand up
23:02
Speaker 3: to him and say, Nope, we can't do it. And
23:04
Speaker 3: just two three days ago, the left was pressing Biden
23:08
Speaker 3: to embrace this same wacky claim, and he told Brooke progressives, Nope, nope,
23:12
Speaker 3: can't do that. And then what happened as Bernie Sanders
23:15
Speaker 3: gave a speech and said, use the fourteenth Amendment, ignore
23:18
Speaker 3: the death ceiling. Borrow, borrow, borrow, bankrupt the country. That's
23:21
Speaker 3: not exactly what he said, it's basically what he said.
23:24
Speaker 3: And you know what, Biden did the same thing he's
23:26
Speaker 3: done for two and a half years. Every time Bernie
23:29
Speaker 3: Sanders in the socialist bark, he rolls over. He does
23:33
Speaker 3: whatever they say. And so he's was in Hiroshima, Japan
23:39
Speaker 3: at the G seven. He wasn't even here negotiating on
23:41
Speaker 3: the dead ceiling, and he said, well, gosh, you know,
23:43
Speaker 3: I think maybe we can do something on the fourteenth Amendment.
23:46
Speaker 3: But then he says, yeah, but it'd be challenging court
23:48
Speaker 3: and it'd be a real problem. So he showed some
23:52
Speaker 3: leg on the fourteenth Amendment, but the claim would be
23:56
Speaker 3: laughed at a court. And there's a reason Janet Yellen,
24:00
Speaker 3: Biden's Treasury secretary, was on TV yesterday morning on a
24:05
Speaker 3: Sunday show saying no, no, we can't do that. It
24:09
Speaker 3: is it's the extreme left in the Democrat Party who
24:14
Speaker 3: want the debt ceiling eliminated for all time because they
24:18
Speaker 3: want to borrow us into oblivion. And let me take
24:22
Speaker 3: another point about even if their argument were right, and
24:27
Speaker 3: it's not, but if their argument were right, that's something
24:31
Speaker 3: about section for the fourteenth Amendment constrained what the president
24:37
Speaker 3: did here. What that would mean is it would mandate
24:42
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden implement prioritization, do what I said. In
24:47
Speaker 3: other words, it would mandate at most what the fourteenth
24:51
Speaker 3: Amendment would say is that when you hit the debt ceiling.
24:54
Speaker 3: Joe Biden must pay interest on the debt. First, there's
24:59
Speaker 3: nothing in the fourteenth Amendment that says Joe Biden has
25:04
Speaker 3: the ability to fund the IRS and the Department of
25:07
Speaker 3: Labor and every other agency without an appropriation from Congress.
25:11
Speaker 3: The Constitution's absolutely clear. The power of the purse is
25:16
Speaker 3: given to Congress, which means the executive cannot spend money
25:19
Speaker 3: that Congress doesn't appropriate. And so Biden can meet the debt,
25:25
Speaker 3: and so if he does that, his threat of default
25:29
Speaker 3: goes away. But there is nothing, There is no credible argument.
25:33
Speaker 3: In fact, it's absurd. I haven't even heard anyone bother
25:37
Speaker 3: to make the argument that the fourteenth Amendment would let
25:41
Speaker 3: Biden do what the left really wants, which is spend
25:44
Speaker 3: on the entirety of the federal government in perpetuity, even
25:47
Speaker 3: without Congress acting. That is not the way the Constitution operates,
25:52
Speaker 3: and it has not been the way the Constitution is
25:54
Speaker 3: ever operated in over two centuries of our nation's existence.
25:59
Speaker 2: Lastly, before we move on to this other big topic
26:02
Speaker 2: with bud Light, if people are listening right now, they say, okay, center,
26:06
Speaker 2: what do I need to do this week?
26:08
Speaker 1: Do they need? What do they need to be doing.
26:10
Speaker 2: Do they need to call their centers, their congressmen both,
26:13
Speaker 2: and what should they be asking for?
26:15
Speaker 3: Look, I think the best solution is support what the
26:19
Speaker 3: House bill. The House Bill is reasonable, It is a
26:22
Speaker 3: good solution. It is not extreme. It is a modest,
26:25
Speaker 3: incremental step that takes makes real progress in reining in
26:32
Speaker 3: that the out of control spending and debt. It is
26:34
Speaker 3: a very reasonable offer. Now, at the end of the day,
26:39
Speaker 3: does anyone think that the House Bill is exactly what
26:42
Speaker 3: we're going to end up with. No, it's going to
26:44
Speaker 3: be a negotiate agreement somewhere between Congress and the White House.
26:49
Speaker 3: But the White House is gambling that they can just
26:53
Speaker 3: say hell no, jump in a lake and the media
26:56
Speaker 3: will protect them. And so everyone listening to this publuckly
27:00
Speaker 3: speak out, call out the Democrats, call out the White
27:03
Speaker 3: House to stop gambling with our economy and to accept
27:11
Speaker 3: the House's very reasonable offer to rein in spending and
27:18
Speaker 3: start to get our fiscal house in order.
27:22
Speaker 2: I want to move to another issue, and that is
27:23
Speaker 2: the issue of bud Light. Senator, you had a very
27:29
Speaker 2: interesting thing to say on bud Light on Fox and Friends,
27:33
Speaker 2: talking about the partnership with bud Light with Dylan mulvainey
27:38
Speaker 2: and the idea that this was potentially marketing purposely to
27:44
Speaker 2: young people, kids, those under twenty one, which is something
27:47
Speaker 2: that you're not supposed to do. But if you look
27:50
Speaker 2: at mulvaney and who her target audiences, it's very clear
27:54
Speaker 2: that a significant portion of it is twenty one and
27:58
Speaker 2: well below twenty one. I would bud Light have wanted
28:01
Speaker 2: to do this. Now, I want to play for everybody
28:04
Speaker 2: what you said a portion of it on Fox and Friends.
28:07
Speaker 1: Listen.
28:08
Speaker 3: Now you're also on a member of the Congress Committee
28:11
Speaker 3: and a Commerce committee, I should say, and you want
28:13
Speaker 3: to investigate what bud Light was doing with Dylan mulvaney.
28:17
Speaker 4: It destroyed a brand that may not recover.
28:20
Speaker 3: What's your focus, Well, listen, I can't think of a
28:24
Speaker 3: company in modern times that has more alienated its customer
28:27
Speaker 3: base and seem to have so little understanding of who
28:30
Speaker 3: it is that actually drinks bud Light. But this week
28:34
Speaker 3: I sent a letter to the CEO of Anheuser Bush
28:36
Speaker 3: along with Senator Marshall Blackburn, because the CEO of Anheuser
28:39
Speaker 3: Busch is also the CEO or the chairman of the
28:42
Speaker 3: Beer Institute which is the regulatory body, the industry regulatory
28:47
Speaker 3: body that regulates itself. And one of the rules that
28:50
Speaker 3: beer companies are supposed to follow is they're not supposed
28:52
Speaker 3: to market to kids. Remember the whole Joe mccampbell thing,
28:56
Speaker 3: This is the same thing here. Well, you know what,
28:58
Speaker 3: Dylan mulvaney. A mass percentage of Dylan Mulvaney's audience are kids,
29:03
Speaker 3: and Budweiser was trying, I believe, with this ill fated
29:06
Speaker 3: marketing attempt to target teenagers. If you look at things
29:09
Speaker 3: Dylan mulvaney has online, it's things like Days of Girlhood.
29:14
Speaker 3: There's another video where Dylan Mulvaneus is singing my name
29:17
Speaker 3: is Eloise and I am six. There's another one where
29:20
Speaker 3: Dylan Molvanius shopping for Barbie dolls. These are clearly things
29:23
Speaker 3: aimed at teenagers and even children younger than teenagers, which
29:28
Speaker 3: violates the rules. And so we're calling on the Beer
29:31
Speaker 3: Institute to investigate the degree to which Anheuser Busch knowingly
29:35
Speaker 3: was marketing to children in going down this road. Center
29:39
Speaker 3: you never stopped Center, Ted Cruz, thanks so much, appreciated, Senator.
29:42
Speaker 2: The idea that they are policing themselves in a sense,
29:46
Speaker 2: and would investigate themselves. That just in itself seems like
29:51
Speaker 2: the whole system is rigged that the people that may
29:55
Speaker 2: have done the campaign are the ones that are regulating
29:57
Speaker 2: the campaigns.
29:58
Speaker 3: Well, it's an unusual circumstance, and it so happens that
30:02
Speaker 3: right now the CEO of Anheuser Busch is also the
30:06
Speaker 3: chairman of the Beer Institute, which is the industry regulatory body.
30:09
Speaker 3: It's a self regulatory body that was agreed to. But
30:12
Speaker 3: one of the things they've agreed to is fairly strict
30:16
Speaker 3: limitations prohibiting marketing to minors that they're supposed to market
30:22
Speaker 3: to adults, people twenty one and over. And you know
30:25
Speaker 3: I mentioned Joe Campbell. You remember there was a hole
30:28
Speaker 3: they stopped focusing on Joe Cammell in the cigarette contact.
30:33
Speaker 3: The same principle applies to beer that they're not supposed
30:35
Speaker 3: to you know, Barney the Dinosaur should not be marketing beer.
30:39
Speaker 3: That's fairly obvious. The point that I raise, and this
30:43
Speaker 3: is a letter that I sent with Senator Marshall Blackburn,
30:46
Speaker 3: is if you look at Dylan mulvaney and I'm setting
30:49
Speaker 3: aside the transgender issue, which is what's dominated the media attention.
30:53
Speaker 3: I'm just looking at what Dylan mulvaney, who the audience is,
30:58
Speaker 3: and whether it's on TikTok or Instagram. The audience's overwhelmingly kids.
31:03
Speaker 3: A lot of them are teenagers, a lot of them
31:06
Speaker 3: are teenage girls, a lot of them are prepubescent girls.
31:09
Speaker 3: You know the song that Dylan Melvany sings, I Am
31:13
Speaker 3: Eloise and I Am six. That's not even a nineteen
31:16
Speaker 3: or twenty year old six shopping for barbies. The last
31:20
Speaker 3: I checked, sixteen year olds don't shop for barbies. That's eight, nine,
31:24
Speaker 3: ten year olds that are shopping for barbies. And what
31:29
Speaker 3: I am pressing on is to what extent did bud
31:34
Speaker 3: Light deliberately market to teenagers and even preteens, And to
31:40
Speaker 3: what extent did they have any data that said, Okay,
31:43
Speaker 3: if we get preteens and teenagers drinking bud Light, they
31:47
Speaker 3: might be a customer for the rest of their lives.
31:49
Speaker 3: And if they did so, that is in direct violation
31:53
Speaker 3: of the rules governing the marketing of beer.
31:57
Speaker 2: You know there's one also, if you go back, the
32:00
Speaker 2: bud Light VP of Marketing actually not only doubled down
32:05
Speaker 2: on her extreme woke strategy, which was to completely radically
32:09
Speaker 2: change this company. But she mentioned declining cells when she
32:15
Speaker 2: took over and also mentioned young people. I want people
32:20
Speaker 2: to hear this. Now, this was before the mulvaney controversy,
32:23
Speaker 2: but this is the bud Light VP of Marketing in
32:26
Speaker 2: her own words in a interview.
32:28
Speaker 5: Well, I'm a businesswoman. I had a really clear job
32:31
Speaker 5: to do when I took over bud Light, and it
32:34
Speaker 5: was this brand is in decline. It's been in decline
32:37
Speaker 5: for a really long time. And if we do not
32:40
Speaker 5: attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there
32:43
Speaker 5: will be no future for bud Lights.
32:45
Speaker 1: Young drinkers to drink this brand center.
32:48
Speaker 2: I mean, that's pretty brazen to say. Again, I'm going
32:52
Speaker 2: to read the transcript, and if we do not attract
32:55
Speaker 2: young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will
32:59
Speaker 2: be no future or by the light, those are her words.
33:03
Speaker 3: You know. It's funny, Ben. In the couple of days
33:08
Speaker 3: since I sent this letter calling for this investigation, the left,
33:12
Speaker 3: both Democrats and in particular left wing media outlets have
33:15
Speaker 3: been losing their mind. MSNBC has been running these pieces saying,
33:19
Speaker 3: you know, Cruise is this radical filled with hate, and
33:23
Speaker 3: none of them actually address the substantive point that beer
33:28
Speaker 3: companies are bound by rules not to market to kids,
33:31
Speaker 3: and none of them are disputing what I think is
33:35
Speaker 3: indisputable is that Dylan mulvaney is engaged in an aggressive
33:40
Speaker 3: campaign marketing to kids. Those are facts, and those are
33:45
Speaker 3: facts that Look, when it comes to transgender issues, today's
33:49
Speaker 3: left is so extreme that you're not allowed to question
33:52
Speaker 3: anything about it, and so they're reflexively circling the wagons saying,
33:57
Speaker 3: how dare Cruz ask these questions? Well, you know, I've
34:02
Speaker 3: got a job to do. My job's to represent thirty
34:04
Speaker 3: million Texans, and my job is also as the ranking
34:07
Speaker 3: member on the Commerce Committee, we've got direct jurisdiction over
34:11
Speaker 3: beer companies marketing to kids, and so we're going to
34:14
Speaker 3: press to get to the bottom of it. And I'll
34:16
Speaker 3: tell you this, if bud Light has marketing documents that
34:20
Speaker 3: say have projections of how many teenagers they could get
34:24
Speaker 3: to drink bud Light by marketing to them, that is
34:28
Speaker 3: going to be a big, big problem. If they deliberately
34:32
Speaker 3: went down this road to do what you just played
34:35
Speaker 3: from the VP of marketing to try to get more
34:37
Speaker 3: young drinkers underage.
34:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, in her words, we got to get young drinkers.
34:44
Speaker 2: That's pretty damning right there. I want to also talk
34:47
Speaker 2: about a Republican and I would say Icon, especially behind
34:52
Speaker 2: the scenes, on individual who's we should take a moment
34:56
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36:27
Speaker 1: Senator, there is a name.
36:28
Speaker 2: Some may remember this name, others may not, but nonetheless
36:36
Speaker 2: see Boyden Gray who was a lawyer. He has been
36:40
Speaker 2: in the establishment conservative passed away at the age of eighty.
36:45
Speaker 2: He was What I love about his story is he's
36:47
Speaker 2: a former Democrat. He actually served as White House counsel
36:50
Speaker 2: under George Bush and aided presence including Ronald Reagan and
36:54
Speaker 2: Donald J.
36:55
Speaker 1: Trump.
36:55
Speaker 2: He has passed away at what an amazing man. You've
36:58
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time with him. Let's talk a
37:00
Speaker 2: little bit about what he did for this country.
37:03
Speaker 3: Well, Boyden Gray passed away yesterday. He was eighty years old.
37:07
Speaker 3: He was someone who's a good friend. I knew Boyden
37:09
Speaker 3: very well. He lived a remarkable life. He was born
37:12
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty three in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and
37:18
Speaker 3: he came from a family who had been an extraordinary family.
37:21
Speaker 3: His dad, a fellow named Gordon Gray, was the US
37:26
Speaker 3: National Security Advisor to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. So when
37:31
Speaker 3: it comes to government service, it was a tradition in
37:33
Speaker 3: the family. His grandfather was president of the RJ. Reynolds
37:37
Speaker 3: Tobacco Company. So Boyden came from considerable wealth. He went
37:46
Speaker 3: to Harvard University in nineteen sixty four. He wrote for
37:49
Speaker 3: the Harvard Crimson and then he enlisted the Marines and
37:53
Speaker 3: he was a sergeant in the Marines from nineteen sixty
37:55
Speaker 3: five to nineteen seventy. He then went to the University
37:59
Speaker 3: of North Carolina Law School and he was editor in
38:02
Speaker 3: chief of the North Carolina Law Review, and he was
38:04
Speaker 3: first in the class. And from that he became a
38:07
Speaker 3: law clerk to the Chief Justice of the United States,
38:10
Speaker 3: to Earl Warren, which is pretty extraordinary. And he became
38:15
Speaker 3: a very prominent lawyer in private practice at the Wilmer, Cutner,
38:21
Speaker 3: Cutler and Pickering, which is a big d C. Law firm,
38:26
Speaker 3: And then in nineteen eighty one he went to work
38:30
Speaker 3: for the White House as legal counsel for the Vice President,
38:33
Speaker 3: George Herbert Walker Bush. When Bush became president, he came
38:38
Speaker 3: back and became the White House counsel for Bush forty one,
38:42
Speaker 3: and he was very close to Bush forty one. The
38:44
Speaker 3: two of them played tennis together. They were close friends together.
38:48
Speaker 3: Boyden was someone who he was an unusual guy. He
38:51
Speaker 3: was about six feet six, he was tall, skinny, lanky,
38:55
Speaker 3: and he was brilliant. I mean, he had a mind
38:58
Speaker 3: that was a marvel to behold, and he was passionate
39:03
Speaker 3: about freedom. He'd been a Democrat, he'd been a law
39:06
Speaker 3: clerk for Earl Warren, but he was in no way,
39:09
Speaker 3: shape and form a liberal. He believed in freedom and
39:13
Speaker 3: especially economic liberty when it came to regulatory reform. I
39:18
Speaker 3: don't know that there's been a more important person in
39:20
Speaker 3: the last fifty years fighting to rein in the regulatory
39:24
Speaker 3: state than Boyden Gray. He was relentless, He was very
39:28
Speaker 3: active with Freedom Works, which played a big part in
39:31
Speaker 3: electing me. Boyden was also an early supporter of mine,
39:37
Speaker 3: and when I ran for the Senate, Boyden supported me
39:40
Speaker 3: right at the outset. You know, when I first ran
39:43
Speaker 3: in twenty twelve, when we started, I was at two
39:45
Speaker 3: percent in the polls, and we refer to the folks
39:48
Speaker 3: that were with us from day one as the two percenters.
39:51
Speaker 3: You had to be really out of your mind. Actually, Ben,
39:53
Speaker 3: you were a two percenter, and Boyden was a two percenter,
39:57
Speaker 3: and he hosted fundraisers for me at his home in
40:02
Speaker 3: d C. He backed me early on, and Boyden was brilliant.
40:07
Speaker 3: He was also deeply involved in battles over the Supreme
40:11
Speaker 3: Court when Clarence Thomas. When Bush forty one nominated Clarence Thomas,
40:15
Speaker 3: Boyden was intimately involved in defending Clarence Thomas for the
40:20
Speaker 3: vigorous attack that came after him and getting Thomas through
40:25
Speaker 3: the Senate. And you know, Boyden was I'll tell you
40:29
Speaker 3: something that actually a lot of people don't know. One
40:31
Speaker 3: of the things Boyden was quite passionate about was people
40:35
Speaker 3: with disabilities. And Boyden played a pivotal role in passing
40:42
Speaker 3: the Americans with Disabilities Act. W Boyden Gray and Dick Thornberg,
40:45
Speaker 3: who was the Attorney General under Bush forty one. The
40:48
Speaker 3: two of them were the leading architects of the Americans
40:51
Speaker 3: with Disability Act, and Bush forty one signed it. And
40:54
Speaker 3: you know it's interesting, a lot of Democrats pretend, oh,
40:57
Speaker 3: the ADA is their policy. Well, no, it was Republicans
41:01
Speaker 3: who wrote it. It was Republicans who passed it. It was
41:04
Speaker 3: Republicans who made it happen. And I believe the Americans
41:07
Speaker 3: of Disability Act is a very conservative policy. We started
41:10
Speaker 3: this podcast by talking about the dignity of work. That
41:15
Speaker 3: everyone wants to work, that everyone wants to provide for
41:19
Speaker 3: their own family, and I think people with disabilities that's
41:23
Speaker 3: especially true. Look, if you're blind, if you use a wheelchair,
41:26
Speaker 3: if you have some other impairment. Look, if you're blind,
41:31
Speaker 3: you probably can't be an airline pilot, but there's a
41:33
Speaker 3: lot of good work you can do if you're you know,
41:37
Speaker 3: if you use a wheelchair, you're probably not going to
41:40
Speaker 3: run track, but there are lots of things you can do,
41:43
Speaker 3: including be the governor of the state of Texas. The
41:47
Speaker 3: ADA was all about empowering people with disabilities to work.
41:53
Speaker 3: To their maximum potential and have their maximum independence. And
41:57
Speaker 3: fast forward to nine nine and two thousand, I was
42:01
Speaker 3: a young lawyer. I was working on George W. Bush's
42:03
Speaker 3: campaign and was domestic policy advisor and covered all sorts
42:08
Speaker 3: of legal areas, but one of the areas I covered
42:11
Speaker 3: was disability policy, and I worked very closely with both
42:15
Speaker 3: Boyden and Dick Thornberg in drafting what became George W.
42:20
Speaker 3: Bush's disability policy, which was the New Freedom Initiative, which
42:25
Speaker 3: he introduced and passed early in his presidency. And it
42:30
Speaker 3: again made a real difference helping people with disability live
42:34
Speaker 3: with a maximum independence and engagement in the workforce. All
42:40
Speaker 3: of that is is an incredible legacy. But I'll tell
42:44
Speaker 3: you Ben, actually my favorite memory of Boyden has nothing
42:47
Speaker 3: to do with his impact in life. But Boyden, I've
42:51
Speaker 3: spent time at his house. He had a beautiful house
42:55
Speaker 3: in Georgetown, and one of my favorite memories was being
43:00
Speaker 3: at his house with him and a couple of other
43:02
Speaker 3: folks playing bridge with him. And he was brilliant and
43:06
Speaker 3: fun and smart, and he had a dry sense of humor.
43:10
Speaker 3: And I'm grateful for the legacy Boyd and Gray left
43:15
Speaker 3: for our country. And both Heidi and I were going
43:19
Speaker 3: to miss him. He was an extraordinary man and an
43:21
Speaker 3: extraordinary patriot.
43:23
Speaker 2: I love the story and like you said, what a
43:26
Speaker 2: great legacy to leave behind, an incredible work that he
43:29
Speaker 2: has done, and again, a Boyd and Gray lawyer for
43:34
Speaker 2: the Republican establishment. An amazing guy passed away at the
43:38
Speaker 2: age of eighty one, an amazing life he had lived,
43:41
Speaker 2: and an incredible legacy that he's left behind. Don't forget
43:45
Speaker 2: we do this show three days a week, so make
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Speaker 2: sure you hit that subscribe button right now wherever you listen.
43:50
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44:00
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44:02
Speaker 2: couple of days.