The Ben Shapiro Show - June 09, 2019


Ted Cruz | The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special Ep. 54

Topics
BigToken app term limits Tea Partier activism entitlement reform populist conservatism 2020 presidential race money in politics Reins Act regulatory reform
Hosted by
Ben Shapiro
Guests
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Donald Trump Bernie Sanders Fidel Castro Ronald Reagan Beto O'Rourke Sam Harris Hillary Clinton John F. Kennedy Elizabeth Warren Ross Perot Harry Reid Batista David Dewhurst Jimmy Carter Joe Biden Sonia Obama Pete App Store Walter Cronkite and 18 more
Biden Folds | Ep. 797 The Making Of A New York Times Smear Job | Ep. 798

Episode Stats


Length

1 hour and 2 minutes

Words per minute

189.35

Word count

11,907

Sentence count

863

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

16

sentences flagged

Hate speech

10

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz tells the story of how he became a politician, how he got into politics, and why he thinks he's not actually the Zodiac killer. He also talks about how he was bitten by a radioactive spider as a kid and how it changed his life, and how he ended up in politics. And he explains why he doesn't think he's the "Zodiac Killer." Ben Shapiro is a regular contributor to the New York Times and hosts the podcast "The Ben Shapiro Show" and is one of the most influential people in American politics. He is also the host of the conservative podcast, "The Weekly Standard" and has been a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Armed Services for the past seven years. Make sure to use my referral code, "BenShapiro" to get 20% off your first month with discount code "SHOPBOARD" when you sign up for a free BigToktok. You can also get 10% off of your first purchase when you use the discount code, BONUS. If you like what you hear about Ben Shapiro, then you'll love the show! Subscribe to the show and become a supporter of his new show, Ben Shapiro's Sunday Special! Subscribe and Retweet Ben Shapiro on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe to his new podcast, The Weekly Standard. Learn more about your ad choices. Rate, review and subscribe to his podcast! and review his new book, The Devil Next Door out on Audible. Subscribe on iTunes and become one of his other podcasting buddies! Learn about his upcoming projects and more! Connect with him on Anchor.fm.fm/Ben Shapiro on the Ben Shapiro Podcast Subscribe & Subscribe to Ben Shapiro s Sunday Special on The Ben Shapiro and the rest of his Podcasts on The Six Sigma Podcasts on Six Sigma and Anchor and Subscribe on Podchronicity And much more! Subscribe and share the show on your favorite podcasting platform! on social media! Enjoyed this episode? to let him know what he's listening to this episode means to you'll be featured on the show next week on his next episode of the show? and more on his Sunday Special? Subscribe for a chance to get a discount code Ben Shapiro will be getting a shoutout on the next episode next week! Thanks for listening to his show and much more?

Transcript

Transcripts from "The Ben Shapiro Show" are sourced from the Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool. Explore them interactively here.
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 In our house, you know, it wasn't that politics was something you just kind of read the paper and, oh, that's interesting.
00:00:05.000 I mean, there was an urgency to it.
00:00:07.000 It was having principled men and women in office.
00:00:11.000 That's how you protect yourself from tyranny.
00:00:13.000 And so that's what I wanted to do my whole life.
00:00:23.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show, Sunday special.
00:00:23.000 Hey, hey, and welcome.
00:00:25.000 We're joined by Senator Ted Cruz.
00:00:27.000 We'll get to that in just a second.
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00:01:34.000 Senator Cruz, thanks so much for stopping by.
00:01:36.000 Really appreciate it.
00:01:36.000 Great to be with you, Ben.
00:01:37.000 So, first question.
00:01:38.000 Where were you the night of December 20th, 1968?
00:01:41.000 You know, apparently I was in Northern California.
00:01:45.000 It is amazing the time travel.
00:01:47.000 I mean, I was at that point just a sparkle in my daddy's eyeball.
00:01:51.000 But at the time, I'm blamed for all sorts of things.
00:01:54.000 It's a Zodiac killer joke, guys.
00:01:56.000 It's a joke.
00:01:56.000 He's not actually the Zodiac.
00:01:58.000 So I will tell you, on the presidential, periodically, you'd get college kids that would come up with a sign saying, are you the Zodiac?
00:02:04.000 And more than once, I pulled them aside and said, son, if I were really the Zodiac, would you want to bring that sign here?
00:02:12.000 So, let's start from the premise that you're not the Zodiac Killer, and let's talk about how you got into politics in the first place.
00:02:18.000 So, a lot of people kind of know you from the last seven, eight years since you've been in the Senate, but not everybody knows kind of your origin story of the superhero Ted Cruz.
00:02:26.000 So, Senator Cruz, where did you get started in politics?
00:02:28.000 Well, look, I was a science student, and I was bitten by a radioactive spider, and you know, the rest of it is history.
00:02:37.000 I grew up in Texas, and for me, politics is my family story.
00:02:41.000 I mean, look, all of us are products of our family story.
00:02:44.000 And my dad, as you know, my dad fought in the Cuban Revolution.
00:02:48.000 I mean, when he was a kid, when he was a teenager, he was fighting alongside Fidel Castro, fighting against Batista, who was a corrupt dictator, and was thrown in prison and he was tortured.
00:02:59.000 And my dad came to Texas when he was just 18.
00:03:03.000 And I grew up as a kid hearing stories, hearing stories about being a freedom fighter.
00:03:09.000 And it actually works out.
00:03:11.000 My father fought with Castro, didn't know Castro was a communist.
00:03:14.000 Anytime I really want to yank my father's chain, I'll call him a communist guerrilla and it drives him nuts. 0.97
00:03:21.000 What he knew was that Batista was corrupt. 0.87
00:03:23.000 He was in bed with the mob, you know, Godfather II, you know, that whole, I mean, that was, that was what it was. 0.88
00:03:28.000 It was a completely corrupt dictatorship.
00:03:31.000 And the revolution, as my dad describes it, were a bunch of 14 and 15 year old kids who didn't know any better.
00:03:37.000 Um, my dad left in 57 and he fled Cuba because Batista's army was going to kill him.
00:03:44.000 Um, the revolution succeeds in 59.
00:03:47.000 So 59, Castro declares as a communist, begins seizing people's lands, begins executing dissidents.
00:03:53.000 And my aunt, my tia Sonia, who I'm very close to, uh, she was still there.
00:03:57.000 She's my dad's kid sister.
00:03:59.000 And she fought in the counter revolution.
00:04:01.000 She fought against Castro.
00:04:03.000 She ended up being imprisoned and tortured by Castro's goons.
00:04:07.000 And then she, she ultimately fled Cuba too, came to Texas.
00:04:11.000 And so my cousin, Bebe and I, Bebe is, is, is Sonia's daughter.
00:04:14.000 The two of us as kids, we literally grew up sitting at the feet of my dad and my aunt and listening to them tell stories of, of fighting for freedom.
00:04:22.000 And, and, and that's what I've wanted to do my whole life for as long as I can remember since I was a little kid is, is in our house, you know, it wasn't that politics was something you just kind of read the paper and, oh, that's interesting.
00:04:36.000 I mean, there was an urgency to it.
00:04:37.000 It was having principled men and women in office.
00:04:41.000 That's how you protect yourself from tyranny.
00:04:43.000 And so that's what I wanted to do my whole life.
00:04:45.000 So you ended up going to law school and then being a lawyer for a while.
00:04:48.000 So you kind of moved out of the law.
00:04:50.000 Did you ever want to stay in the legal profession, go into the judiciary, for example?
00:04:54.000 You know, I enjoyed being a lawyer.
00:04:56.000 I had a fair amount of success at it and I liked it.
00:05:00.000 A lot of my practice was, was arguing in front of the U.S.
00:05:02.000 Supreme Court.
00:05:03.000 And I have to admit of law practice, that's probably the piece I miss the most.
00:05:07.000 The Supreme Court is, it's a unique place and, and it is, It is stunningly fast.
00:05:17.000 I mean, one of the wild things about the Supreme Court, if you go and visit the courtroom, and you know how it is, you are surprisingly close to the justices.
00:05:26.000 Um, if you're standing at the podium as counsel, you can almost reach out and shake hands with the chief justice.
00:05:32.000 The chief justice is probably two feet further away from the council than you are right now.
00:05:38.000 And you have nine of the most brilliant lawyers and judges on the planet.
00:05:43.000 And, and you know, an argument at the Supreme Court, it's not you standing up there giving grand oratory.
00:05:50.000 It is rather you stand up and say, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.
00:05:54.000 And almost immediately, the justices are firing in question, just coming at you from every direction.
00:06:00.000 That was a ton of fun.
00:06:02.000 That's something I missed.
00:06:03.000 But that being said, I'm very glad to be where I am, which is in the arena of the Senate and fighting for issues and principles that matter.
00:06:11.000 So how did you get into elective politics?
00:06:13.000 You make the move from the legal profession.
00:06:15.000 You decide to run.
00:06:16.000 I believe your first run was against David Dewhurst.
00:06:18.000 It was.
00:06:19.000 And so Senate was the first, first office I was ever elected to.
00:06:21.000 First, first office.
00:06:23.000 Uh, you know, I joke when I was elected to Senate in 2012, the last thing I'd been elected to before that was student council.
00:06:29.000 Um, but, but that's, that's really the truth.
00:06:31.000 I mean, I, I had been the solicitor general of Texas, which is an appointed position.
00:06:36.000 It's the chief lawyer for the state in front of the U.S.
00:06:38.000 Supreme court.
00:06:40.000 And I had done that.
00:06:40.000 And then I was a lawyer in private practice.
00:06:42.000 Uh, but, but when I started running for Senate, the prohibitive front runner was the sitting lieutenant governor of the state, uh, who was worth a couple hundred million dollars, who had universal name ID, who had, I mean, every lobbyist, every special interest, everybody was with him.
00:06:57.000 Um, and, and when I started, I mean, I was literally at 2%.
00:07:00.000 Uh, you know, I've joked before the margin of error was 3%, but that's actually not a joke.
00:07:07.000 We did a poll at the outset of the campaign to see where things were and that was, those were the first results was 2% support below the margin of error.
00:07:16.000 Um, and in that campaign we just, we ran a grassroots campaign.
00:07:21.000 I mean, we just worked around the clock, traveled the state.
00:07:27.000 You know, going to forums, going to Tea Party groups, going to Republican women groups, you know, and the coalition that came together, it was an incredible coalition.
00:07:36.000 It was young people.
00:07:37.000 It was Hispanics.
00:07:38.000 It was, it was police officers and firefighters.
00:07:42.000 It was working men and women.
00:07:44.000 And it ended up being a grassroots tsunami where we went from 2% to winning the primary by 14 points, winning the general by 16 points.
00:07:53.000 And it really, was a breathtaking example of what the grassroots can do when they're energized and engaged and active.
00:08:02.000 You came in as kind of the leading edge of the Tea Party wave.
00:08:05.000 And obviously at the time there was a lot of talk about Obamacare, a case in which you became incredibly active.
00:08:11.000 What do you think has sort of happened to the Tea Party?
00:08:13.000 There's been a lot of critiques of what happened to the Tea Party because obviously it was primarily driven by small government concerns.
00:08:19.000 Republicans have been in charge of Congress ever since, or at least in charge of the Senate virtually ever since.
00:08:24.000 and yet the government is not getting smaller, What do you think happened to the Tea Party?
00:08:30.000 Well, I think the Tea Party made an enormous difference.
00:08:32.000 And the Tea Party was part of movements that we've seen in this country for a long time.
00:08:36.000 You know, several years ago I wrote a book called A Time for Truth.
00:08:39.000 And each chapter profiles in the front of it a truth-teller, someone who stood up, often at great risk, and told the truth and made a difference.
00:08:50.000 One of the truth-tellers that I highlight is Ross Perot.
00:08:53.000 Who Ross Perot, when he ran against Bush 41 and Bill Clinton, I think that he ran a populist campaign.
00:09:01.000 He ran a campaign that was defending working men and women.
00:09:04.000 And I think actually that Ross Perot campaign where he got 19 percent of the vote nationwide was the initial embers of what became the Tea Party.
00:09:12.000 And it also is the initial embers of much of what elected Donald Trump.
00:09:16.000 In many ways, the biggest divide we've got in Washington, it's not even Democrat or Republican or left or right.
00:09:24.000 It's socioeconomic.
00:09:26.000 A divide between working class men and women in this country and the elites in Washington in both parties.
00:09:34.000 For a long time, there was a disconnect.
00:09:37.000 The Tea Party was an expression of that, of working men and women who were fed up, fed up with economic stagnation, fed up with lack of opportunity, fed up with both parties embracing unchecked illegal immigration and looking for real opportunity.
00:09:53.000 I think the Tea Party made a difference.
00:09:54.000 Now, where are we today?
00:09:57.000 Last two years, we saw some big victories for economic growth.
00:10:01.000 We saw the biggest tax cut in a generation.
00:10:03.000 We saw job-killing regulations repealed, and we're seeing booming job growth.
00:10:08.000 We've got the lowest unemployment in over 50 years.
00:10:11.000 That has benefited working-class men and women.
00:10:14.000 We're seeing manufacturing jobs coming back to America for the first time in a long, long time.
00:10:19.000 That's a victory of the Tea Party. 0.94
00:10:21.000 If you look at Donald Trump's election, listen, Donald Trump's election was in many ways a giant screw you to Washington.
00:10:29.000 And that was a frustration with the career politicians in both parties that elected Trump to begin with.
00:10:36.000 Now, you're right on government spending.
00:10:38.000 We haven't rained it in.
00:10:40.000 And the reality when it comes to spending is on any big spending plan, you get all of the Democrats and about half the Republicans in favor of spending and spending and spending.
00:10:49.000 And so that is going to take ultimately, I think, strong presidential leadership to change it.
00:10:56.000 But I do think where we are seeing progress, even though we're not restraining spending, we are seeing progress on the economic growth side, that the tax cuts and reg reform is a big, big part of solving the problem.
00:11:08.000 And then I think beyond that, we need structural solutions.
00:11:10.000 We need things like term limits.
00:11:12.000 I'm a passionate advocate for term limits because it structurally changes how Washington works.
00:11:18.000 Let's talk about term limits for a second, because I know that this has become a big talking point on the right.
00:11:22.000 I'm personally pretty ambivalent about term limits, just in the sense that, to me, the final repository of power is in the people.
00:11:29.000 If they feel like electing a congressperson 11 times, I suppose that that's their right.
00:11:32.000 I would prefer they not.
00:11:33.000 But why do you think that that restriction is necessary, as opposed to simply saying to the people, you know, vote somebody out?
00:11:40.000 I mean, you took out a guy who is much more favored in your Senate race.
00:11:43.000 So look, I understand that sentiment and there are times even when I've been pretty amenable to it.
00:11:51.000 I don't think it recognizes the reality of the political process today.
00:11:54.000 Number one, there are massive advantages with incumbency.
00:11:58.000 Incumbency in terms of free media, in terms of money, in terms of infrastructure, it's incredibly difficult to defeat an incumbent.
00:12:05.000 But number two, You know, it's interesting, I used to be a supporter of term limits until I got in the Senate, and now I'm a thousand times more a supporter of term limits.
00:12:14.000 Because what I've seen, the dominant instinct, Ben, in the Senate, and it's true in the House also, is risk aversion.
00:12:22.000 You know, there's an old joke that politics is Hollywood for ugly people. 0.91
00:12:28.000 There's enormous truth to that. 0.83
00:12:30.000 You've got old, fat, bald guys who were the unpopular kids in high school who suddenly get elected to Congress and they go to a cocktail party and they're handsome and they're witty and they're wise.
00:12:42.000 They tell a joke and everyone laughs.
00:12:44.000 And it becomes like a narcotic.
00:12:46.000 And what happens is incumbent members of Congress, their dominant focus is, I must get reelected no matter what.
00:12:54.000 And so on any big issue, on any big choice, If there's a serious solution, the reasoning often is, you know what, if we do that, that entails risk.
00:13:03.000 And if there's risk, I might not get reelected.
00:13:05.000 If I don't get reelected, who am I?
00:13:08.000 And so one of the big virtues of term limits is that it ends the phenomenon of career politicians.
00:13:16.000 I've introduced, I'm the author of a constitutional amendment in the Senate, to term limit senators, to two terms, term limit house members to three terms.
00:13:23.000 And the virtue of that is, is that at least you throw the bums out and bring new people in. 1.00
00:13:28.000 And, and I think you're more likely to have, I hope, a Congress that is responsive to the people because the elected officials are not just obsessed with staying there for life.
00:13:40.000 So I want to go back to the Tea Party question for just one second, because the fact is that if you look at the left's perspective on the Tea Party, the way that the left describes the Tea Party is it was effectively a racist movement that disguised itself as a small government movement.
00:13:52.000 And the proof of that is that once the Republicans took power, there was no move toward small government at all.
00:13:56.000 There was just a move toward All the other stuff, the tax cuts and maybe some regulatory reform.
00:14:01.000 So what happened to the priorities?
00:14:02.000 Was it really just an anti-Obama movement or was it a principled movement about the growth of government?
00:14:06.000 Well, look, number one, the left's response to everything is that it's a racist attack.
00:14:11.000 That's their standard.
00:14:12.000 They don't want to engage in ideas.
00:14:13.000 They don't engage in substance.
00:14:15.000 So they just scream bigot and anyone who disagrees with them.
00:14:18.000 I mean, look, I saw on Twitter recently where someone was accusing you of being a Nazi or encouraging Nazis. 0.97
00:14:22.000 Like, what the hell are they talking about?
00:14:25.000 I mean, that's that's. 0.56
00:14:27.000 Lunatic fringe stuff, but it, but it's mainstream media.
00:14:31.000 Um, so you, you had the tea party. 0.90
00:14:34.000 If you have a, a, a gathering, a rally of, of tens of thousands of people, you know what, in any gathering of tens of thousands of people, you can find one or two with tinfoil hats who are nuts.
00:14:44.000 And if you go with a TV camera and look, you're going to find someone who thinks that, and that's who the media focused on.
00:14:51.000 They'd go and find one or two people who are on sort of the outer fringe and say, this is the whole tea party.
00:14:56.000 Tell you who Tea Party activists were.
00:14:59.000 They were regular people.
00:15:00.000 They were working class men and women.
00:15:02.000 They weren't the people who had lobbyists.
00:15:04.000 They were the people who, you know, tea stood for tax enough already.
00:15:09.000 It was a movement that was focused primarily on taxes, on spending, on debt and on economic growth.
00:15:19.000 I do think.
00:15:21.000 We've moved away from some of the corruption of Washington, from some of the swamp.
00:15:25.000 And I think the Trump administration has been positive in that regard.
00:15:29.000 Um, it's still the case that government keeps growing and growing.
00:15:34.000 But you know, look, one of the things the media never covers, we passed a major tax cut in December of 2017.
00:15:43.000 Federal tax revenues since that tax cut have gone up.
00:15:47.000 In other words, the federal government is taking more money in, more revenues in, with lower tax rates.
00:15:52.000 Now that doesn't surprise you and it doesn't surprise me, in part because we know something about history.
00:15:58.000 If you look back, JFK campaigned on cutting taxes, he cut taxes in office and federal tax revenues went up.
00:16:05.000 Ronald Reagan campaigned on cutting taxes, he cut taxes in office and federal revenues went up.
00:16:11.000 Now, the reason that the deficit and the debt keeps growing is that spending is growing even beyond that.
00:16:16.000 But I do think the first piece of it, the economic growth, is important.
00:16:20.000 And I'm going to continue fighting for both pieces of it.
00:16:23.000 So in one second, I want to ask you about the possibilities of some form of entitlement reform, because Republicans talk a lot about it and then seem not to do much about it.
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00:17:35.000 Alrighty, so let's talk about entitlement reform.
00:17:36.000 So Republicans are constantly talking about we need to reform entitlement.
00:17:39.000 66% of our spending is Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
00:17:42.000 Everybody knows this stuff.
00:17:43.000 Everybody knows that we're going to bankrupt ourselves within the next 15 years if we do nothing about it.
00:17:46.000 And yet it seems like there's very little taste for this, including at the presidential level.
00:17:49.000 President Trump said in 2016 he has no interest in touching entitlements.
00:17:53.000 Do you basically see this as just a train that we are going to drive into Eastwood Gulch?
00:17:57.000 I mean, is that where we are going or is there a possibility of change?
00:18:00.000 I think to see real entitlement reform, we're going to have to see leadership from the top.
00:18:05.000 And you're right.
00:18:06.000 Donald Trump didn't campaign on entitlement reform and, and, uh, he doesn't seem focused on, on leading in this regard.
00:18:13.000 Without that, it's not going to happen.
00:18:16.000 I think ultimately it's critical to the solution.
00:18:18.000 I'm, you know, two thirds of the federal spending or our entitlement programs are mandatory spending that grow.
00:18:24.000 We could eliminate everything else and that still doesn't solve the problem.
00:18:26.000 Of course, we're not going to eliminate everything else.
00:18:29.000 Um, I will say also, I think it's possible to engage and engage proactively on entitlement reform.
00:18:35.000 So for example, for a lot of years, let's take social security.
00:18:39.000 Social security was treated as the third rail of politics.
00:18:41.000 You touch it, you get electrocuted.
00:18:43.000 Well, I can tell you in 2012 when I got elected to the Senate the first time, I campaigned on it.
00:18:48.000 In 2018, I campaigned on it.
00:18:50.000 And I think what politicians in Washington are doing right now is irresponsible, both parties, because they're allowing social security to careen towards insolvency.
00:19:00.000 And I think it is a critical bulwark that millions of Americans rely on.
00:19:04.000 So how do we reform it?
00:19:06.000 Four specific principles.
00:19:08.000 Number one, seniors, those on Social Security or near retirement, no changes at all. 0.98
00:19:12.000 Nothing.
00:19:13.000 Zero.
00:19:13.000 Not a penny.
00:19:15.000 We've made promises.
00:19:15.000 People have counted on it.
00:19:16.000 They've ordered their financial affairs.
00:19:18.000 We need to honor those promises.
00:19:20.000 But for younger workers, people your and my age, it is hard to find someone in their 30s or 40s who believes Social Security will be there for us.
00:19:32.000 That's an incredible opportunity for reform.
00:19:34.000 If we've got a generation who understands this is headed towards insolvency, three critical reforms for younger workers.
00:19:42.000 Number one, gradually increase the retirement age.
00:19:45.000 When Social Security was enacted, life expectancy was much, much less.
00:19:48.000 People are working a lot longer.
00:19:50.000 Gradually increase the retirement age for younger workers and give us time to plan on it and arrange our finances accordingly.
00:19:57.000 Number two, change the rate of growth of Social Security benefits so that it matches inflation instead of exceeding inflation.
00:20:05.000 Those two changes bring Social Security into solvency.
00:20:08.000 But the third change for younger workers I think is the most important.
00:20:12.000 Allow younger workers to keep a portion of our tax payments in a personal account that we own, that we control, that we can invest, and that we can use in addition to the retirement payment, and that we can pass on to our kids and grandkids.
00:20:26.000 That is transformative.
00:20:29.000 It is something I've been fighting for since I arrived in the Senate, and I intend to keep fighting for it.
00:20:32.000 So I want to talk about the future of the Republican Party from two particular angles.
00:20:37.000 I want to talk about it from the conservative angle, like where the attacks are coming from on the right and where the attacks are coming from on the left.
00:20:43.000 So let's start with the right.
00:20:44.000 It seems like, at least in 2016, there was this emerging gap between the, quote unquote, populist conservatism of President Trump and sort of the classical old school conservatism that you were representing in the 2016 race.
00:20:55.000 And in the end, it seemed as though the populist conservatism was was ascended.
00:20:59.000 I never really bought into the idea that populist conservatism was an ideology.
00:21:04.000 It seemed like more of an affect to me.
00:21:06.000 And in terms of policy, President Trump has basically governed like a conservative with the absence of any sort of spending cuts.
00:21:11.000 Do you think that there is such a thing as populist conservatism and how much how much, I guess, attention should be paid to the prevarications of people who say that the future of the Republican Party lies in things like tariffs and government involvement and subsidies and all that sort of stuff?
00:21:26.000 You know, look, I do think there is such a thing as populism, but I'm going to a little bit fight the hypo and reject the characterization.
00:21:34.000 You know, I'm very much a Reagan conservative, but I think Reagan was a populist.
00:21:37.000 If you look at free market principles, they are all about working men and women. 0.91
00:21:42.000 They are all about opportunity.
00:21:44.000 They're all about Folks like my dad, when he came from Cuba with nothing, having an opportunity, he washed dishes making 50 cents an hour, but he was in an economic environment where you could climb that economic ladder.
00:21:56.000 And so, you know, if you look at 2016, we talked a little bit earlier about the socioeconomic divide.
00:22:04.000 2016 Republican field, there were 17 Republicans running.
00:22:08.000 And if you were laying odds in D.C.
00:22:10.000 or New York at the beginning of the campaign, who was going to be the nominee?
00:22:13.000 Who was going to win the election?
00:22:16.000 Nobody would have bet on Donald Trump.
00:22:18.000 And actually, nobody would have bet on me either.
00:22:19.000 We might have been 16 and 17 in the betting odds.
00:22:22.000 There were a bunch of other candidates that were supposed to be the dominant juggernauts.
00:22:27.000 If you fast forward to the primaries, if you look at almost every state and if you look at working class voters, Working class voters in almost every state, either Trump was one and I was two, or I was one and he was two.
00:22:40.000 And it is almost perfectly correlated.
00:22:42.000 The states where I was one and he was two among working class voters are the 12 states I won.
00:22:48.000 The states where he was one and I was two are the states he won.
00:22:51.000 And none of the other 17 candidates won more than a single state.
00:22:55.000 Kasich won Ohio, Rubio won Minnesota, and Trump and I won the other 48.
00:22:59.000 Now that utterly upended Washington conventional wisdom.
00:23:03.000 But the reason that happened, I believe, is because Washington politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, were not responding To the Ohio steel workers, to the truck drivers, to the waitresses, to the, to the cops and firefighters, to the men and women with calluses on their hands.
00:23:21.000 So when I hear populism, that's what I think about is who are you fighting for?
00:23:26.000 And, and look, big government and socialism, the Democrats fight for the elites, for the special interest.
00:23:32.000 Under Obama, the rich got richer.
00:23:34.000 Big government and big business do great together because big business gets in bed with big government.
00:23:40.000 My view, listen, I'm very skeptical of big business.
00:23:42.000 I'm interested in small businesses.
00:23:43.000 I'm interested in the next generation of creative destruction and entrepreneurs.
00:23:48.000 And so I think Breaking the corporatist cronyism of Washington was a very important issue in 2016.
00:23:59.000 And those same working class voters, by the way, that decided the 2016 primary are also the voters who won the general election, who gave Trump the victory over Hillary Clinton.
00:24:08.000 So I think in that regard, now that doesn't mean.
00:24:11.000 As the media pundits want to say that you suddenly have a whole dramatically new agenda.
00:24:15.000 If you look at what Trump has actually enacted, I've worked very closely with the president on this tax cuts, repealing job killing regulations, securing the border, rebuilding the military.
00:24:23.000 Those are conservative values, but they respond to the working men and women in this country.
00:24:29.000 So the sort of left-wing critique of republicanism is that if you look at, let's say, the 2016 primaries, where you're finishing high and Trump is finishing high, and you look at your economic theories, your economic theories are very dissimilar.
00:24:40.000 You went into Iowa and what I thought was an incredibly brave move.
00:24:43.000 You said no more subsidies for ethanol, which in Iowa is basically political suicide.
00:24:48.000 And then you proceeded to win Iowa, whereas President Trump went in there and basically said, look at Senator Cruz.
00:24:52.000 He's the one out there saying that or lying dead, as he put it.
00:24:55.000 And he's the one out there saying that, you know, he's going to take away your subsidies.
00:24:58.000 So, in other words, you guys were sort of at odds on economics.
00:25:00.000 So putting in the same basket economically, the critique of the media and the left would say is is not supremely accurate.
00:25:06.000 What they would say is that this is a culture war issue.
00:25:08.000 That basically there are a lot of people in the middle of the country who are sick of being disrespected by the media elites on both coasts who had treated them as the great unwashed masses and that you were giving them respect and President Trump was giving them respect.
00:25:20.000 That's the nice way of putting it from the left.
00:25:21.000 The bad way of putting it from the left is obviously that all these unwashed masses are, in fact, unwashed masses and that you unified them because there was a covert racism to to your campaign or to President Trump's campaign.
00:25:33.000 That gets back to what we were saying earlier.
00:25:35.000 But it does raise a question, which is how can the Republican Party reach out beyond its sort of traditional constituency?
00:25:41.000 I know there's a lot of talk about this leading up to 2016.
00:25:43.000 Obviously, you're Hispanic.
00:25:44.000 Senator Rubio is Hispanic.
00:25:46.000 There was a lot of talk about this kind of the new faces of the Republican Party.
00:25:49.000 And then the guy who wins the presidency is a is a 70 year old white guy from New York.
00:25:55.000 And so there is a lot who who was making some appeals that that were certainly, you know, controversial, to say the least.
00:26:01.000 What do you make of that critique and how does the Republican Party move into new audiences?
00:26:05.000 Well, I think, first of all, I remember down in South Carolina, right before the South Carolina primary, I was doing a media gaggle.
00:26:13.000 And one reporter asked said, what do you do about the fact that the Republican Party are a bunch of old white guys?
00:26:20.000 And I just started laughing.
00:26:21.000 I said, excuse me, have you looked at the field?
00:26:25.000 We have an African-American, world-famous physician.
00:26:31.000 We have Carly Fiorina, a Fortune 50 CEO.
00:26:36.000 We have two sons of Cuban immigrants, both in their early to mid-40s.
00:26:41.000 Compare that to the Democratic Party.
00:26:42.000 It's like that 70s shows.
00:26:44.000 You had a bunch of septuagenarians battling it out.
00:26:46.000 And by the way, fast forward to today, it seems now they're, they're, you know, octogenarians.
00:26:51.000 By the way, if all of these folks can run, one word I'll say to our Democratic friends, you know, Jimmy Carter is still alive and he only served one term.
00:27:00.000 I mean, if they're, if they're going for yesteryear, I think they need to recruit Jimmy Carter.
00:27:05.000 Look, the Democratic Party is a throwback to old and failed ideas, and they're galloping that way.
00:27:12.000 Now, one of the challenges we have is we have a one of the great virtues of the age of Trump Is is fake news has been exposed.
00:27:21.000 You know, you remember a few years ago, people used to argue, oh, the media isn't biased.
00:27:25.000 Nobody argues that anymore.
00:27:27.000 I mean, they're so plainly unhinged.
00:27:29.000 You watch these reporters foaming at the mouth.
00:27:32.000 You watch these networks that they hate Trump so much.
00:27:36.000 Now, listen, you and I both had our disagreements with Donald Trump.
00:27:39.000 But but you look at just the naked, irrational hatred of the media left.
00:27:46.000 Directed at Trump, and that is revealing of who they are.
00:27:49.000 Now the challenge is, and this is a challenge for you and for me and for everyone, is to get folks that are not living and breathing this every day, get young people and Hispanics and African-Americans and suburban moms to understand and focus on the substance and the issues.
00:28:05.000 These policies matter.
00:28:06.000 Listen, if you're a young person, it matters when you come out of school, whether you have booming economic growth and lots of job opportunities or whether you move into your parents' basement because the economy is so stagnant as it was under the Obama years that you can't get a job.
00:28:21.000 But we've got to communicate it.
00:28:22.000 We've got to get it around the media filters that don't want anyone to hear that truth.
00:28:27.000 So what sort of message do you purvey there?
00:28:29.000 So one of the things that's been fascinating to me, I'm from California, the Republican Party has been eviscerated among Hispanic voters in California. 1.00
00:28:36.000 That is not what has happened in Texas.
00:28:37.000 In Texas, what is it, a 55-45 or 60-40 split in favor of Democrats, but it's certainly competitive with Republicans.
00:28:43.000 Here it's something like 80-20 in favor of Democrats, if that, it may be higher.
00:28:47.000 So what has been done in Texas?
00:28:49.000 What have you done in your races to help draw Hispanic voters?
00:28:51.000 So look, in Texas in 2012, I got 40% of the Hispanic vote.
00:28:55.000 In 2018, I got 42% of the Hispanic vote.
00:28:58.000 And that is despite the media demagoguing like crazy.
00:29:02.000 And listen, I think the Hispanic community is a fundamentally conservative community.
00:29:08.000 If you look at the values in our community that resonate.
00:29:12.000 Family, patriotism, hard work.
00:29:16.000 You know, a friend of mine years ago asked an interesting question.
00:29:18.000 He said, when's the last time you saw an Hispanic panhandler?
00:29:24.000 I gotta tell you, I don't think I ever have.
00:29:26.000 Because frankly, in Hispanic culture, it would be seen as shameful to be out there on the streets begging.
00:29:32.000 And yet, You look at hard work, individual responsibility, and those are conservative values.
00:29:40.000 And you also look at what unifies the Hispanic community, which is the immigrant experience coming to America seeking freedom.
00:29:47.000 That is a message that resonates.
00:29:49.000 But I'll tell you, I had the exact same message in the Rio Grande Valley and overwhelmingly Hispanic communities that I had in deep East Texas.
00:30:00.000 And the message of jobs and freedom and security, that's a message that resonates.
00:30:05.000 Now, listen, California is a special place.
00:30:08.000 I'll tell you, it's interesting.
00:30:10.000 When I'm out in California, I'll get together with conservatives, with Republicans, and it's almost like conservatives in California are beaten down.
00:30:19.000 I'll tell you a point, though, that a lot of people don't know.
00:30:21.000 Do you know what state has the most Republicans?
00:30:23.000 By numbers, we do.
00:30:24.000 I mean, it's a very popular state.
00:30:26.000 There are more Republicans in California than there are in Texas.
00:30:29.000 Every California Republican I tell that to is shocked and amazed.
00:30:34.000 Now, there are even more Democrats.
00:30:35.000 I'm not saying that conservatives are not outnumbered here, but a lot of the California conservatives and Republicans are just beaten down.
00:30:43.000 They don't believe that they can change the state politics.
00:30:46.000 But look, I think the Hispanic community.
00:30:50.000 is a conservative community, but we've got to respond to the needs and interest and values in the Hispanic community.
00:30:57.000 If you look right now, today we have the lowest Hispanic unemployment ever recorded.
00:31:02.000 We've also got the lowest African American unemployment ever recorded.
00:31:05.000 Now, the clown show that is the Democratic 2020 primary, None of them are going to admit that.
00:31:10.000 They're going to go to Hispanics and African-Americans that are seeing the lowest unemployment ever recorded, and they're going to say, these policies are terrible for you.
00:31:17.000 You should go back to the Obama era policies where you had much higher unemployment, much higher poverty.
00:31:23.000 That is nonsense.
00:31:25.000 Let me give you one of my favorite stats of the last two and a half years.
00:31:29.000 The last two and a half years, five million people came off of food stamps.
00:31:34.000 Five million.
00:31:35.000 And look, as Republicans, we've got to be able to articulate that and explain it in a way that that's not just a number on a pie chart.
00:31:46.000 Those are five million real human beings.
00:31:48.000 Those are moms and dads who two and a half years ago, they were dependent on the federal government for their basic food needs, who now presumably they've gotten a job.
00:31:57.000 They're coming home tonight.
00:31:59.000 They're carrying a bag of groceries.
00:32:00.000 They're setting it down on the kitchen table.
00:32:02.000 And those moms and dads are looking their kids in the eyes.
00:32:04.000 They're having the dignity of work, the self-respect of work.
00:32:07.000 That is what the American dream is all about.
00:32:10.000 Being able to provide for your family, achieve your dreams.
00:32:14.000 But we've got to communicate and tell you in the Hispanic community, that is a powerful message.
00:32:19.000 Hispanics don't want to be dependent on government.
00:32:21.000 And what, what, what the socialists, what the Democrats say is they want them to be dependent on government.
00:32:26.000 They want them to be a vassal dependent state, vote for Democrats and be trapped in dependencies.
00:32:32.000 What I, what I know Hispanics want is the independence to chase their dreams.
00:32:37.000 That is a conservative message.
00:32:39.000 So, you were somehow able to defeat the second coming himself, the greatest candidate in the history of American politics, Beto O'Rourke, who skateboarded in from the heavens. 0.95
00:32:46.000 Well, apparently not smoking a doobie, which is shocking to me.
00:32:50.000 And then you defeated him and relegated him to eating dirt.
00:32:52.000 And then he actually did this.
00:32:54.000 He went to New Mexico and he ate ceremonial dirt. 0.92
00:32:56.000 And then he decided to run for president.
00:32:57.000 Apparently the dirt didn't do him any good because the media have fallen out of love with Beto.
00:33:01.000 So to me, this is a media story.
00:33:03.000 They created him from nothing, and now they have sent him back to the dust from once he Well, listen, I think he is a talented politician.
00:33:09.000 that race went and how much of that was just media hype?
00:33:11.000 Well, listen, I think he is a talented politician.
00:33:14.000 I also think that the heart of his base was the media who were just enthralled with him.
00:33:22.000 There was, I think, a macro in every story.
00:33:24.000 If you're writing a Beto profile, it automatically populated with the adjective Kennedy-esque.
00:33:30.000 In fact, I think your publisher wouldn't, your editor wouldn't publish it without Kennedy-esque.
00:33:35.000 They'd talk about his hair and his teeth and his smile.
00:33:38.000 And it was just, it actually read like, you know, Teen Vogue.
00:33:46.000 I mean, it was talking about the latest heartthrob And, look, it ain't complicated.
00:33:53.000 If you're a leftist journalist and you could beat one Republican in the country who was on the ballot in 2018, it'd be me.
00:34:02.000 You know, you and I are not supposed to exist.
00:34:05.000 You're an Orthodox Jew who is not a hard leftist.
00:34:08.000 That, from their perspective, how dare you?
00:34:12.000 Embrace a different view.
00:34:14.000 I'm an Hispanic son of an immigrant who believes in freedom and believes in conservative values.
00:34:18.000 That drives the left out of their mind.
00:34:21.000 And so you saw the media just rush in with this glowing adulation.
00:34:27.000 You can trace the point that changed, and it was the day after the general election, when suddenly Beto is not running against me, but is running against a bunch of other leftists, is running against Bernie Sanders, is running against Kamala Harris.
00:34:40.000 And the media turned.
00:34:42.000 I mean, it it is stunning.
00:34:46.000 I mean, they turned.
00:34:48.000 Here is a classic illustration.
00:34:50.000 Reuters.
00:34:52.000 In 2017.
00:34:55.000 Had evidence that O'Rourke was part of a hacker cult as a teenager and may have committed multiple felonies.
00:35:03.000 They went and interviewed, Reuters interviewed Beto in 2017.
00:35:06.000 He admitted it all, said, yep, yep, I did that.
00:35:08.000 And Reuters said, I'll tell you what, we will embargo this.
00:35:11.000 We won't publish it for a year and a half.
00:35:15.000 We won't publish it until after the November 2018 election.
00:35:19.000 You know, everyone knows we got to do everything we can to beat Cruz.
00:35:23.000 After that, we'll publish it.
00:35:24.000 So they came out now, you know, the, the sort of weird fan fiction he wrote as a kid, the, the, the bizarre stuff like fantasizing running over children.
00:35:32.000 All of that came from Reuters is reporting that they just sat on, they put on ice for a year and a half until after the election.
00:35:40.000 Now, what do you think of the odds, Ben?
00:35:42.000 If they had evidence that I'd committed multiple felonies that they'd say, gosh, we'll just sit on it for a year and a half and not publish it.
00:35:49.000 This is, in fact, the best proof that you're not the Zodiac Killer, because if you were, there is no question they would have uncovered this and brought it out against you.
00:35:57.000 True enough.
00:35:58.000 OK, so let's talk for a second about sort of your image as portrayed by the media over the course of your career.
00:36:04.000 So you start off, you win this stunning victory against David Dewhurst.
00:36:06.000 I remember I was there.
00:36:08.000 I remember you coming from nowhere to win this victory against a very heavily favored opponent.
00:36:12.000 And then you start kind of climbing the ranks in the sense that you're getting all sorts of media attention, you're giving speeches on the Senate floor, and then came the point where it seemed like the world turned against you, and that was when you decided to filibuster the Obamacare vote.
00:36:27.000 Where you got up and you started talking about how the Republican majority leader had failed to stop Obamacare properly.
00:36:34.000 What was your motivation for doing that?
00:36:35.000 I know that the take from cynical politicos was that it wasn't going to be effective, so it was basically you just grandstanding.
00:36:41.000 And then there was the take from other conservatives who were basically saying, no, somebody has to stand up and do this or it's going to get funded and it's never going to go away.
00:36:48.000 Why did you do that?
00:36:49.000 Look, I did it for two reasons.
00:36:51.000 Number one, Obamacare was going into effect.
00:36:54.000 And once it went into effect, it was going to prove incredibly difficult to unwind.
00:36:59.000 And number two, I had promised the people of Texas, I told the voters of Texas in 2012, I said, if you elect me, I will fight with every ounce of strength in my body.
00:37:09.000 I will lay in front of a speeding train to stop this disaster that is Obamacare.
00:37:14.000 That was a promise.
00:37:16.000 And so what I endeavored to do each and every day, and I still do, is keep those promises.
00:37:21.000 You're right.
00:37:22.000 The media pounded the heck out of me.
00:37:24.000 Republican leadership pounded the heck out of me.
00:37:26.000 The left pounded the heck out of me.
00:37:28.000 But to be honest, I really don't give a flip.
00:37:34.000 And part of it is because I try to remember who I'm working for.
00:37:38.000 You know, I remember back in 2012, I remember a little old lady up in East Texas who grabbed me by the shoulder.
00:37:46.000 She said, Ted, please, don't go to Washington and become one of them.
00:37:55.000 You know, in many ways, being elected with a grassroots movement, it's liberating.
00:38:01.000 Because when I was elected, every lobbyist in the state was against me, just about.
00:38:05.000 Every major corporation was against me.
00:38:07.000 Every major trade association was against me.
00:38:09.000 That means I'm not beholden to any of them.
00:38:12.000 What I am beholden to are the truck drivers and oil field workers and college kids and all the working men and women who knocked on doors, who worked their hearts out.
00:38:23.000 And so I tried to On every decision, say, all right, how would I explain it to the men and women that I sat in town hall after town hall after town hall with?
00:38:32.000 And when it came to Obamacare, what, what Republican leadership was content to do is do nothing.
00:38:38.000 That was not acceptable.
00:38:40.000 And I, and I'll tell you, you know, in the middle of that, that Obamacare filibuster, Where I spoke for 21 hours on the Senate floors, the phones lit up, millions of phone calls went into Congress.
00:38:51.000 Republican leadership hated that because the American people said, we don't want this disaster that is Obamacare.
00:38:57.000 If you remember, the Wall Street Journal did an editorial where it called me the minority maker, said Ted Cruz is going to single handedly keep Harry Reid as majority leader.
00:39:08.000 Now, if in the 2014 election, Republicans had been decimated and Harry Reid had remained majority leader.
00:39:15.000 How quick do you think all those media pundits, all that Republican leadership would have been to victory lap and said, aha, see, we told you this fight is destroying our majority, which they said every day.
00:39:27.000 In 2014 Republicans won nine seats in the US Senate.
00:39:31.000 We retired Harry Reid as majority leader and we won the biggest majority in the house since I believe 1928.
00:39:39.000 And not a one of the folks in leadership thought, gosh, maybe the fact that we were standing up and fighting on Obamacare and finally doing something and finally trying to honor our promise, maybe that has something to do with people showing up.
00:39:52.000 And voting.
00:39:53.000 I think the way you win elections, look, the Washington conventional wisdom is you win elections by standing for nothing, by getting along and going along.
00:40:04.000 I think the way you win elections by giving people a reason to vote, by standing and saying, look, we're going to follow through and do what we said we would do.
00:40:13.000 That gives people a reason to go knock on doors.
00:40:15.000 That gives people a reason to make phone calls.
00:40:20.000 In 2016, in the presidential race, my campaign had 326,000 volunteers knocking on doors, making phone calls, sending emails.
00:40:33.000 As a way of perspective, the Hillary Clinton campaign talked about their target for the general election was 10,000 volunteers.
00:40:40.000 We had 326,000.
00:40:42.000 We ended up raising over $92 million, which is the most money any Republican has ever raised in a presidential primary in history.
00:40:50.000 That came from 1.8 million contributions.
00:40:53.000 That's what happens when you actually just, you just do what you said you would do.
00:40:57.000 None of this is rocket science.
00:41:00.000 It's actually why, look, there's some Republicans who run in their states as moderates.
00:41:08.000 For those Republicans, I'm not mad at them when they vote as moderates.
00:41:11.000 I think that's honest.
00:41:12.000 I may disagree with them on a policy issue, but if they tell the voters, here's where I stand, then, then, then if they vote that way, all right, that's democracy.
00:41:19.000 What I think the voters resent is those same people that were blasting me when they're out campaigning.
00:41:26.000 They tell people, I'm just like it.
00:41:28.000 And then they get to Washington and say, no, no, no, let's not actually do what we said we would do.
00:41:33.000 Look, when Trump astonished the media class, astonished Washington by winning, I think it was right at the heart of The American people fed up with people in Washington not doing what they said, and they believe this guy's going to blow up Washington.
00:41:51.000 And I think we've seen some good results, not all good results, but a lot of good results because of it.
00:41:56.000 So you run this very knock-down, drag-out race with President Trump.
00:42:00.000 Honestly, you have a lot more wherewithal than I would have.
00:42:03.000 I mean, he attacked you as Lyin' Ted, he attacked your father, he suggested that he was involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy, he attacked your wife, and you kind of Look, you can't take any of this personally.
00:42:22.000 You have to have a thick skin.
00:42:24.000 And it is, I guess, a virtue in politics or the media to be able to be whacked in the head with a stick and keep on going.
00:42:32.000 Did I like what Trump said in the primary?
00:42:34.000 No.
00:42:37.000 That being said, he's not the first person to have thrown insults to me.
00:42:40.000 He's not the last person.
00:42:41.000 That's that's the environment we live in.
00:42:44.000 Now, I try not to respond in kind.
00:42:46.000 You don't see me vilifying and insulting the character of others, whether Republicans or Democrats.
00:42:52.000 I'll engage with them on ideas.
00:42:55.000 I'll talk to you about why Bernie Sanders ideas are terrible.
00:42:57.000 But, you know, I don't I don't play that way.
00:43:03.000 You know, when it came November 2016, when Trump won, I faced a choice at that time.
00:43:08.000 It would have been easy to have my feelings hurt.
00:43:12.000 It is very difficult to find something that will piss me off more than going after my family.
00:43:16.000 So I was not happy about that.
00:43:19.000 But I had a job to do.
00:43:20.000 I'm elected to represent 28 million Texans.
00:43:24.000 And if I had taken my marbles and gone home, I wouldn't be doing my job.
00:43:29.000 And so, you know, I got on a plane, I flew to New York, went to Trump Tower the week after the election in November.
00:43:36.000 And I said, Mr. President, this is an historic opportunity.
00:43:39.000 We've got both houses of Congress and the White House.
00:43:44.000 We've got to deliver on our promises.
00:43:46.000 And I told him that I said, Mr. President, I want to do everything humanly possible.
00:43:51.000 To help bring Republicans together so we can do what we said we would do that at the end of the day.
00:43:56.000 That's why I ran for Senate.
00:43:58.000 I believe this stuff.
00:43:59.000 I believe in low taxes, low regulation.
00:44:01.000 I believe in liberty.
00:44:02.000 I believe in the Constitution.
00:44:04.000 These principles work.
00:44:06.000 And if we had wasted that window of opportunity, it would have been a tragic missed opportunity that might never come again.
00:44:14.000 By the way, if you're given control of both houses of Congress in the White House and you blow it and do nothing. 0.97
00:44:20.000 Nobody would fault the voters for saying, you know, why vote for these clowns? 0.98
00:44:23.000 They don't do anything. 0.96
00:44:24.000 We at least, in the two years we had it, we delivered a great deal.
00:44:27.000 I wish we delivered more, and I was pressing very hard to deliver more.
00:44:31.000 But I'm really grateful for everything we did deliver.
00:44:33.000 And so that's why I work with the president.
00:44:37.000 I don't like everything he says.
00:44:38.000 I wish he would say some different things and do some different things.
00:44:41.000 But I do like the policy victories that we've won for the people of Texas and the American people.
00:44:46.000 And the booming economy and the improved national security that we're seeing are both direct results of that.
00:44:51.000 So I don't want to turn you into a political pundit, but I would be remiss because I've been asking everybody this, and I think everybody's asking this.
00:44:57.000 How do you think that the 2020 race goes?
00:44:59.000 Because, you know, from my perspective, the president's got a very good record.
00:45:03.000 He's got a lot to run on.
00:45:04.000 At the same time, he says things that alienate vast swaths of the American population.
00:45:09.000 Where do you think this is going in 2020?
00:45:10.000 Listen, I'm worried about 2020.
00:45:11.000 I think it's 50-50.
00:45:12.000 I think it's a coin flip.
00:45:15.000 I think the country is deeply divided.
00:45:18.000 It is an incredibly polarized country.
00:45:20.000 And I think it all comes down to turnout.
00:45:22.000 I think the left is going to show up in massive numbers.
00:45:27.000 And it all comes down to who shows up on the center right.
00:45:31.000 If conservatives stay home, if working class voters stay home, we could see devastating losses.
00:45:36.000 We could see losing the White House and losing the Senate with massive harm to the country as a result.
00:45:43.000 On the other hand, if we turn people out, we could have a great victory.
00:45:45.000 We could retake the House and, and, and, and, and hold, hold the White House and have the president reelected.
00:45:52.000 You know, I actually think a very good, um, crystal ball for 2020 is what happened in 2018, in particular in Texas in 2018.
00:46:02.000 So if you look at the Texas Senate race where the media was all in, uh, Beto O'Rourke raised over $80 million.
00:46:11.000 He outspent us.
00:46:13.000 Three to one.
00:46:14.000 Now, some people say, you know, it's interesting, I hear sometimes, oh, come on, money doesn't matter in politics.
00:46:19.000 Really?
00:46:20.000 You typically hear that from people who've ever run for office because money is the tool by which you communicate, particularly when the media is all in on the other side.
00:46:28.000 Let me give you one example of how money matters in politics.
00:46:32.000 My campaign in 2018 had 18 full time campaign staffers.
00:46:38.000 Beto O'Rourke's campaign had 805, 18 to 805.
00:46:45.000 Try any other battle with that kind of mismatch in terms of resources.
00:46:50.000 And, and what ended up happening, the Democrats increased their turnout in the state of Texas more than 100%.
00:46:55.000 than 100%.
00:46:57.000 1.8 million Democrats showed up in 2014, the last off cycle election, 1.8 million.
00:47:04.000 This time around 4 million Democrats showed up.
00:47:08.000 They increased from 1.8 million to 4 million.
00:47:12.000 Now, thankfully, what we did is we turned out 4.2 million Republicans, and that .2 was the entire margin of victory.
00:47:19.000 Now, how did we do that?
00:47:20.000 Part of it was at the end, I did a barnstorming tour of the state.
00:47:25.000 Got in a bus and we did 50 town halls and rallies in the last six weeks all over the state and, and rang the bell and said to any common sense conservatives in Texas, if you want to see low taxes, low regulations, lots of job, if you want the border secure, if you want the constitution and the bill of rights protected, show up and vote.
00:47:46.000 I think that's exactly what we're going to see in 2020.
00:47:49.000 Every leftist in the country is going to show up and they're going to crawl over broken glass.
00:47:52.000 They hate Donald Trump with a white hot passion.
00:47:56.000 You're going to see Democrats in areas you didn't know there were any Democrats.
00:47:59.000 They're, they're going to crawl out of the woodworks, which means we've got to give everyone else a reason to show up and vote.
00:48:06.000 And this is where the DC instincts are so dangerous.
00:48:09.000 Because if the DC Republicans say, oh, it's a close election, let's stand for nothing.
00:48:15.000 Let's just, just let's not do anything.
00:48:17.000 Let's not have any fights.
00:48:18.000 Let's avoid standing for anything.
00:48:21.000 That's how you depress the voters.
00:48:22.000 And that's how you lose the election.
00:48:24.000 The way instead we win 2020 is we give people a reason to vote.
00:48:29.000 We stand for big, bold, you know, Reagan used to say paint in bold colors, not pale pastels.
00:48:34.000 I think that's the key to winning the election.
00:48:36.000 So let's talk about Texas.
00:48:38.000 Arizona, another state where we are seeing movement toward the purple.
00:48:41.000 In Texas, obviously that's been at the top of Democrats' list.
00:48:43.000 The reason that you were target number one is because they saw that as an indicator that they could finally turn this kind of deep red state blue.
00:48:49.000 Do you think that Texas is moving in the direction of the blue?
00:48:51.000 It looks right now like a lot of folks are moving into Austin, a lot of folks moving into urban areas that are much more to the left.
00:48:58.000 The voting records tend to show more Democratic turnout.
00:49:01.000 Is Texas in danger of turning purple?
00:49:03.000 Absolutely.
00:49:04.000 I think Texas is a battleground.
00:49:06.000 And you know, there are two broad, there are a lot of different movements going on, but two broad political movements that are cross-cutting.
00:49:12.000 One thing we're seeing in recent years is working class voters are moving right. 0.93
00:49:16.000 That's making states like Midwestern states trend more Republican.
00:49:20.000 What we're also seeing, however, is suburban voters, in particular suburban women, are trending left.
00:49:27.000 That means states with big suburban populations, states like Texas, states like Georgia, states like Arizona, Are trending left.
00:49:34.000 They're becoming more purple.
00:49:36.000 You know, Texas, people think of Texas as a, as a rural state, you know, sort of the cowboy ethos, but we're one of the most urban and suburban states in the entire country.
00:49:46.000 Three of the 10 biggest cities in America are in the state of Texas and four of the 11 biggest cities in Texas are in the country are in Texas.
00:49:55.000 Uh, in Texas, between Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio, over two thirds of the voters in the state of Texas are in those, those four major metro areas.
00:50:05.000 We have massive suburban populations.
00:50:08.000 Basically the way the Texas voting typically works is you have the cities which have been democratic for a while, the core of the cities, and then you've had these bright red doughnuts around the cities that have been suburban Republicans.
00:50:20.000 That's what's kept Texas solidly Republican.
00:50:23.000 Well, what happened in twenty eighteen is those bright red doughnuts became purple as suburban voters moved heavily left.
00:50:30.000 By the way, that's what decimated the congressional Republicans in California.
00:50:36.000 California has a lot of suburban voters as well.
00:50:38.000 Places like Orange County that used to be very Republican and they moved significantly to the left.
00:50:44.000 If we're going to stay competitive, we've got to be.
00:50:49.000 Reaching those suburban moms and making the case why these policies matter, why, why socialism and open borders, why that is bad for, for suburban moms, why that's bad for your kids, why that's bad for your future. 0.96
00:51:04.000 The media doesn't want any of those messages to get across.
00:51:07.000 And so that means it's our job and we've got to do it in ways that get around the gatekeepers because the gatekeepers They're not pretending to be Walter Cronkite anymore.
00:51:19.000 They are full-on partisans.
00:51:22.000 They will put on their hat and they will cheer for whatever leftist wins the Democratic nomination, and they will do everything they can to collate the information and to pitch a propaganda war.
00:51:36.000 For those of us who value freedom, we've got to counteract that.
00:51:38.000 So if you look at the Democratic field, is there anybody in the Democratic field who you find particularly scary for the general election as opposed to the other candidates?
00:51:47.000 I think the Democrats are going to nominate someone from the far left.
00:51:53.000 You know, right now, Joe Biden's having a moment.
00:51:55.000 I don't think Biden will be the nominee because all of the energy, all of the passion in the Democratic Party is on the extreme left.
00:52:04.000 I think it's likely it's probably one of four people that it that it is.
00:52:09.000 Bernie, Kamala Harris, Beto or Elizabeth Warren.
00:52:16.000 And maybe I'd throw Mayor Pete into that.
00:52:18.000 He's kind of having a moment.
00:52:19.000 He's stolen some of Beto's thunder.
00:52:22.000 Um, I think the nominee is likely to come from, from that group because that's where the fire is. 0.96
00:52:30.000 Um, now some on the right conservatives, when I say something like that, they go, Oh great.
00:52:35.000 Okay. 0.98
00:52:36.000 Those guys are so loony. 0.96
00:52:37.000 Of course we win. 0.96
00:52:39.000 That ain't the case at all.
00:52:41.000 Listen, the terrifying thing is I think America is entirely capable of voting for an unabashed, wild-eyed socialist.
00:52:50.000 We are divided.
00:52:51.000 180,000 votes switch in 2016 and Hillary Clinton's the president.
00:52:55.000 This country is divided on a razor's edge.
00:52:59.000 And so that means we've got a job to do.
00:53:04.000 You know, between those candidates, I think Bernie and Warren are the least good at hiding just how out there they are.
00:53:16.000 I think Harris and Beto and Mayor Pete, to some extent, are better at seeming reasonable while embracing lunatic left positions.
00:53:28.000 But whoever, whoever the Democrats nominate, I believe will be formidable because everyone left of center is showing up in 2020.
00:53:36.000 Their base, to be honest, Their turnout tool is Donald J. Trump.
00:53:43.000 In the race against Beto, Beto rarely mentioned my name.
00:53:47.000 He ran against Donald Trump.
00:53:47.000 He didn't run against me.
00:53:50.000 In this election, that's going to turn their base out. 1.00
00:53:52.000 Now, the good news is if we turn just center-right voters out, people who believe in common sense, That's how we win, but we've got to turn them out.
00:54:01.000 So I want to ask you about sort of the checks and balances in the system.
00:54:05.000 So one of the critiques of the Republican Senate particularly, and the Republican Congress more generally than the Republicans held the House, was that they were delegating too much authority to the executive branch.
00:54:14.000 I felt for a very long time that the legislature is becoming a vestigial organ of American government.
00:54:19.000 Everything is being done by bureaucracies and that the Senate and the Congress are deeply unwilling to take back any of the statutorily and constitutionally granted powers they were granted.
00:54:29.000 To take an example, when it comes to trade authority, the idea of delegating one-way trade authority to the executive branch and then not being able to pull it back, or when it comes to the making of war, not pulling back any of that authority.
00:54:41.000 What do you think about the possibility of Congress at any point in the future starting to take back some of that power?
00:54:45.000 Look, I hope we do.
00:54:46.000 I'm a big believer in revitalizing Article One, having Congress take the responsibility to be accountable to the people again.
00:54:52.000 There are strong structural incentives that Congress doesn't want to do it.
00:54:58.000 It's much easier To kick the responsibility over to the unelected regulators.
00:55:04.000 You know, last year in 2018, I made a very hard pitch to Republican leadership.
00:55:09.000 I made a very hard pitch to the White House that we should take up another budget reconciliation.
00:55:16.000 Now, you recall, budget reconciliation is the procedural tool that we used in 2017 to pass the tax cut.
00:55:23.000 The only thing that's relevant for this discussion is that budget reconciliation can't be filibustered.
00:55:28.000 It only takes 50 votes to pass, so the Democrats can't stop it.
00:55:32.000 And I urged we should take up a budget reconciliation in 2018, win some more victories.
00:55:37.000 And there are four things in particular that I said we should do.
00:55:40.000 Number one, we should build a wall.
00:55:42.000 We could have done it with only Republican votes.
00:55:42.000 Fully funded.
00:55:44.000 The Democrats could not have stopped us.
00:55:47.000 Number two, we should have made the individual tax cuts and the small business tax cuts permanent.
00:55:51.000 Both of those are set to sunset.
00:55:53.000 We could have made them permanent forever.
00:55:56.000 Number three, we should have passed what I call the Obamacare consensus reforms.
00:56:00.000 In the Senate last year, we didn't have 50 votes for a total repeal.
00:56:03.000 Tragically, I fought hard for that, but we had 50 votes for a lot of the reforms that would have increased competition, increased, uh, choices and lowered premiums for working men and women.
00:56:13.000 That would have been a great victory.
00:56:14.000 And then number four, and this goes right to your question, is that I urge we should pass what's called the Reins Act.
00:56:20.000 The REINS Act would be the most sweeping regulatory reform ever passed by Congress.
00:56:25.000 It would say that no economic regulation can go into effect unless it receives an affirmative up-down vote from Congress.
00:56:33.000 If its impact on the economy would be a hundred million dollars or more.
00:56:37.000 Um, we could have done that with only Republicans.
00:56:40.000 The Democrats would have screamed, they would have yelled, but they couldn't have stopped us.
00:56:45.000 Now, I made that case.
00:56:46.000 I did a long PowerPoint to all the Republican senators.
00:56:48.000 I pitched it over and over and over again for the last six months of 18.
00:56:51.000 I made that case directly to the president.
00:56:54.000 I made that case to the vice president.
00:56:55.000 I made that case to the chief of staff.
00:56:58.000 At the end of the day, Republicans didn't do it.
00:57:00.000 And, and, and frankly, the answer as to why was never, never very satisfying.
00:57:04.000 It was just, no, it's too hard.
00:57:05.000 It's not worth it.
00:57:07.000 I don't understand why we had a golden opportunity.
00:57:11.000 Yes, we've accomplished a lot.
00:57:14.000 But if we had taken up those victories, it would have been truly transformational.
00:57:19.000 And the only thing lacking was the understanding of how to do it and the willingness to actually stand and fight.
00:57:27.000 You know, that's kind of an example.
00:57:30.000 Of where I said the Washington instinct is, oh, we got an election.
00:57:33.000 Let's not take on anything consequential.
00:57:35.000 What I urged the president and Republican leadership, I said, you know what?
00:57:39.000 Let's do this.
00:57:40.000 Imagine if we had done this in October, October of last year, we're fully funding building a wall on the entire border.
00:57:49.000 You've got Elizabeth Warren screaming on the Senate floor. 1.00
00:57:52.000 You've got Bernie pulling his hair out.
00:57:53.000 You got the media going crazy and we have the votes and get it done.
00:57:57.000 Imagine how many Americans show up to say, my God, these people actually made a promise and they did what they said.
00:58:03.000 We might very well, I believe, have held the house, not made Nancy Pelosi speaker, if we had taken up that fight and won that fight and gotten another victory.
00:58:14.000 But unfortunately the, the leadership wasn't willing to do that.
00:58:19.000 What do you fear most?
00:58:20.000 I mean, right now, there's the possibility, as you say, a 50-50 shot that President Trump loses the presidency.
00:58:25.000 If that happens, then Democrats have at least a decent shot at taking the Senate.
00:58:29.000 What is the proposal that you see from the Democrats that you fear the most right now that they're pushing?
00:58:33.000 Look, to be honest, it's all of the above.
00:58:36.000 If Democrats win the White House, there's a very good chance they win the Senate as well.
00:58:41.000 Um, if that happens, if they have control over both houses of Congress and the White House, I think their objective will be to try to make structural changes to make their rule perpetual.
00:58:57.000 So what will that mean?
00:58:58.000 That will mean a number of things.
00:58:59.000 Number one, all right, let's start economically.
00:59:02.000 Tax cuts immediately repeal, but we're not going back to the status quo ante.
00:59:06.000 I think they will jack up taxes dramatically.
00:59:10.000 Uh, particularly if they get elected on the angry howl of socialism.
00:59:17.000 Just think for a moment, you got Democrats talking about 70% tax rate or higher.
00:59:21.000 I think you'll see those policies pass.
00:59:24.000 By the way, I believe if Democrats take the white house and the Senate, they will end the filibuster within a month of taking office, which means the Republican minority won't be able to stop it.
00:59:34.000 Just the Democrats together will be able to do it.
00:59:37.000 Um, on immigration, I think you will see a massive open borders proposal, all designed to ensure democratic control.
00:59:46.000 So the 12, 13, 14 million people here illegally, I think Democrats will grant every one of them amnesty and try to give them citizenship as quickly as possible because they believe that that most of those people here illegally will vote, uh, democratic.
01:00:00.000 And that's designed to ensure their control and just to underscore that.
01:00:06.000 You know, we're sitting here in California.
01:00:09.000 California for a long time was the heart of the Republican Party.
01:00:12.000 California had voted in six consecutive presidential elections, Republican.
01:00:18.000 California had given us Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
01:00:22.000 In 1987, Congress passed the last amnesty proposal.
01:00:26.000 Three million people here illegally granted amnesty.
01:00:29.000 The last election California ever voted Republican was 1988, the year after that amnesty proposal.
01:00:35.000 It has gone Democrat every year since then.
01:00:37.000 The Democrats take control.
01:00:38.000 They will endeavor to do that in the whole country so that no Republican can win again.
01:00:44.000 I also think there is a very good possibility.
01:00:47.000 That they vote to stack the Supreme Court.
01:00:49.000 So, you know, one of the areas where we're very grateful for the victories we've had has been strong constitutionalist judges on the court.
01:00:56.000 You're seeing Democrats right now embracing, um, expanding the court from nine to 15.
01:01:02.000 If they had six Supreme Court justices immediately, you would see a radical left wing court and, and, and all of that.
01:01:12.000 Look, one of the problems, the left, They're all in.
01:01:18.000 They believe in this crazy stuff.
01:01:19.000 You know, Bernie and Kamala Harris were talking, what, a few weeks ago about the need to give every convicted murderer the right to vote.
01:01:30.000 Now, let me ask you, Ben, who in their right mind looks at the United States of America and said, you know what our democratic process needs?
01:01:37.000 Charles Manson's voting. 0.99
01:01:39.000 Like, like that is bat crap crazy. 0.98
01:01:43.000 But they're all in on this. 0.87
01:01:45.000 The problem when Republicans, when we have unified control, you know, you know, we're sort of like, like, like Thurston Howell.
01:01:52.000 Oh my goodness, we wouldn't want to do anything like that.
01:01:55.000 No, no, no.
01:01:55.000 We're in a cricket match.
01:01:56.000 No, no, no, no, no.
01:01:58.000 We need to have the same focus, the same zealotry for freedom that the left has for government.
01:02:06.000 That's the fundamental fight.
01:02:08.000 And, and, and I think if they take control, particularly if they get the Senate too, it is unbelievably dangerous.
01:02:14.000 In a second, I want to ask you a final question, which is I need to get your take on the Game of Thrones finale, because I know that you're watching.
01:02:18.000 But if you actually want to hear Senator Cruz's answer, you have to be a Daily Wire subscriber.
01:02:21.000 Subscribe.
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01:02:23.000 Click subscribe.
01:02:24.000 You can hear the end of our conversation over there.
01:02:26.000 Senator Cruz, thanks so much for stopping by.
01:02:28.000 I really appreciate it.
01:02:29.000 Good to see you, sir.
01:02:29.000 Good to see you.
01:02:30.000 Good to see you.
01:02:40.000 Executive producer, Jeremy Boring.
01:02:42.000 Associate producer, Mathis Glover.
01:02:44.000 Edited by Donovan Fowler.
01:02:45.000 Audio is mixed by Dylan Case.
01:02:47.000 Hair and makeup is by Jesua Olvera.
01:02:49.000 Title graphics by Cynthia Angulo.
01:02:51.000 The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special is a Daily Wire production.