Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 26, 2023


72% of Voters say ＂U.S. Out of Control＂, plus The Truth Behind Silicon Valley Bailout, & Religious Liberty Debacle at Walter Reed


Episode Stats


Length

43 minutes

Words per minute

162.38356

Word count

7,037

Sentence count

529

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz reacts to Joe Biden's announcement that he's running for president in 2020 and explains why he thinks things are out of control because Joe Biden is the reason they voted for him to be the next president of the United States of America.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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 .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.460 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.300 Welcome.
00:00:06.200 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.
00:00:08.260 Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.580 The big announcement dropped, Senator.
00:00:12.260 Joe Biden announced with a massive live event,
00:00:17.260 huge audience at a sold-out auditorium
00:00:20.660 that he was running for president
00:00:22.840 of the United States of America today for re-election.
00:00:26.180 It was a big crowd.
00:00:27.680 Just kidding.
00:00:28.440 No, none of that happened.
00:00:30.240 It was a video that probably took about 100 hours to edit.
00:00:34.120 You watched the video, Senator.
00:00:35.600 Your initial reaction to this lackluster announcement.
00:00:39.320 Well, they had three minutes for him to read from a teleprompter.
00:00:43.980 I'm sure it took 100 takes to get him to read those three minutes.
00:00:49.700 And his three minutes were, let's keep getting the job done.
00:00:53.920 And I got to say, that is a weird message.
00:00:56.460 I mean, you look at the last two years.
00:00:58.680 The disaster of what has unfolded under Joe Biden.
00:01:03.240 Let's take the economy.
00:01:05.060 We have the worst inflation of our lifetime.
00:01:09.100 So you have to go back to when you were a sparkle in your daddy's eyes,
00:01:13.600 and I was a little kid, to find a time when the inflation was this bad.
00:01:18.440 You have crime rates exploding across the country, murder rates, carjacking rates all over the country.
00:01:25.120 You have the worst illegal immigration in the history of our nation. 1.00
00:01:29.860 You have a relentless assault on our constitutional rights, on religious liberties, on the Second Amendment, on the right to life. 0.69
00:01:40.400 And then, as bad as the domestic policy is, as bad as the foreign policy is, you have a national security policy that is an utter disaster.
00:01:54.460 Every single region of the world is worse.
00:01:57.180 We are facing the first major land war in Europe since World War II.
00:02:03.520 We are facing China stronger, North Korea stronger, Iran stronger, Cuba stronger, Nicaragua stronger, every enemy of America stronger.
00:02:13.480 And what does Joe Biden say?
00:02:15.320 Give me four more years.
00:02:16.280 Let's do more of this.
00:02:17.300 It's like, holy cow, how could you possibly want more of this?
00:02:24.260 This is if Madison Avenue put together an ad campaign that had zero to do with substance.
00:02:32.340 It could not have been more apropos for this announcement video than what we saw today.
00:02:37.000 I rarely laugh at late night anymore, and you and I have talked about that before on this show.
00:02:41.920 But last night, someone sent me the clip of Jimmy Fallon, and he said this idea that, you know, let's get the job done, like this slogan.
00:02:50.520 He's like, you've had over 50 years, man.
00:02:53.180 And the audience died laughing, a liberal audience sitting in, you know, with Jimmy Fallon.
00:02:57.520 He's like, how much more time do you need to get the job done?
00:03:01.240 You've been in office for 50-plus years.
00:03:04.740 And real polling is backing up that joke and the sentiment of that.
00:03:09.140 CBS News poll has a new poll out, and the question was, things in the U.S. are out of control.
00:03:16.220 72% of respondents said that things in the U.S. are out of control.
00:03:21.820 Reasons that you think things are out of control.
00:03:25.880 71% said Joe Biden.
00:03:29.520 75% U.S. culture and values.
00:03:32.340 85% the economy.
00:03:33.920 And 88% state of U.S. politics.
00:03:35.720 The fact that 71% say the top answer among those who are thinking the reason is out of control, 71% say it's Joe Biden.
00:03:44.120 The other thing that I think is going to be very interesting to see how this plays out is,
00:03:48.540 saying Biden is among the reasons things are out of control,
00:03:51.840 33% of Democrats are responding and said they believe the reason why things are out of control
00:03:58.380 is because the guy they voted for, Joe Biden, is the president of the United States of America.
00:04:04.360 You've run for election.
00:04:06.140 You look at internal poll numbers.
00:04:08.220 If you're Joe Biden right now or his team, and you see 33% of your own party saying this,
00:04:14.120 how concerned do you have to be?
00:04:16.360 They should be very concerned.
00:04:18.540 Listen, Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in November of 1972.
00:04:25.060 In November of 1972, I was one year and 11 months old.
00:04:30.140 I was not even two.
00:04:32.080 I was, I assume, still wearing diapers.
00:04:36.020 Ben, you weren't alive then.
00:04:37.960 I was not.
00:04:38.580 81 baby.
00:04:39.840 I don't remember November of 1972, but Joe Biden charged in to Washington.
00:04:49.300 You know, it's interesting.
00:04:50.440 Trivia question.
00:04:51.360 You know how old Joe Biden was when he was elected to the Senate?
00:04:54.260 How old was he?
00:04:55.360 So the constitutional minimum to be a senator is 30 years old.
00:05:01.020 Take a guess how old Joe Biden was.
00:05:03.440 I'm going to guess right at 30 then.
00:05:05.340 29.
00:05:06.340 There you go.
00:05:07.220 He was elected at 29, and he turned 30 before he was sworn in.
00:05:12.200 So he was a young guy, but he was a young guy when I was in diapers and you weren't alive.
00:05:17.400 And he has been there since forever.
00:05:21.860 Like, 1972, he was there before disco.
00:05:26.620 Like, and he's been doing this forever.
00:05:32.020 And he's like, let's finish the job.
00:05:35.760 Seriously.
00:05:36.860 Can you screw America anymore? 1.00
00:05:39.480 Please do not finish the job of screwing America. 0.93
00:05:43.520 And I'm going to ask a question.
00:05:44.760 And I say this slightly tongue in cheek, but not much.
00:05:48.520 If your objective, if you sat down and said, I've got a plan, I want to spend two years.
00:05:54.160 I want to destroy this nation.
00:05:58.920 Ben, what would you have done differently than Biden and the Democrats have done?
00:06:04.260 If you're going to destroy the country, you do exactly what his administration has done, and they've done it to perfection.
00:06:12.180 Look, it's actually a bizarre question.
00:06:16.640 Because what we've seen, the assault on jobs, the regulatory assault, the assault on U.S. oil and gas production,
00:06:27.660 the assault on our national security, opening up our borders and creating the worst illegal immigration in history, 0.99
00:06:35.420 the assault on law enforcement, where do you think this crazy crime came from?
00:06:39.680 Democrats saying defund the police, Democrats supporting George Soros DAs releasing violent criminals from jail,
00:06:47.280 the assault on our fundamental constitutional rights, the assault on America as an institution,
00:06:54.220 the assault on the Constitution, the assault on the Bill of Rights, the assault on, look, every enemy of America.
00:07:01.040 Israel is a strong ally of America.
00:07:03.300 Biden spent two years undermining Israel relentlessly.
00:07:06.880 The United Kingdom is a strong ally of America.
00:07:09.440 Biden spent two years undermining the U.K.
00:07:13.400 China is an enemy of America. 0.97
00:07:15.660 Biden spent two years giving weakness and appeasement to China.
00:07:19.580 Russia is an enemy of America. 0.92
00:07:21.400 Biden spent two years giving weakness and appeasement to Russia, including waiving sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
00:07:28.560 I say this in all seriousness.
00:07:31.620 If your objective was to destroy the nation, I don't know what else you would do.
00:07:38.000 Yeah, it's a great point.
00:07:39.420 And the White House, by the way, they seemed lost as well about how they even got to the point
00:07:45.380 where Joe Biden officially decided to run for reelection.
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00:09:14.900 Senator, there was something also that happened that was very weird and that was at the White House.
00:09:18.640 White House press secretary, on the day that Biden announces he is going to run for re-election,
00:09:24.740 this is her response to like, how did he get to this decision?
00:09:28.420 She didn't have an answer.
00:09:30.180 Again, going to be very careful here, 2024 election.
00:09:33.220 I actually don't have anything to share, like behind the scenes on his decision making.
00:09:39.340 I think the president spoke to this himself when he was asked before today about his intention to run and his plans to run.
00:09:48.380 And so I will refer you back to what he has said more explicitly when he had those interviews.
00:09:54.640 So I don't, again, don't want to say much more than that.
00:09:58.220 Say much more than that.
00:09:59.420 Senator, it's almost like he didn't even know that he was running for re-election.
00:10:03.920 They just threw a video together and said, say these lines.
00:10:06.580 And the White House staff didn't even know about it either.
00:10:08.740 Look, the reason that I think Biden is running for re-elect, I've actually thought for a year Biden would not run for re-elect because he is so obviously diminished.
00:10:24.680 He's too old to run.
00:10:26.400 The overwhelming majority of Americans know that he's too old to run.
00:10:29.640 His, we talked about it in the last pod, just even in the last two years, his mental faculties have declined massively.
00:10:39.640 The reason that I think Biden announced that he's running this week is I think something has happened in the last 60 days,
00:10:47.120 which is that I think Democrats believe Donald Trump is going to be the nominee.
00:10:53.300 And that's changed.
00:10:54.600 I think 60 days ago, Democrats did not believe Trump was going to be the nominee.
00:10:59.640 But the last two months have been very good for Trump politically.
00:11:03.480 They have been not that great for Ron DeSantis politically.
00:11:07.720 DeSantis' numbers have gone down.
00:11:09.600 Trump's numbers have gone up.
00:11:11.540 And I think where Democrats are, if they thought they were facing a new nominee, anyone, frankly, who is not Donald Trump,
00:11:19.240 I think Democrats would jettison Joe Biden.
00:11:21.840 And they'd say, OK, this guy, we need someone who actually can count to 10 and not get lost at about number six.
00:11:30.400 But I think what Democrats have said, they believe Trump's going to be the nominee and they hate Trump.
00:11:38.440 They live in a world where everyone they knows hates Trump.
00:11:42.300 And so their their view, I think, is, OK, if Trump is the nominee, we're not going to run on Joe Biden's record.
00:11:50.040 We're not going to talk about Joe Biden's record.
00:11:51.660 We're not going to talk about anything for the last four years.
00:11:54.320 All we're going to talk about is our guy is not Trump.
00:11:58.240 That's their whole campaign.
00:11:59.360 And by the way, they did that in 2020.
00:12:01.920 They'll do it even more.
00:12:02.900 I think their plan right now is Joe Biden will not leave the White House for the entirety of the campaign.
00:12:08.680 They'll hide him in the basement.
00:12:10.100 But they don't have COVID this time, Senator, to hide him with.
00:12:13.220 I mean, that was the excuse last time.
00:12:15.000 They don't care.
00:12:15.720 This last cycle, 2022, they didn't have COVID.
00:12:19.360 And yet Katie Hobbs, the governor of Arizona, never did a debate. 1.00
00:12:22.880 Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, never did a debate.
00:12:25.800 They hid from the process.
00:12:27.460 Because I believe if the electoral race is Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, Biden will leave the White House three times in the next two years.
00:12:37.860 They'll hide him in the basement.
00:12:39.280 They'll put out a periodic video like this little video where they have lots of time.
00:12:43.380 He can read a teleprompter.
00:12:44.600 And when he gets lost, right?
00:12:46.320 Yeah, proof of life.
00:12:47.100 Yes, that's exactly that.
00:12:48.800 And then he'll do one or two debates where they'll pump him full of enough drugs that he will seem marginally competent.
00:12:58.020 He'll give a speech at the Democrat convention, and that'll be it.
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00:13:26.380 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:13:32.440 But behind the scenes, by the way, so people know, I'm going to pull back the curtain.
00:13:37.160 Usually, the senator and I, we will go over the show beforehand.
00:13:41.680 And I'll play him the audio clips that I'm thinking about playing, so we're all set to go for you guys.
00:13:47.620 Every once in a while, I hold one back because I don't want you to be able to pre-plan for this too much.
00:13:53.720 This is a real clip, Senator, from the White House press briefing today on a question.
00:14:00.800 Does the president plan to serve all eight years?
00:14:04.940 Listen to the White House press secretary's response to that question.
00:14:09.280 Does the president plan to serve all eight years?
00:14:12.360 I'm not, I'm just not going to get ahead of the president.
00:14:16.680 That's something for him to decide.
00:14:18.000 I'm just not going to get ahead of it.
00:14:19.660 And there's a 2024 campaign.
00:14:22.520 Anything related to that, I would refer you to that.
00:14:25.020 All right.
00:14:25.380 I'm going to get your raw reaction to that one.
00:14:28.940 Like, holy cow.
00:14:30.180 Has there ever been a president?
00:14:32.300 Imagine Donald Trump's press secretary being asked that.
00:14:36.460 Imagine George Bush's press secretary being asked that.
00:14:38.960 Imagine Barack Obama's press secretary being asked that.
00:14:42.040 Imagine George W. Bush's press secretary being imagined, asked that.
00:14:46.620 It says something that even Corrine Jean-Pierre, who has now reached the Hall of Fame for lying from the White House press briefing room.
00:14:58.220 She's like, oh, I can't answer that because she can't say with a straight face.
00:15:03.220 This is a guy who can't find his shoes.
00:15:08.380 She can't say that five, six years from now, he'll still be president.
00:15:15.500 This is all about they hate Trump.
00:15:18.540 The entire Democrat strategy.
00:15:21.060 There is no policy strategy.
00:15:22.820 Look, they can't run on ideas.
00:15:25.000 The economy, they've screwed it all up.
00:15:26.840 Safety and security, they've screwed it all up.
00:15:30.000 The courts, they've screwed it all up.
00:15:32.180 Foreign policy, national security, they've screwed it all up.
00:15:35.420 Their entire campaign is our guy is not Donald Trump. 0.90
00:15:40.800 By the way, their new epithet, MAGA Republicans, which is a bizarre, I'm sure they focus group that like crazy.
00:15:48.060 It all comes down to we are Democrats, we hate Trump.
00:15:53.760 That is their entire message.
00:15:56.320 I think the key to winning, the key to winning the presidential, the key to winning the Senate this time around, the key to winning a bigger majority in the House is to focus on ideas and issues people care about.
00:16:07.400 Focus on how you make people's lives better.
00:16:10.220 And it's not about screaming MAGA Republicans want to destroy the Republic.
00:16:16.560 Yeah, the White House was also asked, and I want to know your reaction.
00:16:20.360 Do you think the media is going to be tougher on a candidate Biden?
00:16:24.240 This was a question at the White House press briefing today about the president's horrendous economic record, the rising prices, foods, basic services.
00:16:33.160 The list goes on and on and listen to the White House's completely out of touch response to that basic question as well.
00:16:39.380 So Americans are seeing when we talk about the economy in general, the Americans are seeing energy prices up 24 percent, including electricity.
00:16:46.800 Since President Biden took office, food prices are up 18 percent in the last two years.
00:16:51.640 Manufacturing lost jobs for the last two months in a row.
00:16:54.340 And inflation is outpacing wages for 26 months in a row.
00:16:58.220 So how does the president then sell to the American people to keep going with these economic policies?
00:17:04.320 So look, again, going to be careful about 2024, anything that's related.
00:17:08.640 No, no, I'm going to answer your question.
00:17:10.220 Okay, I'm going to answer your question.
00:17:12.240 Just want to be, as you said, moving forward.
00:17:14.060 So I just want to be very careful here.
00:17:15.860 Look, the president always is very clear.
00:17:18.140 When he talks about the economy, he always says, one of the things that he says very frequently is that when it comes to inflation,
00:17:24.160 when it comes to a lowering cost, that is a priority for him.
00:17:27.420 And he has shown to do that.
00:17:29.340 And if you talked about inflation, annual inflation has fallen over the last nine months.
00:17:33.500 It is moderating.
00:17:34.460 That is something that we have seen from the data that has come out.
00:17:38.480 Wages are higher than they were nine months ago.
00:17:41.460 Incomes are up and consumer spending is strong.
00:17:43.740 But he under.
00:17:44.700 I mean, you can hear her just rambling on there, Senator.
00:17:48.000 He has a horrendous record on the economy.
00:17:50.200 She's like, no, no, he understands he's doing a really good job.
00:17:52.380 And understand clearly.
00:17:56.620 If God forbid Biden is reelected, everything will get worse.
00:18:04.260 Mark my words.
00:18:05.880 If Biden's reelected, let me be clear.
00:18:07.780 I don't think he will be.
00:18:08.720 I think he will be defeated.
00:18:10.360 I think the American people are fed up with the path we're on.
00:18:12.960 But if he is reelected, we will see $10 a gallon gasoline.
00:18:20.000 Remember this point.
00:18:21.260 I hope that in a couple of years, you and I are not on verdict saying, let's replay the clip from this day.
00:18:29.440 Because if we hit $10 a gallon gasoline, understand that's what the Green New Deal zealots in this administration want.
00:18:41.460 We are facing the most fundamental assault.
00:18:45.900 Listen, I get up every morning and I literally jump out of my bed.
00:18:50.160 And when I come home, when I land in Texas, when I'm in the airport, when I'm in a shopping mall, when I'm in a restaurant, people come up to me and they're like, holy cow, what's going on?
00:19:00.660 And my sort of standard line, I laugh.
00:19:02.840 I say, look, we're in a crazy time.
00:19:05.500 As they say in the military world, it is a target rich environment.
00:19:11.260 But as I joke about that, the reality is I've never seen it this crazy in my entire lifetime.
00:19:22.140 The reason I jump out of bed in the morning is I feel like I am going to the Roman Coliseum and I'm fighting the barbarians. 0.96
00:19:31.300 Like these lunatics, these Marxists, the radicals in the Democrat Party, they hate America. 0.92
00:19:39.340 They believe the Constitution is immoral. 0.98
00:19:41.360 They believe the Bill of Rights is immoral.
00:19:43.340 They want to tear it down.
00:19:46.720 That's a fight worth fighting.
00:19:48.420 We're not fighting, Ben, over little stuff.
00:19:50.480 We're not fighting over little details.
00:19:52.240 We're not fighting over whether the top marginal tax rate is 1% higher or 1% lower.
00:19:58.060 We're fighting over whether America remains a free enterprise country or a socialist country.
00:20:02.800 We're fighting over whether we have a border or our nation is invaded.
00:20:08.860 We're fighting over whether the Bill of Rights remains the fundamental liberties of Americans or those rights are given up.
00:20:17.000 That is a fight worth fighting.
00:20:19.340 You mentioned illegal immigration, and I think that's going to be a very center point of this election, especially with Trump being the frontrunner.
00:20:26.220 He's obviously going to go back to border security and building the wall.
00:20:29.800 The White House press secretary also got herself in trouble today when she was asked about the White House's failure at the border.
00:20:35.840 Take a listen.
00:20:36.340 So the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security will have more to share soon.
00:20:40.360 As you know, the Department of Homeland Security shared their plan back in January, and we have seen from the data,
00:20:46.120 we have seen that the unlawful immigration is down.
00:20:51.040 And so what they have put forth in their protocol and their processes is working,
00:20:56.480 but they will have more to share in the upcoming days or weeks.
00:20:59.240 Senator, that's a lie.
00:21:00.900 You've said this a hundred times on this show.
00:21:02.860 You've said it on Fox News Channel.
00:21:04.320 Complete and uttered lie.
00:21:04.820 Yeah, 6.3 million illegal immigrants have crossed the border since Biden took office,
00:21:08.580 and the White House press secretary, and I'm going to give you the quote exactly, quote,
00:21:12.320 unlawful immigration is down.
00:21:15.340 She said that at the White House podium today, lying to the American people.
00:21:18.380 Every month, we are setting records for the highest rate of illegal immigration in history.
00:21:26.120 Month after month after month, over 6 million people have crossed illegally.
00:21:31.380 Corrine Jean-Pierre from the White House, and look, the White House is hallowed ground.
00:21:35.340 There's an obligation to the American people to tell the truth.
00:21:38.320 She stands there and lies on Joe Biden's behalf. 0.85
00:21:41.600 She claims, as she said before, people aren't just walking across the border.
00:21:46.080 Yes, they are every day, right now.
00:21:49.520 Whatever time of day you're listening to this podcast, they're walking across the border
00:21:53.520 because they're doing it every minute of every hour of all 24 hours a day, every single day,
00:21:59.140 and she knows that, and she is lying.
00:22:02.880 It is horrific.
00:22:04.460 Our country is being assaulted, and listen, I don't get angry about this stuff often,
00:22:10.840 but I am pissed off.
00:22:12.740 And clearly, Senator, you're not the only one.
00:22:14.540 70% of Americans don't want Joe Biden to run, yet here we are.
00:22:19.820 He is the nominee for the Democratic Party.
00:22:22.340 I want to move on to another important issue, and that is an issue that there's a letter
00:22:28.280 that is going out from you, Senator, and Representative Jim Jordans about the failure
00:22:34.360 of the San Francisco Fed to watch what was happening with Silicon Valley Bank.
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00:24:03.960 Senator, let's talk about Silicon Valley Bank, and let's do a quick recap of what happened with
00:24:09.140 Silicon Valley Bank for everybody, so they understand why you are sending this letter
00:24:14.460 to the San Francisco Fed regarding this big tech liberal bank failure.
00:24:19.620 Well, Silicon Valley Bank had enormous assets, primarily from venture capital firms in Silicon
00:24:27.260 Valley, big tech firms that support Democrats that are exceedingly liberal.
00:24:31.940 Silicon Valley Bank did not pay attention to fiscal stability, did not pay attention to
00:24:39.580 actually having sound balance sheets.
00:24:41.920 Indeed, here's an amazing thing.
00:24:44.380 Silicon Valley Bank, for eight months, did not have a chief risk officer.
00:24:50.900 They literally didn't fill that position.
00:24:53.220 So their balance sheet was filled with government bonds that had an enormous maturity risk because
00:25:01.220 the Fed had jacked up interest rates so much that the bonds were worth much less than Silicon
00:25:08.020 Valley Bank had paid for them.
00:25:10.520 But nobody at Silicon Valley Bank was actually looking at the books and trying to protect
00:25:15.100 their financial stability because instead, you know what they did have?
00:25:19.620 They did have a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer.
00:25:23.580 They did focus on ESG, on environmental and social goals.
00:25:29.060 They were focused on left-wing virtue signaling, but not on actually watching the deposits of
00:25:36.160 their depositors.
00:25:37.320 Now, it's one thing to have some Silicon Valley bankers who lose sight.
00:25:44.300 But who are the regulators?
00:25:45.680 Who's in charge of watching the fox and the hen house? 0.97
00:25:49.860 Well, in the case of Silicon Valley Bank, it was the San Francisco office of the Federal
00:25:55.680 Reserve.
00:25:55.980 They were the bank regulators that had supervisory authority.
00:26:00.420 And the San Francisco office of the Federal Reserve didn't do a damn thing, sat there while
00:26:07.240 Silicon Valley Bank had this enormous exposure, this enormous risk.
00:26:12.760 By the way, the San Francisco office of the Federal Reserve was engaged in the same nonsense,
00:26:17.260 the same ESG, the same DEI, the same politically correct virtue signaling, instead of doing 0.99
00:26:23.380 their damn job. 0.99
00:26:24.820 So I'm the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee. 0.99
00:26:28.020 I sent an oversight letter announcing an investigation into the San Francisco Fed's oversight of Silicon
00:26:35.460 Valley Bank.
00:26:37.220 The San Francisco Fed essentially said, go jump in a lake.
00:26:41.140 We're not going to answer your questions.
00:26:42.720 So I just recently teamed up with Jim Jordan.
00:26:46.880 Jim is in the House of Representatives.
00:26:48.940 He is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
00:26:51.100 And so the two of us together are demanding of Silicon Valley Bank answer our questions.
00:26:57.240 Did you know about this exposure?
00:27:00.040 If so, why didn't you act?
00:27:01.960 If you didn't know, why the hell weren't you doing your job?
00:27:04.760 Why were you asleep at the switch?
00:27:06.440 I can tell you, Ben, on top of that, I've also joined—this is going to surprise you—I've
00:27:12.400 joined in bipartisan legislation with Elizabeth Warren to make the regional offices of the
00:27:22.400 Federal Reserve subject to FOIA, subject to the federal laws that makes them under the
00:27:30.540 oversight of Congress and the American people.
00:27:32.900 Right now, they're exempt from FOIA.
00:27:34.540 And I've got to say, it's an amazing thing that Elizabeth Warren and I are on the same
00:27:39.820 page saying, these Fed banks that are laughing at Congress, that are laughing at the American
00:27:46.460 people, that are saying, we are unaccountable, even though a multibillion-dollar cluster just
00:27:53.460 unfolded on our watch, we need to hold them to account.
00:27:57.600 Yeah, it's important legislation.
00:27:59.720 Now the question is, who's going to block it and why?
00:28:02.500 There are a lot of Democrats that wanted to protect Silicon Valley Bank because they were
00:28:07.320 also—a lot of the people that had their money there were big donors of the Democratic
00:28:10.500 Party.
00:28:11.440 Absolutely.
00:28:11.720 Is that going to be part of the politics that plays out in this?
00:28:15.600 Unquestionably.
00:28:16.120 And look, the dynamic we're in right now is Silicon Valley Bank, the Biden administration,
00:28:22.060 ran to step in and do a multibillion-dollar bailout.
00:28:25.460 Why?
00:28:25.760 Because the depositors were overwhelmingly politically well-connected left-wing Democrats.
00:28:32.360 They were supporters of Joe Biden.
00:28:34.600 They were supporters of the Democrats in the Senate and the Democrats in the House.
00:28:38.560 And so immediately the White House said, all right, we got your back.
00:28:41.780 You're fully covered.
00:28:42.760 And by the way, when they covered that, they covered it from funds that are paid by everyone
00:28:48.420 else's banks.
00:28:49.200 So if you're not a politically well-connected venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, if you're
00:28:56.540 a Main Street—if you run a dry cleaner, if you have a restaurant, if you have a car dealership,
00:29:03.220 if you have a small business in Main Street America, you're paying for the Democrat bailout
00:29:12.500 of Democrat donors.
00:29:14.880 And the press, of course, doesn't want to cover that, but it is completely indefensible how
00:29:21.060 they've decided, all right, if you're a well-connected Democrat, we got your back.
00:29:25.960 And by the way, one of the really negative consequences of this is we're seeing a flight of capital
00:29:33.380 of individuals, of small businesses that have invested in—have their deposits in community
00:29:40.700 banks, smaller and mid-sized banks, and a very significant number of those depositors
00:29:46.820 are taking their money out and moving it to one of the gigantic banks, because the lesson
00:29:52.360 they've taken from Joe Biden's response to this is if you're a giant bank that's too
00:29:57.880 big to fail, all the deposits will be guaranteed.
00:30:01.640 But if you're a mid-sized or smaller bank, you're out of luck.
00:30:05.580 And one of the great strengths of our economy is the thousands upon thousands of community
00:30:12.680 banks we have.
00:30:13.740 You look at other countries where they have three, four, five giant banks that bank everyone.
00:30:19.160 America is blessed.
00:30:20.580 We've got thousands, tens of thousands of banks at the community level.
00:30:25.220 And Joe Biden is happy to bankrupt all of them and to benefit his buddies on Wall Street,
00:30:31.100 the handful of giant banks.
00:30:32.720 And quickly, for a context point here, Senator, people that don't realize how the FDIC is supposed
00:30:39.740 to work in insuring your depositors, your deposits, it's only up to a certain amount
00:30:44.440 of money.
00:30:45.300 And what happened with Silicon Valley Bank is it turned from a certain amount of money
00:30:49.500 to unlimited money.
00:30:51.560 And that's the reason why you mentioned a lot of people are saying, all right, well, if
00:30:55.120 I'm in a community bank or a smaller bank or a regional bank that doesn't have the political
00:31:00.540 connections to these types of bailouts, I'm at much higher risk with my deposits than if
00:31:07.080 I go to a woke bank or a massive bank like many are switching over, because you're not 0.97
00:31:12.960 supposed to have unlimited funds secured in these banks.
00:31:16.940 That's the whole point of having an up to amount, correct?
00:31:19.980 Right.
00:31:20.280 No, that's exactly right.
00:31:21.320 When the FDIC was established, initially, the threshold was $100,000, that your deposits
00:31:27.220 up to $100,000 are guaranteed by the FDIC, guaranteed by the government.
00:31:32.440 That was, in recent years, up from $100,000 to $250,000.
00:31:37.040 Now, $250,000 is a lot of money.
00:31:39.160 Most of us don't have that much money in cash in a bank.
00:31:42.860 But the FDIC guarantees to everyone, whatever bank you're at, if you have $250,000 or less,
00:31:49.980 your deposits are guaranteed.
00:31:52.220 What happened at Silicon Valley Bank is you had depositors, both individuals and companies,
00:31:57.280 that had millions of dollars, that had tens of millions of dollars, that had hundreds
00:32:01.280 of millions of dollars.
00:32:02.700 And the federal government stepped in and said, never mind the $250,000 limit, we're going
00:32:07.260 to guarantee all of it.
00:32:08.420 Even though the depositors didn't pay attention when their bank went eight months without a
00:32:14.620 risk officer, when their bank was not watching the stability of their balance sheets.
00:32:20.220 And listen, if instead of Silicon Valley Bank, this were Texas Oil and Gas Bank, this were
00:32:27.360 a bank that provided capital and liquidity to oil and gas drillers, the odds that the Biden
00:32:36.080 administration would have guaranteed those deposits are 0.0%.
00:32:40.280 This was political favoritism.
00:32:43.080 This was, if you're political allies and donors to Democrats, we got your back. 0.99
00:32:48.960 And if not, you're screwed. 0.92
00:32:51.220 And by the way, if you're neither, if you're just an ordinary individual or small business, 0.97
00:32:56.340 you know what?
00:32:57.580 The fees that your bank pays into the FDIC are going to go up to pay for the bailout of
00:33:04.820 these Democrat donors.
00:33:06.160 Yeah, it's almost like the response that you mentioned, the banks, if it was a bank
00:33:10.740 in Texas that was dealing with oil and gas, they'd be treated like the people were in
00:33:14.540 Pennsylvania when you had that train derailment.
00:33:17.680 It was, oh, it was Trump country.
00:33:19.060 It's conservative.
00:33:19.800 We don't have to worry about them.
00:33:21.500 And that's why so many people, like you said, are switching banks right now.
00:33:24.880 That's also not good for the system.
00:33:27.040 I want to go to something else as well that I think people need to know about and get on
00:33:30.700 the radar screen.
00:33:31.920 And that is the Biden administration's war on religious liberty is continuing.
00:33:38.920 And I want you to give people the update about that.
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00:34:43.000 Senator, let's talk about the Biden's war on religious liberty.
00:34:47.360 It is unfortunately been a theme of their administration virtually the entire time.
00:34:53.800 And now you are demanding answers after Walter Reed Medical Center.
00:34:58.720 I had the privilege of going there back when I was working with the Bush administration to
00:35:03.700 watch President Bush go and see our men and women in uniform that have been fighting our
00:35:07.560 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
00:35:09.640 It is an incredible facility.
00:35:12.000 And you're now demanding answers because Walter Reed Medical Center has ended a contract with
00:35:17.460 a Catholic group.
00:35:19.720 Fill us in on that.
00:35:21.420 Well, Walter Reed Medical Center is one of the premier military hospitals in America and
00:35:27.720 in the world.
00:35:28.440 And we have a great many of our veterans who are injured, who are ill, who are treated at
00:35:33.200 Walter Reed.
00:35:34.260 Now, one of the aspects of our military hospitals is that they have pastoral care.
00:35:38.660 They have pastoral care because, look, people who are facing horrific injuries, people who are
00:35:42.980 facing life-threatening illnesses, they are naturally thinking about end of life.
00:35:48.160 They're thinking about the fate of their soul.
00:35:52.720 And that has been an important part of caring for our veterans, caring for our active duty military
00:35:59.000 from the beginning of the United States.
00:36:01.280 Well, Walter Reed, right now today, does not have any Catholic pastoral care.
00:36:09.740 So, look, Ben, you and I are not Catholics, but there are millions of Catholics in America.
00:36:16.880 There are a great many Catholics in our military.
00:36:19.740 Walter Reed had a contract with the Holy Name College Friary with a Catholic pastoral care
00:36:27.860 organization that provided if you were a Catholic, you were a service member, you were active,
00:36:32.560 you were a veteran, you were at Walter Reed, and you needed to pray with a priest.
00:36:37.180 You were facing death.
00:36:39.240 You wanted your last rites.
00:36:41.140 They would have a priest who would show up and provide Catholic pastoral care.
00:36:45.460 And what did the Biden administration do?
00:36:47.480 It declined to renew its contract.
00:36:50.340 So right now, there is no Catholic pastoral care at Walter Reed.
00:36:55.900 That is outrageous.
00:36:57.200 And by the way, Joe Biden says he's a Catholic.
00:37:00.440 Like, explain to me why the hell a president who says he's a Catholic would preside over
00:37:09.240 an administration that allows Walter Reed, a premier military hospital, to have zero Catholic
00:37:15.640 pastoral care.
00:37:16.680 It is wrong.
00:37:18.080 And listen, do I think Biden knows about this?
00:37:20.880 No, I don't think Biden knows what day it is.
00:37:23.480 I don't think he knows what's going on.
00:37:25.000 So I don't think this is his personal decision, but I think the zealots he's put in his administration
00:37:31.460 hate people of faith. 0.94
00:37:34.840 Part of it is the Democrat Party, when faced with a conflict, they have elevated the radical 0.75
00:37:43.300 transgender ideology above all other groups.
00:37:47.080 And so, because people of faith often have concerns about embracing either the radical
00:37:53.540 transgender ideology or the radical abortion-on-demand ideology, the Democrat Party has decided
00:38:00.800 faith is no longer acceptable.
00:38:04.280 You know, you think back to John F. Kennedy.
00:38:06.300 John F. Kennedy, a Democrat president, would have been chased out of the Democrat Party today
00:38:12.140 because he was an observant Catholic.
00:38:13.800 He believed in his faith.
00:38:15.480 He defended principles of his faith.
00:38:17.440 That is no longer allowable.
00:38:19.280 And so I've sent a letter in my oversight capacity in the Senate to Walter Reed saying,
00:38:25.280 why do you no longer have Catholic pastoral care?
00:38:28.820 Our servicemen and women deserve that.
00:38:31.020 If they are Catholic, they deserve to have a priest. 0.97
00:38:33.600 If they're facing the end of life, they deserve to have last rites from a Catholic priest.
00:38:40.080 And if the Biden administration valued religious liberty and religious faith, they would fix
00:38:47.520 this and they'd fix this yesterday.
00:38:49.720 As much money as we spend, you look at the national debt right now, and I go back to this.
00:38:55.760 If they claim this is about money, right?
00:38:58.720 Look at the national debt clock right now.
00:39:00.840 We were at $31,706,702,000, that's $94,000 per debt per citizen or $247,000 per taxpayer.
00:39:13.360 Don't tell me we can't afford this.
00:39:15.720 My point is, apparently, this administration can't afford anything and everything and run
00:39:19.900 the debt up to the point that I just mentioned.
00:39:22.340 What is their excuse?
00:39:23.720 Have you gotten one yet?
00:39:24.860 So I have not yet gotten an answer from Walter Reed, but I'll bet dollars to donuts, it's
00:39:31.840 not about money.
00:39:32.920 They don't care about money.
00:39:34.280 This is an administration that spent $7 trillion last year.
00:39:39.080 They blown the budget out.
00:39:41.280 No amount of money matters to them.
00:39:43.780 This is about faith doesn't matter to them.
00:39:47.500 And the problem is, they filled this administration, not just at the cabinet level, but at the sub
00:39:53.340 cabinet level, with zealots who despise faith.
00:39:57.680 And so if you ask a radical left-wing zealot who hates faith, who hates Catholics, should
00:40:04.060 we renew our contract with the Catholic pastoral care group?
00:40:09.220 Their answer is, of course, no.
00:40:10.900 And it's not money.
00:40:11.740 They don't care about money at all.
00:40:13.220 If you ask them, do you support creating a giant pile of money, pouring gasoline on it
00:40:18.080 and lighting it on fire, they'd probably say yes.
00:40:21.020 This is about not valuing faith, not valuing people of faith, and having a deep-seated animosity
00:40:30.840 of faith.
00:40:31.560 And that is really inconsistent with who we are as an American people.
00:40:37.200 Last thing, doesn't deal with politics, Senator.
00:40:40.240 I'm learning this about you.
00:40:42.020 This is my first season doing this podcast with you during the NBA playoffs, which means
00:40:48.400 you're a night owl staying up late.
00:40:50.980 Who do you like so far?
00:40:52.940 And you better at least mention my hometown Memphis Grizzlies.
00:40:57.460 Yeah.
00:40:58.180 I'm going to confess, honestly.
00:41:00.340 So I love hoops.
00:41:03.260 You play several times a week.
00:41:05.560 People may not know that.
00:41:06.780 Yeah.
00:41:07.000 I play twice a week.
00:41:08.140 I play typically Sunday evenings in Houston with some good friends of mine.
00:41:15.060 And then I play usually Tuesday afternoons.
00:41:18.020 You and I are recording this late Tuesday evening.
00:41:21.500 I will be playing at 7.30 in the morning on Wednesday.
00:41:24.720 From 7.30 to 9.30, I'll play.
00:41:26.440 I typically play twice a week, once a week in Houston, once a week in D.C.
00:41:29.780 Um, and listen, I work out.
00:41:33.320 That's your exercise.
00:41:34.520 This is, that's your passion.
00:41:35.880 Yeah.
00:41:36.140 I mean, I go to the gym and I lift also, but, but I much prefer, I like sports.
00:41:41.460 I get bored.
00:41:42.340 I hate running.
00:41:43.220 Running bores me.
00:41:44.420 I feel like a gerbil on a treadmill.
00:41:48.300 I like competition.
00:41:49.920 You and I play tennis.
00:41:50.980 We play tennis a number of times.
00:41:52.960 Unfortunately, Ben is a thousand times better than I am because he was actually like a college
00:41:57.500 tennis player at Ole Miss.
00:41:58.620 Um, but I enjoy it.
00:42:00.900 I'm, I'm a very mediocre tennis player.
00:42:03.980 I am a slightly less mediocre basketball player.
00:42:07.500 I was an okay.
00:42:08.640 I was a, I was a mediocre high school varsity basketball player.
00:42:14.440 And I would say at 52, I've maintained those skills about the same.
00:42:18.560 Um, but I got to tell you the truth of the matter is I am a diehard Houston Rockets fan.
00:42:23.460 The Rockets are out of it.
00:42:24.720 Yeah.
00:42:25.260 And, and so I'm vaguely watching the playoffs.
00:42:28.460 But I don't really give a damn.
00:42:29.560 If the Rockets aren't in it, it's like, I'll watch the finals when they happen. 0.98
00:42:35.220 But I'm not watching the, you know, you sent me a text the other day saying, holy crap,
00:42:40.400 did you see Jimmy Butler's numbers?
00:42:41.820 And I saw SportsCenter for a minute and I watched a little bit of it.
00:42:44.520 But if the Rockets aren't in it, I find it, I'm hard pressed to watch the playoffs.
00:42:49.020 Look, we'll adopt you.
00:42:50.280 No problem.
00:42:51.080 Grizzlies will adopt you for the playoffs.
00:42:52.980 We're down right now to the Lakers.
00:42:55.260 And I know you can't be a big Lakers fan.
00:42:57.420 So tomorrow night, if you're bored, you should be rooting for my hometown Grizzlies.
00:43:01.760 There you go.
00:43:02.720 I like it.
00:43:03.520 Senator, always a pleasure.
00:43:04.800 Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays.
00:43:07.520 Make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button so that you get every single episode.
00:43:13.160 And we will see you back here in a couple of days.
00:43:16.600 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:43:19.480 Guaranteed Human.