00:00:57.820Listen to Armstrong and Getty On Demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:04.660I believe that whoever was in that room and did that was a murderer.
00:01:09.160A new podcast series, Faultline Haditha, tells the story of a shocking crime and a cover-up at the highest levels of the United States Marine Corps.
00:01:17.620If you've got five players and you offer immunity to four, you better be right about the fifth.
00:01:22.460Because if you're not, then you've just given immunity to your killer.
00:01:25.060Listen to Faultline Haditha on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:34.580Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:01:38.580It is so nice to have you with us if you're listening on radio stations all over the country.
00:01:42.920And don't forget, we do this show as a podcast three days a week, so download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.
00:01:50.360Senator, this week was a very interesting week, and depending on how people hear this,
00:02:01.980And it was clearly a re-energize the base, get ready for the midterms coming up.
00:02:09.180There was also somber moments at the same time.
00:02:12.180You have the anniversary, the 25th anniversary of 9-11 and the one-year anniversary of the passing of Charlie Kirk.
00:02:18.080There's a lot of highs and lows for you and I personally.
00:02:20.620We both knew Charlie and also remembering 9-11 and this excitement around America First and what we're fighting for in this country at the same time.
00:02:30.220Well, it is currently 12.03 a.m., Thursday night, early Friday morning, and the two-day Republican convention has just ended in Dallas.
00:03:32.880We're going to talk about and remember the legacy of Charlie Kirk.
00:03:37.260We're going to talk about that later on this show.
00:03:39.800Also, on September 11th, we remember the 25th anniversary of 9-11. You and I both lived through 9-11, through the horrific terrorist attack that shocked the country, that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, the worst terrorist attack in American history.
00:03:58.500And those two events, I believe, underscore the scope of the threat we are facing in this country right now.
00:04:08.140Those two events underscore the hate, the animosity, and frankly, the evil that is threatening our nation.
00:04:15.760And I will say that those two events, as you noted, I had the opportunity to address the convention this final night here in Texas.
00:04:26.340and and that was the heart of my speech was laying out just what the stakes are in this election and
00:04:33.700why why it matters so much for our country yeah it was really by the way i was there for the speech
00:04:39.520it was i actually think one of your best speeches uh it was incredibly uh sincere and accurate to
00:04:46.180the times we're in warning uh what what could happen to this country if we don't stand up for
00:04:52.200if we don't get out and vote in these midterms.
00:14:14.960Senator, I've got to say, it was pretty awesome to just watch the room react to what you were saying.
00:14:20.780This is the warning, and this is what the midterms are about.
00:14:24.380This is what the future of this country is up against right now, and it's very real from the left.
00:14:30.220Well, it is, and this is a speech I sat down and wrote the day before yesterday.
00:14:35.740And I just sat at my computer and typed it out, and it's a message that, look, there are times in a convention speech you give a rah-rah speech, you give a rally speech, and there's a value to that, that's important.
00:14:50.760This was a different speech to the end.
00:14:53.600This was a speech underscoring the magnitude of the threat.0.82
00:14:57.680And I believe the red-green alliance that we are seeing, the merging, the juxtaposition of communists and Islamists trying to take over the Democrat Party.0.67
00:15:12.720And one observation I made that I think is important is it's not the case that every Democrat in the Senate, every Democrat in the House is today a Marxist or an Islamist.0.53
00:15:27.680But what is the case is virtually every one of them is terrified of this radical left wing in their party.0.70
00:15:34.980And they're terrified for good reason, because the Marxist and the Islamist are winning primaries and Democrat parties over and over again.0.77
00:15:43.960It's where the money, the energy, the young people, it is the beating heart of the party.0.93
00:15:50.600And that is dangerous when you have a party.
00:15:53.240Listen, if these lunatics win, and by the way, I think the two most dangerous Senate candidates in the country are Abdul Al-Sayed in Michigan and James Tallarico in Texas.
00:16:06.920I think they're the two most radical candidates who are running in the country, and they both have a real possibility of winning.
00:16:14.180And so I wanted this speech to say, if you want to save America, understand this is what the stakes of the election are.
00:16:54.140A shocking crime and a cover-up at the highest levels of the United States Marine Corps.
00:17:00.120Someone opened the door and was the primary shooter.
00:17:03.380Is it possible you could do that and then suppress the memory?
00:17:05.540A new podcast series, Faultline Haditha, tells the story the United States government wants to keep buried.
00:17:12.500How can you not know there were women and children in there?
00:17:15.600Are you going to tell us here that you don't know what happened that day?
00:17:18.400Based on thousands of pages of previously classified documents
00:17:22.040and over a hundred hours of secretly filmed video,
00:17:26.020the truth about one of the most infamous crimes in Marine Corps history can finally be told.
00:17:31.680If you've got five players and one of them is guilty of murder at least,
00:17:36.120and you offer immunity to the other four, you better be right about the fifth.
00:17:39.820Because if you're not, then you've just given immunity to your killer.
00:17:43.040Listen to Faultline Haditha on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:17:54.460Senator, I want to go back into what was a very interesting week politically for the Democratic Party and specifically the big race in Texas.
00:18:03.920James Tallarico decided I'm going to do a bunch of interviews and rewrite history and basically say hey my past was just entertainment or pathological lying
00:18:15.680it's not actually what I believe now and everything that's become controversial we're just going to make it all disappear overnight
00:18:24.800it was hysterical to watch him try to backtrack and I hope it's not working with the with the voters at all
00:18:31.600Well, let's talk for a minute about the state of the Texas Senate. All of the polling that has come out shows it's basically tied. It is a one or two point race. It's exceptionally close. But what it also shows is a real difference in when you look at political polling, one of the important measures is what's called fave unfave.
00:18:51.520And that is a comparison of when you ask people do you have a favorable impression of Ben Ferguson or an unfavorable impression.
00:18:59.540You get a number of fave-unfave, and you obviously want higher faves than unfaves.
00:19:04.780Well, the current polling shows Ken Paxton with a fave-unfave of minus 15.
00:19:11.960That means 15, the number of people saying they have an unfavorable view of him are 15 points higher than the number of people saying they have a favorable view of him.
00:19:20.700That is not ideal. James Tallarico right now has a fave on fave of plus nine. So that means the delta, the difference between minus 15 and plus nine, is 24 points. That's a problem. That is why this race is tied right now.
00:19:38.640Now, here's the good news. Most of the voters of Texas don't actually know James Tallarito's record by then. Look, Ken Paxton went through a brutal primary. He had $200 million of attack ads run against him. It was the single most expensive Senate primary in American history.
00:19:58.640turns out 200 million dollars of attack ads leaves a mark it does some damage and and so those hits
00:20:05.700there's a reason that that Ken's numbers are upside down because 200 million dollars of
00:20:11.260attack ads have done some damage in contrast Tallarico went through basically a cakewalk0.68
00:20:16.540of a primary his opponent Jasmine Crockett had very little money and and she didn't have the
00:20:21.360money to really hit it and so for three months James Tallarico has been alone on the airwaves
00:20:26.980running just positive ads about what a sweet, wonderful guy he is.
00:20:33.940Also good news is the polling is quite clear that when the voters hear his record, they don't like it.
00:20:41.080The voters of Texas do not agree with his radical left-wing record.
00:20:44.740And so that means for the next two months, the job of Ken Paxton, the job of Republicans,
00:20:50.620is to tell the voters of Texas Tallarico's record and Paxton's record.
00:20:55.300And I will say there's a broader phenomenon. This is true in the Texas race, but it's true in races across the country. Conservatives win when we effectively articulate what it is we believe. There's a reason for that. I think most voters in Texas, and I also think most voters across the country, are center-right. They believe in common-sense conservative ideas.
00:21:16.800So if you articulate effectively common-sense conservative ideas of the candidate, that is a winning message.
00:21:27.280Liberals win when they effectively obfuscate their views and obfuscate their record.
00:21:34.200So Ken Paxton's entire objective is communicate his record and communicate Tallarico's record.
00:21:39.240So Tallarico's entire objective is hide, mislead, cover up, deceive about Ken Paxton's record, and hide, mislead, cover up, deceive about Tallarico's own record.
00:21:53.620So you have all of these left-wing positions Tallarico has taken that he is now in the process of desperately trying to run away from and insisting that, no, no, I didn't mean that that was a mistake, that was wrong.
00:22:05.740No, no, no. So, for example, James Tallarico famously said, God is non-binary.
00:22:13.980Well, that's a pretty bizarre and weird statement.
00:22:18.100Well, he did an interview with Fox this week where he tried, he doubled down on it, and then he tried to back away from it.
00:22:25.420So give a listen first, him doubling down.
00:22:28.240And just with the in-between comment, I know you're a preacher, so you know this.
00:22:32.000I don't have to tell you, but Mark 10, 6 states, quote, from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
00:22:38.800Clearly in the Bible, it doesn't state that in between.
00:22:41.840Well, I think God is so much bigger than every human category.
00:22:44.620God is bigger than any of our understandings.
00:22:47.900And it's important for us to remember that when we're having these discussions.
00:22:50.740What is clear from Scripture is that we are commanded to love thy neighbor as thyself.0.89
00:22:55.640So there he is doubling down on it and saying, oh, yeah, God is definitely non-binary.
00:22:59.500And then he realizes, uh-oh, Texas voters think that's a wacky position.
00:23:03.960So now listen to him try to run away from it and dismiss the comment.
00:23:07.420In 2021, you said God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between.
00:23:19.200What I was trying to say is that you can't use human categories to define God.
00:23:23.460And that's not controversial theologically.
00:23:26.060It is really just hilarious, but also not surprising that you're seeing this Tallarico 180 from from years and years of constant rhetoric on these issues.
00:23:41.120And now it's like, I just want to make it all go away. Hand me a white bucket of paint.
00:23:45.520Let me just paint over everything I've ever said or preached or done in the past.
00:23:50.340And none of it I really meant. Yeah, because I'm just trying to win an election.
00:23:55.160Well, and look, his explanation there, I was just being provocative.
00:24:00.560I just was saying something provocative, but I don't believe it.
00:24:03.980And one of the things to understand about James Tallarico, this guy is a different cat than Beto O'Rourke, who ran against me in 2018, and then Colin Allred, who ran against me in 2022.
00:24:24.640Beto is 53. Allred and Beto didn't necessarily believe every woke idiocy that took over the0.99
00:24:35.940world during COVID lockdowns, during the height of DEI, during the height of transgenderism.0.99
00:24:42.440Talarico does. He believes this nonsense. He believes that this is who he is. As I said in0.97
00:24:50.700my convention speech when they tell you who they are believe them so listen to him trying to now0.91
00:24:57.640run away from his comment another comedy made famously is there six genders now ben i'm not
00:25:03.360smart enough to know what the other four are no two of them but beyond that i i literally have
00:25:08.400no idea what the six are that he thinks that exists but yeah today he realized well gosh
00:25:14.140texans think they're men and women and they don't think they're anything else so let me run away and
00:25:20.200pretend that doesn't exist. Give a listen. During the 2021 hearing, you said there are six
00:25:25.160biological sexes. Do you still believe that standing here with me right now? No, I've missed
00:25:30.980the mark on some of my past statements. I will be the first to admit it. What I meant is that there
00:25:35.800are two sexes and then there's a small percentage of people with genetic abnormalities. I obviously
00:25:41.020didn't say it correctly. There are not six sexes. There are two. Wow. Look, the fact that he's just
00:25:49.460willing to run away from that he categorically said there were six and and to be clear he still
00:25:55.020believes there are six or he probably believes there's 57 if remember what facebook had years
00:26:00.000ago you could opt into 57 you could say you were like i don't know two spirits i i don't even know
00:26:07.180the list of 57 was the most bizarre list i think i've ever read you know another area he's extreme
00:26:14.600in a lot of things, but when it comes to transgenderism, he's obsessed with transgenders.
00:26:19.680So at one point, he did an interview and said, you know, who do you love? And he says, I love
00:26:24.020transgender children. In the legislature, there was a bill to ban the sterilization and genital
00:26:32.400mutilation of kids to do transgender surgery. And he voted no, and he was passionate. You cannot do
00:26:39.740is well now he's running away from that eagerly give a listen down here standing with me you can
00:26:46.920confidently say there are two sexes a man and a woman absolutely speaking of gender yeah would
00:26:52.580you vote in favor of a national ban for transgender surgeries when it comes to minors absolutely and
00:26:59.660in fact in the legislature i voted for an amendment that would have restricted uh the the the bill in
00:27:06.160question to a ban on surgeries for minors. In 2023, you voted against SB 14. That was the
00:27:12.780Texas law banning transgender surgeries for minors and puberty blockers. How come you voted against
00:27:19.540that? Because the bill was overly broad. And in fact, if you go back and check, I voted for a
00:27:23.900major amendment to limit the bill to banning surgeries for minors. So I've been consistent0.58
00:27:28.600on this issue. And what about biological men competing in women's sports? That's a big deal
00:27:34.120here in texas that's right and i oppose trans athletes playing in girls sports if it endangers
00:27:40.180safety or fairness every sport has to be safe and so there he is trying to run away from his vote
00:27:46.740in favor of boys competing in girls sports and he tries to put wiggle language in about well if it
00:27:52.500endangers safety or fairness understand he's a radical and ideologue he doesn't think having
00:27:58.040dudes compete against your daughters endangers safety or fairness senator we've been talking a
00:28:03.260thought about this James Tallarico really running away from what he believes in. There is a trend
00:28:08.260here happening with candidates that are in trouble around the country. He's leading the way in a very
00:28:13.160big way. And we have a few more examples of just how much he's trying to act like everything in
00:28:18.400his past. Well, it was all just a joke. It was all just for entertainment. It was all just, you know,
00:28:23.560I guess, fake, you know, preaching at church. He didn't mean any of it at all. Well, it really is
00:28:30.380It's stunning to watch Democrat candidates living out a classic Monty Python skit of run away, run away, run away, because that's what they're trying to do is run away from their record.
00:28:41.040You know, one of the most dimming quotes that James Tallarico has out there is a recently uncovered Zoom video he was doing with a bunch of left wing activists, Sierra Club activists who are zealous.
00:28:54.980And he said on that video, and you can watch him say it, that he wants to dismantle capitalism.
00:29:03.760Now, I got to say, if you're running in the state of Texas, most Texans don't want to dismantle capitalism.
00:29:10.580And so his campaign realizes, oh, this is a problem.
00:29:13.800So listen to him try to run away from that state.
00:29:16.640Tallarico himself under fire for past controversial comments like this call to dismantle capitalism.
00:29:23.140The link between climate change and white supremacy and capitalism in our country.
00:29:28.280And I think only in the ways that all three of those oppressive systems work together, are we going to be able to begin the process of dismantling them?
00:29:36.300Did you mean that? So I've missed the mark on statements that I've made in the past.
00:29:40.980I'll be the first to admit that what I was talking about when you listen to my my entire comments was not capitalism, but crony capitalism, which is what we have today.
00:29:49.600senator you listen to him and and i just envision a campaign room where his advisors like hey
00:29:58.240here's what we got to do we got to say everything that you ever said that was radical or extreme
00:30:03.920didn't really mean what you were saying we're going to roll this out as a campaign the same
00:30:11.180week as the is the republican midterm convention and this will be your moment say all of it was
00:30:16.160just kind of a joke. It was a ruse. It was for entertainment. It wasn't real. And then we'll
00:30:21.040just go into the rest of the election over the last next 50 plus days saying we didn't actually
00:30:25.940believe any of that. This is now what we believe. And I guess they truly think this is like their
00:30:30.460best option. Yeah, look, it's a cynical approach, but it can be an effective approach, particularly
00:30:37.000because the media is fundamentally dishonest. So on Wednesday's podcast, I played the interview
00:30:43.400I had with Caitlin Collins on CNN, where I brought up Tallarico saying he wants to dismantle capitalism.
00:30:50.160And she clearly realized that was a problem, because even the viewers of CNN don't want to dismantle capitalism.
00:30:57.800And so she immediately jumps in and says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, he retracted that.
00:31:01.940He doesn't mean that. He's withdrawn from that.
00:31:03.880And I'm just like, and she got mad because I said, listen, the socialists like Vandami and Abdul El Saeed look at Tallarico and see him as a fellow traveler.
00:31:18.420And she jumped in and said, he's not a socialist.
00:31:21.960And I said, Caitlin, he said he wants to dismantle capitalism.
00:31:26.380What does that mean if it's not being a socialist?
00:31:29.440And she suddenly just had to repeat his talking.
00:31:32.060is that's why democrats lie in campaigns because they know the media will carry their water
00:31:39.780and cover it up and and and it it reflects the reality that his record is radical it's out of
00:31:47.220touch with texas and so their entire campaign strategy has run away i think next week he may
00:31:53.040pull on and make it america great red hat and start walking around being like i'm a trump
00:31:57.260Republican. Let's go. He won't quite do that. But but that's the theory is lie to the voters,
00:32:02.740then get in power. And I promise you, if God forbid this guy ever got elected,
00:32:08.680he would be the most woke left wing senator the country has ever seen. He would be Bernie Sanders,
00:32:14.840but thirty seven and young enough to believe this. Yeah, it'll be very interesting to see
00:32:20.100how effective this is with with Democratic voters and also independents. Senator, before we wrap
00:32:25.700things up, I do want to take a few minutes and talk about our dear friend, Charlie Kirk. I saw
00:32:31.820Erica, and we were both at convention, and there were a lot of speakers that talked about Charlie
00:32:38.400Kirk, his legacy, and the fact that it's been a year is actually really, really shocking. He was
00:32:43.900a dear friend of yours, a dear friend of mine. I really just can't believe it's been a year,
00:32:47.820and I also think what's really interesting is if you go back to his core mission on college0.91
00:32:54.760campuses it was to expose socialism he had his shirts that you know socialism sucks and and
00:33:01.820and communism is it sucks and that was kind of one of his things i wonder how much he uh if he0.78
00:33:09.460was alive today would be saying i told you show i were i warned you and i told you this is where0.93
00:33:14.240the democrats were going and now we see the democratic socialists of america that have in
00:33:18.700essence taken over well that's right he fought against these evils his entire life he fought
00:33:24.220against communism he fought against israelism he fought for america for christianity for truth
00:33:30.320and and i will say you know that this week i spent a lot of time thinking about charlie
00:33:36.760as you noted charlie and i were good friends i i met charlie 14 years ago yeah i met him in 2012
00:33:45.720i think it was december 2012 and he was an 18 year old kid he was this tall lengthy kid he just
00:33:52.040graduated from high school uh in chicago and and he had this vision this vision that would become
00:33:58.000turning point he thought young people could be inspired to to love freedom to love the constitution
00:34:04.720to love free enterprise to love jesus to love america and i gotta admit like december of 2012
00:34:13.000barack obama just been re-elected young people were enamored with with obama with leftism
00:34:19.720And listening to this kid talk about that we can get young people really excited about it, it sounded really out there.
00:34:26.960But he believed it, and I believed it and supported him.
00:34:31.120I've spoken at dozens of Turning Point conferences over the years.
00:34:35.080And I will say, Ben, I did not fully appreciate just how enormously important a person Charlie had become, the movement that he started.
00:37:20.940Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:37:27.180I believe that whoever was in that room and did that was a murderer.
00:37:31.320A new podcast series, Faultline Haditha, tells the story of a shocking crime and a cover-up at the highest levels of the United States Marine Corps.
00:37:40.240If you've got five players and you offer immunity to four, you better be right about the fifth, because if you're not, then you've just given immunity to your killer.
00:37:47.920Listen to Faultline Haditha on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.