A Day In The Life
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Summary
Ted Cruz sits down with Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyoming) in the early morning hours of the morning to get his thoughts on whether to call additional witnesses in the impeachment trial, and who will break the tie.
Transcript
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The Senate is heading for a nail-biter vote on whether to call additional witnesses
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or to end this impeachment trial once and for all.
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The Senator and I sit down in daylight for a change
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to get his strategy before he heads to Capitol Hill.
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Senator, I don't remember the last time I saw you in daylight.
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Well, hopefully the sun shining indicates we're near the end of this journey.
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I want to get your thoughts on the likelihood of that.
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I want to get your strategy on the last eight questions today.
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There are some reports coming out that John Barrasso, the number three Republican in the Senate,
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says that the momentum is heading in the direction of not calling additional witnesses.
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There are other reports that we might get a 50-50 vote perfectly split,
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in which case I want to know who breaks the tie.
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We need 51 votes to definitively say the trial is done.
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If we have 51 votes, we can wrap this up in the next couple of days.
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If we don't, and I hope the momentum's going that way, as we talked about in the last podcast,
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I think there are at least two Republicans who are pretty clearly going to vote with the Democrats,
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There are the two next most likely are Lisa Murkowski and Lamar Alexander.
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They're holding their cards very close to the vest.
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They seem to be genuinely struggling with this decision.
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If it ends up 50-50, we're in a little bit of uncharted territory.
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Under the scheduling order we adopted, I think Republican leadership's argument would be 50-50 means witnesses are not in order.
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I am certain that the Democrats will argue if it's 50-50, it means witnesses are in order.
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Look, look, there's not a whole lot of precedent here.
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There's not, under the Senate rules, it's not, I can make the arguments on both sides of that.
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I understand the arguments on both sides of that.
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It is possible the Chief Justice will have a view.
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So the Chief Justice doesn't play the role of the Vice President.
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You know, normally in the Senate, the Vice President breaks ties.
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Now, there's some historical precedent for the Chief Justice breaking a 50-50 tie.
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That happened in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson twice.
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But then the Senators got unhappy with that, and the Chief Justice receded and said, okay,
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So as with so many aspects of this trial, we really don't have a lot of precedent to go on.
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If Chief Justice Roberts decided to vigorously assert himself and make a ruling, I don't know
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I think, you know, you may recall at his confirmation hearing, he used the analogy of wanting to
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And so one of the nice things he did, which he didn't have to do, but yesterday he enforced
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a five-minute time limit on answers to questions.
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There's nothing in the rules that makes him do five minutes.
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But I think every senator was grateful because if it hadn't been a five-minute time limit,
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you would have just seen the lawyers on both sides filibuster forever.
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And you would have only gotten to a handful of questions instead of all, okay.
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But that's an example where that was within his discretion.
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Although that being said, if enough senators disagreed, 51 of us could have overruled it.
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So it's, that sort of ruling is a perfect example of, I think everyone agreed with it, so it
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But where it runs into problems is if the Chief Justice is disagreeing with the majority.
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By the way, you saw the House managers suggest something last night.
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They said, we're perfectly fine with the Chief Justice deciding everything, deciding evidentiary
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Now, look, you got to understand, that argument makes perfect sense when you're in the minority.
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Remember, we had 11 motions on day one, they lost all 11.
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So if you're going to lose on any party line vote, it's in your interest to find any other
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Give the power away, let somebody else make the decision.
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And even if they think they're not going to win with the Chief, they got a better chance
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It's sort of like, all right, an election recounts.
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Have you noticed that when an election is close, the prevailing party never calls for a recount?
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Like, whoever's been declared the winner, even if by one vote, you don't see that person
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saying, we need a recount, it's always the guy who's lost.
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Because if you've lost, a recount is the only thing that can benefit you.
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That's a little bit the same as what's going on here.
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So obviously, then, today is going to matter a lot before we get to this vote.
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The reason I wanted to sit down today before we get to the impeachment trial is I want
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to hear a little bit about your strategy, how you prepare when you're going in, when
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What are you going to ask today when you get to the Hill?
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Well, you're looking at, all right, what parts of the story haven't been told, what hasn't
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been told as effectively as it should, what additional facts need to be brought out, what weaknesses
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in the defense's or the house manager's case should you shine a light on.
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Some of what I'm looking at, some of the areas that there are still aspects of the evidence
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of corruption, the evidence of corruption of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company,
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of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden that still haven't been fleshed out and that I think need to.
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Um, so for example, uh, there, there is an email exchange that, that happened when, when
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Chris Hines, so Chris Hines is the stepson of John Kerry.
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John Kerry was, was Obama's secretary of state.
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Chris Hines was business partners with Hunter Biden and with this guy, Devin Archer, who was
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First, Devin Archer and then Hunter Biden both joined the board of Burisma.
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They both are getting paid a million bucks a year.
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Number one, he sends an email to the, to his stepfather's chief of staff, to John Kerry's
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And, and, and he says, apparently Devin and Hunter both joined the board of Burisma and
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made a press and a press release went out today.
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I can't speak to why they decided to do so, but there was no investment by our firm in that
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He's trying to, trying to clear his name, trying to dissociate himself.
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John Kerry's chief of staff, notice he doesn't say Devin Archer and Hunter Biden.
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So the chief of staff knows exactly who these guys are.
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He doesn't explain Burisma is this Ukrainian company.
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Chief of staff knew exactly what Burisma was, knew exactly who Devin and Archer was.
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He went on to say he terminated his business relationships with Hunter and Biden.
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And he said it was unacceptable to work for Burisma.
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Now the white house defense team briefly got into this, but the house managers have never
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had to ask a question, answer a question on this.
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Now, wait a second, if Chris Hines thought it was unacceptable to work for Burisma, did
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That, and look, one of the things to keep in mind also, what really matters legally, we've
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talked about in any litigation, you want to simplify.
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Your enemy is getting so complicated and you get bogged down in the weeds, you want to
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The question that matters, you know, I did Sean Hannity a couple of days ago and he had
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What matters legally is does a president have the authority to investigate corruption and
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Now, and on the fact side, it's worth remembering that, listen, the question is not really whether
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Hunter Biden, by all appearances, has led a troubled life.
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This is someone who's made some unfortunate decisions in his life.
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The question is whether Joe Biden made decisions that made him part of that corruption.
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And I don't think so far the connection as to why this is Joe Biden's decision.
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It was a question that Josh Hawley asked that I joined and the two of us asked together.
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And it was about, did Joe Biden ever seek an opinion from the White House counsel's office
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if he could keep being the point man on Ukraine while his son was getting paid a million bucks
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And the White House team said, not that we know of, we have no, you know, you know, one
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of the things one does in government, if one has a potential conflict, is you go to the lawyers
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And you get an opinion and they tell you what to do.
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Please, I'm not going to get involved in Ukraine because my son's getting rich off of Ukraine.
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So the House managers, the Democrats, did not have to answer this question yesterday.
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Are you worried that Adam Schiff listens to this podcast and he's going to get a heads
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It's interesting, the questions that rattle him, the questions that rattle him are when
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So you're going to ask this question, are you going or they're going to be questions on
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the same topic you're hitting, or are you going to change it up and go after another
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So Joe Biden told reporters that he's never discussed his son's business dealings with
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But what wasn't discussed is there's somebody who disagrees with that.
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Uh, and, and that's somebody who disagrees with that is Hunter Biden.
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Uh, and, and, and, and Hunter Biden, uh, said that he talked to his dad about his serving
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And Hunter said, quote, dad said, I hope you know what you're doing.
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So why is it that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are telling different stories that Joe says
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And Hunter's like, oh yeah, I talked to him about it.
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I mean, I, I assume that the democratic house managers are going to just try to evade the
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question and filibuster, but it sounds like you've got a couple different angles to come
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I want to know beyond the impeachment trial, you have, you have more work to do than just
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What is a day in the life waking up, doing whatever you do in the morning, then going to
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I know what you do from 10 PM until about two in the morning, but what does a day in
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Yesterday I got up, first meeting I had was at nine, was a meeting with, with Benjamin
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And so he's staying at Blair house, which is the residence right next to the white house.
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So I went over to Blair house and then met with him from nine to nine 30.
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I've met with him many times in Israel and in the U S we're friends.
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Uh, when he and I meet it, it's, it's nice because they're one-on-ones, uh, we don't
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They keep having elections that, that he hasn't been able to form a government.
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And so I was getting his thoughts on what's going on on that and what the dynamics are.
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Uh, I think BB's leadership when it comes to stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons
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has been extraordinarily important, particularly when Obama was president and, and, and when
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Netanyahu, we invited him to speak on the, the, the, a joint session of Congress and he
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called out the danger of the Ayatollah Khamenei with nuclear weapons.
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And, and the adjective I've used a bunch of times for Netanyahu is Churchillian because
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it was like Winston Churchill when the Nazis were, were, were a gathering storm that he
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He spoke out with a clarity, spoke out with a gravity and a weight.
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And, and it helped stiffen the spine, frankly, of a lot of members of Congress.
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One of the reasons Trump pulled out of the Obama nuclear deal is because BB was so strong
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that he had, that, that you didn't have Republicans in Congress just give up on it and say, oh,
00:14:03.960
So I started the day meeting with BB, um, met with him from nine to nine 30, then went
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And we talked strategy, uh, for the impeachment hearing.
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We worked on questions for the impeachment hearing.
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Then I went back, uh, back to the white house and, and, and was there.
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We talked yesterday about the signing, uh, of the USMCA, the U S, uh, Mexico, Canada trade
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Uh, that was out on the South lawn of the white house.
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A bunch of senators, a bunch of house members were there.
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The president gave him, gave a pretty good speech.
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He, he was spending a lot of time sort of almost tongue in cheek, kissing up to the senators
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And what was amusing is he said, house members, I don't need you guys.
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So you're like, I can ignore you, but Hey, the senators, you know, I mean, it was, uh, and
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Um, and then from there went back to the, back to the Capitol and we went into the trial
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trial started at one o'clock and the trial went from one o'clock till about 1115 at night.
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Stayed in the cloak room for about 45 minutes, trying to see if we could find a, a, a deal
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So I was negotiating with other senators, got in the truck, headed over here.
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Oh, probably about two in the morning last night, uh, turned on the DVR and watched about
00:15:55.200
Uh, and then, uh, although if I will be amazed if the Rockets won, cause we're so shorthanded,
00:16:00.360
we're missing Harden and Westbrook and Capella.
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So it, if we want, it's a miracle, but I have to believe in miracles.
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I have to admit, I missed the Rockets jazz game last night.
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Um, and then, um, went to sleep about two 30, woke up this morning.
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Uh, first thing I had this morning was a text from my scheduler saying, Hey, Lindsey
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Graham needs to talk to you, uh, on impeachment.
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So I called Lindsey, uh, Lindsey had just gotten off the phone with the president.
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And so we talked about, he and I are both working to see, is there a way to get the
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senators who are not sure where they are on additional witnesses to get them, uh, get
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them to, to, to, yes, to get them to ending this trial now.
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And so we're continuing to negotiate and discuss that.
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Then you came here, we had a cup of coffee and did the show.
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This brings up a fascinating point because in the way that I was imagining how impeachment
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goes, and I think for a lot of Americans, it's all kind of pre-planned.
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Nobody needs to wake up and call the white house and then call your other Senator friend
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And yet from what you're describing to me, running into the cloakroom, hearing something,
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writing down a new question, calling Lindsey Graham, he's on the phone with the president.
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There are a lot of senators who are just kind of sitting there listening.
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They're going to cast their vote and that's it.
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As I told Lindsey this morning, I have to admit, I'm having a hell of a lot of fun.
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But these are complicated, tough, strategic, legal, political, factual questions that are nuanced.
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And I think we're going to end up in the right place, which is the president being acquitted.
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What it takes and how we get there is a different story.
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Could you just take us really quickly through the – you're going to get this vote tomorrow, I guess, on whether to call additional witnesses.
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If they vote no, no additional witnesses, what do the next two weeks look like?
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So if we vote no additional witnesses, if we get 51 who say no additional witnesses, that we've heard enough, I expect that the Democrats will have kind of paroxysms of rage.
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There'll be something like I can't believe you did this to me, so I have another motion.
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And some of it is the Democrats will just need to get that out of their system.
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And one of the strategies Mitch McConnell has employed, which I actually think has been wise and the right thing, is to make this long and brutal and painful to all 100 senators.
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Mitch has told us 100 times this is not going to be pleasant.
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Because he wants the senators to want to end this.
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So typically, we fly out Thursday afternoons to get back home.
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And we're in our home states Fridays through the weekends.
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Often, how things get done in the Senate is you're getting to Thursday.
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And so the phrase is, jet fumes are in the air.
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And when jet fumes are in the air, you've got a bunch of senators.
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Some of the angriest I've ever made my colleagues is on fights trying to limit out-of-control spending.
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When I've ended up saying, no, I'm going to object.
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And I mean, you cannot overstate how screaming and enraged.
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I mean, literally screaming at the top of their lungs.
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By having these be long, grueling days, what he is counting on is senators, both wobbly Republicans and Democrats, will say, I've got to get out of here.
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Enough already that they won't want to extend things forever.
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Tomorrow, if we have a vote, no additional witnesses.
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By the way, each motion, you've got an hour on each side to argue it.
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So it will be, I expect tomorrow is likely to be a long night.
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But then I think we will move to the final judgment stage.
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So the TV cameras are off, the reporters are thrown out, and it's just senators giving speeches and talking to each other.
00:21:09.400
But if we conclude that additional witnesses are not needed, I am confident that by Monday, this will be done.
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And so if we conclude there are no additional witnesses, I have full confidence we will push through whatever is necessary to get this resolved before the State of the Union.
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And it will be a very funny State of the Union if this is all resolved before then.
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What do the next two, three, four weeks look like?
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Presumably, you'll have a motion from the Democrats to call John Bolton.
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If they're 51 who just voted for more witnesses, you have to assume they're 51 for that.
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Presumably, you'll have a motion on the other side to call Hunter Biden.
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You know, Chuck Schumer is telling reporters there will never be 51 to call Hunter Biden.
00:22:06.280
It is total spin because he's saying, well, our Democrats will vote now.
00:22:10.560
Well, look, even if four Republicans join with the Democrats in calling Bolton, those four are not going to say we will only call prosecution witnesses and not defense witnesses.
00:22:23.380
I'm confident if we're calling witnesses, if John Bolton is getting called, that we'll have at least 53 votes to call Hunter Biden.
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By the way, Joe Manchin also said he might vote.
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Democrat from West Virginia, he might vote for Hunter Biden.
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And the point is, if we go down this road, we'll have at least those two witnesses.
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An interesting bit of speculation, I've heard several senators say this in the cloakroom, that they think the Democrats are voting for more witnesses, but hoping, desperately hoping, they lose that vote.
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Because a lot of these Democrats are terrified if we open the door to more witnesses and we bring in, say, Hunter Biden or we bring in Joe Biden or we bring in the whistleblower, that things get really bad because what they manage to do in the House proceedings is cover up all of the evidence of corruption.
00:23:13.780
We start bringing in witnesses and suddenly that corruption, you know, it's going to be real interesting seeing Hunter Biden on the floor of the Senate be asked a million bucks a year.
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What services did you provide for a million bucks a year?
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This almost has me hoping for more witnesses, but I just want to be clear.
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If more witnesses are called, this is not going to continue to be an every single day, 10 hours a day.
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So if the Senate votes to subpoena, let's say we subpoena both John Bolton and Hunter Biden, that's going to take some time to shake out then.
00:23:54.680
I think it's likely you'll see litigation, at least on the John Bolton side, with the White House asserting executive privilege, trying to block his testimony.
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And so I think what is likely is the Senate would go back to regular business for a period of time until such time as those witnesses can come.
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And by the way, usually with witnesses, you have a deposition first and then you have trial testimony.
00:24:18.520
So if we go down the road of more witnesses, I would anticipate that being sometime in the future, minimum of a couple of weeks.
00:24:26.840
OK, so we'll get a little bit of a break and then the Senate has to go from this very intense trial back into the normal business of the Senate, back into possibly removing the president from office.
00:24:40.940
It is. And listen, I think there are a lot of Democrats really nervous about the direction these facts are going.
00:24:50.720
I'll give an example. Yesterday in questioning, Adam Schiff said early on, he said, if any part of the president's motivation is corrupt, then that's enough to convict him.
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Now, does this mean there was a big angle on this yesterday, which was the difference between a private motive and a public motive, you know, private interest or the national good?
00:25:16.540
So and I think actually Dershowitz did a really good job of sort of breaking out three scenarios.
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Yeah. There is one scenario, which is the sort of Mother Teresa, that you're making a decision because of love of humanity and the greater good.
00:25:29.620
And he said, look, there are not a lot of people in politics making a lot of decisions like that.
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He said there's the other scenario that is the corrupt and venal, that your motive is purely selfish.
00:25:43.940
It's bribery. Or for that matter, look, that's what's alleged about Joe Biden.
00:25:51.060
I mean, it is you want to talk about the three scenarios, the Biden allegations at a minimum are in category three.
00:26:01.040
And it's mixed motives where you have some public interest.
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But you're also looking to political self-interest.
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And one thing to keep in mind, listen, with elected politicians, just about everything you do, one of the considerations you're thinking about is, will the folks back home like it?
00:26:22.160
And that, look, I think politicians think about that far too often.
00:26:25.880
I'm a big believer in the proposition that good policy is good politics.
00:26:33.240
But you see, you know, we just passed the USMCA.
00:26:37.420
Bunch of senators, bunch of House members voted for that.
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A big reason they voted for that is their constituents want them to.
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If any part of the motive is corrupt, and by corrupt he means thinking it will advance his partisan interest,
00:26:59.280
that it's impeachable and you should remove him from office.
00:27:04.680
Do you believe any part of Adam Schiff's motivation is partisan?
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I think we would all have to say, of course, part of Adam Schiff's motivation is partisan.
00:27:21.480
He literally argued if the president had even the tiniest bit of political motivation,
00:27:28.020
he should be impeached and removed for office for high crimes and misdemeanors.
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So if the politician had a political motivation at all, in any degree, then he's got to be thrown out of office.
00:27:53.660
Do you remember the compliment that was made of Bill Clinton that he's an exceptionally good liar?
00:28:11.560
And it seems as though you might be paying somebody a compliment.
00:28:17.560
And we need to make sure that you ask all of those questions of the House impeachment managers.
00:28:21.980
And then we will be right back tomorrow to see how it all turns out.
00:28:34.640
I need to tell you a major landmark occurrence this week.
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Yesterday, I was looking over at Richard Burr from North Carolina.
00:28:45.580
And on his desk, a page brought him chocolate milk.
00:28:52.920
Well, so I took one of the witness cards, the question cards that you write to the Chief
00:28:57.280
Justice, and I wrote out a question from Senator Cruz.
00:29:01.160
Mr. Chief Justice, is it the case that Senator Burr is the first senator in the history of
00:29:05.920
the U.S. Senate to have chocolate milk at his desk?
00:29:09.140
And I didn't send it to the Chief Justice, but I did pass it over to Richard, who cracked
00:29:14.360
So we have apparently made a new precedent that I don't think has ever occurred.
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When the historians look at this moment, they might say third time ever that a president
00:29:28.760
First time ever a president was impeached without being accused of a crime.
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Because the big precedent is the first time ever chocolate milk was drunk on the Senate
00:29:40.480
And next podcast, ask me about what John Thune and I are planning to do about this.
00:29:51.800
This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security
00:30:04.800
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00:30:12.000
In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running for
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Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.