Verdict with Ted Cruz - A Firsthand Look at Socialism

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.480 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.760 A specter is haunting the United States.

00:00:07.540 The specter of Bernie's revolution.

00:00:10.620 We are joined tonight not just by the sender,

00:00:13.040 but by someone who fled another socialist revolution,

00:00:16.200 one that Bernie Sanders speaks very highly of.

00:00:19.280 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:27.380 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:29.640 We are joined as ever by the senator and also by the senator's Tia Sonia.

00:00:34.840 My Spanish is not very good, but I think that was about right. 1.00

00:00:38.120 Aunt Sonia.

00:00:38.700 That is correct.

00:00:39.360 Thank you.

00:00:40.220 This is, in a few days, going to be the 58th anniversary

00:00:43.760 of your fleeing the communist regime in Cuba.

00:00:47.480 That is correct.

00:00:48.320 And yet we've got the leader of the Democratic Party nomination process

00:00:52.380 is praising the Fidel Castro regime.

00:00:55.040 I think we have the clip.

00:00:55.960 Very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba.

00:00:58.900 But, you know, it's unfair to simply say everything is bad.

00:01:02.780 You know, when Fidel Castro came into office, you know what he did?

00:01:05.860 He had a massive literacy program.

00:01:07.860 Is that a bad thing?

00:01:09.120 Listen, Bernie has spent his entire life, his entire career,

00:01:12.940 praising communist dictators.

00:01:14.340 But this week, his latest ode to Fidel Castro, frankly, just pissed me off.

00:01:21.860 And this is not a joke.

00:01:24.500 This guy is the front runner for the Democratic nomination to be president.

00:01:28.180 And he sings the praises of Castro and Cuban communism.

00:01:35.140 My dad fled Cuba in 57.

00:01:38.340 My Tia Sonia was still there.

00:01:40.060 She was a kid.

00:01:41.140 And so she saw the Cuban revolution firsthand,

00:01:44.140 and she ended up fighting against Castro.

00:01:46.180 So, Tia, if you would, I just want you...

00:01:48.820 First of all, tell me what it was like to be in Cuba

00:01:52.260 when the revolution happened, when Castro took over.

00:01:56.160 Actually, it was...

00:01:58.580 A lot of people were happy because finally somebody was coming in that was praising,

00:02:05.340 we're going to give you a chance to change your hope.

00:02:08.780 We're going to change things around.

00:02:10.360 Everybody was going to have whatever they want to.

00:02:13.020 The poor will never be poor.

00:02:14.580 The rich continue to have money, and everybody will be the same.

00:02:19.180 In reality, yes, everybody went the same, but everybody was poor.

00:02:24.240 Everybody went down.

00:02:27.300 Everybody got paid the same amount of money.

00:02:29.980 There was no difference between the poor and the rich.

00:02:32.980 Everybody lost everything they had.

00:02:34.020 It's not that everyone was rich.

00:02:35.320 Everyone was poor and suffering and miserable.

00:02:37.840 And everybody was miserable. 0.97

00:02:39.660 Everybody was miserable. 1.00

00:02:40.820 What Bernie is saying is a bunch of garbage. 1.00

00:02:44.120 So you're there. 1.00

00:02:45.800 You're a teenager.

00:02:47.080 How old were you?

00:02:48.180 Probably 16, 15.

00:02:50.700 Okay, so you're seeing this.

00:02:52.140 You're a teenage girl.

00:02:53.320 Right.

00:02:53.800 You see what's happening.

00:02:54.980 You see Castro begin executing people.

00:02:59.260 Yeah, persecuting people.

00:03:00.880 Nobody could talk.

00:03:01.800 Nobody could say anything.

00:03:03.360 They actually...

00:03:04.500 He trained the people to even be against the family.

00:03:08.560 The sons against the father.

00:03:10.140 The daughters against the family.

00:03:11.480 So how did he do that?

00:03:12.840 By indoctrinating these people.

00:03:15.360 By telling them, we're going to give you this and that and the other.

00:03:18.600 And it's all going to be free.

00:03:20.140 But you got to tell us what's going on in your house.

00:03:22.500 Who talked against the government.

00:03:24.240 So everything was persecuting one another, especially the older people.

00:03:29.160 That actually, we lived a good life before in Cuba.

00:03:32.240 It was beautiful.

00:03:33.080 What do people face in terms of their friends and neighbors and families spying on them from the government?

00:03:38.920 You have people in each block.

00:03:41.720 There is somebody that is responsible to keep an eye on you, in your house.

00:03:46.720 So there's a tattletale.

00:03:48.820 There's a spy in every block.

00:03:50.220 A spy in every block.

00:03:51.340 And they tell you, you keep an eye on every neighbor of this block.

00:03:55.800 And what sort of things are they watching for?

00:03:57.440 They're watching for everything.

00:03:58.420 If you bring anything, maybe I'm going from the United States to Cuba and there's somebody coming in.

00:04:06.620 So we need to wash their house in case they go out and sell in the black market or they do something with what you brought in.

00:04:14.020 So there's somebody who's always keeping an eye on you and try to report you.

00:04:18.740 A good thing that happened to me, something that happened to me that is very interesting.

00:04:22.660 One of the trips that I went back to Cuba, I wanted to take the kids, some of the kids from there, to go fishing.

00:04:29.160 I love fishing.

00:04:30.400 So I went in and tried to rent a boat.

00:04:33.520 And they told me, we can't.

00:04:35.260 We don't rent boats to Cuban people.

00:04:37.880 And I said, you may leave.

00:04:39.540 And I said, look, I have a passport.

00:04:41.720 I have a flight leaving Friday.

00:04:43.740 Already left.

00:04:44.820 So I'm coming in to take my family on a boat ride.

00:04:48.180 We can't give it to you.

00:04:49.680 We can't rent you a boat.

00:04:51.880 You're Cuban.

00:04:54.180 Because they're so afraid.

00:04:55.160 By the way, Michael, if you go there, you can rent a boat as an American.

00:04:57.940 You can rent a boat.

00:04:58.260 Right.

00:04:58.600 She can't rent a boat because she's Cuban, even though she's an American citizen now.

00:05:02.760 Yes.

00:05:03.540 You're Cuban.

00:05:04.980 So you can't do it.

00:05:06.300 There was a boat in the river that my niece wanted to go in. 1.00

00:05:11.100 And when we get in to ride the boat with the rest of the people, they said, you all cannot get in.

00:05:17.320 You all are Cuban. 0.99

00:05:18.360 And I said, but we're paying with the same money that they're paying.

00:05:21.360 Well, I'm sorry.

00:05:22.660 You can't come in.

00:05:23.760 You're not from another country.

00:05:25.700 You're Cuban. 0.68

00:05:26.660 And Cuban people are not allowed. 1.00

00:05:28.480 They're not allowed to leave.

00:05:29.500 No.

00:05:29.740 Because they know if they were allowed to leave, they'd all leave.

00:05:32.360 Sonia, how quickly after, as you say, you know, people liked Castro initially.

00:05:38.900 He was promising them the world.

00:05:41.520 How quickly did it turn?

00:05:43.200 I mean, how quickly did it turn?

00:05:44.660 It turned right away.

00:05:45.460 It turned right away.

00:05:46.340 He immediately started saying the policies that he wanted to do.

00:05:50.780 He was going to take things away from the rich.

00:05:53.240 He was going to take things away from the people to give to others.

00:05:56.720 He was to actually take money from you and give it to the poor.

00:06:01.560 On the other side, I make my money.

00:06:04.120 I work for what I have.

00:06:05.680 My father worked hard to be where he was.

00:06:09.280 My mother was a great school teacher. 0.90

00:06:12.080 She was really, was proud of what she was doing.

00:06:15.580 My mother itself was told that she had to teach at the school a different kind of curriculum. 0.67

00:06:21.860 She was told she needed to teach about the revolution, Castro, the regime, the things that needed to happen.

00:06:27.580 My mother had to actually pretend that she was losing her mind, and she was dismissed immediately. 1.00

00:06:35.700 Let me underscore this story.

00:06:38.420 I grew up hearing this story as a kid.

00:06:40.740 I mean, I would sit with my cousin, Bebe, who's Sonia's daughter.

00:06:44.740 The two of us would sit literally on the floor in the living room and listen to my dad and my tia Sonia tell us stories about the revolution, and my abuelo and abuela, their parents were there also.

00:06:55.380 So my grandmother, my abuela, she's a sixth grade teacher.

00:06:59.060 Castro takes over, and she's ordered, you must teach communism to the kids.

00:07:03.940 You must indoctrinate.

00:07:05.160 You must brainwash the kids. 0.98

00:07:07.100 And my grandmother said she wasn't going to do it. 0.80

00:07:09.360 And so it's funny.

00:07:11.360 My tia Sonia mentioned something just very mild.

00:07:14.200 But my grandmother pretended she was insane. 1.00

00:07:17.360 In the classroom, she began literally foaming at the mouth and pretending she was insane. 0.86

00:07:21.900 Why?

00:07:22.320 Because she couldn't quit.

00:07:23.240 But in the communist dictatorship, she wasn't allowed to quit.

00:07:27.180 And she made the decision she would rather have the stigma, have the shame of people thinking she was a crazy person than be a part of indoctrinating these kids.

00:07:37.780 That is true.

00:07:38.460 And it was very painful because my mother was a great teacher.

00:07:41.840 It was loved by many people.

00:07:43.980 But she had to play crazy in order to get out of that situation. 0.96

00:07:47.640 But what I want to know is how, in Cuba, the public opinion changes very quickly. 0.93

00:07:52.620 People see what a monster Castro is, and they start to hate his guts.

00:07:56.500 How is it that in the United States, now, so many years on, 58 years on now since you left,

00:08:03.020 you have a presidential candidate, you've got a U.S. senator who's still singing the praises of this guy.

00:08:09.980 What did he miss?

00:08:11.380 He had not been with the Cuban people.

00:08:14.360 He only, if you go there as a Cuban, you go and see somebody, a relative.

00:08:19.280 You're going to see the misery that they live in.

00:08:21.920 They don't know what to put on the table to serve their kids.

00:08:24.800 They don't know how to get, they're going to get the food that they're going to eat tomorrow.

00:08:28.020 If you're going as somebody from another country or as a tourist, you're taking to,

00:08:35.320 you actually become prisoner of the government.

00:08:38.020 They take you where they want you to go.

00:08:40.520 They show you the model school.

00:08:42.680 They show you the best hospitals.

00:08:44.620 They show you the best restaurants.

00:08:47.380 In 1989, Sanders stated after visiting Cuba, quote,

00:08:50.820 I did not see a hungry child.

00:08:53.040 I did not see any homeless people.

00:08:55.380 Bernie said the Cuban people, quote, had an almost religious affection for Castro.

00:09:01.480 That is not true.

00:09:03.360 He is lying.

00:09:04.560 He's lying to the people of this country.

00:09:06.720 He is playing on the mind of the younger generation here.

00:09:10.580 He was either himself complicit in the lie or he was naive enough or ideological enough

00:09:18.080 to let the Castro regime lie to him and say, look at this, this paradise.

00:09:22.760 They didn't take him to where the Cuban people were.

00:09:26.040 Cuban people are starving to death.

00:09:28.580 Cuban people don't have any money to buy anything. 1.00

00:09:31.180 So let me take you back, Thea, back to 59, back to 60.

00:09:35.580 The revolution succeeded.

00:09:37.980 You begin fighting against Castro.

00:09:42.660 What happened to you as a result?

00:09:44.360 What happened when you started fighting against Castro?

00:09:46.360 I was constantly persecuted.

00:09:49.160 People was looking for me everywhere.

00:09:52.540 They want to take me to prison.

00:09:54.500 They picked me up several times.

00:09:56.380 So you were pretty clearly fighting against the regime.

00:09:59.580 Totally against Castro.

00:10:00.720 Yes.

00:10:01.240 Yes.

00:10:01.780 So this is after Castro has taken over.

00:10:03.540 So he's the dictator.

00:10:04.320 So what, like when they picked you up, what happened?

00:10:07.500 What does that mean?

00:10:08.320 Well, they put you in a room and there was people sitting on the floor and everybody's,

00:10:14.960 you know, that's where you were with a whole bunch of people in the floor.

00:10:18.680 And they keep you there for two or three days.

00:10:20.920 My parent did not know where I was.

00:10:23.500 My mother did not know.

00:10:24.940 So she was going crazy trying to find me. 0.62

00:10:27.080 My friends, friends that I have, could not even come and find out with my parents where

00:10:33.760 was I or what was wrong with me.

00:10:36.020 They were afraid because everybody was persecuted.

00:10:39.460 So it was very difficult to leave on the Castro regime.

00:10:45.120 When you left Cuba, it was 62 you left?

00:10:47.980 Right.

00:10:48.400 You've been back a bunch of times.

00:10:49.740 Right.

00:10:50.180 Yes.

00:10:50.500 What if, so when you come back, you usually bring a duffel bag with medicine, medicine,

00:10:57.960 I bring food, clothes, sheets.

00:11:01.300 Just for relatives, just for friends.

00:11:03.300 Friends, people that need.

00:11:04.620 So they can't get anything there.

00:11:06.880 Nothing, nothing.

00:11:08.220 She leaves a suitcase.

00:11:09.260 She leaves every bit of clothes she bought.

00:11:11.460 She leaves her underwear and bra.

00:11:13.360 Everything.

00:11:13.920 Because nobody has underwear there because there's so much poverty.

00:11:17.720 You'll wear like sweatpants, a t-shirt, and flip-flop.

00:11:20.480 That's it.

00:11:20.700 That's what she wears on the plane coming back. 0.97

00:11:23.660 Right.

00:11:23.980 That is correct.

00:11:24.760 A lot of people don't understand what is the difference between socialism and communism.

00:11:28.380 That is correct.

00:11:29.540 Socialism is simply the economic system of communism.

00:11:33.020 Socialism is government ownership of the means of production or distribution.

00:11:37.600 Cuba in the 1950s was the world's number one producer of sugar.

00:11:41.360 Yeah.

00:11:41.960 It had problems. 0.95

00:11:42.900 Look, Batista was a corrupt dictator. 0.97

00:11:44.660 Right. 1.00

00:11:44.880 He was a bastard. 1.00

00:11:45.540 My father, to this day, doesn't have his front teeth because Batista's police kicked 1.00

00:11:51.080 them in.

00:11:51.700 His guards, his army officers kicked them in.

00:11:54.340 But what about the universal health care?

00:11:56.380 I mean, we're told by a lot of people in the United States, a lot of left-wingers, they

00:11:59.980 say Cuba has some of the best health care in the world and everybody's covered.

00:12:03.560 I can personally tell you that I went to the doctor there because I have mosquito bites

00:12:08.680 that it got into infection and they put a shot on me in front of 60 other people that were

00:12:15.600 there waiting for to be seen by a doctor.

00:12:19.000 There's no transportation.

00:12:20.540 There's no gas.

00:12:21.980 So you can't move.

00:12:23.280 Doctors come to your house in a bicycle and they're hungry.

00:12:27.280 They're hungry.

00:12:28.100 When they get there, they come to the house to see.

00:12:30.680 Matter of fact, I was in a house visiting and they were trying to see the little girl.

00:12:35.100 He came in a bicycle and I bought some things that there was somebody in the street selling

00:12:40.340 and he said, can I have one?

00:12:42.400 Probably the most visible sign that Cuba hasn't changed or hasn't progressed is they have those 1.00

00:12:48.420 old cars, right?

00:12:49.640 Yes.

00:12:50.020 And, you know, people like to think that that's sort of quaint and cute that they have cars

00:12:53.780 from the 1950s.

00:12:54.920 The reason they have cars from the 1950s is they can't get anything else.

00:12:59.280 You know, the scary thing about all of this is you've got the experience of it, 58 years

00:13:04.340 of experience since you left Cuba.

00:13:06.820 There are various studies that have come out that show that even the majority of young Americans,

00:13:12.460 millennials and Gen Z now embrace socialism and prefer it to capitalism.

00:13:17.160 Now, the bright side, I will say the silver lining is that a much smaller percentage can actually

00:13:21.540 define socialism.

00:13:22.560 So there would seem to be a problem there.

00:13:24.500 But beyond just ignorance, beyond just not knowing what it is, what is drawing young

00:13:30.540 Americans to this evil, evil ideology?

00:13:34.100 It's the work that they have given out, the change.

00:13:38.000 They want to see something different.

00:13:40.100 They want to try something new.

00:13:42.340 It doesn't work, guys.

00:13:44.300 It does not work.

00:13:46.680 You know, all of this ambition and giving it to me, there's nothing given to you.

00:13:52.000 You need to work and try to achieve your dream by hard work and by doing what you want to

00:13:58.580 get ahead.

00:14:00.040 I mean, I've noticed this with your colleague, Senator Sanders.

00:14:03.900 You know, I mean, he's been talking about this for 50 years and no one listened.

00:14:07.380 But now only, you know, now that he's in his mid-70s, it's catching on.

00:14:13.060 And I even think of this absent Bernie Sanders.

00:14:17.260 Forget about him for a second.

00:14:19.440 It took a long time.

00:14:20.960 People knew that communism, socialism were terrible for so long.

00:14:24.420 And now they don't know that.

00:14:26.980 Well, and too often they're not taught in schools what happened.

00:14:31.100 You know, how many Bernie supporters know that the Soviet Union killed 20 million people

00:14:39.060 and China killed 77 million people?

00:14:41.820 They don't know that.

00:14:42.780 No.

00:14:43.140 And so when Bernie defends it, it seems, look, and I have to admit, I remember in college,

00:14:50.080 a guy who lived down the hall from me had a poster on the wall of Che Guevara.

00:14:54.180 Yeah.

00:14:54.940 And I went in, I said, hey, that's really cool.

00:14:57.460 That's all, you know, Che Guevara was a guerrilla, fought with Fidel Castro in Cuba.

00:15:00.480 And I said, hey, that's really cool.

00:15:01.920 That's awesome.

00:15:03.000 Have you thought of maybe putting a poster of Hitler next to you?

00:15:06.060 And maybe Stalin and Mao.

00:15:08.560 Like if you're going to celebrate people that torture and murder, actually, Che was an amateur. 0.83

00:15:14.320 He was weak. 0.77

00:15:15.100 He was low on the totem pole.

00:15:16.340 But, you know, he was good looking.

00:15:17.720 He had stubble.

00:15:18.920 And he was, you know, it, these villains have been glamorized.

00:15:24.980 Yeah.

00:15:25.720 And it's, it's dangerous.

00:15:27.740 You know, we've talked a lot about the political and the economic side of things,

00:15:31.220 how the government takes all your stuff and then they take power away from you.

00:15:34.380 Like, you're both religious.

00:15:36.840 I notice, Sonia, you have a cross that you're wearing, obviously, Senator Cruz.

00:15:43.200 One of the big aspects of communism, as it's always been practiced, is the atheism of it all.

00:15:48.640 And I wonder if there's a relation here that as religiosity in America has declined,

00:15:52.740 as young people are raised more or less without a religion,

00:15:55.580 if maybe that's playing some role in why communism is catching on.

00:15:59.620 You know, one of the great men of the 20th century to defeat communism was the Pope,

00:16:04.100 was Pope John Paul II.

00:16:05.400 Well, and Pope John Paul II played a profound role of going to Poland and promising that Poland

00:16:13.320 would be free and speaking up.

00:16:15.240 And it was truly, I think, divine providence that you had the Pope and Reagan and Margaret

00:16:21.780 Thatcher all at the same time.

00:16:23.780 And I think those three people, more than any human beings on earth,

00:16:27.780 defeated the Soviet Union and won the Cold War.

00:16:30.780 Mind you, Bernie was rooting for the Soviet Union during all of this.

00:16:36.140 He's not even hiding it that much.

00:16:37.740 Bernie honeymooned in the Soviet Union.

00:16:42.700 Michael, where'd you honeymoon?

00:16:44.460 I honeymooned in Hawaii, USA.

00:16:46.580 Okay, that's where, like, normal people, you go to the beach, you go to,

00:16:50.500 Heidi and I went to St. Thomas, it was beautiful.

00:16:52.600 We were walking along the beach, we had fun.

00:16:54.560 What kind of crazy ideologue?

00:16:58.420 Yeah. 0.63

00:16:59.100 Says, sweetheart, I love you so much, let's do a honeymoon in the Soviet Union.

00:17:03.400 You know that clip you played?

00:17:04.520 Oh my God.

00:17:04.720 He says he's no friend of Putin.

00:17:07.040 There's only one person I know on the national stage that honeymooned in the Soviet Union.

00:17:11.400 You know, the Soviet Union killed over 20 million people.

00:17:16.660 This is not cute little faculty leftists.

00:17:19.940 If Bernie was a professor at some liberal arts college out in the frozen tundra,

00:17:24.400 who cares?

00:17:25.020 He's just corrupting a few young minds.

00:17:27.060 This is someone who wants to be president of the United States,

00:17:29.840 and he kisses up to and apologizes for totalitarian dictators.

00:17:35.300 And you know who he doesn't praise?

00:17:38.280 Americans.

00:17:38.840 Right.

00:17:39.220 Like, when have you ever heard him speak as positively about Abraham Lincoln

00:17:44.380 as he does about Castro and Ortega and Mao and Stalin?

00:17:48.940 Listen, communism also hates God.

00:17:53.380 Yeah.

00:17:53.680 If you look at these communist regimes, they persecute faith.

00:17:58.200 They persecute, they prevent people from...

00:18:01.180 The beauty of the First Amendment is it gives everyone the right to choose

00:18:05.980 how to worship what your faith will be.

00:18:08.100 You know, Bernie, when he praised China in the debate this week,

00:18:12.120 somehow, when Bernie talked about its great poverty eradication,

00:18:16.340 you don't have to go back to Mao to find the torture and murder.

00:18:19.600 Right now, today, there are one million Uyghurs,

00:18:23.060 a religious and ethnic minority,

00:18:25.940 one million in concentration camps in China today.

00:18:30.820 How, why is Bernie and why are leftists so willing to praise and be proud of regimes that are torturing and murdering people?

00:18:41.860 Do you think this is part of why they make their appeal successfully, though?

00:18:47.460 Because the thing I notice so much about the socialists in America today

00:18:51.980 is they're all making these very moral arguments.

00:18:54.320 It's about human rights.

00:18:55.500 It's about giving people their right to health care and their right to have a lot of money.

00:18:59.060 Here's a story my grandmother told me.

00:19:01.880 In the schools, you would have Cuban soldiers come in.

00:19:06.740 And this is kindergarten, first grade.

00:19:08.540 Yeah.

00:19:08.700 And they'd tell the children, they'd say, close your eyes and pray to Jesus for a piece of candy.

00:19:17.960 And the kids would all do it and they'd open their eyes and there'd be no candy.

00:19:22.140 And then the soldiers would say, close your eyes and pray to Fidel Castro for a piece of candy.

00:19:28.820 You're kidding me.

00:19:29.620 And the kids would close their eyes and the soldiers would put candy on their desks.

00:19:33.680 And they'd open their eyes and there was candy.

00:19:36.000 This is the literacy program Bernie Sanders is praising.

00:19:41.640 This is the indoctrination that my abuela refused to participate in.

00:19:46.960 And that is true.

00:19:48.380 They are actually indoctrinating the people since they were tiny little kids.

00:19:55.000 Did it work?

00:19:56.000 I mean, did the...

00:19:56.900 Of course it doesn't work.

00:19:57.920 It doesn't work as people see reality.

00:19:59.240 It doesn't work.

00:19:59.900 Why don't they work?

00:20:01.580 Yeah.

00:20:02.120 They don't work.

00:20:02.720 Nobody want to work in Cuba. 1.00

00:20:04.260 Why do they want to work? 0.53

00:20:06.000 They're going to make the same money that you're making, that he's making.

00:20:09.880 Why do I want to do that?

00:20:11.060 But do they believe the theory?

00:20:12.540 I mean, does the indoctrination end up persuading people?

00:20:15.800 Actually, they thought that it was going to be reality.

00:20:18.980 They really blinded them to believe what they were saying.

00:20:23.620 But they immediately took the blind off and saying, everybody's in the same boat.

00:20:28.900 We're all hungry.

00:20:30.040 They know they're hungry.

00:20:31.120 They know they're poor. 0.99

00:20:31.980 They know they're miserable.

00:20:33.060 They know that hasn't happened.

00:20:34.100 That's right.

00:20:34.700 I mean, there's a reason people every day risk their lives to flee Cuba.

00:20:40.000 That's correct.

00:20:40.980 You know, Reagan, in the height of the Cold War, he had a great way of putting it.

00:20:44.440 He said, the thing liberals never seem to notice is on the Berlin Wall, the machine

00:20:49.820 guns all point in one direction.

00:20:51.240 Right.

00:20:51.900 That you didn't get anyone from East Germany saying, or from West Germany saying, I got

00:20:57.020 to go live in that communist paradise.

00:20:58.740 Right.

00:21:00.480 The way I like to put it as a Cuban American is the thing liberals never notice is in Cuba,

00:21:06.460 the rafts are all going one way just once.

00:21:08.580 That's right.

00:21:08.880 I'd like to see Bernie Sanders go hop on a raft in Key West.

00:21:11.840 Yeah.

00:21:12.600 And hit a 90 mile south.

00:21:13.740 That's right.

00:21:14.280 And by the way, he wants socialized medicine.

00:21:16.960 They have it there.

00:21:17.880 Then go over there.

00:21:18.080 You can't get, you can't actually see a doctor.

00:21:20.780 You can't get medicine.

00:21:22.120 You can't get toilet paper.

00:21:24.700 Yeah.

00:21:25.220 Well, actually, you know, tying in all of these points on the economic, on the political

00:21:29.460 and on the religious, communism has been called the God that failed, right?

00:21:34.000 It was a sort of substitute religion, a substitute God, and it failed.

00:21:38.000 And you saw it fail personally.

00:21:42.980 What was the, what was the biggest shock?

00:21:46.140 I mean, what was the biggest despair, the biggest regret when, when you saw something

00:21:51.620 that you had believed in fail?

00:21:54.400 Well, the, the, the, the biggest, it was seeing the people suffering for not being able

00:22:02.060 to even get food to put on the plate.

00:22:04.980 It's so basic.

00:22:05.760 The basic things that no, don't being able to work because why do you want to work when

00:22:12.340 you don't have anything to buy with?

00:22:14.040 You know, that money disappeared from you immediately.

00:22:18.200 And you all know the numbers, but you know, an average person make $30 a month.

00:22:24.360 $30 per month.

00:22:26.320 $30 per month.

00:22:27.840 Wow.

00:22:28.420 So what are you going to do with that?

00:22:30.160 Right.

00:22:30.740 So people are being, uh, drinking water.

00:22:35.520 You, you, you see the kids, they drink water with sugar to get their stomach full.

00:22:41.020 It's, it's that, that basic need.

00:22:43.640 It's so interesting that you say that because it's, communism starts out as this idealistic

00:22:47.840 fantasy, very highfalutin, very high-minded literacy programs, all that.

00:22:52.560 And then the reality of the failure is people can't even fill their stomachs.

00:22:56.260 That is true.

00:22:56.760 Although, you know, there is one exception, which is the communist party rulers.

00:23:01.020 Look, Fidel Castro lived like a billionaire.

00:23:03.520 And by the way, Putin lives like a billionaire, Maduro and Hugo Chavez before him, they lived

00:23:10.400 like billionaires.

00:23:11.540 Right.

00:23:12.160 Communism, when you have all the power at the top and, and, and, and what does Bernie suggest

00:23:18.020 it would be any different if the government is in charge of everything, every place that

00:23:22.520 has happened, the rulers live like kings and everyone else's is miserable.

00:23:28.360 Right.

00:23:29.120 Well, we, we did actually get one mailbag question that I think is very much on this topic, which

00:23:34.720 is with the democratic party veering so far to the left and embracing these absolutely

00:23:40.520 disgusting positions, hopefully we'll turn off most of the American people. 1.00

00:23:44.620 Should conservatives be happy?

00:23:46.560 Should conservatives be happy that the God that failed is about to fail the democratic party?

00:23:50.420 Not necessarily.

00:23:51.680 You're not, you're not as complacent.

00:23:53.840 I understand people saying, okay, great.

00:23:56.280 Bernie's so extreme.

00:23:57.620 That means Trump will get reelected.

00:23:59.100 I hope Trump gets reelected.

00:24:00.320 I'm working hard to reelect the president.

00:24:03.840 But listen, what is truly terrifying is I think the American people could elect a wild eyed

00:24:10.220 socialist.

00:24:11.000 Yeah.

00:24:11.340 Yes.

00:24:11.780 The media, we're a divided country.

00:24:14.240 If a hundred thousand votes had flipped in 2016, Hillary Clinton would be the president 1.00

00:24:18.760 right now. 0.84

00:24:19.320 And Bernie, the media treats him kind of like your crazy uncle. 1.00

00:24:24.000 Oh, he's just the crazy uncle. 0.97

00:24:25.740 Isn't that cute? 1.00

00:24:26.660 He's praising, murdering, torturing communist dictators. 0.95

00:24:31.040 Well, this guy believes this stuff. 0.97

00:24:33.980 Right.

00:24:34.600 In his heart and soul, he believes it.

00:24:37.880 His whole life has been dedicated to it.

00:24:39.860 And, and, and I got to admit, I am, it's all fine and good to celebrate unless he ends

00:24:49.260 up winning.

00:24:50.000 Unless it happens.

00:24:50.320 And God help the direction this country goes if that happens.

00:24:53.420 Well, because you already fled one communist hellhole and this was the great hope is America

00:24:59.720 is the great hope.

00:25:00.240 There's no place to go.

00:25:01.420 Where do you go after this?

00:25:02.860 There's no place to go.

00:25:04.460 Well, I hope you won't go anywhere.

00:25:06.460 You, the listener, we've already used up more than our time and we've taken up too much

00:25:11.020 of your time to you, Sonia, but thank you so much for being here.

00:25:14.100 And we've got a lot more coming up on the show anyway.

00:25:17.220 So be sure not to flee anywhere.

00:25:19.820 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:25:21.160 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:25:22.440 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security

00:25:35.400 PAC, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:25:40.560 and candidates across the country.

00:25:42.960 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running

00:25:48.260 for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:25:52.460 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:25:54.980 Guaranteed Human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 29, 2020

A Firsthand Look at Socialism

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