Verdict with Ted Cruz - A Sincere THANK YOU Plus Omnibus Disaster & An End To The Military Vaccine Mandate

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.360 Welcome, it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:07.920 I hope you had a fabulous Christmas with your family.

00:00:11.240 Senator, I've missed chatting with you over the last several weeks,

00:00:13.860 and I know so many people have been reaching out to you.

00:00:16.980 The same with me, giving warm wishes and prayers for you and your family.

00:00:21.380 I know you miss talking to the audience a lot, obviously,

00:00:24.660 but you've been spending some great quality time with your family.

00:00:30.000 Well, Ben, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas.

00:00:32.480 I hope everyone listening had a fantastic Christmas with their family.

00:00:35.960 As everyone knows, the podcast has not been airing for the last several weeks.

00:00:41.780 I've been dealing with a family emergency here at home.

00:00:44.940 And I just want to say thank you to all of you who have reached out with your prayers,

00:00:48.920 with your support, with your encouragement.

00:00:50.760 It means an enormous amount.

00:00:53.300 Everyone's doing okay right now, and we're grateful for the love that has been expressed.

00:00:58.320 Heidi and I have spent the last several weeks just here at home with our kids.

00:01:03.720 And we appreciate also folks respecting our family's privacy.

00:01:07.760 And so I don't intend to be talking publicly about what we're dealing with,

00:01:12.340 other than just to say we appreciate the prayers, the love, and support.

00:01:15.860 And in this holiday time, you know, Christmas is a wonderful time to be with your family,

00:01:24.680 to hug your kids, to hug your parents, to hold on to the people you love.

00:01:29.500 And it's never more important.

00:01:33.760 No doubt about that.

00:01:35.340 And I'm glad to get to spend some more time with you today.

00:01:37.900 And so many people have been reaching out.

00:01:39.880 We've seen all your tweets.

00:01:41.160 I can promise you that.

00:01:42.380 And I'll say it is just being around you.

00:01:45.120 There have been so many people that have reached out, and you guys are wonderful that have done that.

00:01:49.700 So thank you.

00:01:50.420 Thank you for everyone that's done that as well.

00:01:53.260 It means the world, I know, when you see those messages.

00:01:55.800 And there's some other breaking news.

00:01:57.400 You've also gotten older since the last time I talked to you.

00:02:00.480 Happy birthday.

00:02:01.120 A few days late as well.

00:02:02.960 Well, thank you.

00:02:04.040 I mean, technically, we've all gotten older.

00:02:05.520 But I feel like I've got to stick that one in there, Senator, you know?

00:02:10.240 So December 22nd, I turned 52.

00:02:13.600 We had a nice birthday celebration at home with the family.

00:02:19.340 And yet another day, I'll tell you what I tell my mom.

00:02:22.280 My mom's 88 now.

00:02:23.980 And every birthday she has, I tell her, okay, you're halfway there.

00:02:28.100 She's groaning more and more, as I say that, on more recent birthdays.

00:02:32.360 That's hilarious.

00:02:33.000 52.

00:02:33.620 Congrats.

00:02:34.160 Happy birthday to that one. 0.84

00:02:35.520 There's been a lot that's happened in the last couple weeks.

00:02:39.340 And I do want to get your thoughts, Senator, on this omnibus spending bill right before Christmas.

00:02:46.240 It was kind of a stick it to the American people moment.

00:02:50.660 People wanted to fly home.

00:02:52.120 They wanted to beat the storm that's affected so many Americans, especially, you know, that are east of Mississippi.

00:02:58.260 There was a lot of senators that said, just get me home.

00:03:01.200 I don't care what it costs.

00:03:02.640 And it cost us quite a lot of money, well over a trillion dollars in this new budget.

00:03:09.120 Instead of just passing a CR, how did this happen?

00:03:13.640 And why did so many Republicans go along with this?

00:03:16.580 Well, I have to tell you, this omnibus was absolutely disgraceful.

00:03:21.020 It is a massive bill.

00:03:22.960 It is 4,155 pages.

00:03:26.660 It's 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

00:03:40.720 Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. In just a few days, we're going to have a Republican House of

00:03:47.960 Representatives in Washington. Nancy Pelosi obviously doesn't want to enact the policy 1.00

00:03:54.500 priorities of a Republican House of Representatives. So Pelosi and Schumer decided to team up together

00:04:00.500 and ram through this final omnibus bill, this massive spending that funds the federal government

00:04:07.800 through most of next year, all the way through September 30th of next year. Now, they could not

00:04:15.300 do so without the active assistance of Senate Republicans, and the reason for that is in the

00:04:24.240 Senate, we have the filibuster, which means it takes 60 votes to move this bill forward. At the end of

00:04:32.080 the day, they got 60 votes because a total of 18 Republicans voted with Nancy Pelosi, voted with 0.71

00:04:38.940 Chuck Schumer, and voted to fund the Pelosi-Schumer spending bill, and simultaneously to pull the rug

00:04:47.180 out from the brand new incoming Republican majority in the House. I got to tell you, I am furious. I'm

00:04:55.700 flabbergasted. There are things I've seen in Washington. There are spending bills that are

00:05:00.880 indefensible, but it's one thing when Democrats act like socialists. It's another thing when Republicans

00:05:10.740 actively facilitated, and it was a galling and horrific thing to watch.

00:05:17.480 You know, so many Americans right now, Senator, are struggling, and we've seen what's happened

00:05:21.380 with inflation, with interest rates. There's been a lot of wealth that's been lost over the last year,

00:05:27.760 people in their 401k retirement funds, those that invest, and when you're spending this type of

00:05:34.840 money now, it costs you a lot more because this is money we don't have. We're going to borrow this

00:05:39.740 money, and it puts us into even more debt at a much higher interest rate, and that's where many

00:05:45.620 economists have been saying, hey, you guys don't understand that the day of reckoning is going to

00:05:50.560 come for the United States of America. You guys have spent this next generation into oblivion. 0.97

00:05:57.080 I mean, you've got so much government waste. Rand Paul came out with his annual Festivus report,

00:06:03.300 $482 billion in government waste. There were some idiotic items in there, $3 million to watch 1.00

00:06:09.760 hamsters fight on steroids, $2.1 million to tell Ethiopians to wear shoes. I mean, these are some of the 1.00

00:06:15.220 things that your tax dollars actually went for, and this is just in another year of wasteful government

00:06:22.040 spending that has happened, and now it's going to cost even more to borrow this money.

00:06:27.320 Well, look, the spending is massive. The debt goes up. It locks in Democrat priorities, and it also

00:06:34.940 defangs the incoming Republican majority, which is what Senate Republican leadership wanted. If you

00:06:41.780 look at the 18 Republicans who voted for it, you've got Roy Blunt from Missouri. He's retiring. He's

00:06:47.600 not going to be there next year. You've got John Bozeman from Arkansas. He was just re-elected, so he has

00:06:52.500 six years until he faces the voters. You've got Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia. You've got Susan

00:06:58.080 Collins from Maine. You've got John Cornyn from Texas. You've got Tom Cotton from Arkansas. You've got

00:07:05.340 Lindsey Graham from South Carolina. You've got Jim Inhofe from Oklahoma. Jim Inhofe is retiring as well.

00:07:11.440 He's not going to be there next year. You've got Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader,

00:07:16.840 who helped Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi pass this massive funding bill. You've got Jerry Moran

00:07:24.040 from Kansas. You've got Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, who was just elected in November. You've got Rob

00:07:31.540 Portman from Ohio, who's retiring. You've got Mitt Romney from Utah. You've got Mike Rounds from South

00:07:38.760 Dakota. You've got Richard Shelby from Alabama, who's retiring. You've got John Thune from South

00:07:46.360 Dakota, who was just elected in November. You've got Roger Wicker from Mississippi. And you've got

00:07:51.840 Todd Young from Indiana, who was just elected in November. And I got to say, and there were a couple

00:07:57.920 of others. Marco Rubio voted initially to move this bill forward. He didn't vote for it at the end of the

00:08:02.220 day. But but he refused to vote against cloture at the outset to stop it. I got to tell you, Ben,

00:08:09.400 I cannot tell you why these Republicans voted for it. There is no explanation that that I think makes

00:08:16.420 any sense. I can tell you what they were telling Republicans privately in the lunches. They were

00:08:23.140 saying, OK, there are a variety of different talking points. One, they say we need to get our work done.

00:08:27.440 I don't even know what that means. Our work done doesn't mean passing the Schumer-Pelosi priorities.

00:08:32.740 That's not, in fact, the work that the voters elected us to do. They also said it was interesting.

00:08:39.660 One of the arguments they made is they said, well, this is doing a favor to Kevin McCarthy and the

00:08:45.780 House Republicans, because if they have to come in and actually vote, vote for government funding,

00:08:53.740 there'll be a big fight and they don't want to have a big fight. So if we just take this off the

00:08:58.640 table, clear the decks is what they call it. That's that's Washington speak. It'll be good for

00:09:05.060 them. I'll tell you who disagreed with that really strongly was Kevin McCarthy. And actually, the House

00:09:11.620 Republicans were loudly and repeatedly saying, do not do this. Do not pass this bill. Do not

00:09:18.860 enable the Democrats to roll our incoming Republican majority. And yet I'll tell you a number of those

00:09:26.000 folks retiring. It will not surprise anyone to see them opening up a lobby shop. And that thing was

00:09:32.320 filled with earmarks. It was filled with pork. It was filled with wasteful spending. And this was the

00:09:38.460 swamp in all of its hideous glory. It's it's one thing to see the Democrats do this. You expect it

00:09:47.100 when you see the Republicans do this. And and if you just need to see how excited Democrats were,

00:09:54.260 all you had to do was look at Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi's reaction. They touted this and the

00:10:00.360 White House is a massive policy victory, a policy victory that they could not accomplish without

00:10:07.500 Republicans joining them. You mentioned some of the reasons why. But how much of this just came down

00:10:13.500 to give me what I want for my state. Give me my share for for the people that are lobbying me that

00:10:20.400 I need them to take care of me in the future. And and then you can get my vote. I mean, there were

00:10:25.580 some people on that list that you just mentioned that I think shocked a lot of people in the

00:10:28.900 conservative movement. Tom Cotton, for example, is one of those where there was a lot of fodder.

00:10:33.160 I saw people going, I understand some of these others. Right. I get I get Alaska. I get Murkowski

00:10:37.900 and others like that. But that one was shocking. Look, I have no explanation. You're going to have

00:10:44.080 to ask, Tom. There are some Republicans who pointed to, well, there was more defense spending

00:10:48.760 in this. You know what? We could have done that next year. I don't think that remotely justifies

00:10:54.140 voting for Schumer and Pelosi's budget. And then that's what they did here. Listen, Washington

00:11:00.500 is a town that is inherently corrupted. And one aspect of this that that that hasn't been fully

00:11:07.660 understood is the important role that earmarks played in making this pass. So earmarks of the

00:11:14.300 provision where a member of the House or a member of the Senate can specially designate spending in

00:11:21.860 their district for something they want. And and it it it is the grease that turns the wheels of big

00:11:29.840 government. And when we had the Republican takeover in 2010 of the House of Representatives, one of the

00:11:35.840 big reforms, one of the great conservative victories was ending the policy of earmarks for Republicans.

00:11:42.380 And and so so we had a decade where we didn't do earmarks. Well, unfortunately, Republican leadership

00:11:49.000 didn't like that because earmarks are how you buy off a problematic member. If someone's going to vote

00:11:55.480 against you, if someone's talking too loud, if they're objecting to what you're trying to do, you just

00:12:00.320 shovel a little bit of cash in their district and they shut up. It's it's the gateway drug to the rest of

00:12:08.040 big government spending. Well, unfortunately, in this earmarks are back and are back in in incredible force.

00:12:19.320 Uh, and and that that has included spending. So Pat Leahy, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee

00:12:28.520 from Vermont, he's retiring. He named a huge program up in Vermont, the Pat Leahy program, Richard Shelby,

00:12:35.740 the leading Republican from Alabama on appropriations. He's retiring. Also, he named a bunch of things

00:12:42.500 after himself, the name Richard Shelby. I got to say, Ben, I think it is fundamentally corrupt for any member

00:12:52.380 of Congress to name a damn thing after themselves. And I don't think anything should be named after a member 0.92

00:12:58.860 of Congress as long as they're still alive. If someone kicks the bucket, you want to name something after

00:13:03.920 them. Great. But my view, if you want the Ben Ferguson building, you got a real simple way to do it. Pull out your

00:13:10.480 checkbook and write a check for it. But when you're in Congress, you're not spending your money, you're

00:13:15.000 spending the taxpayer money. And and the idea that you have members of Congress sticking their name on

00:13:20.840 it, I think is just on its face, corrupting and and a corrupt practice. There was an interesting threat

00:13:29.320 that was made by the House, many House members. And I want to know your thoughts on it. Do you believe

00:13:35.660 this is just political theater or is this going to actually be backed up where there were Republicans,

00:13:41.440 including some in the new leadership who said for any of these Republicans that vote with the

00:13:46.640 Democrats on the sign of a spending bill when they could have done a CR, they could have said no,

00:13:51.080 they could have allowed the next Congress to do a better spending bill with some accountability in

00:13:54.820 it. They said you can you can kiss your initiatives in this new Congress. Goodbye.

00:14:00.660 Your bills. Goodbye. We're going to hold you accountable for this vote right before everybody

00:14:05.140 just wanted to get out of town. Do you believe there's going to be some some real accountability

00:14:11.040 in that way from the House? Or was that more just political theater to get the headline out there

00:14:15.440 that you're standing up to the senators on the Republican side that basically sold us out?

00:14:19.900 Well, look, I hope there's real accountability. The congressman who led that effort is Chip Roy.

00:14:25.500 Chip Roy is a congressman from Texas. Chip is a very good friend of mine. I know Chip very,

00:14:30.580 very well. Chip was my very first with him. Huh? We did a bus tour stop with him. In fact,

00:14:35.920 we did. And Chip was my very first chief of staff when I was newly elected in 2012,

00:14:43.100 arrived to the Senate in 2013. Chip started with me on day one as my chief of staff. And Chip is a

00:14:49.240 warrior. He's a conservative warrior. The battle against Obamacare that resulted in a shutdown,

00:14:55.680 but that also resulted in the biggest Republican victory in decades in the 2014 election. Chip was

00:15:02.360 my chief of staff throughout that. Chip is the one who leveled this threat and a number of other

00:15:07.400 House Republicans joined him. I don't know if they'll be able to carry carry through on it.

00:15:12.960 It will prove difficult, given that among the people supporting this omnibus are all of the 1.00

00:15:21.100 members of Republican leadership. And so for a House member to say we're going to block anything

00:15:26.060 they support, the threat is significant. But at the end of the day, blocking anything Republican

00:15:34.580 leadership supports at a minimum may prove difficult to execute. Senator, I want to go back just before we

00:15:41.520 move on from this to the price tag on this omnibus spending bill. How did we get to a point where we

00:15:47.220 could even imagine enough stuff to spend money on that is almost two trillion dollars? Well, look,

00:15:53.680 the Democrats today have have handed their agenda over to the radical extremes that many of the

00:16:01.180 Democrats in the House and Senate are openly embracing socialism. They're happy to spend all the

00:16:06.920 money they can. And far too many Republicans are eager to be complicit in it. And that you roll this

00:16:15.280 all together to buy up votes. The earmarks help you buy votes. But there are all sorts of provisions of

00:16:21.480 this bill that reflect the fact that it was written by Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. So, for example,

00:16:28.640 the funding for Customs and Border Patrol explicitly prohibits that funding from being used to improve

00:16:37.480 border security. Let me read you the language. None of the funds provided in this subsections shall

00:16:42.760 be used to acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities, except for

00:16:52.760 technology and capabilities to improve border patrol processing. In other words, you can use this money

00:17:00.600 to let illegal aliens go more quickly. But you can't actually use it to secure the border and stop them 0.98

00:17:07.560 from entering. By the way, that same budget allocates 410 million dollars towards border security for

00:17:17.020 Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, and Oman. It's really striking. So we're funding border security in other

00:17:26.320 countries, but not here in the United States. And they're writing into law a prohibition on the money being used to

00:17:34.400 improve border security. There's there's 1.5 billion for membership in in global organizations, including the United

00:17:42.820 Nations. All right. You want to know how you buy off votes? Here's an interesting thing. Pick a really

00:17:50.180 random word that you would not think appeared in this bill, much less appears 48 times. Take a guess.

00:18:00.140 I'm thinking of the worst people in the Congress writing this thing. So is it handout? Is it government

00:18:05.660 aid? I mean, what's their favorite word when they're going to be more parochial than that? The word salmon

00:18:11.440 as in the fish. Really? Really? Okay. I was in a totally different world. Appears 48 times in the

00:18:18.080 bill. What else is there? There's three million dollars for bee friendly highways. That's important.

00:18:25.400 I know. I know that was one of your top agenda items when you were running for the Senate, right?

00:18:29.940 You know, you got to take care of the bees. And this is the birds of the bees, because I got to tell

00:18:36.440 you, the taxpayers are getting screwed. This is a lesson in Washington, birds and bees. 0.87

00:18:41.440 You mentioned the border. I just I have to get back to that for a second. We're securing the border

00:18:46.840 in other countries. You had Zelensky that flew in and got, you know, was the rock star of Congress

00:18:54.460 this past week, you know, kissing with Nancy Pelosi. We're giving him money literally to secure his

00:19:00.640 border instead of sending that money down to secure our own border. Did that frustrate you at all that

00:19:06.540 they're like advocating? And how much do you need? You got to secure your border, sir.

00:19:11.540 Ours is wide open. We know there's a thousand, two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand coming across

00:19:17.060 the border. Can't wait for, you know, Title 43 to end. And then they're going to all come rushing

00:19:22.020 across. And even the Democrats accidentally slipped this last week saying, well, they admit there is a

00:19:27.860 crisis at the border, but we're, quote, handling it. It is absolutely insane. And I will say the

00:19:35.260 adulation for Zelensky was bizarre. I think the Democrats, it's become almost cult like.

00:19:41.840 And at the same time, a complete refusal to have any meaningful accountability as to the money that's

00:19:47.780 being spent there. Listen, I'm someone that believes it is important for our national security

00:19:53.100 interest, for Russia to lose, for Putin to lose. And so I've been an active advocate of supporting

00:19:59.940 Ukraine. But for the Democrats, it's a blank check. And it's a blank check, not just for military

00:20:06.860 weapons to defeat Russian soldiers, but for just billions of dollars that get poured into rat holes

00:20:13.140 and are subject to corruption, are subject to embezzlement. And it is bizarre. But you also asked

00:20:21.540 me, how do we get there? In the debate over this bill, one of the strangest things that was said is

00:20:29.320 Mitch McConnell at a press conference said, I think the number one priority for most Republicans

00:20:35.320 is funding Ukraine. Now, Ben, that is strange. I don't get the mindset that says that. I believe

00:20:46.460 defeating Russia is important. But I don't know anyone in real America. I don't know any Texans. 0.55

00:20:53.020 I don't think I've ever encountered anyone who says, you know, the number one priority for me,

00:20:57.920 for America right now is funding Ukraine. I just that that's the Republican leadership right now.

00:21:04.140 When he said it, it was something that went viral quickly in Republican circles, conservative circles

00:21:09.860 online. But but he meant it. It wasn't a it wasn't a slip from McConnell. He he genuinely was saying

00:21:16.720 this is the number one priority, not you, not your safety, not your country, but Ukraine. And if you're

00:21:23.240 not with us, then then then you're on the side of Vladimir Putin. I didn't like the way how in the

00:21:28.540 last several weeks this has been this framing is if I ask any questions, oh, you're with Putin. I got

00:21:33.980 yelled out on TV the other day for the center where I was like, look, I'm in favor of stopping Russia. 0.69

00:21:39.560 No aggression. I'm not in favor of us funding the entire thing. I'm not in favor of us being the

00:21:45.320 one that's writing the check with no accountability or with no auditing, no accounting of where the

00:21:50.780 money is actually going. And the rest of the world, especially in Europe. And I said this,

00:21:55.380 they claim they were going to get involved. We're overwhelmingly funding this this Ukrainian 1.00

00:22:00.380 war. They're not stepping up to the plate either. And I'm tired of America always being the first one

00:22:05.440 to say here. The American taxpayers will write you a 50 billion dollar check. And then you look

00:22:11.260 at all the countries in Europe who, by the way, are buying oil from from from Vladimir Putin for

00:22:16.940 decades, keeping him in power. When we warned them, Donald Trump warned, you know, that he warned

00:22:22.120 Europe, you guys need to stop doing this. You're going to make him powerful. He's going to be able to

00:22:25.740 control you. And now they're putting hardly any money into this fight against against Russia.

00:22:30.220 And they're doing nothing really to help Ukraine. Yeah. Listen, it is bizarre. The cult like support

00:22:37.700 Democrats are showing the complete unwillingness to have any accountability that the desire to just

00:22:43.660 have a write a blank check, the unwillingness to hold Europe to account for them to pay their fair

00:22:50.500 share of it. The Democrats don't believe it. And of course, the utter irony of this whole thing is it

00:22:55.260 was Joe Biden that caused the damn war in the first place. And we've talked about that at length, 0.98

00:23:00.040 how the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the sanctions that I authored, had stopped Russia from invading

00:23:05.180 Ukraine. And then Joe Biden waived the sanctions on Russia and Putin and caused this war. And now

00:23:10.820 they're trying to cover up for their cleanup on aisle six, the mess that they made by just shoveling cash.

00:23:19.840 It really makes no sense at all. I do think it's important that people hear. And this is,

00:23:26.880 again, in Washington, D.C., Mitch McConnell making it clear that he's going to spend your money on his

00:23:33.180 top, top priority. Here is it. Here he is in his own words.

00:23:37.660 Providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians. That's the number one priority for the 0.95

00:23:45.500 United States right now, according to most Republicans. That's sort of how we see the

00:23:51.980 challenges confronting the country at the moment.

00:23:56.480 There's a lot of things that are that are that are right now, you know, confronting this country.

00:24:03.160 And when you go to Washington, Senator, you sit around. Is this truly how out of touch they are with

00:24:08.720 the reality of the American family who's dealing with inflation? I mean, USA to Ukraine, you have

00:24:14.320 forty five billion within the omnibus bill. You had one point eight billion and another package and

00:24:21.640 sixty eight billion has already been sent. And he says this is the number one priority of the GOP

00:24:28.240 is focused on this. That is a hell of a lot of money that we're borrowing. Again, we don't have

00:24:34.740 this money. We're going to have to borrow it and we're going to pay interest on it.

00:24:38.760 Well, Ben, look, that's a big part of the reason why I helped lead the leadership challenge to Mitch

00:24:44.500 McConnell just a few weeks ago, because our leadership is fundamentally out of touch.

00:24:50.000 That doesn't reflect the priorities of the American people. And I think that's an enormous problem.

00:24:53.960 You look at some of the elements of this bill beyond that. There's sixty five million for two two

00:24:58.640 programs named for Senator Pat Leahy. There's a federal building name for Nancy Pelosi.

00:25:03.960 There's three point six million dollars for the Michelle Obama trail.

00:25:09.940 There's four hundred and seventy seven thousand dollars for, quote, anti-racist training from the

00:25:15.000 Equity Institute. There's three million dollars for the LGBTQ plus museum in New York.

00:25:21.680 There's one point two million dollars for services for DACA recipients.

00:25:26.120 There's four point one million in career programs for Fairfax County, Virginia, one of the richest

00:25:32.400 counties in the country. It renames twenty five post offices.

00:25:37.700 There's five hundred and twenty four million for a DEI and structural racism subdivision of the

00:25:45.380 National Institute of Health. There's three hundred thousand dollars per year for the continuous

00:25:51.480 Plankton Recorder. This is Washington corruption, plain and simple, and it is a result.

00:26:02.780 We expect Democrats to be a train wreck. We expect them to be socialists.

00:26:07.760 What we should be willing to expect is for Republicans.

00:26:10.860 Not. And the maddening thing is this didn't take anything particularly complicated or difficult

00:26:20.300 to stop it. All we had to do was have 41 Republicans stand up and say, no, the last four times there

00:26:27.440 was a shift in control of one of the houses of representation.

00:26:30.280 The Congress, each of the last four times, did not pass an omnibus funding bill. 0.97

00:26:38.080 The incoming party who was getting control had enough cojones to stand up and say, hell no, 0.95

00:26:47.580 we just won an election. We're going to set the spending priorities. 0.96

00:26:51.420 Now, look, there's reference to the uniparty. I got to say for the the the Republicans who supported

00:26:58.500 this, I get the ones who are retiring, why they did, although it makes you wonder what the hell

00:27:03.800 they were doing previously. But I don't understand anyone who cast cast a vote for this. And I think

00:27:09.660 I think a lot of the voters are pissed off and I think they have good reason to be pissed off.

00:27:14.140 How much of this is an age thing? And I say that because you look at Nancy Pelosi at her age,

00:27:18.620 you look at Mitch McConnell at his age, you look at Joe Biden at his age and you and you look at

00:27:23.340 Chuck Schumer at his age. They know that when the you know what hits the fan, Senator,

00:27:29.260 they're probably not going to be around to have to deal with it. There is going to be a catastrophic

00:27:35.080 event economically within our government, within this country to pay back this debt at some point.

00:27:42.980 And as part of the reason why they just can do this so easily is just the fact they say it ain't

00:27:48.180 my problem. Literally, this is not going to hit the fan when I'm in office, much less I may not

00:27:53.220 even be alive by then. Yes, it's going to affect my grandkids. Right. Or even my kids, but not me.

00:27:59.820 So screw it. I'll go with it. Yeah, it's it's not just age. I mean, the people that voted for this

00:28:06.200 ran the gamut of the age. Look, there are people in the Senate who are 142. So so there are definitely

00:28:11.920 some folks who are long in the tooth. But, you know, Tom Cotton is one of the youngest members of the

00:28:17.260 Senate. He voted for this. Todd Young is a relatively young member of the Senate. He voted

00:28:21.060 for this. Marco Rubio voted to take this up initially. He's he's younger than I am, one of

00:28:27.680 the youngest members of the Senate. So it's it's not just an age thing. But I'm going to let them

00:28:34.860 speak for themselves that they can explain why this spending bill was better than a spending bill

00:28:42.740 that was passed with a Republican majority in the House. I promise you a House Republican

00:28:49.580 majority is not going to write into the bill. The funds in this bill cannot be used to secure

00:28:54.080 the border. That's something Pelosi and Schumer do. But for Republicans, they're willing to

00:29:00.500 at least some of them are willing to roll over and allow it to happen.

00:29:04.780 How much does the national debt keep you up? I mean, I know there's a lot of issues you have to

00:29:09.400 deal with. You have to vote on. But I I sit here right now and I look at it and it really is now

00:29:16.080 becoming more of a constant kind of thought process for me of realizing that we are not as strong

00:29:25.560 as we need to be as a nation, specifically economically. And I can I am concerned now that

00:29:31.620 we've gotten so far into debt that for many of these people on the left, it could be on purpose

00:29:37.540 just because they know that when the American people are hurting, they're more dependent on

00:29:42.040 them. And that's how they gain power and control over you is that when they can be your God,

00:29:47.940 your savior financially every 30 days, you're going to vote for them. That's the thing that I worry

00:29:53.900 the most about. This is if we go into some serious, hard, tough economic times, it is only

00:30:01.660 going to, I think, help the Democrats in that moment go, well, hey, we can turn this more into kind

00:30:05.840 of a, you know, a socialist country and we'll take care of you. Granted, your life is going to be

00:30:10.640 terrible, but at least you're living. Look, I think for the Democrats, they don't care. I think the

00:30:20.460 Democrats, their solution at the end of the day, we're seeing it right now, their solution at the

00:30:27.080 end of the day is inflate their way out of it. Just print so much money, have hyperinflation that the

00:30:33.200 debt, as a percentage of, as the value of the dollar goes down, the debt becomes less relevant.

00:30:39.100 And for them, it's about power. Look, we've seen socialist governments do this all over the country,

00:30:45.420 all over the world, rather. And I think that's on the left where it comes from.

00:30:52.320 For Republicans, listen, I think most Republicans in the Senate, if you ask them, they are concerned

00:31:01.520 about the debt, but they're more concerned about being criticized. They're more concerned about

00:31:06.580 the media saying something mean about them. They're more concerned about not having, not being

00:31:13.920 reelected. And spending a bunch of cash is a great way to buy votes and try to get reelected. And so

00:31:21.260 it is, this is, I've been in the Senate 10 years. I've never seen it this bad with

00:31:34.120 with Republicans literally undermining the ability of Republicans to pass a Republican budget.

00:31:44.220 That's what they just did.

00:31:45.460 Yeah, it's truly incredible. And it's going to hurt this country, I think, in so many different

00:31:52.360 ways, including protecting this nation in general from adversaries, foreign and domestic. I do want

00:31:59.620 to end this year on, I would say, an incredible note. And it's something that you led on, Senator. And

00:32:07.000 this was the vaccine military mandate. This happened. A lot of good men and women in uniform were

00:32:14.140 were discharged from our military because they refused to get vaccinated. There were many of

00:32:18.900 them that were not given religious exemptions. And pretty much they were laughed at when they

00:32:23.440 tried to go that route. And now we have some, we have a victory for those men and women. Is it a

00:32:31.440 little bit too late for some of them? Are we going to be able to get some of them back in the workplace

00:32:36.040 again and back in the military doing their jobs, getting back to their careers?

00:32:39.500 Well, look, I'm glad we're ending this pod with with a note of of optimism and a note of good

00:32:45.660 news. And we do have some good news, which which is the military vaccine mandate has ended. And and

00:32:53.320 that is a fight. I've been leading the fight against the vaccine mandate from the very beginning,

00:32:58.400 from when it was first imposed. I think the vaccine mandate was wrong on day one. It's been wrong

00:33:04.800 every day that it's continued. And in the military in particular, it's it's been horrific. I've spoken,

00:33:10.800 I've visited with with multiple soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines who were discharged

00:33:18.280 because they made the choice not to get the COVID vaccine. And I think that was fundamentally wrong.

00:33:24.020 It was abusive. It was stupid. I visited with Navy SEALs who spent years training, who fought to defend 1.00

00:33:30.800 this nation, who Joe Biden has fired. And so Congress took up at the end of the year, the NDAA,

00:33:38.620 the National Defense Authorization Act. And I joined with several other senators. We drew a line in the

00:33:44.120 in the ground and said, we should stand together and say we will not pass this bill unless you end

00:33:51.460 the vaccine mandated. The Democrats beat their chest and said, we'll never do it. We'll never do it.

00:33:56.080 And wonder of wonders, Republicans actually held the line.

00:34:01.520 And the Democrats caved. And so Joe Biden signed into law the bill ending the military vaccine

00:34:08.620 mandate. That is a terrific victory and one that we should celebrate because it's the right thing to

00:34:15.020 do. Now, while we're celebrating, I think our celebrations need to be tempered because

00:34:21.220 you asked the right question, Ben. It's right going forward. The Biden military will not fire people

00:34:30.220 because they didn't get a COVID vaccine. Unfortunately, this bill is prospective only.

00:34:35.640 It does nothing retrospective. I've had legislation I introduced that would allow every one of the

00:34:42.860 servicemen and women who were dismissed because of not getting the COVID vaccine to to be reinstated in

00:34:49.380 the military if they so desired. If they made the choice, if they'd been if they'd been kicked out

00:34:54.960 and they wanted to go back in, it would let them back in. It would also change their status. There

00:35:00.040 were a number of people who were exited from the military with a less than honorable discharge

00:35:05.040 that has enormous consequences for retirement, for health care benefits, for veteran status. And so

00:35:12.100 my bill corrected that to ensure that those who were fired because they didn't get the COVID vaccine

00:35:19.320 and who would choose, they didn't want to go back now that they would at a minimum be deemed

00:35:25.680 honorably discharged so they would get full credit for their time served. That's a matter of justice.

00:35:31.000 It's a matter of fairness. I had an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. I did it with

00:35:36.740 Ron Johnson from Wisconsin. And we had a vote on the Senate floor on my amendment. And the amendment,

00:35:42.280 unfortunately, was voted down. The vote was 40 to 54. So 54 voted no. There were some who weren't there.

00:35:53.160 The Democrats all voted no. And there were four Republicans who voted no. Bill Cassidy from

00:36:00.600 Louisiana, Susan Collins from Maine, Mitt Romney from Utah, and Mike Rounds from North Dakota.

00:36:06.740 I got to tell you again, I don't have a good explanation. You got a Navy SEAL who spent 10,

00:36:14.700 12, 15 years fighting to defend this country. He gets fired because Joe Biden decides to throw him

00:36:21.820 out because he didn't get the vaccine mandate. I don't know how to articulate why even one senator

00:36:29.260 would vote to say, nope, we're not letting that Navy SEAL back in. I don't care that we have a

00:36:35.700 recruiting shortage. I don't care that we don't have enough men and women to defend our nation. I don't care

00:36:41.280 that we're no longer firing people for doing this. That guy is out of luck. It was infuriating

00:36:50.560 that that particular amendment didn't pass. So the people, and it is at minimum thousands,

00:36:56.800 and it may be in excess of 10,000. We have not been able to get an actual accurate and fair

00:37:02.460 accounting of just how many servicemen and women have been forcibly discharged. So as we go into

00:37:08.400 the new year, let's celebrate. The military vaccine mandate has been ended. It's been ended

00:37:16.200 because millions of Americans stood up alongside me and many others and fought to end it. That's a

00:37:22.860 victory. But the victory should have been much broader. And I hope we use that as encouragement

00:37:29.320 then to lean in and redouble the fight in the new year coming forward. No doubt about it. Senator,

00:37:37.140 I know you're going to take a week with your family. You guys are going to get to enjoy each

00:37:40.740 other through the new year. And I know you're looking forward to that. So for everybody, just so

00:37:45.940 you know, we're going to get back to a normal schedule on Wednesday, the 4th, and you will get back

00:37:51.820 to our three shows a week, starting on Wednesday, the 4th. But I know you're going to get to spend

00:37:56.360 some time with your family through the new year break as well. So many people get to do that with

00:38:00.580 their families. And I know you're excited about it. Absolutely. I hope everyone has a wonderful,

00:38:06.780 blessed new year. Have fun on New Year's Eve. Stay safe, hug your family. And next year, I hope

00:38:14.580 2023 is an incredible year for this incredible nation.

00:38:18.820 Happy New Year, Senator. And again, to everybody listening, we will see you on January the 4th.

00:38:24.940 Have a safe and happy New Year. And we'll see you back here. We'll get back to it on the 4th.

00:38:29.040 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - December 27, 2022

A Sincere THANK YOU Plus Omnibus Disaster & An End To The Military Vaccine Mandate

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