Verdict with Ted Cruz - Airport Chaos as Dems Sacrifice TSA Workers & Flying Public to Protect Illegal Aliens plus Trump Ultimatum on Iran

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.600 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.280 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:08.940 And Senator, we've got a lot to talk about on today's show,

00:00:11.260 including chaos and anarchy at airports all over the country.

00:00:15.840 Democrats continuing to hold the American people hostage,

00:00:18.400 even after we've paid our taxes and all of these services should be provided.

00:00:23.280 Well, we're three weeks into a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security.

00:00:26.900 Thousands and thousands of employees continue not to be paid, including especially TSA agents.

00:00:32.920 TSA agents have now missed two paychecks.

00:00:35.920 And as a consequence, a number of them are quitting their jobs.

00:00:39.900 A number of them are not showing up.

00:00:42.100 And the burden on them is enormous.

00:00:44.960 And people are seeing it.

00:00:46.120 If you're flying, we're seeing lines at airports two, three, as many as four and five hours long.

00:00:52.420 People are missing their flights.

00:00:54.000 People are missing spring break.

00:00:55.320 And what is infuriating, this is all man-made. This is all the Democrats. They have forced this shutdown, and they're forcing the shutdown because they hate ICE. They're forcing the shutdown because the Democrat Party is entirely about illegal aliens now instead of American citizens.

00:01:13.320 We're going to break down exactly what's going on, what the impasse is, and how this is eventually going to come to resolution.

00:01:21.020 We're also going to talk about the latest of what's happening in Iran, and in particular, Iran.

00:01:26.020 President Trump has given Iran an ultimatum, 48 hours to open the Strait of Hormuz.

00:01:30.940 We're going to explain that.

00:01:32.400 We're also going to lay out how Iran has been firing missiles at Diego Garcia, a U.S.-British military base,

00:01:40.320 base, and how that escalation may be bringing the Brits into being more active participants

00:01:46.140 in this military conflict.

00:01:47.780 Yeah, it's certainly going to be very interesting to see how that breaks down, and we're going

00:01:51.080 to talk a lot about it in a moment.

00:01:52.800 I want to also talk to you real quick about the people in Israel.

00:01:56.940 They are under siege, and they are in desperate need of all of our help, and there's a way

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00:02:34.680 And parents are comforting their frightened children as explosions shake the night.

00:02:40.780 Sleeplessness and uncertainty have become daily life in Israel.

00:02:45.000 And Passover reminds us that God hears the cries of his people and answers with love and compassion.

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00:03:42.600 All right, Senator, so let's break down kind of where we are with this chaos at airports.

00:03:48.940 I think the media has been very disingenuous about this.

00:03:53.160 Republicans, you voted now how many times to fully fund DHS?

00:03:59.040 Seven different times. And so, look, the way federal funding works is that every cabinet

00:04:04.380 agency either has to have an appropriation, which is Congress voting to give it the money to spend

00:04:10.300 its budget, or there has to be what's called a continuing resolution, which is just kind of

00:04:14.940 maintaining the status quo. Without one or the other, you have a shutdown. Now, we previously

00:04:21.460 managed to pass appropriations for every cabinet agency in the federal government except DHS and

00:04:28.120 the Democrats held DHS out and it's because look they are the open border party and so we funded

00:04:34.740 the rest of the government so the good news in this shutdown is is our military they're getting

00:04:39.580 their paycheck our FBI agents they're getting their paycheck everyone in the other parts of

00:04:44.660 the federal government are getting paid but at the department of homeland security there are

00:04:50.660 hundreds of thousands of employees many of whom are going into work but are not getting their

00:04:56.300 paycheck so for example the coast guard they're still required to keep us safe or fema disaster 0.94

00:05:03.040 relief the the guys at fema are not getting paid and and the one that is most uh citizen facing

00:05:12.240 is TSA, because any time you go to an airport, you see TSA. Now, if you remember back in right

00:05:18.160 before November, the Schumer shutdown, which was the 43-day shutdown, the longest shutdown ever,

00:05:23.860 that had a massive impact on airports. And in fact, that was one of the things that caused

00:05:29.480 the Democrats to cave at the end and finally allow the government to be funded. There you had TSA

00:05:35.180 agents not getting paid, and you had air traffic controllers not getting paid. One bit of good

00:05:40.880 news here the air traffic controllers are getting paid this time so we're not facing massive shortage

00:05:46.060 of air traffic controllers but the tsa they're housed within dhs and and they've now missed

00:05:52.840 two paychecks in a row and and look most tsa agents are not rolling in the cash i mean they

00:05:58.840 are living in fact one of them said to me i i made a point when i was at the airport you and i

00:06:03.580 fly out all the time and it hobby um and and i was flying out and i looked at every one of them

00:06:09.020 I was like, hey, thanks for showing up for work today.

00:06:10.600 Like, I really appreciate it.

00:06:11.720 Like, you're keeping America going.

00:06:13.580 And one of the guys recognized me from TV, and he was like, hey, man.

00:06:17.900 He was like, can you please let whoever know that they're screwing my whole family?

00:06:21.620 He goes, like, I'll tell you.

00:06:23.000 I make 50, I think he said 55 or 57,000 a year.

00:06:26.060 He was like, I can't miss a paycheck, man.

00:06:28.240 And I was like, thank you for telling me that.

00:06:30.820 I will absolutely relay your message anywhere and everywhere I can to the point you're making.

00:06:35.520 when you're making 55, 57, 58,000 a year, he's got a family. He literally cannot miss a paycheck

00:06:42.300 and not have a major consequence on his life. Yeah. And for many of these agents, it means

00:06:48.240 they can't pay their rent. They can't pay their mortgage. They're having trouble putting food on

00:06:52.440 the table. The numbers of TSA agents going to food banks to get food just so they can have

00:06:57.400 dinner for their kids. We've had more than 300 TSA agents just resign, say, look, I can't do a job

00:07:04.480 where I don't get paid. I need to go find something else where I can bring home a paycheck and feed

00:07:08.860 my family. Those numbers are only going to get worse. Now, look, what is driving this? And what's

00:07:16.860 driving this is the Democrat Party has decided they hate ICE. And this is all about ICE is evil,

00:07:25.180 we must stop ICE. Now, can I tell you the most crazy, ridiculous irony of the shutdown? 0.94

00:07:30.520 What's that? 0.93

00:07:31.820 ICE is getting paid.

00:07:33.520 Yeah.

00:07:34.700 Through the whole thing.

00:07:35.640 Through the whole thing.

00:07:36.400 It's unaffecting ICE.

00:07:36.980 They have failed to shut down ICE because last year when we passed the reconciliation bill,

00:07:42.520 we could see that the Democrats were getting more and more unreasonable on border security.

00:07:47.180 So we funded ICE.

00:07:48.240 We funded ICE for several years going forward.

00:07:50.940 So the ICE agents are getting paid.

00:07:52.880 And by the way, the Democrats know this.

00:07:54.460 So understand, if you're waiting four hours at an airport, the Democrats aren't doing this because they want to defund ICE.

00:08:01.880 They're doing it just because they want to show their base they hate ICE so much that they're going to shut down the TSA.

00:08:08.360 And it has zero impact on ICE whatsoever.

00:08:12.720 But, look, I've got to tell you the amazing thing.

00:08:15.880 The Democrats don't seem to be concerned at all.

00:08:19.700 And there's a big reason for that, which is the media is broken in this country.

00:08:25.080 They don't report facts.

00:08:26.820 And so the media is not explaining to people.

00:08:29.760 In fact, the Democrats are out there claiming they want to fund the TSA.

00:08:33.420 I mean, they're just gaslighting like crazy.

00:08:37.880 And when the corporate media goes along with it, it means that Democrat senators face no consequences for behaving recklessly.

00:08:47.140 Yeah, no, you're right.

00:08:48.120 And one of the things I thought was interesting was Sean Duffy was on TV talking about this

00:08:51.680 on Sunday morning, and he was saying, like, this is getting to the point now where you

00:08:56.300 have to worry.

00:08:56.940 It's a dangerous factor here.

00:08:59.060 You have a lot of irritated people.

00:09:00.680 You have a lot of people gathering.

00:09:02.480 You have a lot of people gathering outside.

00:09:04.860 I worry about the soft target aspect of this.

00:09:07.860 We know about soft targets.

00:09:09.600 I worry about that many people gathering outside of an airport.

00:09:12.820 You've got to worry about tensions rising.

00:09:15.340 And then you also have to worry about the other issue.

00:09:17.500 And that is, what is this doing to the economy?

00:09:20.480 It's going to start hurting the economy.

00:09:22.680 You and I, before the show today, we both are speaking at an event this week.

00:09:26.540 We had the conversation about, is it better to drive?

00:09:29.640 Because it's just so insane what everybody's having to deal with right now.

00:09:32.840 How many people are going to cancel trips, not spend money, not go to events, tourism, spring break, the list goes on and on?

00:09:39.220 Well, that's right. And again, the Democrats are doing this because they know their base is

00:09:45.440 acutely attuned to anything that is attacking ICE, anything that is attacking Trump,

00:09:51.860 anything that is fighting for open borders. And they feel confident that the press will be their

00:09:57.480 Praetorian guard, will protect them from the voters know what they've done. So for example,

00:10:02.960 I went on Greta Van Susteren's show on Newsmax this week.

00:10:06.560 Now, Greta, Newsmax is not some left-wing outlet.

00:10:10.340 But Greta did her entire opening monologue saying Congress has failed and the TSA is defunded because Congress has failed. 0.97

00:10:19.120 Congress is not doing its job.

00:10:20.740 And she says it like eight times that it's Congress as a whole that has failed.

00:10:25.640 Never once does she say that it's the Democrats who are voting no on funding and the Republicans who are trying desperately to get it funded.

00:10:33.960 I push back pretty hard. Give a listen to the back and forth between Greta and me.

00:10:40.020 Outreach. Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz joins me. Nice to see you, sir.

00:10:45.900 What were you going to do about TSA not getting paid?

00:10:51.400 Look, we need to fund them and we need to fund them now.

00:10:54.000 I just heard a minute ago what you said.

00:10:56.760 I would respectfully suggest that your remarks should be edited slightly.

00:11:01.000 I agree with every sentiment you said except one.

00:11:03.620 You said Congress isn't paying them, Congress isn't paying them, Congress isn't paying

00:11:07.300 them.

00:11:08.300 To be accurate, what you should say is Democrats aren't paying them because Republicans have

00:11:12.820 now voted six consecutive times.

00:11:15.200 I voted two hours ago to fund the entire Department of Homeland Security.

00:11:18.840 I voted over and over and over again.

00:11:21.120 Why are they not funded?

00:11:22.280 There is only one reason, because the Democrats on a party-line vote are refusing to fund

00:11:28.660 the Department of Homeland Security.

00:11:30.140 It takes 60 votes to pass the funding legislation.

00:11:34.000 We only have 53 Republicans, so saying Congress is not doing its job is inaccurate.

00:11:39.700 The Republicans, we are here, we are voting, and the reason this shutdown is happening

00:11:44.540 is because Chuck Schumer and the Democrats care more about the radical open-border extremists

00:11:50.540 than they do about doing their job,

00:11:52.620 and it's resulting in a lot of people hurting right now.

00:11:55.660 All right, I considered saying that,

00:11:57.700 but I'll tell you why I didn't.

00:11:59.640 Because part of the job,

00:12:01.360 being a Republican or a Democrat in a Congress,

00:12:03.780 is you've got to figure out a way

00:12:05.200 to resolve things with your opposition.

00:12:07.760 It can't just be that they're obnoxious

00:12:09.980 or they're obstinate.

00:12:11.340 There's got to be some way to get them to do that.

00:12:13.960 That's just part of the job.

00:12:15.600 And of course you're going to run into these walls a lot.

00:12:18.960 There's got to be something to be done.

00:12:21.660 I mean, you can't just let these people starve.

00:12:26.100 Greta, you're assuming that the two parties are reasonable.

00:12:30.140 The Democrats want a shutdown, and I'll tell you candidly,

00:12:33.780 I think they're happy to shut down the Department of Homeland Security for the rest of the year.

00:12:38.020 We had just a week ago, Brian Schatz, who's considered the Democrat leader in waiting,

00:12:43.200 he told a reporter, he said,

00:12:44.640 And we are serene, that's the word he used, serene, about the DHS shutdown.

00:12:50.540 And mind you, we have had four terror attacks from radical Islamic terrorists in the last

00:12:55.700 two weeks.

00:12:56.700 We have a heightened risk of terror attacks right now.

00:12:59.880 And the Democrats keep voting to defund the agency that is designed to prevent terror

00:13:05.340 attacks.

00:13:06.340 It is reckless and irresponsible.

00:13:08.480 From the Republican side, do you know that for two and a half weeks, the Democrats refused

00:13:12.420 even to sit down and talk with the White House?

00:13:14.300 They just voted no, no, no, and their position is we won't talk to you, we're not interested

00:13:18.680 in a compromise, our answer is no, shut it down, we don't care.

00:13:24.800 This is the equivalent of political terrorism.

00:13:28.580 And by the way, Greta, if you look to the last shutdown, the last shutdown was right

00:13:32.800 before the election last year, it was the Schumer shutdown, it was 43 days, it was the

00:13:37.460 longest shutdown in American history.

00:13:39.900 You know what one Democrat aide told a reporter during that shutdown?

00:13:44.340 That Democrat aide said, we will keep the government shut down until airplanes begin

00:13:50.820 falling from the skies.

00:13:53.500 Look, that is wildly irresponsible and reckless, and you know why they get away with it?

00:13:59.040 They get away with it because they're confident that the press will do, Greta, with respect

00:14:02.800 what you just did.

00:14:03.800 Well, it's Congress who's doing it.

00:14:05.540 No, it is not.

00:14:06.540 Republicans are voting to fund it and Democrats are voting not to.

00:14:10.680 And the reason Democrats keep doing this is because they don't get held to account.

00:14:15.940 If I vote against funding, hold me to account.

00:14:18.640 But when they're the ones shutting it down, we need to be very clear telling the American people it is Chuck Schumer and the Democrats.

00:14:25.380 The White House has given them a ton.

00:14:27.280 Have you seen what the White House has given them?

00:14:29.300 Yeah, no, no.

00:14:30.000 But is there anything more?

00:14:32.020 I'll tell you what's going to happen.

00:14:33.400 By the way, let's just stop there and go back.

00:14:35.920 she's like can you give them anything like it's you're the one holding this up that is the part

00:14:41.360 that frustrates me the most center is that she's like well is there anything you can do go go over

00:14:45.900 the list of what has already been given as you're being how i say as you as the american people as

00:14:52.160 the travelers are being held hostage well and and let's take more fundamentally the dhs appropriations

00:14:59.280 bill was a bipartisan bill negotiated between Republicans and Democrats that came out of the

00:15:06.420 Appropriations Committee with bipartisan support. So the Democrats had all of these different

00:15:12.180 reforms that they put into DHS that Republicans agreed to. By the way, none of those reforms have

00:15:17.660 happened because they won't allow it to be funded. The White House has been trying to negotiate with

00:15:24.180 Democrats, although, as I said, for more than two weeks, the Democrats wouldn't even meet. They had

00:15:28.620 nothing to say this was while tsa was not getting paid while dhs was not getting paid the democrats

00:15:33.760 position was nope we won't even sit and talk and and it's why i said and that's that's you know

00:15:39.080 it's premeditated the point that you made earlier like this is clearly they decided we are this is

00:15:45.020 the issue we're going to go on and we are premeditating this and we want it to hurt yeah

00:15:49.840 it's actually even different from premeditated i i think i think to some extent they're in a box

00:15:55.760 their base hates ice if you're a democrat senator look here i'm going to tell you what john fetterman

00:16:02.300 tweeted uh tweeted this weekend um elon musk stepped in and said i would like to offer to

00:16:09.060 pay the salaries of tsa personnel during this funding impasse that is so negatively affecting

00:16:14.720 the lives of so many americans it was incredibly generous elon is a patriot here's what john

00:16:20.740 Fetterman said, this is incredibly generous. TSA agents across the country are relying on food

00:16:27.180 pantries and community donations just to get by. I remain the lone Democrat to vote with my

00:16:34.480 Republican colleagues to fully fund DHS and get people paid. It should never come to this point.

00:16:41.580 So Fetterman's speaking the truth. Here's the problem. Most of the rest of the Democrat

00:16:47.200 senators, they're in a situation where they feel if they vote to fund ICE, their angry open

00:16:53.560 border activists will never forgive them. And I think a lot of them are engaged in political

00:16:59.760 cowardice. They're unwilling to vote to fund ICE. Mind you, that literally means that they don't

00:17:05.240 want murderers arrested. They don't want child rapists arrested. They don't want gangbangers

00:17:10.260 arrested ISIS. Drug dealers. The list goes on and on. Narco-terrorists. I mean, ISIS who is 0.53

00:17:16.600 arresting criminals in the interior of the United States. Yeah. The Democrat political reality is

00:17:23.800 their angry base hates them so much. Look, these are the same people that are abolished the police.

00:17:29.160 These are the same people that are abolished ICE. And so I'll tell you this week, Republican

00:17:36.580 senators when we're in session we have lunch together every tuesday wednesday and thursday

00:17:40.520 and then actually we were here throughout throughout the weekend we were in dc so we

00:17:43.940 had lunch friday saturday and sunday as well and and what i'm arguing to my colleagues i said listen

00:17:50.760 i think the democrats are so wildly unreasonable that they may be content to leave dhs defunded

00:18:00.420 for the entire year really they don't care about the consequences of what they're doing

00:18:05.580 They don't care about the fact that every TSA agent would have to quit, and you would literally shut down every airport in the country.

00:18:13.640 They believe we can blame it on Trump and the Republicans, and there's not a common ground of reasonableness.

00:18:24.980 Well, let me ask you, Sean Duffy said on, I think it was Face the Nation Sunday morning, that he said,

00:18:30.100 If you think it's bad now, wait till this coming week when you miss another paycheck.

00:18:35.340 It's going to be worse.

00:18:36.300 It's going to be worse.

00:18:37.180 And his point was you will have so many people quit that now you've got a problem that you don't have a big enough workforce even when you get back to being funded.

00:18:46.620 How concerned are you about that?

00:18:48.220 Is that part of the Democrats' plan?

00:18:49.760 Like, yeah.

00:18:50.540 It's kind of the way that they did with defund the police.

00:18:53.960 Well, if we can't directly do it, we'll just drive them so crazy they quit their jobs and they don't want to be police anymore.

00:18:58.680 Yeah, look, I think plan is giving them too much credit. They don't have a plan. They're just obeying their angry activists who are just screaming. They're just engaged in a primal scream. And so what I told my colleagues is, listen, if we're working with people who are objectively unreasonable and who may well say we will never vote to fund ICE again, here's what I've suggested.

00:19:21.160 all right fine if if that's the reality we should get the democrats to fund all of dhs except ice

00:19:30.540 carve ice out now you might say okay that's a terrible idea because then ice doesn't get funded

00:19:35.240 remember we've already funded ice for four years yeah so agree to fund everything except ice and

00:19:40.900 then what i urge my colleagues is if they force us to do that we should immediately take up a

00:19:46.260 reconciliation bill and fund ICE for the next 10 years. And what I advocated for, and we should

00:19:53.000 increase ICE's budget by 10%. So if that's going to be their price, we Democrats will never again

00:19:59.320 vote for border security. We will never again vote for ICE. Yeah. Then at the end of the day,

00:20:05.680 the only way I see to solve this problem, reconciliation, remember we've talked about

00:20:09.920 this before. It is the one procedural mechanism the Senate can use that does not require 60 votes,

00:20:18.220 that just Republicans can pass it. And so if the Democrats would agree, we'll fund all of DHS

00:20:24.840 except ICE, the next week we should come back and do a reconciliation and fund ICE for a decade,

00:20:30.140 because I'm not convinced that these loons are going to change their mind in the next 10 years.

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00:22:04.680 For people that are going to be traveling this week, what is your gut?

00:22:07.520 Do you think there's, what are the chances that we could actually get something done here

00:22:11.520 where then things could start to go back to normal instead of going in the direction they're going now,

00:22:15.380 which is these two, three, and four hour plus waits?

00:22:18.580 Look, I don't know.

00:22:20.120 I think there is a real urgency in the Senate to try to get this resolved before the Easter holiday.

00:22:28.080 Yeah.

00:22:28.600 The question is, are the Democrats going to budge?

00:22:31.280 There are a few of the Democrats who occasionally will reach a deal who are making noises like they want to, but Chuck Schumer doesn't care.

00:22:43.980 Chuck Schumer is terrified of being primaried from the left.

00:22:48.300 In fact, I want to read a little bit from a story in the Wall Street Journal about Chuck Schumer.

00:22:56.220 So he has been wildly left wing. Yeah. So much so that he's now done the longest shutdown in

00:23:03.340 government history. And then he's turned around and turned around and has shut the TSA down and

00:23:10.260 refused to pay them. Here's a story that just came out in the Wall Street Journal.

00:23:15.060 Growing frustration with Chuck Schumer spurs talk of replacing him. And you might say, oh,

00:23:21.100 thank God, maybe some Democrats are saying this is too obstructionist. You're too unreasonable.

00:23:26.000 Nope, nope. You know who wants to replace him? The left wing, because he's not burn it down

00:23:33.440 enough. And let me read the beginning of this article. Senator Chris Murphy was dining with

00:23:39.140 progressive activists at a French restaurant in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood. Could you

00:23:43.440 be more cliche as a Democrat than that? I suppose maybe a vegan French restaurant would make it

00:23:50.860 even better when their conversation about how to advance their legislative priorities

00:23:55.280 turned to a thorny question. What to do about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer?

00:24:01.320 To the surprise of some attendees, the Connecticut Democrat, a rising star in the party's

00:24:06.360 left flank, responded that some lawmakers had been doing informal counts to see whether enough

00:24:13.100 votes existed to remove the New York Democrat from his leadership position, according to people

00:24:17.780 familiar with the mid-February dinner. Murphy explained that Schumer had enough backing to

00:24:22.940 remain as leader, but the disclosure stood out nonetheless because it revealed the frustration

00:24:27.960 inside the Senate had reached a high enough level that some Democrats were actively contemplating

00:24:34.180 how to oust Schumer. Wow. Murphy is among a group of senators and top advisors who have grown

00:24:39.640 increasingly dissatisfied with Schumer's leadership, according to people familiar with

00:24:44.060 the conversation. Who else? That group includes Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts,

00:24:49.600 who has been initiated conversations with other senators to gauge frustrations with Schumer,

00:24:54.500 some of the people said. Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota has also been active in discussions

00:24:59.500 with her frustration with Schumer. In an interview, Murphy said he is frequently asked

00:25:05.160 about Senate leadership, but he doesn't have a count of who would vote to remove Schumer and

00:25:09.880 doesn't recall mentioning one in more than four dozen interviews with Democrat senators and others

00:25:16.560 many said the concern about Schumer's leadership was widespread um but what are they mad at and

00:25:24.740 this is where it's amazing Murphy Warren and Smith are part of a batch of senators dubbed

00:25:31.800 Fight Club, who are particularly incensed by Schumer's approach to the midterms.

00:25:39.140 This group of progressives believes that Schumer favors centrist candidates in some key races.

00:25:45.420 So their whole argument, even though Schumer is just saying, let it burn, I mean, it reminds me

00:25:51.300 of Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight as Batman, just saying, let it burn. Who cares what happens?

00:25:56.560 If there are terror attacks, not Chuck Schumer's problem. If every airport is shut down, not Chuck

00:26:01.180 Schumer's problem. If people can't pay their rent or mortgage, not Chuck Schumer's problem.

00:26:07.020 And yet the Elizabeth Warrens of the party say not enough. You need to do more. I don't even

00:26:12.800 know what more would look like. But that is the reality of where Democrats are. And as long as

00:26:20.920 the media does what Greta did and what so many other CNN does and MSNBC does, as long as they 1.00

00:26:28.400 keep covering it up and pretending, no, no, no, it's not the Democrats who are shutting it down,

00:26:33.420 they'll keep doing the exact same thing. Yeah, they really will. I got to ask you an

00:26:36.940 audible question real quick, because you mentioned you're in D.C. over the weekend.

00:26:39.940 Give us a 30-second update on where we are with the SAVE Act.

00:26:43.860 We are continuing to debate it, but right now every Democrat votes no, and we are not doing

00:26:51.420 a talking filibuster. We are not requiring the Democrats do a talking filibuster. So

00:26:56.000 I think the expectation is we're going to vote on it this week, and if nothing changes, the vote is

00:27:02.080 going to go down. President Trump is deeply frustrated, as you know, as I talked about,

00:27:07.380 and we did an earlier podcast, which if folks want a deep dive on the Save America Act, you could

00:27:11.680 have an entire podcast last week devoted to explaining what was going on. I think we should

00:27:18.300 use the procedural rules to force the Democrats to stand and talk and talk and talk and do a full

00:27:23.460 talking filibuster, but we're not right now. So has Trump weighed in on that idea, by the way?

00:27:28.440 I mean, what does he say? He's vocally in favor of it. But in order to do it, we have to have 50

00:27:36.080 Republicans stand together and we don't have 50 that that's the fundamental problem. How close

00:27:42.480 are we? Is it two or three or more? It's hard to tell. We have 53 Republicans, which means we can

00:27:48.920 lose at most three, there are at least four and potentially more that are no's. And the problem

00:27:55.700 is you have in particular Republicans who are retiring, so they're not going to be on the

00:27:59.700 ballot. That makes it very hard for the White House to pressure them if they're not up for

00:28:05.160 re-election. There's not a whole lot of leverage there.

00:28:18.920 All right, I want to move to what's happening in Iran right now 0.98

00:28:42.160 and some new developments that have taken place.

00:28:44.840 You have a new threat from the President of the United States of America

00:28:47.940 giving Iran, and I'm quoting,

00:28:50.220 48 hours to reopen the Strait of Hormuz

00:28:52.100 or the U.S. will obliterate Iran's power plants.

00:28:55.700 Explain why that has not already been done.

00:28:57.800 I've actually had a lot of people ask me,

00:28:59.280 they're like, well, why didn't we hit those right away?

00:29:01.980 There's a lot of people that don't understand

00:29:04.380 the nuance of that.

00:29:05.360 One reason is when you do these types of attacks in war,

00:29:08.540 you don't want to punish innocent people.

00:29:11.480 And so many times you won't go after those power plants

00:29:14.180 unless those power plants are directly being used by terrorists or by the enemy to harm you.

00:29:22.120 That's when it can come into an X, Y, Z kind of debate.

00:29:25.620 But explain now why the president has ratcheted this up.

00:29:28.400 And look, every time he gives a timeline, he doesn't ever bluff, it seems like.

00:29:32.200 There's one thing that's consistent.

00:29:33.240 You've got 10 days to figure something out or 48 hours.

00:29:35.920 You better listen to the president.

00:29:37.700 So what the president put out on Truth Social, he said,

00:29:40.560 If Iran doesn't fully open without threat the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants, starting with the biggest one first. 0.86

00:29:59.320 That's a very specific commitment.

00:30:02.260 The time frame is exact, and you're right.

00:30:04.320 There is a long pattern of those who test President Trump's time frame ending up on the losing end of things.

00:30:10.560 this military conflict to date, and in the three weeks that we've been engaged in it,

00:30:17.320 the U.S. military has been focused on military targets. It's been focused on

00:30:21.760 air defense systems. It's been focused on short and medium-term ballistic missiles. It's been

00:30:27.920 focused on launchers for missiles. It's been focused on factories and production facilities

00:30:33.020 for missiles. Same thing for drones. It's been focused also on Navy ships. It's been focused

00:30:38.040 on top personnel, and many of the top personnel have been taken out. Look, in military conflict,

00:30:43.960 it is a significant thing if you destroy the economic infrastructure of a country, because

00:30:49.180 when this military conflict ends, presumably Iran is going to be able to need to function as a

00:30:55.900 country, and if its ability to provide power, if its ability to, its main source of revenue is

00:31:03.460 selling oil, if we take out the ability to generate oil production, that would have a

00:31:11.100 devastating impact on the economy of Iran, much more so than it has already happened if all of 1.00

00:31:16.320 that infrastructure is taken out. And once it's taken out, it can take years and years and years

00:31:21.880 to rebuild. And one of the challenges, look, with ordinary leaders, cost-benefit analysis can work.

00:31:29.760 yeah here you've got radical islamist clerics who frankly don't give a damn if the people suffer

00:31:39.640 and and so i'm not sure if this threat will produce produce different consequences i think

00:31:47.660 everything that has unfolded over the last uh three weeks was was reasonably able to be

00:31:53.200 anticipated, and yet the Ayatollah and the Mullahs, they charge down the road anyway. But

00:31:58.420 I think the president is frustrated with the Strait of Hormuz being shut down. That's having

00:32:05.460 significant effect on oil prices and gasoline prices. I will say also,

00:32:13.500 if you look at what we have done in the Navy, here's what the chief of CENTCOM said. More than

00:32:22.680 8,000 iranian targets have been hit 130 vessels have been destroyed which is the largest elimination

00:32:32.300 of a navy since world war ii uh and and and that was from central command commander admiral brad

00:32:41.100 cooper this is incredible staggering yeah and and yet and much of the iranian military leadership

00:32:51.440 is no longer with us. So those effects are quite significant. We have degraded their ability to

00:32:58.860 wage war massively. But the question is, what is it going to take to bring this to an end? And

00:33:07.160 I think the objective from the very beginning should be to collapse this regime.

00:33:14.240 I don't particularly care who runs Iran after the Ayatollah. I just would like to see Iran led by 0.90

00:33:21.220 a leader who is not a radical, theocratic Islamist who wants to murder Americans and who is murdering 0.99

00:33:27.460 Americans. The reason President Trump launched this attack is because Iran has murdered nearly 0.85

00:33:32.440 a thousand Americans. They've been actively funding terrorism, attacking Americans. And

00:33:37.920 this is an opportunity to put that to an end. Yeah, it really is. Final question on this. You

00:33:43.860 have the real prospect now the UK could be brought into this. I actually think that's a good thing

00:33:50.720 if they're brought in. We need more people involved than just us and Israel in a big way.

00:33:55.340 Your reaction to that after this base has been attacked that is a joint base?

00:34:01.580 Well, Diego Garcia is a military base that is in the Indian Ocean, and it has a prime location to

00:34:07.980 project power throughout the Middle East and throughout much of Asia. It is a base of the

00:34:16.400 United Kingdom, a British base, but they share it with the United States, so we both have access

00:34:20.720 and use it. I will tell you, by the way, I've been very active concerning Diego Garcia, because

00:34:25.980 unfortunately, Kair Starmer, the very left-wing Prime Minister of the United Kingdom,

00:34:33.000 is talking about entering into an agreement to give Diego Garcia, to give the Chagos Islands,

00:34:40.880 Chagos Islands are a series of islands in the ocean, give them to Mauritius,

00:34:45.120 a country that is very close to China

00:34:48.100 and give them the ability

00:34:51.200 to significantly limit our ability

00:34:53.720 to use Diego Garcia

00:34:55.000 I've laid out that that is a direct violation

00:34:59.240 of the treaty the United Kingdom has

00:35:01.200 with the United States

00:35:02.160 where under that treaty

00:35:03.560 the UK committed

00:35:05.780 that Diego Garcia would remain

00:35:08.660 under British control

00:35:09.880 that it would not be given

00:35:12.140 to the control of anyone else

00:35:13.460 And so what happened, I've been pressing back very hard, by the way, President Trump has been pressing back very hard, saying for the U.K. to give this away is lunacy, is madness.

00:35:25.080 What happened now is Iran has fired missiles at Diego Garcia and put that base in jeopardy.

00:35:32.760 And the Brits, remember at the outset of this military conflict, Starmer said they would not participate in any way.

00:35:38.880 as a consequence of Iran attacking Diego Garcia.

00:35:44.200 Starmer has now said that British forces will assist in defensive efforts

00:35:49.580 to fight back against missiles coming out of Iran.

00:35:52.880 So they're still not assisting in the offensive activity,

00:35:56.220 but at least the Brits are coming somewhat to the table.

00:36:00.120 And I got to say, that's an improvement,

00:36:03.620 but it's also very disappointing to see the United Kingdom not there at the outset.

00:36:08.880 uh in in in this military action well and it may be their kumbayaism isn't working out for them so

00:36:14.480 now they're having to deal with reality we're going to keep and by the way starmer's starmer's

00:36:19.020 tenure in office is every bit as imperiled as as chuck schumer's the british people are very very

00:36:25.120 unhappy with starmer he will almost certainly lose the next election in the uk chuck schumer

00:36:31.420 the the everyone is very very unhappy with chuck schumer and and and i think he will almost

00:36:36.700 certainly lose his next election. I don't think he can win a Democrat primary. And I think there's

00:36:41.120 a real chance he's on the ballot in 2028. I think there's a real chance Chuck Schumer doesn't even

00:36:45.880 run for reelection. Yeah, you may you may absolutely be right on that one. I think that

00:36:49.920 the writing is starting to appear on the wall there for sure. Don't forget, we do this show

00:36:53.900 Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So hit that subscriber auto download button wherever you get your

00:36:57.820 podcast. You can also watch it on YouTube. If you like to watch the show, do it there. You can see

00:37:02.900 it on Facebook as well. And The Center and I will see you back here Wednesday morning.

00:37:08.000 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 23, 2026

Airport Chaos as Dems Sacrifice TSA Workers & Flying Public to Protect Illegal Aliens plus Trump Ultimatum on Iran

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