Verdict with Ted Cruz - Airport Chaos ENDING, DHS Partially Funded—the Inside Story plus Save America Act & Artic Frost

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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00:00:05.080 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:08.720 It's so nice to have you with us if you're listening on the radio around the country.

00:00:11.660 We've got a lot to cover in the show.

00:00:14.140 And Senator, let's start with the big story first.

00:00:17.020 The airport chaos, in theory, could be coming to an end

00:00:21.220 as President Trump signs an order, an emergency declaration to pay the TSA agents.

00:00:28.260 Well, it is fantastic news.

00:00:30.000 The TSA agents are going to be paid.

00:00:32.320 We should see the chaos at the airport subside.

00:00:34.940 I hope it subsides very quickly.

00:00:37.320 As you and I are recording this podcast, it is right now 2.23 in the morning, D.C. time,

00:00:43.360 late Thursday night, early Friday morning.

00:00:46.320 And the amazing thing is...

00:00:48.140 Let's just say that time again.

00:00:49.100 This is your commitment, by the way, to the show.

00:00:51.280 Let's say that time again.

00:00:52.480 This is a new record for us.

00:00:53.820 It is 2.23 in the morning, D.C. time.

00:00:56.880 No, it's 2.24.

00:00:57.840 uh dc time uh late thursday night early friday morning and at this point the reason i'm having

00:01:04.840 to time stamp this is we still do not know for certain what the final resolution of this is

00:01:10.660 going to be we think we know but it could change so so right now the entire day they've been trying

00:01:18.660 to negotiate a deal with the democrats and the democrats have repeatedly moved the goalposts

00:01:24.920 And I will say where we ended up is actually where I urged the Republican conference to be two weeks ago. 0.96

00:01:33.500 Two weeks ago, I stood up and I told my colleagues, I said, and I talked about this on the podcast as well, but I stood up and told my colleagues, I said, listen, our Democrat colleagues are nuts. 0.99

00:01:45.400 They have lost their mind. 0.97

00:01:47.120 They are captured by the radical left wing in their base, and they are simply open border radicals who hate Donald Trump.

00:01:55.480 Now, what does that mean?

00:01:56.420 At that point, we'd had a shutdown of DHS for a couple of weeks.

00:02:00.540 We'd had TSA agents who hadn't been paid, Coast Guardsmen who hadn't been paid, Secret Service officers who hadn't been paid, FEMA officials who hadn't been paid, over 200,000 federal workers at DHS who were not being paid.

00:02:14.360 And what I told my Republican colleagues is I said, I think if it's up to the Democrats, they'll leave everything shut down forever.

00:02:23.420 They'll literally for the rest of the year, they'll be fine, never opening the Department of Homeland Security.

00:02:29.640 Now, start with a basic point.

00:02:31.680 Yeah, and Senator, before you get to that, I want to take a moment.

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00:04:39.740 get back to those core points that you were about to mention well number one we have had four major

00:04:45.680 terrorist attacks in the last three weeks all four by radical islamic terrorists the department of

00:04:52.880 homeland security exists to prevent terror attacks there's obviously military conflict in the in the

00:04:59.880 Middle East. The terror threat is heightened. And yet every Democrat but one, every Democrat but

00:05:06.180 John Fetterman, has voted now eight times to defund the entire Department of Homeland Security,

00:05:12.360 the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security. DHS was created in the wake of 9-11

00:05:19.000 to prepare for and prevent terror attacks. And I think the Democrats would have left it shut

00:05:26.620 the entire year they don't care it was the most reckless irresponsible action we've ever seen

00:05:34.020 you look at what was happening at the airports the chaos at the airports was out of control

00:05:39.220 and here's what i told my colleagues i said in my view the democrats in the senate will never

00:05:45.880 ever vote to fund ice again they've just lost their minds they are an open border party so they

00:05:51.820 are willing to defund the Border Patrol and defund ICE. And that's who they are. And I said,

00:05:56.760 there's not going to be any wearing them down on this, because they're going to be that today,

00:06:01.500 they're going to be that next week, they're going to be that next month, they're going to be that

00:06:04.380 next year. That is where the Democrats are. They've gone to crazy town. And so I told my

00:06:11.260 colleagues, here's what we should do. We should fund as much of DHS as the Democrats are willing

00:06:16.580 to do, and that probably is going to mean pulling out ICE and maybe CBP, Customs and Border Patrol.

00:06:22.820 So we should fund it. We should fund TSA. We should open up the airports. We should end the

00:06:27.720 chaos. Now, the immediate response to that will be the Democrats have succeeded in defunding ICE.

00:06:34.040 Well, no, they haven't, because we're the majority, damn it. So let's act like it. 0.98

00:06:37.840 The instant we do that, and we do that, we turn on the lights on DHS. We get TSA agents paid again.

00:06:44.560 we start a reconciliation process. Now, as regular listeners of this pod know,

00:06:51.680 reconciliation is the major exception to the filibuster rule. And to ordinarily fund

00:06:57.440 government, you need 60 votes, which means we need seven Democrats. That's how Democrats have

00:07:02.780 been able to force this shutdown for 42 days. However, reconciliation, you only need 50 votes.

00:07:10.280 And what I argued to my colleagues, we had to take up reconciliation and we ought to fund ICE and CBP.

00:07:17.900 And I said, listen, I don't think the Democrats will ever again fund ICE.

00:07:22.280 So in my view, we should fund them for 10 years.

00:07:25.200 10 years is the maximum budget window that you can do under reconciliation.

00:07:28.700 I said, let's put 10 years of funding in place right now because these lunatics would say we're not arresting murderers anymore.

00:07:35.500 We're not arresting gangbangers or child rapists anymore. 0.72

00:07:38.320 That's where their party is.

00:07:40.740 And then I said we also need to show them that their obstructionism, their political terrorism doesn't yield rewards.

00:07:51.120 So Elizabeth Warren, I'm sure, is going to be running out crowing that she succeeded in defunding ICE. 1.00

00:07:57.540 So what I've argued to my colleagues on reconciliation, we need to up the ICE budget.

00:08:02.560 What I suggested is increase it by 10% so that we can say to Elizabeth Warren and the other crazies, congratulations, your entire temper tantrum, here's what you accomplished.

00:08:12.580 You increased the funding for ICE by 10%, and we now have 10 years of funding locked in.

00:08:17.820 At this point, at now 2.30 in the morning, it appears that's exactly what we're doing.

00:08:23.500 There is a proposal that's circulating. It hasn't yet passed, but it's expected to pass any moment that will do exactly that. Fund all of DHS except for ICE and much of CBP. That's what I suggested two weeks ago. We're going to break down more of it in just a minute.

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00:09:11.920 One of the worst in the country, Senator,

00:09:13.920 has been the airport you and I fly out of all the time.

00:09:16.920 I actually drove because I knew it was going to be faster

00:09:20.680 than waiting in that line to head to CPAC.

00:09:24.000 You actually drove today somewhere far away

00:09:27.640 because it was easier than dealing with the airports.

00:09:29.700 I'm assuming that's why you did it as well.

00:09:31.840 And thank goodness now, nearly 500 TSA agents

00:09:35.220 that have already quit because they weren't being paid,

00:09:37.800 that number was going to get a lot higher if the president didn't act and do what he just did.

00:09:42.420 Yeah, look, that's right. Bush Airport in Houston had the worst delays in the country. Bush and

00:09:47.380 the Atlanta Airport were the two worst. At Bush, they were reporting call-out rates for TSA agents

00:09:54.700 of 40 percent, and the lines were four, four and a half hours. Actually, my youngest daughter,

00:09:59.860 Catherine, was at Bush. She was supposed to fly out to visit a friend. It was over four hours in

00:10:04.660 the line she ended up missing her flight and so she's uh gonna try to fly out again tomorrow but

00:10:09.480 but she ended up not not getting out to to see her friend and and and have a few days uh hang

00:10:15.180 hanging out with a good friend of hers uh look it was madness but but i will tell you you know

00:10:20.480 this is one of the things about doing this real time so so it is now 2 33 in the morning and what

00:10:26.160 has happened since this podcast started recording you know what's happened what's that the senate

00:10:31.580 just passed the funding so i said i didn't know if we were going to fund it that it was circulating

00:10:34.960 what after we started the podcast the senate passed it they passed it by by voice vote

00:10:40.640 so that means there there was one or two senators on the floor by voice vote most of the senators

00:10:47.200 have gone to sleep and so what it meant is no nobody objected that means the funding is now

00:10:52.800 out of the senate it will go to the house the house will take it up and pass it but it means

00:10:58.260 we're going to end up having Coast Guard getting their paychecks. We're going to end up having

00:11:03.440 FEMA getting their paychecks. We're going to end up having DHS getting their paychecks. We're going

00:11:07.000 to end up having Secret Service getting their paychecks. So that's good. That funding is good.

00:11:13.660 Now, here's what the Democrats insisted upon. It's actually amazing because a few days ago,

00:11:19.400 Chuck Schumer went on TV. He went on Joe Scarborough. And he said the Democrats were

00:11:24.180 willing to fund everything except for ICE ERO. Now, what does that mean? ICE is Immigration

00:11:32.680 and Customs Enforcement. And ERO are the agents that go and find illegal aliens and arrest them

00:11:40.740 and deport them. And so that's about half of ICE's budget. And so Schumer said, if we agreed

00:11:46.580 to fund everything but ERO at ICE, the Democrats would be fine. We ended up, President Trump agreed

00:11:53.680 to that deal and then schumer and the democrats all backed out and said nope nope never mind we

00:11:58.380 didn't mean it we understand we offered that deal we lied we can't do it uh which delayed

00:12:03.600 things for several days because they just backed out of the deal they had what they insisted upon

00:12:09.580 what just passed it passed is ice is entirely defunded so there's zero funding for ice now

00:12:14.660 the good news is ice is not in fact defunded because when we passed the reconciliation bill

00:12:19.620 last year, we plussed up a ton of funding for ICE. We funded ICE for the next three years,

00:12:26.100 because we anticipated that the Democrats were going to be extreme and radical. And so ICE is

00:12:32.200 going to, the irony is during the shutdown, ICE was funded the whole time. The Democrats were

00:12:37.580 hurting everybody else because they were mad about ICE. So, but what just passed has zero funding

00:12:44.120 for ICE, which means not only did they insist they weren't going to put funding for ERO,

00:12:50.220 they also didn't put funding for Homeland Security Investigations, HSI. HSI, do you know

00:12:57.060 what the responsibility of HSI is? What's that? Investigating transnational crime, terrorism,

00:13:05.620 human trafficking, smuggling, cybercrime, financial fraud, child exploitation. That's

00:13:11.080 what hsi does it's like out catching terrorists and every democrat said we will not vote to fund

00:13:19.580 the folks catching terrorists and catching human traffickers that's where the democrats are and

00:13:25.680 then on customs and border patrol they insisted that the funding be reduced about six billion

00:13:31.760 dollars reduced from 17.7 billion uh to 11 billion so those were their demands uh they ended up

00:13:41.100 getting their demands but it is the most short-term pyrrhic victory because we're going to do a

00:13:45.980 reconciliation takes about six weeks to do a reconciliation so it's not a it's not an immediate

00:13:50.860 process because you've got to have the house has to pass a budget resolution the senate has to pass

00:13:54.760 a budget resolution but we will get it done and i believe what will happen is we'll pass a 10-year

00:14:02.100 budget that pluses up both of them and i will say it was exactly what i had urged two weeks ago is

00:14:08.880 where we ended up right now now i will tell you let's go back to what you said a minute ago which

00:14:13.740 is the president signed the order saying he was going to fund tsa do you know why he did so and

00:14:20.920 why there was an urgency to do so tonight why is that well let me bring you in what was happening

00:14:27.940 so so at lunch today on thursday the democrats were saying they may cut a deal so we had a vote

00:14:34.480 at 1 30 p.m that at our lunch we were like the democrats may vote yes we may have a deal and

00:14:40.640 this might be done it turned out we waited all afternoon and the democrats just couldn't vote yes

00:14:46.760 they were not able to get to a vote shocker right shocker and here's the problem we'd been

00:14:53.360 seeing wait times increase at airports all across the country there were serious incredible threats

00:14:58.740 from the tsa union that tomorrow friday there was going to be a nationwide walkout

00:15:04.700 that all of the tsa agents were going to stay home i don't know if that's right i can tell you

00:15:09.920 i talked to the airlines and they believed it was right and if every tsa agent in the country

00:15:16.280 stayed home on friday every major airport in america would shut down and i will tell you i 0.96

00:15:22.020 stood up to my colleagues and said we are blithering idiots if we let every every major 0.95

00:15:27.840 airport shut down that would be a catastrophe and and in terms of understanding look one of 0.98

00:15:34.620 the things we try to do in verdict is take you inside how the sausage is made i spent much of

00:15:40.120 yesterday talking with senior white house officials and urging the president to do what he did today

00:15:46.240 urging the president to issue an order and say, I'm funding TSA. The Democrats are petulant

00:15:53.620 children throwing a temper tantrum. You elected us to be the adults, and I'm being the adult. 0.98

00:15:58.700 Every TSA agent is going to get his or her paycheck. They're back on the jobs. The airports

00:16:03.960 are open, and the Democrats' temper tantrum has failed. And this afternoon, as we didn't know if

00:16:09.400 there was going to be a deal or not, that's exactly what the president did. I want to say,

00:16:13.620 Mr. President, thank you. Congratulations. It was the right thing to do. And today,

00:16:18.880 President Trump showed leadership while the Democrats showed complete recklessness and

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00:17:58.120 Let's give an update on the latest of the SAVE Act.

00:18:00.620 and Chuck Schumer, the Democrats, they said they supported voter ID, but then they immediately

00:18:06.240 blocked you guys and your amendment to require it. Welcome to Democrats, you know, do as I say,

00:18:11.960 not as I do. Well, that's exactly right. So I'm an original sponsor of the Save America Act. I've

00:18:18.000 been helping lead the fight to pass the Save America Act. We should be passing it. The only

00:18:22.560 way to get it passed is we need to stand together and force the Democrats to do a talking filibuster.

00:18:29.920 Unfortunately, to do that, we need 50 Republicans who are willing to stand and fight and be all unified together.

00:18:35.520 We don't have those votes right now.

00:18:36.820 I have been making that case for weeks on ends to my colleagues.

00:18:41.460 We're not there yet, and it is frustrating.

00:18:43.960 By the way, we did a podcast two weeks ago where we broke down the details of exactly how a talking filibuster would work,

00:18:50.540 how using the existing Senate rules to force the Democrats to do like Jimmy Stewart and Mr. Smith goes to Washington,

00:18:57.060 to force the Democrats to do like I did when I filibustered for 21 hours talking continuously

00:19:03.320 against Obamacare in 2013. We have not done that yet. But I will say, so the Save America Act has

00:19:10.740 two major elements. Number one, it requires people to show proof of American citizenship

00:19:18.180 to register to vote, a basic common sense step. Number two, it requires photo ID to vote.

00:19:24.480 Well, the Democrats' defense, they really hate provision one, showing proof of citizenship.

00:19:30.220 And they argued, oh, some people can't do it.

00:19:32.220 Some people can't do it.

00:19:33.160 It's nonsense, but that's what they argued.

00:19:35.400 And in the course of it, a whole lot of them said, we're okay with photo ID, which at some

00:19:41.000 level is not surprising because photo ID, 83% of Americans support photo ID to vote.

00:19:47.280 81% of Hispanics support photo ID to vote.

00:19:50.580 81% of Democrats support photo ID to vote.

00:19:53.720 75% of African Americans support photo ID to vote.

00:19:56.660 It's overwhelmingly popular.

00:19:58.780 So the Democrats all said they supported it,

00:20:00.760 but they didn't like the other elements of the SAVE Act.

00:20:03.200 So one thing we did this week is we said, okay, we'll call your bluff.

00:20:06.140 And we put up just a very simple bill that required photo ID to vote.

00:20:12.020 It's what they all said they supported.

00:20:13.700 Now, let me tell you, I want to read you some quotes from Democrats.

00:20:18.320 Here's Chuck Schumer, quote,

00:20:20.260 Democrats support voter ID. Here's Chuck Schumer again. Our objection as Democrats is not to

00:20:28.780 photo ID. Here's Dick Durbin. Quote, they say it show a voter ID. I'm not opposed to that.

00:20:36.740 They ask you for an ID at the airport, don't they? That's reasonable. All right, here's Caitlin

00:20:42.180 Collins at CNN asking Cory Booker. Quote, if it was just a clean vote on voter ID specifically,

00:20:49.000 is that something you would support? Cory Booker, yes, and New Jersey has voter ID laws. I've got to

00:20:55.240 show my driver's license. Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware, quote, who could be against requiring

00:21:02.140 ID to vote? Raphael Warnock, Democrat from Georgia, quote, I think you should have to prove that you

00:21:09.540 are who you say you are before you vote. I support voter ID. Alyssa Slotkin from Michigan, quote,

00:21:16.140 quote, voter ID, which hopefully all Americans are in agreement about. Kirsten Gillibrand from New

00:21:22.440 York, quote, the IDs that we all have in our wallets should be good enough to vote. They always

00:21:27.860 have been. Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat from Rhode Island, quote, well, the voter ID part is probably

00:21:33.900 fine. We have voter ID here in Rhode Island. Ruben Gallego, Democrat from Arizona, quote,

00:21:39.820 if people want to adopt the Arizona way, which is strict voter ID, I think that would be fine.

00:21:45.620 Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats from Virginia, quote, we support reasonable steps that help maintain trust in our elections, including the voter identification requirements we already have in Virginia.

00:21:58.300 Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island, quote, if the polls simply required every American to show an ID at the polls, then I would not be ringing such a loud alarm.

00:22:10.900 So that's what they all said.

00:22:12.440 Yeah.

00:22:12.680 So Republicans said, all right, we'll call your bluff.

00:22:14.420 When we put a vote on just photo ID to vote, you know what happened?

00:22:20.180 What happened?

00:22:21.780 I know the answer, but it makes me laugh.

00:22:24.420 Every single Democrat voted no.

00:22:30.800 All of them.

00:22:32.120 Every one of them.

00:22:32.680 Everyone that I just read those quotes from, all the ones that say, oh, I support voter ID, they all voted no.

00:22:38.840 I mean, it is a flat-up, it's just a flat-up lie.

00:22:43.500 and part of the reason part of the reason they do that is because they know the media won't call

00:22:51.540 them on it yeah that they know that that they can lie over and over and over again and and there

00:22:59.380 will be no consequences now i will say an exception to that so cbs news david ellison bought cbs news

00:23:06.600 and so now suddenly cbs news is owned by someone who says he has a commitment to making it balanced

00:23:12.380 and not having it be a partisan left-wing network.

00:23:16.180 I'll tell you what CBS News tweeted out earlier today.

00:23:20.240 Quote, an amendment that would require voters to show photo identification to cast a ballot

00:23:25.460 failed to advance in the Senate on Thursday,

00:23:28.800 despite Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying last week

00:23:31.740 that Democrats were not opposed to such a requirement.

00:23:35.540 So CBS actually reported straight out,

00:23:39.960 I actually had some fun with that and tweeted and said, you mean Schumer lied?

00:23:45.320 And there's a reason you have a Pinocchio emoji, and I used it.

00:23:51.900 But part of the reason they're willing to lie so brazenly is what CBS did there is the exception.

00:24:00.180 CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, they don't call them to account.

00:24:07.000 The Washington Post, the New York Times, they don't call them to account.

00:24:09.960 and so the Democrats all lie, and then when you say, oh, you support that, do you? All right,

00:24:14.420 well, do you want to vote for it? They all say no. They get almost no accountability for doing so.

00:24:22.020 It really is incredible, and look, I do think this is going to be very interesting going

00:24:28.680 into the midterms, and I want to get your reaction to this because I actually think the American

00:24:34.060 people are paying attention. They were very frustrated by the Democrats constantly making

00:24:39.360 their life harder on these basic type issues just like the airport i i think those are things when

00:24:46.540 you combine these issues together the save act which is overwhelming american support like it's

00:24:52.560 probably one of the most bipartisan things you're polling right now in this country if not the very

00:24:57.740 top one and yet you have this type of divide i actually think this plays in the hands of

00:25:03.400 republicans if we do it the right way your thoughts yeah look i think that's right and i

00:25:07.820 I think calling out Democrats for hypocrisy and lying and for just really aggressive partisanship.

00:25:15.260 You know, I will say there are people who say both sides are too extreme.

00:25:21.240 And I got to say that that feels very reasonable and even handed.

00:25:26.480 Gosh, one side's too extreme.

00:25:28.280 So is the other.

00:25:29.640 I just don't think it's accurate.

00:25:31.120 If you look at where we are now, the policy positions of the Democratic Party objectively are extreme on immigration.

00:25:41.180 They're an open border party.

00:25:42.340 They just refused to fund even a penny for immigration enforcement, and they slashed funding for Customs and Border Patrol.

00:25:52.080 They are an open border party that opposes arresting murderers and gangbangers and child rapists.

00:26:01.120 On issues of sexuality, every Democrat, all of them support boys and girls sports, men and women's sports. 0.75

00:26:08.560 They support sterilization and surgical mutilation of kids.

00:26:14.820 Those are extreme positions.

00:26:16.840 Those are on the 10 side of 90-10 issues.

00:26:21.720 They support abolishing the police.

00:26:23.700 They all just voted to effectively abolish the police in the immigration context.

00:26:28.100 What are the Republicans supporting policy-wise?

00:26:32.120 The Republicans are supporting common-sense principles, low taxes, low regulations, lots and lots of jobs, small businesses doing well, securing the border, supporting law enforcement, protecting our families.

00:26:44.520 Those are common-sense positions.

00:26:46.300 Look, the Democrats on foreign policy embrace Hamas. 0.88

00:26:51.120 There is a real pro-Hamas contingent in the Democrat Party.

00:26:54.420 That is objectively extreme.

00:26:56.420 And so I think saying the two sides are kind of both too extreme, I don't think that describes where the policy debate is.

00:27:03.680 Now, I will concede this.

00:27:05.600 On the rhetoric, there is a fair point to be made that both sides can use overheated rhetoric.

00:27:12.720 I think the Democrats do so routinely when they call ICE, for example, Nazis and Gestapo, and they call for doxing and going after the families of law enforcement officers.

00:27:23.820 I mean, I think that's grotesque.

00:27:25.120 but there are republicans who use overheated rhetoric as well and i wish they did not

00:27:31.200 uh you know i get that question a lot as i travel around texas and around the country and i say

00:27:35.960 listen i i don't have the ability to change the language other people use i can control what i

00:27:41.920 say uh you know ben you you and me in verdict i try not to demonize people personally but i do

00:27:48.800 try to talk about policies and say it is an objectively unreasonable policy to support

00:27:54.280 open borders and to just take away the paychecks of law enforcement officers forever. And that is

00:28:00.120 the position of the Democrat Party. I think that's the way we ought to have political discussions on

00:28:04.960 substance and merits rather than making it personal. I want to be honest with you for a

00:28:09.640 second about how an act of compassion really feels. A couple of years ago, I made the choice

00:28:15.200 to partner with an amazing organization called Compassion International. Why? Because I wanted

00:28:21.480 to sponsor a child in need. It was a nice idea, sure, but I had no idea just how much that simple

00:28:28.980 act would change my life as well. I sponsored Nadia and got to watch her life change right in 0.99

00:28:35.800 front of my eyes, going from starving literally alone on the streets to getting the health care

00:28:41.540 and education she needs to reach her God-given full potential. I got to be a part of that change

00:28:48.620 And the light of that compassion not only illuminates in her, it illuminates now in me.

00:28:54.820 That is the power of compassion.

00:28:57.500 The light of Christ shines on all of us.

00:29:01.180 Feel it for yourself and change literally a child's life.

00:29:05.220 Change the world and you also change yourself.

00:29:08.300 You can sponsor a child today.

00:29:10.240 Visit Compassion.com.

00:29:12.560 That's Compassion.com.

00:29:15.240 Senator, I want to finish the show with a really important subject

00:29:20.280 And you've described it as bigger than Watergate

00:29:24.040 It's a modern day Watergate, certainly 0.99

00:29:25.980 But we now have a dive into the bombshell Senate Judiciary hearing on Arctic Frost

00:29:33.600 And you had a great statement, Senator

00:29:35.960 And I want to play it for everybody

00:29:37.460 This is how you kind of described what's happening

00:29:40.240 Watergate was about a handful of files in a single office

00:29:44.000 This reached into tens of thousands of private communications, emails, records, and personal data, toll records, bank records, donor lists, law firm records, and other personal files relating to every major conservative organization were subpoenaed.

00:30:04.160 Senator, that sums it up. This was a 100 percent weaponization of our Department of Justice to go

00:30:11.100 after Donald Trump and anyone they thought was important to him. They could help him win the

00:30:15.760 White House again. Well, that clip was from a hearing I chaired this week of the Senate Judiciary

00:30:21.200 Committee that was examining Arctic Frost. It was releasing yet more documents that showed the

00:30:26.680 massive scope of the abuse of power. Look, Watergate at the end of the day was a handful of

00:30:33.260 Cuban burglars who broke into an office of the DNC, and it was a failed burglar. They didn't

00:30:38.180 even succeed. And it resulted in the president of the United States resigning in disgrace. It

00:30:43.420 resulted in more than 40 people being criminally prosecuted, many of them going to jail.

00:30:48.280 by any measure arctic frost was orders of magnitude worse you had nearly 200 subpoenas

00:30:57.020 you had more than 400 individuals and groups that were targeted the biden department of justice

00:31:02.340 issued subpoenas to get the phone records for more than 20 percent of the republicans in the

00:31:08.940 senate including yours truly yeah it was a massive abuse of power and the amazing thing is the

00:31:17.240 Democrats don't care at all. And one of the points I made at the hearing, there are a bunch

00:31:22.520 of Democrat senators sitting there at the hearing, and I pointed out not one of them

00:31:26.280 is going to say a word. They don't care about abuse of power. For them, partisanship and partisan

00:31:32.860 control is all that matter. And I contrasted it with what happened at Watergate. Here, listen to

00:31:37.720 what I had to say. Fifty years ago, this nation was confronted with an abuse of power. And it

00:31:43.180 responded not with indifference, but with accountability. I'll tell you one of the big

00:31:47.340 differences of Watergate versus Arctic Frost. When Richard Nixon and his corrupt attorney

00:31:53.300 general and his corrupt administration abused their law enforcement powers to go after their

00:31:59.000 political opponents, Republican senators stood up to the president of their own party and defended

00:32:05.140 the rule of law. Where is even a single Democrat senator who has said one word about this abuse of

00:32:11.640 power. You're right, by the way. They're all silent on it because they don't care as long

00:32:15.720 as it was spying on you, literally. Yeah, and look, I will say what happened in Watergate,

00:32:21.300 what actually ended it when Richard Nixon resigned is it was a group of senior Republican senators

00:32:26.680 that drove the 16 blocks up Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House and sat in the Oval Office,

00:32:32.200 and they said, Mr. President, you have a choice. You either resign or we will impeach you,

00:32:38.820 convict you and remove you from office. And it was a moment of real political courage for those

00:32:44.620 senators to do that. I'm not a Richard Nixon fan. I think he was utterly corrupt. As you know, Ben,

00:32:52.180 I've written four books. The third book I wrote was called Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has

00:32:57.360 Weaponized the Legal System. And the opening chapter of that book is a deep dive into Watergate,

00:33:02.440 And it details the just absolute corruption and abuse of power.

00:33:07.400 What Richard Nixon tried to do, Barack Obama and now Joe Biden succeeded in doing.

00:33:14.740 And one of the real differences is Republicans were willing to stand up and say, no, this goes too far.

00:33:23.200 There are no Democrats willing to do so.

00:33:25.480 And all right, so there was a witness that the Democrats had called who was a former senior agent of the FBI, and he gave this whole testimony about how the FBI is utterly beyond politics and it's impartial and it has no partisan agenda at all.

00:33:42.200 And I actually cross-examined him quite a bit, and I said, look, I agree with what you're saying.

00:33:46.800 That's what the FBI is supposed to be, and that's what DOJ is supposed to be.

00:33:50.640 And I'm an alumnus of the Department of Justice.

00:33:53.480 I served in the George W. Bush Department of Justice, and it has a more than century-long tradition of being outside of politics, not partisan at all.

00:34:04.820 And I said one of the worst things that Barack Obama and especially Joe Biden did is they corrupted it and turned DOJ and the FBI into partisan tools.

00:34:14.420 And this witness didn't want to admit it, but here's one question I asked him. Give a listen.

00:34:19.360 menendez is currently incarcerated in prison for corruption and if you've got evidence of

00:34:25.100 criminal conduct of one individual the department of justice has an obligation to investigate that

00:34:30.940 would you agree that's qualitatively different than a fishing expedition targeting 20 of the

00:34:38.260 republicans in the senate would you agree that's qualitatively different i'm not familiar with the

00:34:43.460 details of either investigation so i wouldn't want to speculate well let me ask you this would

00:34:47.780 you be troubled if tomorrow the trump department of justice issued a subpoena for the phone records

00:34:54.460 of every democrat that sits on the judiciary committee not not if it was based on factual

00:34:58.980 evidence specific unarticulable facts well let me be clear i'd be damn troubled and that would

00:35:04.560 be an abuse of power and i'm going to predict not a single democrat's going to say even a word

00:35:09.720 about the abuse of power on their side and that double standard is troubling senator lee

00:35:15.620 senator you're absolutely right there in the point that you were making

00:35:19.400 yeah it really is amazing that that nobody and by the way the entire hearing

00:35:26.560 the democrats were completely silent like when it came their turn to question they just said

00:35:31.760 orange man bad they just said we hate donald trump they didn't acknowledge it look one of

00:35:36.920 the things that happened in arctic frost is not only did you have jack smith um getting subpoenas

00:35:43.140 for the phone records of 20 percent of the republicans in the senate and by the way also

00:35:47.600 getting subpoenas and and wiretapping uh cash patel who was then a private citizen now is the

00:35:54.460 director of the fbi uh they they tapped the phones of suzy wiles who was then the campaign manager

00:36:01.900 she was running donald trump's campaign i mean this was a political opposition effort and by the

00:36:08.480 way they they taped her conversations with her lawyer which is which is illegal on any level

00:36:14.700 if you look at the subpoenas they issued for the for the senators they also went to judge

00:36:19.880 bozberg who is a extraordinarily partisan left-wing judge he's the favorite judge for

00:36:26.520 these radical groups that have been getting nationwide injunctions against various trump

00:36:30.080 policies i chaired a hearing several months ago calling for judge bozberg to be impeached and

00:36:35.720 removed from office because he is so extreme. In Arctic Frost, for every single senator that

00:36:42.380 Jack Smith subpoenaed, he signed an order ordering the phone companies not to disclose to us

00:36:48.100 that they were subpoenaing our phone record. And in that order, he concluded the court finds

00:36:54.260 that we will destroy evidence if we know about it. Now, there is zero basis in fact

00:37:00.400 to make that finding. Look, I'm a member of the bar. My integrity matters a great deal to me.

00:37:07.740 I'm not going to destroy evidence, and there are no facts that could be introduced that would

00:37:11.000 suggest I could. There's also a federal statute prohibiting nondisclosure orders for Senate

00:37:17.300 records, and yet Judge Boesberg violated the law. That was the kind of abuse of power we saw in

00:37:22.800 Arctic Frost, and it was truly unprecedented. It makes Watergate seem mild by comparison.

00:37:28.240 No doubt.

00:37:28.920 We're going to keep covering this.

00:37:30.040 Don't forget, download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.

00:37:34.140 And if you're listening to this radio show, we do it Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

00:37:36.880 If you're listening on the radio right now, thank you for joining us,

00:37:39.200 and we'll see you back here on this station as well next week.

00:37:42.320 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:37:44.000 We'll see you on the podcast all week long.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - March 27, 2026

Airport Chaos ENDING, DHS Partially Funded—the Inside Story plus Save America Act & Artic Frost

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