Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 15, 2022


Are We Going to War With Russia？


Episode Stats


Length

31 minutes

Words per minute

163.51721

Word count

5,140

Sentence count

447

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

14

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz meets with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) to talk about Ukraine and the Ukraine, and why we should not go to war with Russia. Ted also talks about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project and why it s a terrible idea.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.460 They told me that if I did not vote for Joe Biden,
00:00:07.740 we would be plunged into World War III.
00:00:10.720 And they were right.
00:00:11.740 I did not vote for Joe Biden,
00:00:13.680 and we might very well be plunged into World War III.
00:00:16.960 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:24.160 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:26.040 I am Michael Knowles.
00:00:28.100 In person right now,
00:00:29.920 Senator, it's good to see you face-to-face.
00:00:32.020 Likewise.
00:00:32.640 Especially as-
00:00:33.440 Welcome to Texas.
00:00:34.260 It's good to be in the free state of Texas,
00:00:36.560 coming from the free state of Tennessee,
00:00:38.820 having fled the very not-free state of California.
00:00:41.940 Amen.
00:00:42.340 And you know what?
00:00:42.760 No one's asked for your papers.
00:00:43.900 And Senator, I will ask you completely straight two questions.
00:00:47.500 One, are we going to war with Russia?
00:00:50.340 Two, should we go to war with Russia?
00:00:53.620 Well, question number one, I hope not.
00:00:57.540 But what Biden is doing is a mess.
00:01:01.620 Question number two, absolutely not.
00:01:03.760 So on the question of should we send American soldiers into Ukraine to defend Ukraine,
00:01:10.880 hell no is my answer to that.
00:01:12.480 I think that makes no sense at all.
00:01:15.360 The fact that we're even contemplating it shows how messed up what Biden is doing is.
00:01:21.580 And, you know, often the media paints things in a binary sense,
00:01:26.000 that either we send in the Marines or we do nothing.
00:01:29.460 And American foreign policy, we've got lots of tools other than military conflict.
00:01:35.480 And so what Biden should have done that he screwed up is something we've talked about on the pod before,
00:01:41.220 which is stand up to Putin and stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
00:01:45.640 And to understand what's happening in Ukraine, I think you've got to step back a little bit
00:01:52.120 and have a little bit of history and context. 0.96
00:01:54.800 Putin is a KGB thug.
00:01:59.140 He has said repeatedly, he thinks the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 0.61
00:02:06.420 He longs for days of Soviet greatness. 0.70
00:02:11.120 Russia right now is a much smaller country, a much less influential country.
00:02:15.320 They got nukes and they got gas, but they're not the Soviet Union. 0.62
00:02:19.960 And he wants to rebuild it.
00:02:21.540 And when he looks at the former parts of the Soviet Union,
00:02:25.760 there's nothing that he longs for more than Ukraine, the breadbasket, the prize.
00:02:30.960 Look, Ukraine was a very important part of the Soviet Union.
00:02:34.100 Putin wants it back.
00:02:35.580 He invaded Ukraine in 2014.
00:02:37.560 You remember Crimea in 2014?
00:02:40.160 I remember Crimea.
00:02:41.860 Then Crimea went away and became part of Russia.
00:02:44.100 Well, it did.
00:02:44.960 He invaded Crimea and made it part of Russia.
00:02:46.800 It used to be part of Ukraine.
00:02:47.800 Now it's part of Russia.
00:02:48.640 By the way, as an aside, do you know the right way to call it?
00:02:52.020 Ukraine or the Ukraine?
00:02:53.400 I always mess this up.
00:02:55.200 I always say the Ukraine. 0.98
00:02:57.360 That's not what you're supposed to call it.
00:02:58.400 So unfortunately, you're a Soviet if you say that.
00:03:00.720 I know, deep down.
00:03:01.760 So actually, Ukrainians feel very passionately about this because the Russians refer to it
00:03:08.020 as the Ukraine because it's a region of the Soviet Union, whereas Ukrainians refer to it
00:03:13.580 as Ukraine because it's not a region. 0.99
00:03:17.180 It is its own damn country. 0.99
00:03:18.220 So it's a funny, funny little linguistic differentiator. 0.99
00:03:23.960 And we know very well how language can shape politics.
00:03:27.920 This is something the left has used for decades, political correctness.
00:03:31.240 Just those subtle linguistic changes can totally reframe a debate.
00:03:34.760 So when Putin invaded Ukraine in 2014, he didn't go all the way.
00:03:39.600 He didn't go into Kiev.
00:03:40.880 He didn't invade the whole country.
00:03:42.560 And the reason is that Russia's biggest export is natural gas and oil.
00:03:48.000 And to get the natural gas to Europe, it goes through pipelines going right through the
00:03:52.420 middle of Ukraine.
00:03:53.220 And so if he invaded Ukraine, he risked damaging or destroying those pipelines and shutting off
00:03:58.980 his ability to get to market.
00:04:00.000 So he stopped.
00:04:02.220 But the next year, 2015, is when he started Nord Stream 2.
00:04:05.440 And Nord Stream 2 is a pipeline.
00:04:06.820 It's under the ocean.
00:04:07.980 And it was built to go from Russia straight to Germany.
00:04:11.620 And it skips Ukraine.
00:04:13.980 Convenient.
00:04:14.700 The entire reason he's building Nord Stream 2 is to not need the Ukrainian pipeline so he
00:04:21.640 can get his gas to Europe and then he can invade Ukraine.
00:04:24.600 Well, fast forward to 2019.
00:04:26.940 2019, the pipeline is nearly complete.
00:04:30.800 Folks in the West say this is a terrible thing, but there's nothing we can do to stop it.
00:04:35.120 I introduced legislation to stop it.
00:04:38.320 Targeted sanctions on the company building the pipeline.
00:04:42.040 Get bipartisan support.
00:04:43.900 Democrats, Republicans, it passes the House, it passes the Senate.
00:04:48.040 Donald Trump signs it into law.
00:04:49.420 I remember it was a Thursday night, 7 p.m., that Trump signed it.
00:04:54.720 Putin stopped building the pipeline.
00:04:56.300 Putin stopped building the pipeline at 6.45 p.m.
00:04:58.880 Wow.
00:04:59.640 Literally 15 minutes before the sanctions were signed.
00:05:03.520 Because if the company had kept building the pipeline, they would have been bankrupted.
00:05:08.220 The sanctions would have destroyed the company.
00:05:09.860 That's what they were written to do.
00:05:11.280 And so the sanctions worked.
00:05:12.960 And for over a year, the pipeline was dead.
00:05:15.820 It was literally just a hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean.
00:05:17.940 Then Joe Biden comes into the White House, sworn in January 20th, 2021.
00:05:26.700 Four days later, January 24th, Putin begins building the deep sea pipeline again.
00:05:32.400 And the reason is because Biden had telegraphed weakness.
00:05:36.560 He telegraphed that he wasn't willing to stand up to Putin on the pipeline.
00:05:41.940 And that telegraphing was right because last summer, Biden formally waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2, which is what allowed Putin to finish building the pipeline.
00:05:53.500 If you want to know why there are Russian troops, why there are tanks on the border of Ukraine right now, why they're preparing to invade, it's because Joe Biden gave that pipeline to Putin.
00:06:04.280 So that's not the end of the story because, okay, Biden comes in, he looks weak, Putin goes in, he's almost finished his master plan, but you just forced a vote on this issue.
00:06:16.260 There was bipartisan support not so long ago to stop Nord Stream 2.
00:06:20.920 Now, not quite so much.
00:06:24.840 Well, that's right.
00:06:25.780 So now the only thing different is instead of a guy with an R behind his name, you've got a guy with a D behind his name.
00:06:32.160 And look, obviously we listened to, for four years, to Democrats screaming Russia, Russia, Russia.
00:06:38.960 Well, now Democrats, you can decide, do you want to sanction Russia, Russia, Russia?
00:06:44.780 Or do you want to give billions of dollars to Putin and give him the green light to invade Ukraine?
00:06:51.340 And by the way, you know, we had a whole impeachment on Ukraine.
00:06:53.960 Remember Burisma, Hunter Biden.
00:06:56.420 I lost track of all the impeachments.
00:06:58.320 There were a lot of them.
00:06:59.520 Yeah.
00:06:59.760 Now, the Ukrainian president and prime minister explicitly begged the Senate, begged Senate Democrats, pass Cruz's sanctions.
00:07:10.060 If you want to stop the invasion of Ukraine, pass the sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
00:07:16.560 So we have the vote on the Senate floor.
00:07:19.340 The Democrats are in agony.
00:07:20.800 We win the vote, 55 to 44.
00:07:25.700 So we get a significant bipartisan majority.
00:07:28.420 We get six Democrats who vote with us.
00:07:31.320 But it didn't pass.
00:07:32.920 Why?
00:07:33.360 Because the Democrats filibustered.
00:07:35.140 They demanded 60 votes.
00:07:37.660 Senator, this is not possible because I was told by the Democrats the filibuster is an evil, racist, antiquated tool that should be abolished, sent to the ash heap of history.
00:07:46.800 Even the cynical reporters in Washington were doubled over laughing because it was the same day.
00:07:54.340 You had Democrats standing up saying, the filibuster is a Jim Crow relic.
00:07:58.600 We're filibustering right now.
00:08:00.020 Like, like they didn't even give it 48 hours.
00:08:03.700 It was it was simultaneously.
00:08:05.280 Continuously, they were doing it.
00:08:08.360 What's fascinating now about the vote.
00:08:11.120 So the six Democrats we got, we got every single Democrat running in a vulnerable state who's on the ballot in November.
00:08:19.660 So we got Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada voted with us.
00:08:23.240 We got Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire voted with us. 0.88
00:08:26.720 We got Mark Kelly in Arizona voted with us.
00:08:29.800 We got Raphael Warnock in Georgia.
00:08:32.300 This is a socialist.
00:08:33.020 Warnock is so far to the left, there aren't words to describe it.
00:08:37.440 Right.
00:08:38.100 But they're all on the ballot.
00:08:39.980 So it's amazing.
00:08:41.060 We got six D's.
00:08:41.980 You know who we didn't get?
00:08:43.500 Who?
00:08:44.020 Manchin or Sinema.
00:08:45.760 Both Joe and Kirsten voted against us.
00:08:47.960 And the crazy thing, Michael, the White House spent so much political capital on this.
00:08:55.140 Joe Biden came to the Capitol the day of the vote.
00:08:58.420 He was there in person, literally one-on-one twisting Democrats' arms, trying to get them,
00:09:05.640 vote with Russia, vote with Putin, vote in favor of my surrender to Russia. 0.99
00:09:11.140 It's asinine. 0.99
00:09:12.680 Yeah. 0.96
00:09:12.740 But now the Biden White House finds themselves in a completely untenable position because
00:09:20.580 they've given the green light for Putin to essentially erase Ukraine from the map.
00:09:25.440 And there's still time to fix it.
00:09:28.000 We could sanction and stop Nord Stream 2 tomorrow.
00:09:30.680 But at least so far, the Biden White House isn't willing to do so.
00:09:34.840 Is the Biden calculation here that, yes, this is going to be a disaster?
00:09:38.300 Yes, it's going to be several bad news cycles.
00:09:40.500 But ultimately, people just don't really care.
00:09:43.360 People don't pay attention to foreign policy.
00:09:45.260 It's all complicated.
00:09:46.460 Move along, move along.
00:09:47.320 Is that the thought process?
00:09:49.520 Candidly, I don't know their thought process.
00:09:51.440 And I got to tell you, in the Senate, people are flabbergasted.
00:09:55.180 Republicans, but Democrats will candidly admit, what in the hell are they doing?
00:10:00.860 Like this was the two sanctions legislation I passed were overwhelmingly bipartisan.
00:10:08.380 They were 99 to 1.
00:10:09.660 The only no is Rand Paul.
00:10:10.880 Rand doesn't like sanctions across the board.
00:10:13.200 But all the Democrats were with me and all the Republicans but Rand were with me.
00:10:18.220 Senate Democrats, when you talk to them, they're beside themselves.
00:10:22.880 And I, for the life of me, don't understand why Biden did this.
00:10:28.220 The best theory I have is a guy on my team, he jokes, he says, the Democrats in the Biden
00:10:35.680 White House, they have votive candles of Angela Merkel under their beds.
00:10:42.120 Like they just, like left-wing Democratic foreign policy, they view Angela Merkel as this
00:10:49.080 Mother Teresa, like saint.
00:10:53.740 Give Germany control of Europe. 0.89
00:10:55.340 What could go wrong?
00:10:56.240 Right.
00:10:56.800 Yeah, you know, I mean, we have no bad history with that at all.
00:11:02.240 What's funny, though, so their argument, when it started, it was really two things.
00:11:07.000 It was, number one, everything Trump did was bad.
00:11:10.920 This is the Biden operating position.
00:11:12.940 So if Trump was for sanctioning this, we got to lift the sanctions because they just, they
00:11:17.200 start with reverse everything that worked.
00:11:19.060 If Trump did it, it must be bad.
00:11:21.600 And then secondly, Germany really wants this pipeline.
00:11:24.900 Merkel really wants this pipeline.
00:11:27.660 Now, what's fascinating, and by the way, the rest of Europe doesn't.
00:11:30.800 So when Biden waived the sanctions, Ukraine and Poland put out statements saying, this is
00:11:39.720 a security crisis and you are inviting Russia to invade.
00:11:43.780 So Ukraine and Poland are beside themselves.
00:11:47.660 European Parliament voted on Nord Stream 2, voted to condemn it 550 to 50.
00:11:55.480 So over 90% voted to condemn this pipeline.
00:11:59.100 So it's literally just Angela Merkel, and the one good thing they got was goodwill from
00:12:04.820 Germany.
00:12:05.320 And then here's the kicker.
00:12:07.320 People of Germany voted, and Angela Merkel's party got voted out of power.
00:12:12.300 So she's not even the head of Germany anymore.
00:12:14.300 She's not the chancellor anymore.
00:12:15.680 She's the former chancellor.
00:12:16.800 So we got goodwill with the former head of Germany, who the German people have voted
00:12:21.600 out of power.
00:12:22.740 The new government is a coalition government, and it's all over the place on Nord Stream 2,
00:12:26.760 but it's in coalition with the Greens.
00:12:30.260 Foreign minister is a Green.
00:12:31.900 The Greens hate the pipeline.
00:12:34.080 So the current government of Germany is actually schizophrenic on it.
00:12:38.220 And what's very funny is there are a bunch of lefty Democrats in the Senate who hate pipelines.
00:12:44.240 Like I asked a couple of the real lefties. 0.70
00:12:46.560 I'm like, is this really the only pipeline on Earth you support?
00:12:50.900 Like you want to shut down every pipeline in America.
00:12:53.660 Keystone, no way.
00:12:54.620 But the one that gives Putin the green light to invade Ukraine, you're good with that one, right? 0.97
00:13:00.680 And by the way, no Democrat has a response on the merits.
00:13:04.480 Like when I make the case to them, they can't argue.
00:13:09.140 It's pure.
00:13:11.100 I think the White House started by wanting to make nice with Germany, and then it was stubbornness.
00:13:15.580 Then they just dug in.
00:13:18.240 The Democratic senators won't admit this publicly, but privately, almost to a person,
00:13:25.060 they don't understand why the Biden White House spent so much political capital on this,
00:13:32.000 only to be left with the responsibility for a Russian invasion.
00:13:37.480 And, you know, going back to your opening question,
00:13:39.340 I worry that Biden, because he's going to own this mess, you know, the Pottery Barn rule,
00:13:44.680 you break it, you buy it.
00:13:46.120 Biden broke it.
00:13:48.520 I'm worried he's going to respond to that by sending U.S. soldiers in harm's way, 0.98
00:13:52.440 which would be asinine and wrong. 0.76
00:13:54.240 What we ought to do right now, sanction Nord Stream 2.
00:13:57.040 We can still stop it because it hasn't been certified.
00:13:59.660 And number two, we ought to be providing lethal military weapons to the Ukrainians. 1.00
00:14:05.380 I don't want American soldiers to die fighting the Russians,
00:14:08.380 but if Ukraine wants to defend itself, we ought to give them the tools
00:14:11.920 to fire bazookas at the tanks coming in and let the Ukrainians and the Russians fight.
00:14:17.320 That, Ukraine has a right to defend itself,
00:14:20.700 and it is in our interest for them to have the tools to do it.
00:14:25.100 Biden is slow-walking defense, and actually, so he's combining it with
00:14:30.800 threatening to send in our troops, but also a degree of appeasement.
00:14:37.480 So Russia is demanding things like pull troops out of Poland,
00:14:42.060 pull troops out of the Baltics, pull troops out of NATO,
00:14:44.600 basically abandon NATO to Putin.
00:14:47.960 And I am very concerned that Biden
00:14:49.900 is a graduate of the Neville Chamberlain School of Foreign Affairs.
00:14:55.440 And that doesn't work well.
00:14:56.880 It does not.
00:14:57.360 It seems to be the worst of all possible worlds, actually.
00:14:59.760 It, you know, I did a couple of weeks ago, I sent out on Twitter a picture of Chamberlain
00:15:07.200 waving a paper and saying we have peace in our time, because that really is Joe Biden.
00:15:12.680 He is offering Putin the Sudetenland, and that'll work just great. 1.00
00:15:17.880 Long history of that.
00:15:19.400 Yeah.
00:15:19.800 Just wait to see how that story unfolds.
00:15:22.840 So thank you to everyone who has submitted questions in the mailbag.
00:15:26.280 We will be getting to them.
00:15:27.640 We always run so far behind.
00:15:29.280 We never get to our mailbag questions, but we have plenty.
00:15:31.840 Senator, we have been so derelict in our, I want to go rapid fire.
00:15:36.640 We've got many, many questions to get to.
00:15:40.280 First one up.
00:15:41.080 Is there a problem with President Biden saying that he will nominate a black woman to be the
00:15:48.760 next Supreme Court justice?
00:15:50.240 And I think the insinuation here is, if I have a company, I'm not allowed to say I'm only
00:15:55.320 going to hire white guys or Asian women. 0.99
00:15:58.140 So is there a Title VII argument to be made about the Supreme Court nomination?
00:16:04.100 You know, it is an interesting and creative angle on it.
00:16:08.680 Look, the answer is probably that Title VII doesn't apply to presidential nomination,
00:16:13.580 but it is true.
00:16:14.940 If any company put up an ad, only black women need apply, only white men need apply, you'd 0.97
00:16:21.180 be sued and you'd lose. 0.96
00:16:22.420 Right.
00:16:22.820 But like, you can't discriminate.
00:16:25.760 A political appointment doesn't fall under Title VII.
00:16:29.320 At least no one has ever argued that it did.
00:16:31.700 But the principle is the same.
00:16:33.000 It's nakedly discriminating, and I think it's completely wrong.
00:16:38.320 And it's also unfair to whoever he nominates will be known forever as an affirmative action 0.65
00:16:44.740 pick.
00:16:45.060 He's not going to say this is the most qualified person because he's already specified that,
00:16:49.840 you know, 90 plus percent of the population doesn't count.
00:16:52.600 Right.
00:16:53.040 Right.
00:16:53.400 And they are not up for it at all.
00:16:55.860 Number two.
00:16:56.340 This is from Doodlebug.
00:16:57.580 I assume that's not his Christian name.
00:16:59.160 I assume that's a pseudonym.
00:17:00.280 Doodlebug or roly-poly?
00:17:01.220 What do you call the little creatures?
00:17:03.280 I like Doodlebug.
00:17:04.640 Yeah, so do I.
00:17:05.740 It's a regional thing.
00:17:06.780 It depends where you are.
00:17:07.800 So I like Doodlebug.
00:17:08.420 We got two Doodlebugs.
00:17:09.360 Okay, go ahead.
00:17:10.620 So the third Doodlebug says, what is going to be done in Congress about the middle of
00:17:13.860 the night flights of illegal aliens?
00:17:16.160 Will DOJ bring any investigation or charges?
00:17:19.580 Our small rural communities now are dealing with it in our public schools, having to accommodate
00:17:23.940 the influx.
00:17:25.340 Yeah, look, will DOJ?
00:17:26.760 No.
00:17:28.020 DOJ is complicit in it.
00:17:29.400 This administration, it really is sad.
00:17:31.840 Merrick Garland has become an intensely political and partisan attorney general.
00:17:38.340 And it is continuing the deep politicization of the Department of Justice that we saw under
00:17:43.700 Obama.
00:17:44.560 It's gotten worse under Biden.
00:17:46.020 We are seeing illegal immigrants being flown all over the country.
00:17:51.240 They're often flown in dead of night.
00:17:53.600 Local elected officials, state elected officials are often kept in the dark about it.
00:17:58.520 The federal government's not going to do a damn thing.
00:18:00.800 I do think there's a role for state leaders, for local leaders to shine a light on it, to
00:18:07.020 resist it, to fight.
00:18:08.320 I mean, you know, you remember I introduced legislation in the Senate to make legal ports
00:18:13.480 of entry, places like Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and Cupertino and Silicon Valley.
00:18:19.580 And, you know, all of these leftists who are sitting there sipping Chardonnay, you know,
00:18:27.200 if it's such a wonderful thing to have open borders, then I think two million illegal immigrants 0.60
00:18:32.740 in Martha's Vineyard would be really lovely.
00:18:35.560 And actually, one of the local politicians, I think it was in the Vineyard or one of these
00:18:39.980 she-she places, said, oh, yes, we would welcome our fair share.
00:18:44.920 Something tells me while they're sipping Chablis there over the summer, they don't really understand
00:18:49.900 what the consequences of that would be.
00:18:51.480 And they'll never have to deal with it.
00:18:54.040 Now, this is probably the most important question that has been posed certainly today,
00:18:59.280 if not in the history of the show.
00:19:00.520 Very important one to a lot of people in the room.
00:19:03.100 Should Pete Rose and Barry Bonds, and I would add Roger Clemens, be inducted into the Baseball
00:19:08.200 Hall of Fame?
00:19:09.300 Of course they should.
00:19:10.580 Thank you.
00:19:11.180 Thank you very much.
00:19:12.080 Look, they were incredible baseball players.
00:19:14.620 Yes.
00:19:15.600 On any measure, they're among the best baseball players to ever play the game.
00:19:22.140 Look, Barry Bonds, the guy could swing a bat like it was a Thor's hammer.
00:19:27.840 And it was in the steroid era, so fine.
00:19:32.060 He got some grief for it.
00:19:34.120 The percent of other players, you know, if someone's going to go through and throw out
00:19:38.320 every player in the Hall of Fame who used some form of steroids, the Hall of Fame would be
00:19:44.000 much, much smaller.
00:19:45.300 Empty.
00:19:46.000 By the way, if you threw out every senator who used some form of steroids, well, that'd be a
00:19:49.360 different issue.
00:19:50.120 But, you know, listen, I think the Hall of Fame should recognize excellence.
00:19:59.000 And if you want to put an asterisk on it and say, judge for yourself, fine.
00:20:02.100 But the records they achieved, that should be recognized.
00:20:05.860 From Dior, Dior writes, assuming a scenario of a Cruz Knowles administration, and well,
00:20:11.020 that's very kind.
00:20:11.680 Thank you.
00:20:12.000 I will say I am a constitutionally ineligible, Dior. 0.96
00:20:16.460 I'm a little, a lady never tells her age. 1.00
00:20:18.140 I'm a little young.
00:20:19.280 But I guess these days no one pays any attention to the constitution anyway, so thank you.
00:20:25.480 Thank you for that.
00:20:26.420 It's a living constitution.
00:20:27.440 It's a living constitution.
00:20:29.440 You're 35 in dog years.
00:20:31.440 I identify as 55.
00:20:33.220 There you go.
00:20:33.640 Dior asks, in this hypothetical administration, what sort of sanctions would you impose on China
00:20:40.120 for facilitating the spread of COVID-19 to the rest of the world?
00:20:44.480 And what responsibility should the U.S. assume for funding the research potentially that caused it,
00:20:50.420 or similar research to what caused it?
00:20:52.280 Yeah, both fabulous questions.
00:20:55.380 I think China's culpability in COVID is massive, and we don't know the full scale of it.
00:21:00.800 What is unequivocal is that China has culpability in terms of covering up the spread of COVID
00:21:08.060 when the outbreak occurred in Wuhan.
00:21:10.340 That is indisputable.
00:21:12.900 What the evidence strongly suggests is that COVID originated, escaped from a Chinese government lab
00:21:21.100 in Wuhan.
00:21:21.820 And we, by the way, on verdict, we talked about this, I think, what, March two years ago?
00:21:29.060 We talked about it when it was a wild conspiracy theory.
00:21:32.280 One of the lessons of the past few years is that the difference between a wild conspiracy
00:21:36.320 theory and the truth is about six to nine months.
00:21:38.940 And so we called it a little early, and it turned out to be right.
00:21:41.400 And that was at the time when Dr. Fauci was asking Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook to silence
00:21:48.340 anyone from discussing the Wuhan Institute for Morology and laying out the evidence, which,
00:21:53.220 you know, March two years ago, we walked through the evidence.
00:21:55.780 That didn't conclusively prove that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute for Virology, but it
00:22:00.740 was a strong circumstantial case and it merited significant investigation.
00:22:07.580 At this point now, so that was a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theory.
00:22:11.660 Now pretty much everyone acknowledges it.
00:22:13.620 Yeah.
00:22:13.880 But like they were forced to acknowledge that the overwhelming weight of the evidence is that
00:22:18.800 it escaped from a Chinese lab.
00:22:21.060 The next threshold, and this has not been proven, but I think there is significant evidence to
00:22:27.520 suggest not just that it escaped from a Chinese lab, but that it was genetically modified and
00:22:32.620 created in a Chinese lab, that it was gain of function research, taking a coronavirus and 0.94
00:22:38.220 making it more lethal, making it more transmittable, making it more susceptible to humans.
00:22:46.180 We don't know that for sure.
00:22:47.620 There are scientists who have argued their genetic markers in it that suggest that it was created
00:22:54.760 in a lab.
00:22:56.080 I'll confess, I'm not a scientist.
00:22:57.800 I don't know enough to evaluate their claims, but I sure think scientists who do should evaluate
00:23:04.840 the claims.
00:23:05.400 Like I've read, you know, read what they've written in it and it sounds, it sounds credible
00:23:10.540 enough to merit a real investigation.
00:23:12.660 All of that needs to happen and I believe, by the way, those scientists ought to be testifying
00:23:18.580 in front of the Judiciary Committee.
00:23:19.720 So we have legislation in the Judiciary Committee to allow lawsuits against China for COVID, for
00:23:27.360 the lives lost, for the trillions of dollars in damage that COVID caused.
00:23:32.880 And I think if it can be conclusively demonstrated that not only did it escape, which they could 0.86
00:23:38.460 argue was probably accidental, but that they made the damn thing, that should lead to very 0.97
00:23:45.580 substantial liability. 0.98
00:23:49.360 Democrats run the Judiciary Committee.
00:23:51.720 Their interest in holding China accountable for COVID is zero. 0.89
00:23:56.620 So, yeah, Dick Durbin's the chairman.
00:23:58.400 He won't hold a hearing on that.
00:23:59.440 He has no interest in a hearing on that.
00:24:01.340 If Republicans win in November, I think we will.
00:24:06.300 I very much believe we will have hearings on that a year from now.
00:24:10.400 We need to have hearings on that a year from now.
00:24:12.280 I'm certainly going to press for it.
00:24:14.220 And, you know, the question about the U.S.'s responsibility.
00:24:18.800 Perhaps the more interesting question.
00:24:20.460 Yeah, no, no, that's, that's an interesting question.
00:24:24.500 Because you will remember, Senator, one of your colleagues was grilling Dr. Fauci.
00:24:28.940 And Dr. Fauci said, we have never funded any gain-of-function research.
00:24:33.900 Thank you.
00:24:34.400 I'm from New York, you know.
00:24:35.860 Most of my family sounds like Dr. Fauci.
00:24:38.060 And so he says, we've never funded any gain-of-function research.
00:24:41.560 And your colleague, Rand Paul, said, well, what about this guy?
00:24:44.200 What about Dr. Barrick?
00:24:45.580 What about this?
00:24:46.180 I have the receipts.
00:24:47.080 You obviously funded this research.
00:24:48.780 And you saw Fauci's eyes go bug-eyed.
00:24:50.980 And he said, he said, well, no, we never funded it.
00:24:54.080 And all the gain-of-function we funded was totally fine.
00:24:57.260 Well, hold on a sec.
00:24:58.100 You seem to have contradicted yourself.
00:24:59.420 You didn't fund it.
00:25:00.580 But the gain-of-function you funded was fine.
00:25:03.120 He, it seems quite clear.
00:25:04.520 We've got the grants.
00:25:05.580 We've got the grants that were given by NIAID, Fauci's agency, for EcoHealth Alliance to engage in gain-of-function research.
00:25:13.300 So, obviously, Fauci has no credibility on this now.
00:25:15.960 And it's just a little suspect that they were engaging in this kind of research with U.S. dollars at the Wuhan Institute.
00:25:22.600 How the hell is it that the EcoHealth Alliance has not been dragged in front of Congress to testify?
00:25:27.800 How is any Democrat?
00:25:29.940 Look, they control the gavels.
00:25:31.520 We can't call hearings.
00:25:33.220 But to be clear, Republicans control the gavels.
00:25:36.960 And we didn't call hearings either.
00:25:38.140 So, I'm not exonerating the Republican Party.
00:25:41.580 We've got too many timid, timid chairmen on the Republican side.
00:25:45.500 And then we've got completely complicit chairmen on the Democratic side. 0.73
00:25:49.580 But EcoHealth Alliance ought to stand there and testify under oath.
00:25:53.620 And if they want to plead the fifth, do it on national television.
00:25:56.620 But the complicity and what's come out also is the involvement of the EcoHealth Alliance in silencing anyone laying out the evidence that this escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
00:26:13.040 Anyone laying out the arguments for gain-of-function research.
00:26:16.200 I mean, this is the corruption on this stinks to high heaven.
00:26:20.800 And the media does no work.
00:26:24.220 No one in the media will cover this.
00:26:26.340 They don't care.
00:26:27.940 You know, they'll win Pulitzer Prizes for running stories that are piles upon piles of lies about Russia collusion that we now know are lies. 0.96
00:26:36.120 A Steele dossier, a completely fictional piece of garbage that multiple Pulitzer Prizes were awarded to fake journalists for printing newspapers about.
00:26:47.120 But none of these outlets actually cover this stuff. 0.64
00:26:49.600 So, we need, number one, we need venues like the Daily Wire and those right of center who actually are doing the job that places like the New York Times are supposed to do.
00:27:03.320 Thank you. Go on. Go on, please.
00:27:05.840 We need serious investigative journalism on EcoHealth Alliance, on Fauci, on the funding of gain-of-function.
00:27:14.480 I've been pressing Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, on the face of it.
00:27:17.900 It appears that Fauci lied under oath to Congress.
00:27:21.220 That's a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
00:27:24.300 If DOJ were actually following the law, they would investigate him.
00:27:27.560 Did he commit the felony?
00:27:28.580 And Garland all but laughed at me when I asked if he would do that because, unfortunately, under Joe Biden, the DOJ is all politics all the time.
00:27:38.300 Right. On your point about the media, this follows closely from Matt.
00:27:43.120 He says, what cultural commentators and thinkers should we be reading?
00:27:48.040 Certainly living, but let's say the dead ones, too.
00:27:53.220 Cultural commentators.
00:27:54.760 Well, Michael Knowles.
00:27:57.520 Stop it. Go on. What a setup. I know.
00:28:00.480 Matt is my pseudonym.
00:28:02.140 Look, Ben Shapiro is terrific.
00:28:04.240 I think Ben is one of the best thinkers out there.
00:28:08.900 You're not going to like this, but I love Steven Crowder.
00:28:11.380 He cracks me up.
00:28:12.200 I love the man.
00:28:13.360 I love him.
00:28:13.900 He's a complete maniac, and he's one of the few actual comedians out there.
00:28:18.860 He's funny.
00:28:19.200 He's very funny, yeah.
00:28:19.940 I will say when I did, what's the late night show you guys do where you smoke cigars and drink?
00:28:26.320 The backstage show that you have been on.
00:28:27.780 I have been on it.
00:28:28.600 It's very cool.
00:28:29.140 You smoke cigars and drink scotch, but you did have as my ashtray a Steven Crowder mug, which I do like you guys giving grief back and forth.
00:28:37.280 It's a great ashtray.
00:28:37.900 Listen, one of the most important social commentators today in America is Joe Rogan, and Joe Rogan, I don't know Rogan.
00:28:47.900 He's a Bernie bro.
00:28:48.800 He endorsed Bernie Sanders, so he's not a man of the right, but he's willing to speak the truth.
00:28:57.480 And I actually think one of the – there's an old line that a conservative is a liberal who got mugged.
00:29:03.920 I think one of the greatest things for truth in the republic is when CNN slandered him for taking ivermectin for COVID, and they called it a horse dewormer.
00:29:17.240 And he saw directly that the corporate media, they are liars.
00:29:22.160 They are corporate propagandists, and facts don't matter.
00:29:26.680 And I think that the sort of personal saliency of that as he saw that, I think that radicalized him in a good way to understand, wait a second, these people that are supposed to be the arbiters of truth are precisely the opposite.
00:29:44.140 They are propagandists, and they don't care.
00:29:47.240 That's really beneficial, and he's got a big megaphone.
00:29:49.560 And to call ivermectin horse medicine, it would be like calling aspirin horse medicine.
00:29:55.240 Sure, there are applications of this to animals, but to quote Joe Rogan, I can afford people medicine.
00:30:02.000 And then he used an expletive, which we'll leave out.
00:30:03.920 This is a family show.
00:30:04.800 Well, you know, water is also horse liquid.
00:30:07.660 It's true.
00:30:08.500 Because you feed it to horses.
00:30:09.780 So clearly that's what water is all about.
00:30:13.260 Final question, Senator.
00:30:14.540 This is from Bethany.
00:30:15.360 How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck were forced to give all his earnings to a socialist government versus if he were allowed to keep the earnings of his labor? 0.94
00:30:28.380 That's a damn good question. 0.92
00:30:35.000 Capitalism works. 0.98
00:30:35.880 A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as he would chuck if he was allowed to be free and work.
00:30:43.640 If he could chuck.
00:30:44.460 Who's chuck?
00:30:45.480 On that very brilliant note, I'm Michael Knowles.
00:30:49.260 Thank you for tuning in.
00:30:50.320 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
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