Verdict with Ted Cruz - Back From Bibi's Back Office

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast, Guaranteed Human.

00:00:04.060 It has been a tough couple of weeks for freedom.

00:00:07.740 New threats to our freedom of speech, free elections, freedom of movement,

00:00:13.620 the freedom to defend ourselves, even the freedom of nations to oppose woke corporations.

00:00:21.440 Thankfully, Senator Cruz is finally back from meeting with Bibi Netanyahu. 0.81

00:00:26.800 He's back from Israel.

00:00:27.740 We can hash all of this out.

00:00:29.800 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:37.000 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:38.720 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:39.960 Senator, welcome back to the States.

00:00:42.040 I'm glad you're back.

00:00:43.300 Michael, good to be with you.

00:00:44.540 So I want to hear all about Israel.

00:00:46.760 I want to hear about this meeting with Bibi Netanyahu.

00:00:48.920 You were with him on actually rather an historic day.

00:00:52.340 But I don't want to talk about that right now.

00:00:54.300 I want to be very selfish and first get to things that directly affect me.

00:00:59.260 Namely, there is a new rule being passed by the ATF.

00:01:03.100 That's the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, three of my favorite things.

00:01:08.480 We were warned that the new ATF picks were on the radical side.

00:01:13.060 But the headlines I'm seeing is that there are new threats to very popular weapons and the

00:01:18.860 Second Amendment.

00:01:19.540 What is happening?

00:01:20.780 Well, so the ATF put out a new rule today that prohibited stabilizing grips on pistols,

00:01:29.120 so shoulder stocks on pistols.

00:01:31.320 And under the law, what basically they say, if you attach a shoulder stock to a pistol,

00:01:38.500 you turn it into a short-armed rifle.

00:01:42.800 And short-armed rifles under the law have to be specially registered.

00:01:47.100 Now, why does this matter?

00:01:48.560 Well, it matters because according to the Congressional Research Service,

00:01:52.900 there are anywhere between 10 million and 40 million of these stabilizing grips that are

00:01:57.920 out there that Americans own.

00:01:59.860 And so by the flip of a pen, ATF may be making anywhere from 10 million to 40 million Americans

00:02:10.160 into felons unless they suddenly go and register their firearms.

00:02:14.780 And all of this is being done by arbitrary fiat.

00:02:18.340 Now, is there any legitimacy to the argument?

00:02:22.160 I mean, I see your point, the political point, that this is going to basically just take a ton

00:02:27.460 of guns off the table, which seems to be the ultimate goal of the Biden administration.

00:02:32.320 But is there any legitimacy to the argument that, well, actually, when you put this sort

00:02:36.460 of stabilizing grip on, actually, it does kind of turn it into a rifle?

00:02:40.100 Or is it just an excuse?

00:02:41.300 So if the objective is preventing crime, there are no data to suggest that adding a grip to

00:02:48.380 a pistol suddenly makes it more dangerous, suddenly leads to more crimes, that those are

00:02:53.220 not the weapons that tend to be used in crimes.

00:02:56.400 The most common weapons that are used in crimes are revolvers.

00:02:59.780 You know, you go to the city of Chicago where you have gang members shooting each other.

00:03:03.740 They're they're not using stabilizing grips.

00:03:06.500 They're just shooting each other with handguns.

00:03:10.100 This is.

00:03:12.180 Look, you could debate what the rules should be on the front end, but this is worse than

00:03:16.800 changing the rules on the front end, because it's arbitrary under the fact after the fact,

00:03:21.940 if you've got 10, 20, 30, 40 million people that have pistols at home, have these stabilizing

00:03:28.140 grips at home yesterday, they were perfectly legal.

00:03:31.080 Now, you know, presumably those 40 million people, not all of them know that the ATF suddenly

00:03:36.120 issued this new rule.

00:03:37.600 And it's really dangerous when the government can can turn you into a felon without your

00:03:43.760 knowing, you know, you're doing something that it was perfectly legal when you bought

00:03:47.980 it.

00:03:48.480 But suddenly the Biden administration decided they don't want it to be legal.

00:03:52.200 And the problem is, are they going to arrest all 40 million people?

00:03:56.020 Probably not.

00:03:56.860 Uh, but, but you can count on them using it as an arbitrary club that if they want to

00:04:03.100 go after you, uh, suddenly you've committed a crime that you had had no idea about it.

00:04:07.940 And it doesn't, it doesn't accomplish anything.

00:04:10.420 It's not actually stopping crime.

00:04:12.020 It's just with the stroke of a pen, turning people into criminals.

00:04:16.780 That's a point I had not considered because I, I could see these, this quibbling over, well,

00:04:23.820 now it looks more like a rifle.

00:04:25.460 And in a way it kind of, and what is a rifle really?

00:04:27.820 You know, I, I could see all of that as a way to obscure the issue.

00:04:33.100 But your point is the point of these regulations is to prevent crime.

00:04:37.680 And we know that forget this particular kind of alleged rifle, but rifles of all kinds are

00:04:43.200 really not the guns that are used in most crimes.

00:04:45.700 It's really just revolvers or it's standard issue, semi-automatic pistols.

00:04:49.740 So I, I, I think that does tip the argument.

00:04:52.660 It's actually good, good ammo to use in a debate.

00:04:55.520 If you'll, uh, if you'll pardon a labored metaphor.

00:04:58.680 Well, and I'll point out, Michael, you know, you mentioned the nominees for ATF.

00:05:02.420 So the nominee to be the head of ATF is this guy, David Chipman.

00:05:05.360 And we had his hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee a couple of weeks ago.

00:05:09.140 And this guy is, is extreme when it comes to gun control.

00:05:14.200 He, he, he works for, um, a, one of the major gun control organizations in this country.

00:05:21.200 And it was interesting at the hearing, uh, I asked him if, if he wanted to ban AR-15s,

00:05:28.120 which are the most popular rifles in America.

00:05:30.680 Uh, and he said unequivocally, yes, he wants to ban them all.

00:05:33.440 And, and, and the leading Senate legislation to, to do that is Dianne Feinstein's legislation

00:05:39.660 that would ban some 2000 different types of rifles that she, she specifies.

00:05:44.560 And Chipman made the, the, the, the argument.

00:05:47.120 He said he thought Feinstein didn't go nearly far enough and he would go much further.

00:05:51.360 So Feinstein would ban the sale of new AR-15s.

00:05:57.220 Chipman wants to make it illegal for anyone to own one, which sets up the same scenario we're

00:06:01.700 talking about, which is the federal government being able to, to knock in your door and confiscate

00:06:08.200 your guns or declare you're a criminal otherwise.

00:06:11.360 And, and it's striking.

00:06:13.000 Number one, this is who Joe Biden has picked to lead ATF.

00:06:16.240 But number two, this new rule on the stabilizing grips didn't come from Chipman.

00:06:21.600 He hadn't been confirmed yet.

00:06:22.600 So this is just the career folks at DOJ, at ATF, listening to the political folks at DOJ that

00:06:30.920 it's really ominous for the direction the Biden administration is going in terms of arbitrary

00:06:36.780 power and hostility to, to law abiding gun owners.

00:06:41.760 Right.

00:06:41.860 This isn't even the entree.

00:06:43.400 This is just the, the appetizer.

00:06:45.180 This is the amuse-bouche to the kind of radical rules we're going to see.

00:06:48.400 I'm sorry.

00:06:49.280 I don't know what an amuse-bouche is.

00:06:51.460 Well, putting, putting the bouches aside here.

00:06:53.940 Yes, this is a terrible announcement.

00:06:57.160 We'll see when this rule actually goes into effect.

00:06:59.300 Hopefully, hopefully it does not, but not looking good.

00:07:02.360 Senator, if you wouldn't mind, now that we've dealt with our freedom of self-defense, I'd

00:07:07.980 like you to disappoint me on another aspect of our freedom.

00:07:12.440 These vaccine passports seem to be cropping up on the international stage.

00:07:17.660 And there are a lot of politicians in the United States pushing for them here at home as well.

00:07:23.140 Now, actually, I should say there is a little glimmer of hope here, and it came out of you.

00:07:27.960 You introduced a bill to ban this stuff.

00:07:31.440 So I did.

00:07:31.860 I introduced a bill that would ban mandatory vaccine passports, would ban the government

00:07:37.440 issuing vaccine passports.

00:07:39.240 Now, listen, my view on it, I support vaccines.

00:07:42.300 I think vaccines are a good idea.

00:07:44.660 I've gotten the COVID vaccine.

00:07:46.240 I mean, Heidi's gotten the COVID vaccine.

00:07:48.520 My parents have gotten it.

00:07:49.620 Her parents have gotten it.

00:07:50.640 I think it makes sense for most people to get it.

00:07:53.480 We've not given it to our girls.

00:07:55.260 Our girls are 10 and 13.

00:07:57.180 Actually, 10-year-olds, there isn't a vaccine that's recommended for kids that young.

00:08:00.840 And I'm not sure the cost-benefit analysis makes sense for a teenager.

00:08:04.600 But I think whether you get the vaccine or not should be a question of individual choice.

00:08:11.040 It should be up to you as an individual to look at your own health situation and decide,

00:08:18.220 do I want the vaccine or not?

00:08:19.460 For me, I wanted it.

00:08:20.360 I wanted the peace of mind.

00:08:22.340 I wanted the freedom that comes from getting it.

00:08:25.780 But you're right.

00:08:27.560 There are a whole bunch of politicians that are wanting, number one, the government to

00:08:31.740 issue a vaccine passport, an official thing like your passport, like your driver's license.

00:08:37.100 But number two, for that passport then to be mandatory for certain activities.

00:08:42.660 So, for example, a lot of people are, I think, understandably concerned about airlines.

00:08:47.400 Are they going to not let you get on a plane unless you can prove you've had a vaccine?

00:08:52.640 Employment.

00:08:53.320 We have seen instances across the country of people being terminated if they don't get

00:08:58.900 vaccinated.

00:08:59.720 And my view is that's wrong, that that should not be permitted.

00:09:03.280 And so what my legislation does is prohibits the federal government from issuing a vaccine

00:09:09.860 passport, prohibits the government from requiring proof of vaccine status.

00:09:14.420 It protects the privacy of your health care information.

00:09:17.900 And you think about everything else in your health care information, that that privacy is

00:09:21.820 protected by law.

00:09:23.220 And then it adds whether or not you're vaccinated to the list of federal civil rights protections

00:09:29.520 that are protected in the course of employment.

00:09:32.340 So just like you can't be fired from your job because of race, because of ethnicity, because

00:09:37.920 of gender, because of religion.

00:09:40.800 It likewise says you can't be fired from your job because of whether or not you've chosen

00:09:45.900 to be vaccinated.

00:09:46.740 And on this piece, essentially what the legislation does is it incorporates the framework of the

00:09:54.120 Americans with Disability Act.

00:09:55.960 So there may be some jobs for which being vaccinated is an employer could reasonably conclude that

00:10:03.240 that is necessary for that particular job.

00:10:06.460 You know, maybe dealing with patients who may or may not have COVID and may be immunocompromised.

00:10:12.140 That might be one example where where you could conclude it was reasonable to want care providers

00:10:19.100 to have to be vaccinated.

00:10:21.280 But but the way the Americans with Disability worked, the way the Americans with Disability 0.99

00:10:25.540 Act works is if you have a disability, your employer has to make a reasonable accommodation.

00:10:30.780 And likewise, if you choose as a health as a matter of personal choice not to get the vaccine,

00:10:37.240 if my bill passes into law, the employer would have to make a reasonable accommodation for

00:10:42.700 that individual choice you made.

00:10:44.840 I was so pleased when I saw this headline.

00:10:47.740 I really I'm not I'm not flattering you in any way because we've seen some moves to ban

00:10:52.940 these things at the state level, but we hadn't really seen anything at the federal level.

00:10:56.480 And I just thought that the way this issue is being presented, you have to either insist

00:11:02.400 that everybody get the vaccine immediately tomorrow, regardless of circumstance, or you

00:11:06.660 have to say that the vaccine is going to cause you to grow a third eye and a tail.

00:11:09.760 Right.

00:11:09.980 And it's, you know, the worst thing in the world.

00:11:12.120 And what you're bringing into this conversation, two very important things choice that, you know,

00:11:17.120 you have faculties of reason.

00:11:18.260 You can kind of figure some of these things out yourself and prudence, which is a related

00:11:22.960 virtue, the idea that for certain people, it might make a lot of sense to go out and

00:11:27.840 get this thing right away.

00:11:28.960 And for other people, the risk is just lower and we're free people and we should be able

00:11:33.940 to make that calculation ourselves.

00:11:35.980 Well, and look, I can say in my family, my dad was pretty skeptical about the vaccine.

00:11:40.300 He didn't want to get it.

00:11:41.380 And I spent probably a month arguing with him, saying, look, dad, you know, you're in your

00:11:47.280 80s.

00:11:48.060 You have been staying home.

00:11:50.200 Mostly you've been social distancing.

00:11:51.940 You want to get out.

00:11:52.560 He's he's a preacher.

00:11:53.660 He wants to be back out with people.

00:11:55.280 I said, you know, you'd be much happier if you get the vaccine and you can go out and

00:11:59.360 interact with people and return to some semblance of normal life.

00:12:04.460 And ultimately, he was persuaded.

00:12:06.840 But I think families can work through this and consider the pros and cons.

00:12:10.740 Are there risks to any experimental drug?

00:12:13.320 Of course there are.

00:12:14.200 And that's where rational adults can can make their own cost benefit analysis and decide what

00:12:20.180 what makes sense for.

00:12:21.240 Now, this issue, I suppose it's it's more on the conservative side of things.

00:12:25.960 I've noticed the left and the Democrats tend to be much more.

00:12:29.140 Well, they're more in favor of the government mandates generally, but certainly with regard

00:12:32.900 to this.

00:12:33.800 Is there any way to pry some Democrats over to come and support a federal ban on the vaccine

00:12:38.840 passports?

00:12:39.420 I don't know.

00:12:40.140 Well, I'll confess I'm skeptical.

00:12:42.460 I have not seen any Democrats in the Senate expressing concern about vaccine passports.

00:12:49.900 Now, the most promising aspect is actually the Biden administration.

00:12:53.660 Jen Psaki at a White House press briefing said the Biden administration would not be requiring

00:12:59.600 vaccine passports and would not be issuing them.

00:13:01.820 That the federal administration wouldn't be issuing them.

00:13:04.720 That's good.

00:13:05.660 And so part of what I'm saying is, well, look, if Joe Biden is saying this, then we ought

00:13:09.320 to be perfectly willing to codify it, to put it in a statute and more importantly, to

00:13:14.620 provide some protection so that you can't be fired arbitrarily if you choose in your own

00:13:19.740 life not to get a vaccine.

00:13:21.040 And in a normal circumstance, there would be Democrats willing to protect health privacy

00:13:28.400 that that that often is a bipartisan issue.

00:13:32.000 Sometimes protecting civil liberties is a bipartisan issue with covid.

00:13:37.940 I don't know that I'm all that optimistic that Democrats are going to be interested in doing

00:13:41.580 so because they're they're really vested in in in the authoritarian state when it comes

00:13:48.640 to covid. And so I'm certainly going to try.

00:13:53.500 I hope Democrats will agree.

00:13:55.020 But but, you know, if you ask me, I'm going to hold my breath on this.

00:13:58.780 No, I'm not going to hold my breath on this.

00:14:00.400 Well, there may be some hope here, I suppose, because of the timing of this all.

00:14:06.000 You know, I know how much you hate to say I told you so.

00:14:09.720 You know how much I hate to say I told you so.

00:14:13.260 However, we told you so on this program.

00:14:16.280 We raised a lot of questions about the prevailing narrative on the coronavirus, on the lockdowns,

00:14:23.740 on China, on all of these things well over a year ago.

00:14:27.100 And people called us kooks and conspiracy theorists and rubes and all sorts of things.

00:14:31.200 And it turns out that we and not just us, there were other people, too, were completely

00:14:36.120 right. And that seems to have been proven this week with the release of Dr.

00:14:40.320 Fauci's emails, 3000 emails obtained through an Ordinary Freedom of Information Act request.

00:14:45.420 Does the release of the Fauci emails change any of the political situation on COVID in

00:14:51.760 Washington?

00:14:52.420 Well, let me point out as a matter of logic, just because we were right doesn't mean that 0.55

00:14:57.060 you and I are not kooks and conspiracy theorists and a bunch of rubes.

00:15:01.460 Good point.

00:15:02.460 As the old line says, just because you're paranoid does not mean they're not out to get you.

00:15:06.160 When it comes to the origin of the vaccine, I actually went back and looked in this podcast

00:15:12.380 in March of last year.

00:15:14.680 We were one of the very first podcast news outlets, you know, kind of outlets anywhere.

00:15:21.360 So we had two different episodes, one in March, one in April of last year, where we went through

00:15:25.560 in real detail, the evidence that we knew at the time about COVID, about where it came

00:15:31.500 from.

00:15:31.820 And we walked through how Wuhan, there are two different labs, Chinese government labs studying

00:15:37.400 coronaviruses, studying coronaviruses from bats, that one of the labs is 400 yards away

00:15:43.200 from the wet market, that the odds were statistically really slim that this was a coincidence.

00:15:48.900 And we said on this pod in March of last year that the preponderance of the evidence supported

00:15:56.680 the conclusion that this escaped from a Chinese lab.

00:16:00.460 Now, I'm amazed.

00:16:02.380 We haven't been banned yet.

00:16:03.420 So far, verdict is still out there.

00:16:04.780 And I say that midway through this episode, and suddenly I may stop mid-sentence, so I don't

00:16:09.740 know.

00:16:10.800 But you look at these Fauci emails, I got to say, this Fauci guy is a piece of work.

00:16:18.900 You know, smug, condescending, willing to control people arbitrarily.

00:16:26.720 And the emails, so you have emails where scientists are raising with him in the spring of last

00:16:34.480 year, hey, this virus looks like it may have been manufactured in a lab.

00:16:38.820 And actually, when we talked about it, we broke it down into two aspects of the theory.

00:16:43.840 One was, did it escape from a lab?

00:16:48.380 And two was, was it manufactured in a lab?

00:16:52.380 And what we said a year ago is we said on the latter, the evidence supports the conclusion,

00:16:58.740 yes, we don't have direct evidence.

00:17:01.080 We need an investigation to determine if that, in fact, happened.

00:17:04.480 But the preponderance of the evidence we have suggests that it escaped from the lab.

00:17:08.800 On the first question, was it manufactured in a lab?

00:17:14.100 You'll recall there were several, there were Washington Post fact checks and others that

00:17:17.980 had scientists saying, we've looked at the virus and concluded that based on the characteristic

00:17:22.900 of the virus, it's naturally occurring.

00:17:25.100 It wasn't made in a lab.

00:17:27.200 And listen, you and I aren't biologists.

00:17:29.760 We don't, I don't know how to look at a virus.

00:17:31.040 So I was like, okay, if the scientists say that, I guess that sounds.

00:17:34.880 So, so we said at the time, okay, I'm not, not maintaining that it was manufactured in

00:17:40.000 a lab.

00:17:41.040 Well, unbeknownst to you and me, at the exact same time, all of the press was orchestrating

00:17:45.880 these stories, scientists within the NIH were saying, gosh, looking at this virus, it looks

00:17:52.140 like it may have been manufactured in a lab.

00:17:54.640 Right.

00:17:54.840 And, and there's something called gain of function research.

00:17:58.260 And I think it's worth Michael pausing and reflecting on that because people are hearing

00:18:02.420 that term and, and they don't necessarily know what it means.

00:18:05.840 I mean, that's kind of a weird term, particularly if you're not a virologist to know what it

00:18:11.900 means.

00:18:12.260 And, and my understanding, kind of a layman's interpretation of gain of function research

00:18:17.540 is that you take a virus and you alter the genetic code in it and you alter the genetic

00:18:24.380 code to make it more deadly, to make it more contagious.

00:18:27.820 You change it to basically turn it into a super virus.

00:18:32.580 And it's a very controversial type of research.

00:18:35.280 It is research that Fauci and congressional testimony insisted, no, that wasn't going on

00:18:41.820 in Wuhan.

00:18:42.500 No, the federal government wasn't funding it.

00:18:44.260 The U S federal government.

00:18:45.920 And we now know from the Fauci emails and other sources, yes, it was going on.

00:18:50.920 There was gain of function research going on.

00:18:53.540 Yes.

00:18:53.780 The federal government was funding it.

00:18:55.200 Yes.

00:18:55.520 Fauci was funding it.

00:18:57.240 And we now know from the emails, there were scientists raising at the time that it appeared

00:19:04.040 this may be a virus genetically modified by the Chinese labs to make it more contagious 0.98

00:19:11.200 among humans.

00:19:12.500 If that's true, look, it's one thing.

00:19:14.620 If, if sloppy security at the Wuhan Institute for Virology resulted in an accidental leak,

00:19:20.880 that's, that's really bad.

00:19:22.660 And, and, and China bears culpability for the millions of deaths and trillions of dollars 0.97

00:19:27.760 of devastation that have come from this.

00:19:30.580 But if on top of that, they made the virus and then screwed up and let it leak.

00:19:36.880 It is a level of responsibility that is really, I don't think earth shattering is too strong

00:19:43.460 a term for it.

00:19:44.660 And, and that Fauci was getting emails suggesting at the time, and then he would go out publicly

00:19:50.260 and adamantly conclude, no, this wasn't manufactured in the lab.

00:19:54.580 We know that it occurred naturally.

00:19:57.520 I'm sorry.

00:19:58.200 That's not science.

00:19:59.220 That's propaganda.

00:20:00.420 And, and, and, and the most disturbing aspect of these Fauci emails is his consistent willingness

00:20:07.600 to be a propagandist, that he has a political message and, and it's, he, his decision-making

00:20:14.080 is not driven by the science, not driven by the evidence.

00:20:16.760 He's not going, oh, well, that would be highly concerning if it was gain of function.

00:20:20.480 How could we examine the virus?

00:20:21.780 How could we examine what the science tells us?

00:20:25.000 That's not his concern.

00:20:26.020 His concern was, this is a bad political story, so let's make sure we, we quash it.

00:20:33.220 And I got to tell you on top of that, Michael, I don't know if you read a story that came

00:20:37.080 out a few days ago in Vanity Fair.

00:20:39.460 I try to avoid Vanity Fair, but I, I did not see it.

00:20:41.920 So I'm not a reader of Vanity Fair.

00:20:44.120 I don't believe I've ever actually held a copy of the magazine Vanity Fair.

00:20:49.120 That being said, there is an investigative journalism piece in Vanity Fair that is jaw-dropping,

00:20:55.020 that goes through the massive cover-up that was occurring within the federal government,

00:21:01.920 within the State Department, within NIH, of essentially deep state bureaucrats trying to

00:21:09.020 cover up information about gain of function research, information about federal taxpayers

00:21:14.060 funding it, information about this might be a lab leak.

00:21:17.240 And one of the stunning things is, is the individual, Peter Daszak, who, who received the grants from

00:21:26.160 the NIH to do this research.

00:21:29.320 Vanity Fair revealed he is the one that organized the list of scientists that wrote a letter in

00:21:35.760 Lancet denouncing this theory. 0.99

00:21:38.500 And he literally was covering his own ass. 0.98

00:21:41.820 He was organizing a bunch of scientists to, to put out a statement that all of the press 0.99

00:21:47.660 treated as conclusive and that Facebook went so far as to ban anyone who disagreed.

00:21:52.820 This is propaganda of an Orwellian nature.

00:21:55.820 And it's really, it's corrupt.

00:21:57.920 But it's frightening and it's wrong.

00:22:01.040 So, you know, to be fair to, to Vanity Fair and other outlets too, that are left-wing outlets,

00:22:05.160 every now and again, you will get a really great piece in there.

00:22:08.780 And now we can see the emails for ourselves.

00:22:11.960 It's also worth pointing out on this question of-

00:22:14.760 And Michael, how damning is it to the Washington Post and the New York Times and the self-declared 0.99

00:22:21.420 arbiters of news that Vanity Friggin Fair kicked their ass. 0.96

00:22:26.920 Like that they actually went and did journalism a year and a half late, but it's a really good, 0.98

00:22:31.800 carefully researched story.

00:22:33.700 And are you telling me there's no reporter at the New York Times that could do this?

00:22:37.340 And they just, they didn't care because the political narrative didn't suit what they

00:22:42.640 wanted to say.

00:22:43.420 And every one of these self-declared arbiters of journalism who have stacks of Pulitzers on,

00:22:50.120 on, on their shelves ought to be embarrassed.

00:22:53.960 And they ought to fundamentally, they ought to have a public discussion about why they

00:23:00.080 didn't investigate this, why they didn't ask these questions, why they accepted the government

00:23:05.100 propaganda.

00:23:05.620 I don't believe any of them will.

00:23:07.500 Yeah.

00:23:07.820 But if they had even the tiniest shred of journalistic integrity, that's what they should

00:23:11.640 do.

00:23:11.820 I won't hold my breath on that, of course, but worth pointing out too, before we, before

00:23:17.340 we move on, not only is there this issue of the sort of research that was going on at

00:23:22.360 the Wuhan Institute of Virology, not only is there the issue of the total coverup by

00:23:26.900 parts of the government and by the media, but you have Dr. Fauci on record defending

00:23:32.860 this type of research.

00:23:34.060 This is very dangerous research.

00:23:35.960 He acknowledged it was very dangerous research and he said it was worth the risk.

00:23:39.880 He said the, the potential benefits out, outweighed the risk.

00:23:42.740 So I, I agree.

00:23:45.220 It seems like we're all being distracted here.

00:23:47.160 We're all being told we have to talk about the passports and all of our measures of how

00:23:52.020 we're going to protect ourselves.

00:23:53.180 I want accountability.

00:23:54.900 I want accountability from China. 0.88

00:23:57.040 Yep.

00:23:57.300 I want accountability from the political operatives in our own government who knew about this,

00:24:01.980 who covered this up.

00:24:03.600 Hopefully we'll be seeing more of that.

00:24:06.580 Senator, before we get to Israel, I actually have to take a detour on our way, maybe to Israel,

00:24:11.860 we'll take a detour down to Nigeria because there was a very strange political story that

00:24:17.380 came out there.

00:24:18.620 Twitter is at the moment for all intents and purposes banned in Nigeria because Twitter

00:24:25.040 took down a post from the president of Nigeria and the circumstances of this post involved various

00:24:32.400 conflicts and factions and all sorts of accusations of terrible things.

00:24:36.880 That's not really what I'm interested in.

00:24:38.560 What I'm, I'm interested in it.

00:24:40.620 Generally, we can talk on some other episode, but here from the big tech aspect, you have

00:24:45.420 Twitter going in and saying, we're going to censor the president of Nigeria.

00:24:48.420 And if you don't like it, build your own Twitter.

00:24:50.300 And Nigeria responds and says, well, we're going to censor Twitter.

00:24:53.600 And if you don't like it, build your own Nigeria. 1.00

00:24:56.560 Where is the freedom here?

00:24:58.000 What, what is the argument?

00:24:59.120 I mean, where, where, what can we learn about from this in our own situation?

00:25:03.340 Because we face something very similar a few months ago in our own country.

00:25:07.080 Well, you're right.

00:25:07.700 And there's actually, there's a third and fourth iteration to this.

00:25:10.900 So once Nigeria banned Twitter, Twitter came back and put out a statement denouncing Nigeria

00:25:17.140 and saying that, that communicating on social media is an essential human right in modern society.

00:25:28.900 Which, which I read and it's, it's, you know, from Twitter itself, and I couldn't help but, but

00:25:35.100 retweeting that, you know, ironically on Twitter, and pointing out that in Twitter's own words,

00:25:43.900 they have willfully denied the former president of the United States, Donald J. Trump,

00:25:49.340 what they characterize as a, quote, essential human right in modern society.

00:25:56.080 So that's, that's their terminology.

00:25:58.180 And, and I got, and today, I don't know if you saw Trump put out a press statement

00:26:03.020 praising Nigeria's decision and saying he wished he'd done the same thing when he was president,

00:26:08.960 which I don't actually think the president of the United States can ban Twitter.

00:26:13.640 So I'm, I'm glad he didn't do that, but it does highlight the, the abundant hypocrisy of big tech.

00:26:21.640 Of course.

00:26:21.980 And I, I do, I, I get, I love the sentiment that President Trump put out there.

00:26:26.500 Yeah.

00:26:26.820 If it is not workable in reality, I think the sentiment is something that we all agree with.

00:26:31.780 Now, finally, Senator, you have, you have answered all of my questions on this individual freedom

00:26:37.240 stuff.

00:26:37.800 I have to hear about your trip in Israel.

00:26:40.860 We have not spoken in a couple of weeks.

00:26:42.600 You were hanging out with a cooler, more impressive friends.

00:26:45.880 That's fine.

00:26:46.720 Notably, Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who I, I believe is now about to, he's about to leave

00:26:53.920 power.

00:26:54.360 He's holding onto power.

00:26:55.260 I have no idea.

00:26:56.020 So last weekend I flew to Israel and, uh, spent about two and a half days there.

00:27:02.520 Uh, and in Israel, I went, the first day went down to examine where the, the war fighting

00:27:08.320 had been.

00:27:08.660 And so went down to the border of Gaza, uh, went and, and met with IDF, Israeli defense

00:27:15.320 forces, soldiers met with, uh, general Harris, the military attache of the United States army

00:27:21.520 that, that is down there, uh, in Israel, uh, went to an iron dome battery, which the, the,

00:27:28.000 the iron dome is this amazing, uh, missile defense system that, that Israel has developed with the United

00:27:33.340 States' assistance that shoots down rockets and, and it has over a 90% intercept rate.

00:27:39.720 It's, it's an incredible piece of technology.

00:27:42.900 Um, and so the first day was visiting all of these locations.

00:27:46.400 The second day I was there, I, I met with various government leaders and so met with, uh, foreign

00:27:53.760 minister, met with the defense minister, met with energy minister, met with the president

00:27:58.440 of the Knesset.

00:27:59.640 Uh, but the most interesting meeting was the meeting with the prime minister Netanyahu.

00:28:04.140 And, and, and part of what made it interesting is, is the circumstantial timing.

00:28:10.160 So I booked the trip just because Israel had just had over 4,000 rockets, uh, raining down

00:28:16.560 upon it.

00:28:16.980 And I wanted to go and show my support for Israel and to hear firsthand what they needed

00:28:20.900 and what their assessment of the situation was.

00:28:23.960 But the day we're there is the day it's announced that, that essentially there was a revolt.

00:28:30.040 And as we sit here today, at least, it looks like there's going to be a new government in

00:28:35.680 Israel.

00:28:36.400 So what happened while we were there is there's this guy named Naftali Bennett, who leads a

00:28:45.120 small party, just has six seats in the Knesset, so very small, um, that is ideologically to

00:28:52.060 the right of Netanyahu.

00:28:53.900 It was announced while I was in Israel that he was forming a government with the left

00:28:59.960 wing parties and among the left wing parties, he's also forming a government with the Arab

00:29:07.060 parties who are sympathetic to, if not actually Muslim brotherhood.

00:29:15.160 That is, it's a little bit like maybe a, a, a U S analogy would be, you could say Mitt Romney

00:29:25.280 forming a, a government with Bernie Sanders because they both hated Trump.

00:29:31.660 That, that might be an analogy, but, but it's actually starker than that because it would

00:29:37.400 be, uh, you know, Naftali Bennett is considered, as I said, to the right, a BB. 1.00

00:29:43.840 So it would be almost like, I don't know, a, a Jim Jordan forming a government with Bernie

00:29:49.700 Sanders.

00:29:50.040 I mean, it's just weird.

00:29:51.320 So they announced they were going to do so.

00:29:53.440 Now to do so, they had to get a letter to the president of Israel by midnight Wednesday

00:30:00.000 night.

00:30:01.080 So my meeting with BB was scheduled for 2 PM on Wednesday.

00:30:04.460 So it's the day that, that the opposing government is supposed to file.

00:30:10.280 And so we go ahead and go to the meeting with BB and I actually told him, and I, I have gotten

00:30:16.640 to know BB quite well.

00:30:17.820 I consider him a friend, he's a remarkable guy.

00:30:20.640 Um, I told him at the beginning of the meeting, I said, look, I recognize today as a, a wild

00:30:26.880 day and, and a consequential day, but potentially, I mean, he, it was the day he may well have

00:30:33.400 lost power.

00:30:34.220 Could be the end.

00:30:34.880 And I said, if you, if we need to cut this meeting short, if you need to be on the phone,

00:30:40.040 working the votes and talking to people who can ask it, I'm a big boy.

00:30:44.740 My feelings won't be heard.

00:30:45.880 It's good to see you.

00:30:46.800 We've got your back.

00:30:47.760 But if we need to end after five minutes, I get this is, this day is a big deal.

00:30:52.960 Totally understood.

00:30:53.980 Yeah.

00:30:54.120 And he actually, he was fine.

00:30:55.800 He said, no, let's sit, let's talk.

00:30:57.680 I spent an hour and a half with him on, on what may prove to be the last day of his prime

00:31:04.140 ministership.

00:31:04.640 And so the meeting, and I was there with Bill Haggerty, who is a Senator from, from

00:31:10.500 Tennessee, a Republican who I invited to come with me.

00:31:12.860 So the two of us were there and then BB senior leadership and we're in the conference room.

00:31:20.160 And we have a discussion about Israel, about Iran, a lot of discussion about Iran and a

00:31:25.220 lot of concern that the Biden administration is going to go back into the Iran deal and

00:31:30.500 give the Ayatollah billions of dollars, and that's going to be really dangerous for both 0.87

00:31:34.040 Israel and America.

00:31:35.180 I'm very worried about that.

00:31:37.140 But then afterwards, BB does what he's done before.

00:31:39.300 He says, hey, Ted, come on back to my private office.

00:31:42.500 And Bill Haggerty came with us, too.

00:31:44.200 So the three of us just went, we left all the staff and just went back there.

00:31:48.060 You and I have talked about how previously I went back and smoked a cigar with him.

00:31:52.080 We didn't smoke cigars this time, but we just went and talked.

00:31:54.480 And look, he's pissed.

00:31:58.380 It is not complicated that he's pissed.

00:32:01.020 And he expressed frustration.

00:32:03.360 He said, listen, the people voted for a majority on the center right, and they're about to not

00:32:09.140 get that.

00:32:10.840 And he further said he's been pushing for a direct election of prime minister.

00:32:17.600 He said, you know, if the voters in Israel could vote for prime minister, just vote for

00:32:21.440 do they want me to lead or not, he thought he'd get north of 60 percent.

00:32:26.240 He said, it's not even close.

00:32:27.460 The voters are strongly with me.

00:32:31.620 But more broadly than that, and there are some parallels to the United States, what he

00:32:38.120 is very worried about is if this new government comes in and the final step for the new government

00:32:42.600 to come in is the Knesset has to vote, which is expected to in the next week or so.

00:32:47.360 So once it votes, if there are 61 votes, there's a new government and he's not prime minister

00:32:51.900 anymore.

00:32:53.520 If that happens, Bibi is very concerned that their first order of business is going to

00:33:00.100 be to change the law in Israel so that Netanyahu can never run again.

00:33:05.580 That as he put it, they can't beat him at the ballot box, so they're going to rig the

00:33:09.980 game so he could never get elected.

00:33:12.280 And it's reminiscent of what we're seeing the Democrats doing with with S-1, the Corrupt 0.90

00:33:17.020 Politicians Act, trying to change the law, rig the game so that they can't lose an election.

00:33:23.680 He was very unhappy about that.

00:33:25.680 This brings us to this mailbag question from Christian. 0.60

00:33:29.840 Hello, Senator Cruz.

00:33:31.040 There's been a lot of attention put on Senator Joe Manchin and to a lesser degree, Senator

00:33:36.560 Kyrsten Sinema, about blocking the Biden agenda, specifically S-1, H-R-1 with the Corrupt

00:33:44.280 Politicians Act, because of their unwillingness to end the filibuster.

00:33:49.320 Do you think that they will hold strong in their beliefs despite the pressure?

00:33:53.560 I would bet that they can.

00:33:56.720 Right now, they're both holding the line.

00:33:58.600 So, as best we can tell, there are 48 Democrats prepared to end the filibuster.

00:34:04.260 The two who are outspoken against it are Kyrsten Sinema from Arizona, Joe Manchin from West

00:34:10.980 Virginia.

00:34:11.580 Sinema is an unusual character.

00:34:15.000 She had been a left-wing activist at times.

00:34:18.740 She wrote a book called Gucci Socialist.

00:34:22.140 She wears bright pink and bright purple wigs on the Senate floor, but she also fancies herself 1.00

00:34:33.020 a centrist and has, at least so far, said she intends to behave like a centrist.

00:34:39.900 And so she has said she doesn't want to end the filibuster because it promotes bipartisanship.

00:34:45.940 Manchin, look, Joe is a really nice guy.

00:34:51.440 He's an affable guy.

00:34:53.100 He's from West Virginia.

00:34:54.060 He was governor of West Virginia before he was a senator.

00:34:56.840 He was the college football quarterback.

00:35:01.000 I mean, he's a good-looking jock.

00:35:04.880 Everybody likes Joe.

00:35:06.280 You can't not like Joe.

00:35:08.280 He's just an easygoing guy.

00:35:09.700 He actually has a boat, sort of a small, I guess a yacht, although you could sort of laugh

00:35:17.140 at calling something a small yacht, but a boat that he has in the Potomac that he periodically

00:35:21.920 invites senators to come out and to go, like, on a cruise up and down the Potomac and, you

00:35:26.860 know, have a glass of wine.

00:35:27.840 And so I've gone out with him on it, and he tries to get bipartisan senators.

00:35:32.840 Very hard to dislike Joe Manchin on a personal level.

00:35:35.440 In the nine years I have served with him, he has never once stood up to Chuck Schumer

00:35:42.540 on any issue that matters where he's the deciding vote.

00:35:48.920 If Republicans have 51 votes, Joe will give you a 50-second.

00:35:52.780 He'll make it bipartisan.

00:35:54.160 I hope they do the right thing.

00:35:55.780 Will they?

00:35:56.500 I don't know.

00:35:57.580 A little pressure might help.

00:35:59.200 A little gratitude and a little pressure.

00:36:00.540 Before we go, Senator, we have mere seconds left, but I really need your answer on this

00:36:05.420 question.

00:36:05.720 I'd be curious to see how you answer.

00:36:07.140 This is from Patrick.

00:36:07.880 Patrick says, for either of you to answer, do you recommend going to an Ivy League school

00:36:13.340 given the woke takeover that has happened?

00:36:16.580 What are the alternatives if you want to jumpstart a career?

00:36:19.660 Would you send someone to, if you had to do over, you know, for a child, would you send

00:36:24.400 your kid to an Ivy League school?

00:36:25.820 You know, I would.

00:36:28.000 Listen, just about every college and university right now is messed up.

00:36:31.520 I went to Princeton for college.

00:36:33.140 I went to Harvard for law school.

00:36:34.300 I really enjoyed both of them.

00:36:35.640 What I generally advise people is go to the best school you can get into.

00:36:41.320 I still think that's good advice, that an awful lot of what you get in either college

00:36:47.400 or grad school is credentialing, is credentialing to get a job, to do something going forward.

00:36:54.080 So I was very much purchasing the diploma.

00:36:57.860 And I learned, and the relationships actually, as I ordered what I was, the commercial transaction

00:37:05.700 I was engaged in, in going to school, the credential was number one.

00:37:11.360 And number two was the relationships, the people, the other students who were there,

00:37:14.860 the other professors that were there, which are very beneficial.

00:37:19.400 They can open doors.

00:37:21.220 They can, it can make, you know, my best friend in the world, other than Heidi, was my roommate

00:37:29.300 at Princeton and Harvard.

00:37:30.400 A guy named David Panton is Jamaican, incredible guy.

00:37:34.860 And he was best man at our wedding.

00:37:38.220 And I think those relationships are valuable.

00:37:42.000 That being said, the schools are worse than when you and I were there.

00:37:46.300 And I don't know that I would survive at an Ivy League school today, that I don't really

00:37:53.820 have a great feel for just how whacked out the cancel culture is.

00:37:58.680 Let me ask you, Michael, what would you advise?

00:38:00.980 You're a new father, so this is not theoretical.

00:38:04.380 You may be getting a little wild to make that decision, but what would you advise?

00:38:08.220 Well, just like you, my best man was my best friend in college, and I'm the best man

00:38:13.820 at his wedding.

00:38:14.320 And, you know, I totally agree that credentialism is a reality, and that's true, and the relationships

00:38:20.060 are good, and you can get an education, though it seems increasingly tricky.

00:38:24.520 Yeah.

00:38:25.240 Actually, going back to the Brooklyn schoolyard guy, who was a professor of mine, Don Kagan,

00:38:29.260 when he was dean of Yale College, I think he said something to the effect of, it's getting

00:38:33.500 increasingly more difficult to graduate from Yale with a liberal education.

00:38:38.940 You used to have to have a liberal education to graduate.

00:38:41.060 Now, there's the question of whether or not you can even get one.

00:38:44.220 I think there are schools, a handful of schools in this country, you know, but there's only

00:38:48.900 a handful of Ivy League schools, and I think there are schools where you can get, or where

00:38:53.500 you are more likely to get, a better liberal education than at the Ivy League.

00:38:58.360 And you know the question I would ask my son is, one ties right in with what we're talking

00:39:03.780 about, I'd say, what do you want to do?

00:39:06.460 What do you want to do?

00:39:07.060 What do you want to do with it?

00:39:07.920 What is the purpose of this?

00:39:09.660 Yeah.

00:39:09.880 And it's a question that, I guess, increasingly we're not allowed to ask, and a lot of those

00:39:14.960 rights and liberties and traditions are under threat.

00:39:18.540 Hopefully, we can hold on to them a little bit longer, but we've got to leave that there

00:39:21.600 today.

00:39:22.620 Senator, see you next time.

00:39:24.320 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:39:25.000 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:39:35.120 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom, and Security

00:39:40.460 Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,

00:39:45.920 and candidates across the country.

00:39:47.640 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom, and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running

00:39:53.320 for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:39:57.540 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 09, 2021

Back From Bibi's Back Office

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