Verdict with Ted Cruz - Beating Dem Obstruction on Trump Cabinet Nominees, plus Border Executive Orders & Biden Pardons

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.320 Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:08.980 I'll start with good news.

00:00:10.320 We've got Senator Cruz back.

00:00:11.780 You've got what I'd say half the voice, 60%.

00:00:14.640 Where are we right now with this?

00:00:16.620 Yeah, something like that.

00:00:17.800 I got to say doing a weekend where you go to like seven inauguration balls

00:00:22.900 and you're just going from event to event to event.

00:00:26.420 I've got a nasty cold.

00:00:28.140 My voice was completely ragged two days ago.

00:00:31.500 It's still pretty weak.

00:00:33.200 I canceled pretty much all my media interviews just because I'm trying to rest my voice.

00:00:37.600 But I'm back to the podcast because I love you guys.

00:00:42.480 See, you know we started rumors while you were gone.

00:00:45.360 This was you partying too hard and we're blaming your old co-host

00:00:49.280 because there is a picture on the Internet of you guys having cigars together at the inauguration.

00:00:54.140 Yeah, I will confess, Knowles and I were at a cigar bar smoking cigars and having scotch at three in the morning,

00:01:00.980 which, you know, with Jeremy Boring and Ben Shapiro and all the Daily Wire guys.

00:01:06.700 And it was great fun, but it really is crappy for your voice.

00:01:09.880 It really does.

00:01:11.040 Yeah, there you go.

00:01:11.880 Well, as my mom would say, did you learn anything from that experience, Senator?

00:01:16.260 Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

00:01:18.320 Good answer.

00:01:19.620 Good answer.

00:01:20.340 All right, this is also interesting because right now you're still in Washington, D.C.

00:01:25.140 We're recording this late Thursday night.

00:01:27.420 That's not normal.

00:01:28.900 Normally we record after you get back to Houston about the same time, but you're still in D.C.

00:01:34.560 What's going on?

00:01:36.540 Well, it looks like we're going to be here throughout the weekend.

00:01:39.060 So we're in the middle of confirming cabinet nominees.

00:01:41.900 At this point, we confirm Marco Rubio on January 20th on Inauguration Day.

00:01:46.880 Rubio was confirmed 99 to zero.

00:01:49.320 He was unanimous.

00:01:50.300 That was not surprising.

00:01:51.740 But the Democrats are already being obstructionists.

00:01:54.320 They're already blocking nominees.

00:01:56.460 So we confirmed earlier today John Ratcliffe to be the head of the CIA.

00:02:01.940 We should have done that on January 20th as well.

00:02:05.180 It was a big vote.

00:02:07.240 The vote was 74 to 25.

00:02:09.700 So a whole bunch of Democrats voted for Ratcliffe, and yet the Democrats are trying to drag it out and delay it.

00:02:15.500 We're now on Pete Hegseth, and the Democrats really, really, really want to defeat Pete Hegseth.

00:02:21.600 So they're just – the tool that the opposition party has in the Senate is they can delay.

00:02:27.280 They can – for major cabinet nominees, the rules require 30 hours, and so you can drag it out.

00:02:34.040 And so what the Republican majority is doing, we're saying, fine, if you're going to drag it out, then we're not going home.

00:02:39.500 We're going to stay here under the 30 hours.

00:02:42.460 We're going to vote on Pete Hegseth, I think, at 9 p.m. Friday night.

00:02:46.700 And then we're immediately going to move to Kristi Noem, and if they want, we'll take another 30 hours, and then we'll vote on Sunday.

00:02:54.020 And we're going to move forward, and we're going to move forward.

00:02:56.640 And to be honest, this is not that unusual of a battle.

00:03:00.280 You see the opposition party trying to drag things out, and the way you basically break that opposition is, listen, the Democrats want to get home.

00:03:08.900 They've got fundraisers.

00:03:09.940 They've got to see their family.

00:03:12.040 They've got to go do events.

00:03:13.540 They're doing all sorts of things.

00:03:15.060 They're going to sporting games.

00:03:18.240 It makes senators very grumpy when they have to stay through the weekend and they don't get home.

00:03:26.700 And so hopefully, after the Democrats do this for a little while, they'll stop engaging in unreasonable delay.

00:03:34.500 And the way this ends is they say, okay, we agree to expedite the votes and to move more swiftly through the votes.

00:03:41.860 One way or another, we're going to get these cabinet nominees confirmed.

00:03:46.420 I think within 30 days, all of the cabinet nominees will be confirmed.

00:03:51.340 Hegseth will probably be the one that's the closest battle.

00:03:55.380 The vote today on Hegseth was 51 to 49.

00:04:00.020 So two Republicans voted no.

00:04:02.640 Susan Collins voted no.

00:04:03.960 Lisa Murkowski voted no, which wasn't a terribly big surprise.

00:04:07.760 They were the two most likely to vote no.

00:04:09.800 But the nice thing about having a 53-vote majority is we could actually lose three votes and still get them confirmed because at 50-50, J.D. Vance, as the vice president, would break the tie.

00:04:22.500 And so if Susan and Lisa vote no, that doesn't alter the result.

00:04:27.000 And so I fully expect that by tomorrow night, Pete Hegseth will be confirmed as defense secretary.

00:04:34.080 And we're going to move through.

00:04:35.440 Actually, earlier today, I chaired the Senate Commerce Committee, and we voted out Sean Duffy, who is the nominee to be transportation secretary.

00:04:45.960 And the vote on Sean Duffy was unanimous.

00:04:49.160 So every Republican, every Democrat voted for him.

00:04:51.680 It was interesting.

00:04:52.520 The Democrats were chattering a little bit that they might oppose him because they were mad that Trump had halted the Green New Deal funding.

00:05:00.560 But at the end of the day, when we came to the vote, when they did the roll call, everyone voted no.

00:05:05.520 And I sort of – I sit next to John Thune on the Commerce Committee.

00:05:08.580 I leaned over to Thune and said, huh, turns out even the Democrats want roads and bridges in their states. 0.97

00:05:14.740 Funny how that works.

00:05:16.100 And if you don't know Sean, Sean is just such a genuine nice guy.

00:05:20.540 He's authentic.

00:05:21.720 He's real.

00:05:22.660 His questioning that you guys had of him, it would be really hard, and I think it would look petty if you went against him.

00:05:28.820 Yeah, look, he's a good guy.

00:05:30.000 He's going to do a terrific job as secretary of transportation.

00:05:33.500 And that historically is a fairly nonpartisan job.

00:05:37.820 When it comes to transportation and infrastructure, every state cares about it.

00:05:43.160 If you're doing it right, you should be doing it fairly based on needs, so you shouldn't be favoring your buddies and punishing your enemies.

00:05:51.140 And I think Sean will implement the law fairly, and that's one thing every senator does is you go advocate for your state.

00:05:58.160 And, look, when it comes to the state of Texas, we have enormous infrastructure needs because we're growing like crazy.

00:06:05.280 Here's an amazing stat.

00:06:06.500 When I was elected 13 years ago, there were 26 million Texans.

00:06:12.640 Today, there are more than 31 million Texans.

00:06:15.680 We've added 5 million Texans in just 13 years.

00:06:18.160 That is enormous, and that means we've got huge transportation needs because when you add 5 million people, that's a lot more people on cars, that's a lot more people on trucks, that's a lot more people, a lot more cargo being shipped on trains, that's a lot more need for bridges.

00:06:35.220 That's a lot more ships coming in and out of our ports.

00:06:38.140 And so I think Sean Duffy is going to do a terrific job.

00:06:42.560 And I will say also it is very good for the state of Texas that I'm the chairman of the Commerce Committee because I will say it does not hurt if you are advocating for your state if you happen to be the chairman of the committee that has oversight over the Department of Transportation.

00:06:57.540 And so that for the state of Texas is a good thing.

00:07:01.160 It really is.

00:07:02.120 So we've got a lot to talk about on the show, including a lot of executive orders on border.

00:07:07.340 And also I want to get to Biden's pardon issues.

00:07:11.220 Donald Trump made some comments about that.

00:07:12.900 We're going to play that coming up just so people know where we're going with this.

00:07:15.300 But let's go back to the politics of the of the Democrats stalling and trying to delay these votes.

00:07:22.000 What is the thinking behind that?

00:07:24.180 And why, if you're in their camp tonight, are they saying, is it worth it?

00:07:28.800 And how are they figuring out when do they say, OK, enough's enough already.

00:07:32.560 Let's get to these votes.

00:07:34.120 What's the upside?

00:07:35.040 I'm trying to genuinely figure that out for them.

00:07:37.920 Oh, look, at some point they'll blink.

00:07:40.520 But but their base is is worked up.

00:07:42.720 And Hegseth in particular, they're in a frenzy over.

00:07:46.700 And so, listen, you can understand if you're a Democrat, your base is all mad and thinks Hegseth is is some radical that you got to show you're fighting.

00:07:54.840 And so they want to go prove to their base.

00:07:56.660 See, we're fighting.

00:07:57.420 We're fighting to stop Trump.

00:07:59.840 You know, look, 9 p.m.

00:08:02.120 tomorrow night, Hegseth will be confirmed.

00:08:05.000 And and so I think for some of the others, look, Sean Duffy, we had to take up a vote on Duffy.

00:08:10.520 He was just voted out of committee unanimously.

00:08:12.080 Now, he'll get confirmed next week.

00:08:15.680 But I fully expect I'm going to go to the Senate floor to borrow and try to schedule Sean Duffy's vote immediately.

00:08:20.900 And I expect the Democrats to object just because they want to drag it out.

00:08:24.840 They want to slow it down.

00:08:26.920 You know, it was interesting right at the beginning, actually, before Trump was sworn in, one of the senior members of his inner circle called me and said, look, Ted, we want to move super fast.

00:08:37.340 We want to get every cabinet nominee confirmed on January 20th.

00:08:42.240 And I kind of laughed and said, well, well, look, I understand you want that, that that's not going to happen.

00:08:47.000 And they were like, why?

00:08:47.800 I don't understand why.

00:08:49.220 And I said, well, OK, so there's this thing called the Senate.

00:08:53.240 And the Senate has rules.

00:08:56.900 And he said, so what?

00:08:57.740 We want them now.

00:08:58.480 We need them now, now, now.

00:08:59.460 And I said, well, I understand that.

00:09:01.440 And I think the Republicans would agree with you and would do everything we could to to accelerate it.

00:09:07.680 But half the Senate are Democrats.

00:09:10.240 And Chuck Schumer doesn't want your cabinet nominees confirmed.

00:09:15.700 Neither do most of the Democrats.

00:09:17.040 And so they're going to use procedural mechanisms to delay confirmation.

00:09:21.320 And to be fair, when Biden and Obama were president, Republicans used procedural mechanisms to delay confirmation, particularly if it's a bad nominee.

00:09:29.340 If it's a nominee, you know, you're not that concerned about.

00:09:32.180 That's one thing.

00:09:32.820 But if it's a nominee that you think is a terrible nominee, you'll do everything you can to fight back.

00:09:37.900 Now, the way the majority exercises leverage is it's literally about inflicting pain.

00:09:43.380 It's at some point one of the things we can do.

00:09:46.300 So the 30 hours delay that you have on a cabinet nominee under the rules is actually broken down into each senator has up to an hour to speak.

00:09:58.100 And so you can do what's called call the question, which is you can say, OK, go speak for 30 hours.

00:10:04.640 You've got to get 30 senators up there to speak an hour each.

00:10:07.160 No senator can speak for more than an hour for filling that time.

00:10:10.500 And once you run out of senators, you can call the question.

00:10:12.780 So for the next 30 hours, you're telling me that on the hour you're going to have another Democratic senator speak now to keep this going?

00:10:21.820 No, because I don't expect we're immediately going to call the question.

00:10:27.060 And the reason is they have a procedural tool to fight back. 0.59

00:10:31.060 So if you call the question the way a Democrat or anyone in the minority fights back, it stands up and suggests the absence of a quorum.

00:10:40.320 And under the Senate rules, if if a senator suggests the absence of a quorum, you have to confirm that there is a quorum on the floor of the Senate, which means let's say we're doing this at two in the morning.

00:10:51.680 We got to produce 50 senators. And listen, a lot of my colleagues are in their 80s.

00:10:57.380 And so getting octogenarians to appear in an instant.

00:11:01.540 They're not out smoking cigars with you and Nulls. Is that what you're saying? 0.94

00:11:05.680 I think that would be correct. And so, look, the Senate rules are built for there to be checks and balances and give and take.

00:11:12.220 And so if the Democrats continue to be deeply obstructionist, at some point, I fully expect we will call the question.

00:11:22.780 And I wouldn't be surprised if in the next couple of weeks you see Republicans showing up saying we're going to be here all night.

00:11:29.800 We're going to have some cots. We're going to sleep on the floor of the Senate.

00:11:32.860 And we're going to grind through until you guys stop this nonsense.

00:11:35.620 But I think we're not doing that yet. But to be honest, staying through the weekend, no senator likes that.

00:11:43.080 Listen, I want to be home with my girls. I want to be back in Texas.

00:11:45.600 I don't like being in the frozen tundra that is Washington on Saturday and Sunday when I could be in Texas with my two girls and with my wife.

00:11:54.460 And that's your leverage. I mean, that's really it. That's the leverage.

00:12:00.100 And I promise you, the Democrat senators are complaining to their leadership.

00:12:05.860 We don't want to be here. Why are we stuck here? We don't we don't want to have to be here.

00:12:10.500 And it's like, well, you guys can go home right now if you agree.

00:12:14.280 All right. We'll confirm all the people. Same time frame. We'll just collapse the time.

00:12:18.580 OK, if you do that, we go home. But like if we move expeditiously through these, you can go home.

00:12:25.520 And if you want to just be obstructionist, then you're going to be stuck here and it's going to get a really stink.

00:12:31.500 And you're going to have to show up in the middle of the night to cast votes.

00:12:34.620 And that that annoys everybody, but especially folks who are are pretty old. 0.98

00:12:39.900 And and so that back and forth. And I actually think post takes that like I was meeting with a Democrat senator today.

00:12:46.180 And I asked her, I said, so are you guys going to relent at some point?

00:12:50.540 Are we going to be able to go home and just reach an agreement to move these guys forward?

00:12:54.480 And she said, oh, no, no, no, because on Hegseth, we think we may get a couple of Republicans to flip.

00:13:00.700 And I'm like, yeah, that's not going to happen. Like, OK, you know, you got two, but you need four and you're not getting four.

00:13:07.640 And she's like, well, maybe the 51 that voted, maybe they'll change their mind by the time we vote in 30 hours.

00:13:13.120 I'm like, yeah, OK, you know, and maybe the moon's made of green cheese that that's all right.

00:13:18.140 But but I think the Democrats right now are telling themselves they're holding out hope for that, which means they'll at least keep us here through Friday night.

00:13:28.100 And then they may blink Friday night and agree with with Kristi Noem and then Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, is next.

00:13:37.440 And Sean Duffy, the Transportation Secretary, those are the next ones teed up.

00:13:41.980 So if they agree, how fast could that go down?

00:13:44.160 Let's say that they they say we're ready to go home and play out that scenario.

00:13:48.400 Yeah. And you've got a couple lined up.

00:13:50.060 How quick can the votes happen if it's like, all right, let's get the hell out of here?

00:13:54.080 They could happen in an hour.

00:13:55.120 I mean, Schumer could agree you can do anything in the Senate by unanimous consent.

00:13:58.940 So if they decide, OK, we want to go, we could tee up, let's say, Friday night, nine o'clock.

00:14:05.080 We confirm Hegseth.

00:14:06.700 They know Kristi Noem is going to get confirmed so they could say, you know what?

00:14:11.580 We don't want to wait another 30 hours.

00:14:13.460 So let's let's we'll consent to do the vote on Kristi Noem right now.

00:14:20.020 And I think if they did that, Thune would let everyone go home and we'd fly home Saturday mornings and then we'd come back Monday and move on to Basant and and and Sean Duffy.

00:14:33.520 So it wouldn't change anything for the Democrats.

00:14:36.840 It would be perfectly rational.

00:14:38.340 But but Democrats aren't always rational.

00:14:42.400 And to be fair, when we're in the minority, Republicans aren't always rational.

00:14:46.600 Sometimes you just want to fight if you don't like what the the other side is doing.

00:14:50.700 All right.

00:14:50.820 I'm going to regret this question, but I feel like I need to ask it because I know there's other people listening right now that are thinking the same thing.

00:14:56.140 I am who the hell came up with these rules and how many decades old are they and how often do they change?

00:15:03.640 So they are many, many decades old and and the way it works, they can change.

00:15:09.380 But to change the rules takes a vote of 67 senators.

00:15:13.480 So they very rarely change because you need a big supermajority.

00:15:17.880 So when was the last time something like that happened that in the rules change where there was that many votes?

00:15:22.080 I mean, obviously very rare.

00:15:23.480 But I mean, in the history, is it happened that many times?

00:15:26.140 So the way rules changes have happened have been different.

00:15:29.240 The way rule changes have happened in recent history has been through what is called the nuclear option.

00:15:34.820 So you may remember this back about a decade ago.

00:15:37.840 The Democrats had control of the Senate.

00:15:40.000 Harry Reid was the Democrat majority leader.

00:15:42.600 And at the time, it required 60 votes to move to proceed to a confirmation.

00:15:51.360 And that was true for executive branch nominations.

00:15:54.020 That was true for judicial nominations.

00:15:56.420 And and in fact, when I was a brand new baby senator back in I was elected in 2012, 2013, I was brand new.

00:16:03.880 And one of the very first things I did is I led the first successful filibuster of a secretary of defense, Chuck Hagel.

00:16:15.640 Chuck Hagel had been actually a Republican senator from Nebraska.

00:16:19.140 I didn't know him.

00:16:19.880 Most of my colleagues knew him.

00:16:21.560 I looked at his record.

00:16:22.900 His record was terrible.

00:16:23.840 His record in particular on Iran had been terrible.

00:16:26.160 He consistently voted against sanctions against Iran.

00:16:29.540 And I looked at it and said, this this makes no sense at all.

00:16:31.800 And so I led a filibuster and as a brand new senator got virtually every Republican to join me when we blocked him.

00:16:40.320 Now, unfortunately, the Republican Party being what it is, as soon as we did that, a bunch of Republican senators got cold feet and flipped and then they decided to let him be confirmed.

00:16:48.760 So after we blocked him, they unblocked him.

00:16:51.780 But not long after that, Harry Reid exercised the nuclear option to lower the threshold to confirm executive branch nominees from 60 to 50.

00:17:03.580 Now, how did he do that?

00:17:04.660 The rules said to move to proceed to any nomination take 60 votes.

00:17:08.680 But any rule, any ruling of the chair.

00:17:12.580 So the so the way you do that is you stand up and you seek the presiding officer who could be the vice president or a senator from the majority party.

00:17:23.320 Seek a ruling on how many how many yes votes does it take to move to proceed to a nomination.

00:17:32.960 And the presiding officer will ask the parliamentarian who's sitting right and right in front of him or her.

00:17:37.220 And the parliamentarian would say, well, under the text of the rules, the answer is 60.

00:17:42.660 And so the chair will say the answer is 60.

00:17:45.820 And what Harry Reid did did is is say, I appeal the ruling of the chair.

00:17:52.020 Now, any ruling of the chair can be appealed.

00:17:55.600 And the margin to overturn the ruling of the chair is 50 votes.

00:18:00.040 So what happened is the chair correctly responded that it takes 60 votes to move to proceed to a confirmation.

00:18:08.720 Harry Reid appealed the ruling of the chair and all the Democrats voted to overturn the ruling of the chair.

00:18:14.360 And the way the Senate operates, once you have overturned a ruling of the chair, that becomes a binding precedent that binds the Senate going forward.

00:18:21.680 As a result, and that's called the nuclear option, because it is essentially breaking the rules of the Senate to change the rules of the Senate, because the fact that you can appeal the ruling of the chair means you can change any rule with 50 votes if you're willing to ignore the rules.

00:18:38.280 Well, the Democrats did that initially for executive branch dominations.

00:18:44.240 Then subsequently they did it for judges, but not Supreme Court justices.

00:18:51.860 And and and so and in fact, I remember when they did that, I remember standing on the Senate floor as they were exercising the nuclear option for judges and lowering the threshold from 60 votes to 50.

00:19:02.680 I turned to Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, and I said, Amy, you guys are going to regret this.

00:19:07.620 Because the result of this is we are going to see more Antonin Scalia's and Clarence Thomas's on the Supreme Court because you are doing this and every Democrat will regret this.

00:19:19.540 And ironically, had Harry Reid not exercise the nuclear option and lowered the threshold for confirming judges from 60 votes to 50, there's no way Brett Kavanaugh would have been confirmed.

00:19:32.620 Neil Gorsuch probably wouldn't have an Amy Coney Barrett definitely would have would not have.

00:19:39.320 Wow. And so literally Roe versus Wade would not have been overturned.

00:19:43.000 And you want to know whose fault it is that Roe versus Wade was overturned?

00:19:47.000 Harry Reid and every Democrat senator who voted to exercise the nuclear option.

00:19:51.540 And I got to admit, I told them that when they did it.

00:19:53.880 And that was what year?

00:19:56.100 I think 2014.

00:19:57.200 Wow. And they just didn't play the long game.

00:20:00.340 I guess it was that personal or they were that angry at the time.

00:20:03.320 You know, they're the Democrats will exercise power and they rarely think about tomorrow.

00:20:10.260 And we point out all the time, look, if you do this, you know, turnabout's fair play.

00:20:16.240 When we get the majority, we'll do it back to you.

00:20:18.480 And and they live in sort of this this denial of reality that they don't ever seem, you know, I've been in the Senate 13 years, about half the time I've been in the majority, about half the time I've been in the minority.

00:20:31.620 Republicans actually try to focus a fair about on, hey, we want to do things that that preserve the institution because we recognize there's going to be a time in the future when we're in the minority again.

00:20:42.960 And we don't want to just get completely steamrolled the next time we're in the minority.

00:20:47.440 So we will we will show some respect for the minority.

00:20:52.080 So the institution operates differently than the House.

00:20:55.660 Look, the House, the House majority can do whatever the hell it wants.

00:20:59.480 And being in the minority in the House sucks because you have virtually no power in the Senate.

00:21:07.120 Even being in the minority, an individual senator could exercise a lot of power and influence.

00:21:12.540 And that's one of the things that makes the institution work well.

00:21:15.400 It's interesting. It is really interesting.

00:21:17.380 So your gut here, your prediction, I want one.

00:21:19.880 When will you get to go home?

00:21:21.280 When will they get confirmed?

00:21:23.000 I think it's 50 50.

00:21:24.720 My gut is we'll we'll go home Saturday morning.

00:21:27.020 But maybe not.

00:21:28.200 Maybe not.

00:21:29.140 Like it's literally 50 50.

00:21:30.920 They might say Friday night once excess done.

00:21:33.940 OK, let's agree to speed up Dome.

00:21:36.320 And if they do that, we'll go home Saturday morning and come back Monday.

00:21:39.560 If they don't do that, we'll stay through the weekend.

00:21:41.620 And I got to say, like Heidi and I, Friday night, we're planning to do date night.

00:21:46.180 We'd already planned it.

00:21:47.060 And I had to call her last night and say, hey, I don't think I can go.

00:21:50.520 We try to do date night ideally once a week.

00:21:53.320 But we try to do it at least every other week and go out, go out and have dinner together.

00:21:56.720 And I told her, I think the odds are very slim that I'm going to make date night tomorrow.

00:22:00.900 And I think that they're basically zero right now.

00:22:03.660 But I'm hoping that I get to see my kids at least Saturday and Sunday.

00:22:07.920 But it will depend on if the Democrats want to see their kids.

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00:22:43.020 All right.

00:22:43.760 Let's move to the border because this is a huge payoff.

00:22:47.520 And I want to go through because it's been happening so quickly.

00:22:50.880 It is a tsunami of executive orders to secure the border.

00:22:55.420 We are now witnessing the difference in one president compared to another and how quickly things can change.

00:23:03.020 Border crossings are way down.

00:23:05.240 We're grabbing violent criminals now all over the country.

00:23:08.560 We're getting videos of those arrests being made in their rap sheets. 0.97

00:23:11.800 This is a full court press by the federal government who's been empowered to do their damn job on getting rid of the bad guys in this country. 1.00

00:23:23.280 The worst of the worst of the violent criminals that are illegal immigrants. 1.00

00:23:27.400 And also a securing the border mentality all into one.

00:23:31.400 Well, look, on day one, President Trump signed over 100 executive orders.

00:23:38.240 And I will say there is a world of difference between this Trump administration and the one we saw in 2017.

00:23:45.300 Listen, in 2017, most of the Trump team had never served in the federal government.

00:23:51.880 They didn't really know what they were biting off.

00:23:55.580 You know, they were actually one member of the Trump family said to me over this weekend, said, yeah, we we were the dog that caught the car.

00:24:02.480 But like it was it was that they found themselves in the White House and and there was a steep learning curve.

00:24:10.600 And I will say in the first term, the Trump White House made some some serious mistakes, particularly with staffing, appointing some people to senior positions who ended up fighting against President Trump every step of the way.

00:24:23.580 This time around, I think it is a dramatically different White House and a dramatically different administration.

00:24:29.620 One of the biggest ways it's different.

00:24:31.740 I think they're much more savvy.

00:24:33.400 This this selection of cabinet nominees, I think, is very strong.

00:24:36.940 I think they're looking for people who are loyal and committed to the president and the president's agenda.

00:24:41.860 I think they are they are doing a much better job avoiding appointing people who are going to fight against the president's agenda and try to undermine it from within.

00:24:52.060 And there was a lot of that in the first term.

00:24:53.900 I also think when it comes to the executive orders that they just they put in collectively that the transition team and a lot of lawyers working with them thousands and thousands of hours getting ready for it.

00:25:05.720 And so many of the executive orders dealt with with the border.

00:25:10.760 The clearest mandate from this election was to secure the border.

00:25:14.680 And I think these executive orders are all designed to do that, to build the wall, to surge manpower, to go after illegal aliens, to go after criminal illegal aliens, to go after murderers and rapists and child molesters, to go after gang members.

00:25:27.840 And I think you're seeing every cabinet agency focusing on it to restore the remain in Mexico agreement, to end catch and release.

00:25:36.400 All of that happened the first day.

00:25:38.900 And remember, this is something that I predicted on verdict from the beginning, which is that we would secure the border.

00:25:44.720 It wouldn't take a year or even six months that it would be immediate because the damage done to the border was done primarily through executive orders and just through deliberate inaction on the part of Joe Biden, the executive.

00:25:58.280 And so all of that could be reversed immediately.

00:26:00.340 Now, Congress needs to follow up and pass legislation to provide real funding for the resources we need at the border and hopefully to put in federal law stronger protections to stop the next Democrat president from trying to repeat what Joe Biden did.

00:26:17.540 And but look, if you compare, it's funny, I had had reporters this week ask me, said, said, well, what is it strange that Trump's executive orders and the legislation Congress is working on this year are so overlapping and so similar?

00:26:35.000 And I laughed and said, no, it's not strange at all.

00:26:37.680 We're both acting to implement the mandate from the voters.

00:26:42.160 We're both trying to accomplish the same agenda.

00:26:44.940 And I said, listen, the advantage of executive orders and regulations and executive action is that it's quick.

00:26:50.940 It can be done instantaneously.

00:26:52.900 That's very good.

00:26:54.500 The disadvantage of it is it can be reversed instantaneously.

00:26:58.980 A great deal of the good Donald Trump did in the first term was reversed as soon as Joe Biden came into office because everything you do with an executive order, you can undo.

00:27:07.600 And by the way, a lot of Trump's executive orders were just reversing the terrible Biden executive orders.

00:27:13.000 So executive orders are quick, but they're temporary.

00:27:17.740 Legislation is slower, but it has the advantage of if you write it in the federal law, it's much harder to change.

00:27:25.140 So it's much more of a permanent change.

00:27:27.440 And so I think the Trump executive orders are trying to accomplish exactly what we're going to accomplish or I very much hope we're going to accomplish through passing legislation through Congress this year.

00:27:38.580 Let's go through what you think is the most important things that have happened so far and why it's having such a quick impact.

00:27:45.320 The single most important thing for dropping the numbers is ending catch and release.

00:27:52.060 There there's no policy decision that there's no policy question that matters more than what happens when you apprehend an illegal immigrant at the border in terms of illegal immigration.

00:28:04.660 If the answer is you put them on a plane and you fly them home, the numbers plummet and they plummet immediately because virtually everyone who comes into this country illegally has a cell phone. 0.97

00:28:14.360 And so they call back home and say, hey, don't come.

00:28:16.560 They don't let you stay.

00:28:17.860 If the answer is what it's been for four years that they let you stay and go wherever you want.

00:28:22.500 Again, everyone has a cell phone.

00:28:23.880 So they call back home and says, hey, come on up.

00:28:25.700 The border's open.

00:28:26.540 You get to stay.

00:28:27.120 And so ending catch and release and hand in hand with that is reinstating remain in Mexico.

00:28:33.860 Now, look, reinstating remain in Mexico is a little complicated because that actually takes the cooperation of the government of Mexico.

00:28:41.200 So Trump has signed an executive order saying we're going to reinstate it.

00:28:45.020 But the Mexican government has to cooperate for that to work.

00:28:48.100 And that's why Trump has also threatened a 25 percent tariff on Mexico.

00:28:54.440 That's how he got the Mexican government to agree to remain in Mexico in the first term.

00:28:59.360 And I hope it's how he will get the Mexican government again to agree with it now.

00:29:04.040 Well, let's talk also quickly for people that just don't understand what's happening in Mexico.

00:29:10.020 Mexico's in a really weird and interesting spot internally in their politics.

00:29:14.920 There's so much corruption down there.

00:29:16.760 Is there a chance that we could see a government stand up to these cartels because of the pressure that Donald Trump is willing to put on them, including using things to leverage like tariffs?

00:29:28.960 Look, very possibly.

00:29:30.460 And I hope so.

00:29:32.020 I will say it's harder to accomplish now after four years of Biden because the cartels are much, much more powerful.

00:29:39.160 Listen, one stat that I pointed out many times in 2018, the Mexican drug cartels were making roughly five hundred million dollars in revenue from human trafficking.

00:29:50.960 Last year, the Mexican drug cartels made over 13 billion dollars from human trafficking.

00:29:58.000 That's a two thousand six hundred percent increase.

00:30:00.780 And so what Joe Biden and the Democrats have done is they've turned these drug cartels that are vicious, murdering, torturing.

00:30:08.320 I mean, they are horrible transnational criminal enterprises that that they don't care about human life at all. 0.97

00:30:13.980 They they commit thousands and thousands of murderers, but they turn them into multi, multi billion dollar empires.

00:30:22.520 And it's had a tragic effect on on Mexico.

00:30:25.480 The number of murders and kidnappings there that the rule of law has been incredibly undermined.

00:30:31.220 And Joe Biden, not only has he done huge damage to America, he's done huge damage to Mexico by making the cartel so powerful.

00:30:37.920 So it is riskier now for the president of Mexico to stand up to the cartels.

00:30:43.840 She's literally risking her life because the cartels are more than happy to murder politicians. 1.00

00:30:48.260 They murdered a lot of politicians in Mexico.

00:30:51.580 And good at it.

00:30:52.580 I mean, they take pride in it. 0.99

00:30:54.060 That's how they control it's like, we'll kill anybody. 0.97

00:30:56.020 We don't care who you are. 1.00

00:30:57.400 They kill politicians. 0.99

00:30:58.160 They kill judges. 0.99

00:30:59.020 They kill prosecutors. 0.99

00:30:59.900 They kill reporters.

00:31:01.080 I mean, just just it is lawless and terror.

00:31:05.180 And so, listen, I think we will get Mexico to cooperate because at the end of the day, the leverage that the president has is is so enormous.

00:31:14.020 And I also think, look, AMLO, the previous president of Mexico, was scared of Trump that.

00:31:20.160 I think he's got real credibility when he threatens to impose the tariffs.

00:31:24.060 You better believe he's willing to do that.

00:31:26.120 And and that, I think, really incentivizes Mexico to cooperate. 0.98

00:31:32.100 Now, listen, I think as the United States goes after the cartels, as we cut off their money, as we throw their leaders in prison, as we kill kill many of the cartel leaders.

00:31:42.720 I think you'll see the cartels being weakened and that over the next four years will make it easier for the Mexican government to fight back on them.

00:31:52.960 But Biden and the Democrats efforts have made the cartels much, much more dangerous.

00:31:59.100 No doubt about it.

00:31:59.700 Lastly, I want to get your thoughts on something that was said in Trump's first sit down interview that he did in the Oval Office.

00:32:08.140 He did it with our good friend Sean Hannity.

00:32:11.080 And he was asked about the pardons that Joe Biden gave out.

00:32:15.520 And he made a comment.

00:32:16.800 And I want to get your reaction to it about, hey, he may have messed up because he didn't pardon himself.

00:32:22.560 Take a listen.

00:32:23.580 He heard that I was going to do it.

00:32:25.000 I didn't want to do it.

00:32:26.320 I was given the option.

00:32:27.980 They said, sir, would you like to pardon everybody, including yourself?

00:32:31.320 I said, I'm not going to pardon anybody.

00:32:33.880 We didn't do anything wrong.

00:32:35.720 And we had people that suffered.

00:32:37.220 They're incredible patriots.

00:32:38.900 We had people that suffered.

00:32:41.380 You had Bannon put in jail.

00:32:43.580 You had Peter Navarro put in jail.

00:32:45.980 You had people that suffered.

00:32:49.300 And and far worse than that.

00:32:51.580 They've lost their fortunes.

00:32:53.400 They've lost their whatever their nest egg, paying it to lawyers.

00:32:56.880 And those people and people said, do you want and they don't even they wouldn't have even taken most of those people.

00:33:04.320 They wouldn't have even taken a pardon.

00:33:06.440 This guy went around giving everybody pardons.

00:33:08.360 And, you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing is he didn't give himself a pardon.

00:33:16.200 He didn't give himself a pardon.

00:33:19.880 Senator, I got to I got to ask you your take on that.

00:33:22.360 Is that is that a foreshadowing comment coming from from Donald Trump there?

00:33:27.800 Well, listen, it may well be.

00:33:30.320 And we've been been very clear.

00:33:33.200 We've talked a lot on on verdict about how the scandal with with Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family was never about Hunter being a, you know, guy who abuses drugs and has made a lot of wrong choices in life.

00:33:49.480 The scandal was always that the entire Biden family made millions of dollars selling favors from the big guy, selling favors from Joe Biden.

00:33:58.920 It was always about Joe Biden's corruption.

00:34:00.600 And we talked a lot about how the Biden DOJ were the tell in terms of whether they were being politicized on protecting Biden would be if they fought in the Hunter Biden investigation to protect Joe himself and to prevent any inquiry into his corruption.

00:34:19.920 If they kept it focused on the drug crime or the gun crime or even the the income tax crimes that were personal to Hunter rather than examining the corruption, that's exactly what they did.

00:34:32.480 And so I think that corruption needs to be investigated.

00:34:36.720 And I think we need to enforce the law fairly, regardless of party.

00:34:41.860 And I got to say, by the way, we predicted on this podcast when when we number one predicted the Hunter Biden pardon.

00:34:49.300 And in fact, I put the odds of the Hunter Biden pardon at 100 percent.

00:34:53.160 We even predicted the date.

00:34:54.420 I said it would be December of 2024.

00:34:56.140 It happened on December 1st of 2024.

00:34:58.580 But second, when that happened, we went on this podcast and predicted, said he's going to pardon the rest of his family.

00:35:05.880 Well, he did that on the very last day, moments before he left office.

00:35:10.020 He pardoned the rest of his family because they were all involved in the corruption.

00:35:13.500 They were all involved in selling favors. 0.52

00:35:15.320 And so right now, the only one with potential liability is Joe Biden himself.

00:35:19.820 And, you know, Trump's right that it's interesting he didn't pardon himself.

00:35:24.480 We'll we'll see if that has real consequences.

00:35:26.660 By the way, one of the results of all these pardons is that Congress can now subpoena the members of the Biden family and force them to answer questions under oath.

00:35:38.360 And they don't have a Fifth Amendment right to decline to answer.

00:35:41.420 Really? OK, so a lot of people know that, including me.

00:35:44.260 So explain that a little bit for everybody, because that is that is big news.

00:35:48.300 So the Fifth Amendment says that you can't be forced to testify against yourself.

00:35:53.420 Now, that only applies if you have criminal jeopardy, if you can be prosecuted.

00:35:58.700 Once you've been pardoned, you have no criminal jeopardy, which means you don't have the right to say I'm not going to answer that because I might incriminate myself in a crime.

00:36:07.000 Because if it's a federal crime, you can't be prosecuted for it, which means if you refuse to answer, you can be held in contempt and put in jail.

00:36:16.300 And so it it has changed.

00:36:21.440 I will be there's a very hold on.

00:36:23.080 There's a very real chance that members of the Biden crime family that were pardoned could be asked to come and testify in Congress and they would be forced to answer the questions for the reasons you just stated.

00:36:35.260 Yep. And if they don't, by the way, same is true about Fauci that, you know, you know, Biden pardoned Fauci.

00:36:42.360 That means Fauci doesn't have a Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions under oath.

00:36:47.120 I certainly hope that he's forced to answer those questions.

00:36:51.000 And I got to say. So hold on, hypothetically, you get Fauci in front of you, you start asking him questions and he just refuses to answer those questions.

00:36:58.400 Is that in contempt of Congress at that point?

00:37:01.720 Well, Congress has to vote to hold him in contempt for refusing to answer those questions.

00:37:05.320 And then the Department of Justice has to prosecute him.

00:37:08.400 I got to say, I think if Congress voted to hold him in contempt, I think DOJ would prosecute him.

00:37:12.980 And by the way, to be clear, the Biden Department of Justice, Trump mentioned putting Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro in prison.

00:37:19.040 They did that because they held them in contempt to Congress.

00:37:22.160 And that was even aside from from pleading the Fifth there.

00:37:26.400 They just refused to testify. They argued they asserted executive privilege and DOJ prosecuted them after Congress, after the House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress.

00:37:38.340 Incredible. All right. We've got a lot to watch now. Thanks for that.

00:37:42.140 This is why I love doing the show. We're glad that you're back.

00:37:44.580 We hope you make it home this weekend back to the fam and that Democrats don't hold these votes and ruin everybody's weekend with their family.

00:37:52.200 That's for sure. Don't forget, we do the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

00:37:55.160 We have a weekend review for things you may have missed on Saturday.

00:37:59.640 So make sure you grab that show. Also grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:38:03.520 I'll keep you up to date on those in-between days.

00:38:05.840 And the senator and I will see you back here for obviously what's going to be a very exciting show,

00:38:10.220 depending on what happens over the weekend on Monday morning.

00:38:13.940 This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.

00:38:17.300 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 24, 2025

Beating Dem Obstruction on Trump Cabinet Nominees, plus Border Executive Orders & Biden Pardons

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