Verdict with Ted Cruz - Biden Accused of Witness Tampering, Garland Proud of Mar-a-Lago Raid, & What's Next for Trump on Campaign Trail Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.440 What an unbelievable week.

00:00:06.860 Welcome.

00:00:07.400 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, the week in review.

00:00:10.280 Ben Ferguson with you, and we've got some incredible stories

00:00:13.640 that you may have missed that we talked about.

00:00:16.380 First up, Joe Biden now being accused of witness tampering.

00:00:21.440 The senator and I talked about that as he went to go meet

00:00:24.560 one of the key witnesses in the case against his son.

00:00:27.700 What do they talk about, and what does it mean for the court case

00:00:31.680 that starts this coming week?

00:00:33.380 We'll deal with that.

00:00:34.600 Also, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, says he is proud of the Mar-a-Lago raid.

00:00:41.560 Will that come back to haunt him?

00:00:43.700 And finally, how will Donald Trump handle the felon rap

00:00:48.140 when it comes to the Democrats using it against him?

00:00:51.280 What is the strategy to fight back?

00:00:53.800 It's the week in review, and it starts right now.

00:00:56.740 Senator, I want to get to the other big case, and it is a very big case.

00:01:02.100 It is a case that apparently is so nerve-wracking in the White House,

00:01:06.840 it looks like the president could have been involved in witness tampering

00:01:10.840 ahead of the trial of his son, Hunter Biden.

00:01:13.900 Let's talk about that.

00:01:15.740 Yeah, that's right.

00:01:16.360 So this trial begins on Monday, June 3rd.

00:01:19.440 Hunter Biden is going to face a federal trial for his gun crimes.

00:01:24.300 And one of the key witnesses is going to be Hallie Biden.

00:01:30.160 Now, who is Hallie Biden? 1.00

00:01:32.180 Hallie Biden is the widow of Beau Biden, Hunter's older brother who tragically passed away of cancer,

00:01:39.640 and also the ex-girlfriend of Hunter Biden.

00:01:46.280 And Hallie Biden is expected to be a key witness.

00:01:49.500 And Sunday night, Joe Biden stopped by Hallie's house.

00:01:55.480 It was about 8 p.m. on Sunday night.

00:01:57.740 Joe Biden came by, and Hallie was dating Hunter at the time of the crimes.

00:02:03.780 And she's one of the expected witnesses.

00:02:06.560 She was married to Beau Biden.

00:02:08.180 He died in 2015 of brain cancer.

00:02:10.080 And the prosecutors allege that Hunter lied about his drug use on the gun purchase forms,

00:02:19.380 and then that he illegally possessed at least one gun,

00:02:23.240 which Hallie is alleged to have thrown in a public dumpster in 2018. 0.98

00:02:27.540 So she's the one who allegedly got rid of the evidence.

00:02:31.360 And so she's not just a witness.

00:02:34.620 She is a central witness in the case.

00:02:39.100 And the White House spokesman, when asked about, gosh,

00:02:42.540 why is Joe Biden visiting one of the key witnesses in the case against his son eight days before the trial,

00:02:50.300 they said, no, no, no.

00:02:51.560 He visited her because of the approaching ninth anniversary of Beau's passing.

00:02:56.020 Now, I've got to say, that strikes me as a highly dubious explanation.

00:03:06.760 It naturally raises the question, gosh, did he visit Hallie before the eighth anniversary,

00:03:14.800 before the seventh anniversary, the sixth, fifth, fourth, third, second, first?

00:03:19.000 And if he did, I'm unaware of it.

00:03:21.160 And you certainly would think the White House, if that was their line and he had visited her at any time previously,

00:03:27.740 you sure do think the White House would have pointed it out.

00:03:31.660 But they didn't.

00:03:33.300 And I've got to say, for the President of the United States,

00:03:37.360 listen, when the President travels, the President never travels quietly.

00:03:40.440 It's not subtle.

00:03:42.440 You come in with a motorcade, with Secret Service.

00:03:45.220 And so for him to go, it's brazen.

00:03:48.800 It is Joe Biden and the Biden family feels that they are not bound.

00:03:55.360 They behave as if they feel that they're not bound by criminal law, by any restrictions, that he's entitled to go.

00:04:03.300 And the natural presumption is that he had a conversation with her about what she was going to say when she testifies.

00:04:09.500 Yeah, right?

00:04:11.060 It would be important, hey, we want to know what you're going to say, or hey, here's what we need you to say.

00:04:16.420 If anyone else was in this scenario, what traditionally would happen before a trial if everyone found out about the same way we did,

00:04:26.480 regardless of an alibi?

00:04:27.840 If Trump would have done this, if I was on trial or you were on trial and we were going to meet with somebody

00:04:32.700 that's about to be a witness and testimony for a kid, like, what would happen?

00:04:35.700 Well, you would expect the judge to make an inquiry of why were you meeting with this person?

00:04:44.320 You would expect the prosecutor to make an inquiry as to why were you meeting with this witness?

00:04:50.100 Did you discuss what her testimony was going to be?

00:04:56.620 So witness tampering is attempting to improperly influence or change the testimony of a witness within criminal proceedings.

00:05:07.300 And we don't know that that happened, but the United States, a federal crime of witness tampering,

00:05:15.380 it's defined by statute, it's 18 U.S.C. section 1512, which is entitled, quote,

00:05:22.120 Tampering with a Witness Victim or an Informant, and it describes witness tampering as a crime,

00:05:30.500 even if the proceeding is not pending, and it is a criminal offense even if you are unsuccessful in your attempt to tamper.

00:05:39.940 In other words, if you try to convince the witness, hey, you know, it'd really help if you testified to X,

00:05:45.440 even though X isn't the case, the witness might not do what you said, but it is still witness tampering,

00:05:51.960 and that's a natural question.

00:05:53.860 Now, I'm quite confident the Department of Justice is not going to inquire of Joe Biden.

00:05:59.540 What conversation did you have with the witness?

00:06:01.580 They might ask her.

00:06:02.900 It is possible they ask her.

00:06:04.660 But I think there's no indication that the DOJ or the trial court is going to even ask what Joe Biden said to her.

00:06:15.820 Yeah, and the media was silent on this, excluding Fox News, which broke this story.

00:06:19.620 Here's how they reported it.

00:06:21.180 President Biden also made a surprise unannounced stop at Hallie Biden's house in Delaware last night.

00:06:27.880 She is Beau Biden's widow and Hunter Biden's ex-girlfriend, who is also set to testify in Hunter Biden's gun trial in Delaware that begins next week.

00:06:39.620 White House officials are saying this presidential visit to her house had nothing to do with that testimony.

00:06:44.860 They say it has to do with the upcoming ninth anniversary of Beau Biden's passing.

00:06:49.660 Jillian?

00:06:49.980 By the way, how often does the President of the United States of America make a surprise unannounced visit in and around Washington, D.C. in a massive motorcade?

00:06:59.880 That does not happen very often.

00:07:02.840 So, look, it is certainly possible.

00:07:06.460 Presidents do have family.

00:07:07.880 They visit their family.

00:07:08.940 So I don't know the frequency with which Joe Biden visits other members of the family.

00:07:15.220 And that presidents do that.

00:07:18.500 What they don't do with great frequency is do it right before you do it when you're meeting with a key witness who is about to testify in the trial against your son.

00:07:31.480 That that is a dramatically different context.

00:07:34.480 And it raises obvious questions, questions that the media seems completely uninterested in asking and that I expect the Biden Department of Justice is completely uninterested in asking.

00:07:45.920 I was asked this question the other day, and I hadn't actually thought about it yet.

00:07:50.040 And I was asked this question when I was on Fox and they said, if if Hunter Biden is convicted at either of these trials, will it have any impact on the presidential election?

00:08:00.060 My personal opinion, I said is instantly I was like, no, I don't think so.

00:08:05.380 I think most people know who Hunter Biden is.

00:08:08.400 They know he clearly has been trading off the family's name. 0.91

00:08:12.160 They know he's a drug.

00:08:13.900 He was a drug addict and did a lot of really bad things.

00:08:17.780 We've seen the laptop.

00:08:19.280 It's pretty darn clear.

00:08:21.400 Well, I don't believe it's going to make a difference.

00:08:23.600 And so in the presidential election, do you believe that it will or won't?

00:08:27.840 Yeah.

00:08:27.960 And there's a second trial that is set to begin in September.

00:08:31.660 It's in Los Angeles.

00:08:33.180 And it's for allegedly failing to pay more than one point four million dollars in federal taxes from 2016 to 2019.

00:08:40.940 So you'll have two different trials that are scheduled.

00:08:43.860 Listen, if the president's son is convicted and now remember, initially, DOJ tried to give him a sweetheart deal where he wouldn't go to jail.

00:08:51.920 And ultimately, that fell apart.

00:08:55.540 Hunter originally agreed to a probation-only deal to both the gun and tax crimes in June.

00:09:01.560 But he walked away from the sweetheart deal at a July court hearing where his attorneys demanded broad immunity of past conduct, of all past conduct, including violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father.

00:09:17.780 And so he walked away from a deal that would have gotten him largely scot-free, but it wasn't.

00:09:23.580 And remember, I think that the judge may well have signed off on that deal, but there was enormous public scrutiny on it.

00:09:31.180 And I think that the judge decided, no, we can't do this.

00:09:35.620 Well, and even then, he was going to admit he was guilty in that deal.

00:09:40.640 So there's also, it's been out there in the media, like, hey, he was going to get the deal.

00:09:45.180 He's admitting he was guilty of these two crimes, which in many ways enslaved his father.

00:09:49.460 So if he's convicted this time, I'm not sure with a lot of Democratic voters it'll matter.

00:09:55.020 Yeah, look, I don't think that Hunter Biden is guilty of gun crimes and tax evasions.

00:10:01.360 Any rational person knows that already.

00:10:04.680 That's kind of baked into the cake.

00:10:06.820 I agree with you.

00:10:08.040 It doesn't alter the election.

00:10:10.300 What this has always been about is protecting Joe and the relevance.

00:10:14.980 We've talked about this a lot, although it's been a while since we've talked about it on the podcast.

00:10:18.740 Look, Hunter Biden is not someone of public interest separate and apart from his father.

00:10:24.820 You know, he is a troubled soul who seems to have struggled his whole life, which is the entire White House defense, that he has substance abuse problems and he's just had a hard time.

00:10:35.740 And I have no reason to doubt that.

00:10:37.840 That surely seems to be the case.

00:10:40.220 But the reason it is a public import is that the evidence at this point keeps piling up that his entire business model was selling favors from his father was corruption.

00:10:52.920 The reason this matters is Joe Biden, not Hunter Biden.

00:10:56.960 And these two trials are designed to insulate and protect Joe Biden, not to bring him in at all.

00:11:04.360 And as long as Joe Biden is not directly implicated, I don't think Hunter's being convicted will have any material effect on the election.

00:11:15.680 Listen, if his son goes to jail, that may be a very difficult thing personally for Joe Biden and emotionally for Joe Biden.

00:11:24.360 But but but at the end of the day, the Biden DOJ succeeded in what I think its principal goal was, which is protecting the big guy and ensuring that there's no investigation into corruption by the sitting president.

00:11:37.500 Final question on this.

00:11:39.200 What is the possibility of pardons for Hunter Biden by his father?

00:11:43.720 Before the election, I think zero after the election.

00:11:50.140 I think if if if Trump wins, I would wager large sums of money before he leaves office.

00:11:56.140 Joe Biden pardons his son.

00:11:58.320 And there'd be no political fallout for him because he's not running for reelection again.

00:12:01.600 Yeah. Yeah. If he's leaving, it would be it would be a Bill Clinton midnight pardon special.

00:12:06.560 And I think particularly if if if he loses, it's almost a no brainer that Joe Biden would do it.

00:12:14.540 He might even do it if he wins.

00:12:16.080 But but but there it's a more costly decision because he'd pay a political price for it, even if he as he was starting a second term.

00:12:23.220 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:12:29.700 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.70

00:12:36.700 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:12:40.440 I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark.

00:12:42.580 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers all at different stages of their journey.

00:12:52.360 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:12:55.600 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:12:59.700 Now on to story number two.

00:13:03.840 Let's remind people of Merrick Garland's own words.

00:13:07.200 He was very proud of this raid in August of 2022.

00:13:12.480 He went out there, Justice Department, you know, insignia behind him, the Justice Department flag to his left, the American flag to his right.

00:13:22.840 And he told the world in a live report.

00:13:26.260 Everyone carried it.

00:13:27.520 This.

00:13:29.300 There are, however, certain points I want you to know.

00:13:33.760 First, I personally approve the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter.

00:13:40.660 Second, the department does not take such a decision lightly.

00:13:45.460 Clearly not, Senator, because they were planning for the use of deadly force to possibly be used.

00:13:50.760 So let me give a caveat defending this in a tiny respect.

00:13:55.940 And then let me take that caveat away.

00:13:58.120 The caveat I would give is is is this sort of authorization and authorization of use of deadly force is standard when the FBI is exercising a search warrant.

00:14:08.540 Look, if you're exercising a search warrant in any context, if you're going to a drug dealer's house or something else, there is a risk of armed resistance.

00:14:18.980 And so an authorization of deadly forces is typical with with a search warrant.

00:14:25.920 That's the caveat.

00:14:27.320 Now I'm going to take back every syllable of every word of what I just said. 0.99

00:14:31.340 Holy crap. 0.99

00:14:32.320 This was the president of the United States. 1.00

00:14:34.560 Are you out of your mind?

00:14:36.460 Like, like, like, like this is and for Merrick Garland to say, I personally approved it.

00:14:44.460 The absolute hubris of this administration.

00:14:48.900 Listen, Merrick Garland is drunk with power.

00:14:51.540 He believes he should be on the Supreme Court and he is engaged in a global revenge tour against everyone he thinks who wronged him.

00:14:59.820 But is there no judgment on the part of the attorney general?

00:15:05.460 Is there no judgment on the part of the deputy attorney general?

00:15:08.240 Is there no judgment on the part of any advisers anywhere at DOJ?

00:15:12.500 Is there no judgment on the part of the head of the FBI?

00:15:15.420 Is there no judgment on the on the part of anyone involved in this process to say, you know, this guy was the president of the United States?

00:15:24.260 Um, Secret Service is guarding him for a reason.

00:15:31.140 Yeah.

00:15:31.800 Maybe we should not be authorizing deadly force.

00:15:37.080 Like, can you imagine?

00:15:39.020 Listen.

00:15:40.200 Well, can I ask you this?

00:15:41.300 The chain of command, just for people to understand this.

00:15:44.140 Merrick Garland's over the FBI, but also isn't he over the Secret Service as well?

00:15:49.040 Is that not under his, the DOJ?

00:15:51.080 No, no, actually, Secret Service reports, so they're in different silos.

00:15:56.580 So, but wouldn't he be talking or realizing that he's setting them up for a war?

00:16:02.740 You know, I don't know.

00:16:05.180 And listen, it is difficult to imagine.

00:16:07.760 Look, who knows what happens?

00:16:09.900 But the idea that, okay, if Secret Service resists, you guys go.

00:16:15.000 Like, there is no sense, and this reminds me, back at the beginning of Crossfire Hurricane.

00:16:22.280 Crossfire Hurricane, you remember, was the DOJ and FBI targeting the Trump campaign back when he was a candidate.

00:16:28.580 They went after him, and they went in and wiretapped him, and they went after Carter Page,

00:16:32.740 and they created fraudulent documents that they used to get a warrant from the FISA court.

00:16:36.780 I mean, it was a grotesque abuse of power that the Department of Justice Inspector General detailed in very painstaking detail.

00:16:47.440 And the media gave cover because they said Donald Trump was crazy to imply that he was being spied on.

00:16:53.000 His campaign was being spied on. 1.00

00:16:54.280 They said he was a lunatic. 0.98

00:16:56.040 In fact, he was right the entire time. 0.97

00:16:57.620 He was exactly right.

00:16:58.340 But, look, when you go back to the launch of Crossfire Hurricane, part of the problem,

00:17:04.240 and this goes to DOJ during Obama when this all started, and FBI during Obama,

00:17:09.920 there were no adults in the room.

00:17:12.580 Listen, there are circumstances you can imagine where a criminal investigation, a search warrant,

00:17:19.920 a prosecution has to be authorized against a high-level government official.

00:17:24.440 But especially when that high-level official is in the opposing party,

00:17:29.340 especially when that high-level official is the leading candidate for the opposing party

00:17:35.920 and the likely opponent for the sitting president.

00:17:39.000 When you're going after your political opposition,

00:17:42.240 the threshold for anything should be extraordinarily high.

00:17:47.720 And it wasn't at all, based on some ridiculous, half-baked oppo research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign

00:17:59.200 that contained the notorious pee tape and all that nonsense, which has all been debunked. 0.87

00:18:04.820 We now know it was all made up.

00:18:06.540 But, look, when the Hillary Clinton campaign pays over a million bucks to make up oppo research, 1.00

00:18:11.020 they come up with some creative stuff.

00:18:12.740 When you look at this, this is going to be, and it has to be, I would assume, a major campaign issue,

00:18:19.640 especially in the presidential campaign.

00:18:21.800 I can't imagine this not coming up with the presidential debates.

00:18:25.020 But there also seems to be panic right now in response to this.

00:18:30.100 Jim Comey went on MSNBC and said this.

00:18:35.640 Take a listen.

00:18:36.220 Are you concerned that it may get a test unlike any other if Donald Trump is re-elected?

00:18:42.980 I mean, when you think about a second Trump administration,

00:18:45.540 what do you think the implications would be for the FBI?

00:18:48.660 Oh, serious.

00:18:50.020 For the Justice Department and the FBI, because Trump is coming for those institutions.

00:18:54.560 He knows their power, and I think he has regrets that he didn't work hard enough to corrupt them last time.

00:18:59.260 So he's coming for them, and that's a danger for all Americans. 0.97

00:19:03.060 He's going to put people in positions in those organizations.

00:19:06.220 He didn't have all-stars the last time.

00:19:08.260 He'll have the bottom of the barrel this time.

00:19:10.060 But people who will want to do his will, and that should worry every American.

00:19:14.280 This election matters because of a reason like that.

00:19:17.480 People have to participate.

00:19:19.560 You cannot sit on the sideline.

00:19:21.660 I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden.

00:19:23.400 You must vote for him because the consequences on the other side are too severe.

00:19:27.720 I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden.

00:19:29.860 You must vote for him.

00:19:30.840 That's the former FBI director saying that, Senator.

00:19:32.960 Well, and when he talks about corrupting the FBI, I will say, you know, listen, I would admit Jim Comey as an expert witness in any trial on the planet on corrupting the FBI because he was front and center.

00:19:44.920 He did exactly that.

00:19:46.360 He was the point person behind weaponizing the FBI.

00:19:49.800 Jim Comey is someone who fancies himself, I believe, to be J. Edgar Hoover.

00:19:53.900 He had delusions of power.

00:19:55.080 It is one of the gravest mistakes of the first term of the Trump presidency that Trump did not fire Jim Comey on January 20th, 2017.

00:20:07.460 The first day in office, he should have said, thank you for your service to the nation.

00:20:10.760 Your services are no longer needed.

00:20:12.200 Nobody would have blinked.

00:20:13.220 But the White House foolishly thought they could get Comey to be part of the administration, to do his job, to not be a disloyal, power-hungry snake.

00:20:25.660 And they were wrong.

00:20:27.940 He's continuing to do that.

00:20:29.680 And, by the way, let's understand there's an enormous amount of CYA in Comey in that he's very afraid, if they have accountability at the FBI, that his personal rear end is in the sling.

00:20:41.840 And so that's – he's like, please, please, please make sure you put people in power that cover up for me and that continue the corruption of the FBI and continue weaponizing it to attack their enemies because that's what I did and I don't want to be held for account.

00:20:54.060 That's among the most self-interested testimony I've ever heard.

00:20:57.640 Final question on this, now knowing what we know about the raid, is it warranted and justifiable if Donald Trump is elected again for him to go in and thoroughly clean house in these institutions?

00:21:14.540 Warranted, justifiable, and incredibly necessary.

00:21:18.420 What has happened is we have hardcore partisans who have corrupted these institutions from the inside.

00:21:25.780 They occupy senior positions in the career bureaucracy.

00:21:30.360 And if Trump is reelected, and I hope and pray that he is, he needs to appoint serious, strong leaders at DOJ, at the FBI, and the rest of the alphabet soup of the administration to understand what they're doing, who have the seriousness of purpose to go in and clean them out.

00:21:47.200 Because we need to restore the institution.

00:21:49.380 Listen, there are some Republicans, some conservatives that say things like abolish the FBI.

00:21:56.180 I'm not in that camp.

00:21:58.120 Why?

00:21:58.700 Because the FBI is enormously important.

00:22:01.920 The FBI does hugely important things like finding and catching terrorists and stopping them from killing Americans.

00:22:08.160 It does hugely important things like finding kidnappers and child predators and going after the mafia and mobsters and going after Mexican drug cartels.

00:22:17.660 Like, all of that is really damn important.

00:22:20.660 And I don't want to blow that up.

00:22:23.420 What I want to do is restore the integrity of the FBI and the DOJ by getting the partisans out of office who have corrupted it.

00:22:32.160 As you know, Chris Wray, the current director of the FBI, I've known for 25 years.

00:22:37.540 Chris, interestingly, Chris is not a liberal.

00:22:40.940 He's a Republican.

00:22:41.960 He still considers himself a Republican to this day.

00:22:45.140 Chris's problem, I believe, is that he is a company man.

00:22:47.760 Now, look, Donald Trump put him in that position.

00:22:49.440 He appointed him to that position.

00:22:51.600 Chris is a company man.

00:22:53.080 And he is he and I have had screaming arguments on this where he believes it is his job as administrator of the FBI, director of the FBI to to defend the career leaders at the FBI.

00:23:05.540 And I've told him, Chris, you are not defending the institution of the FBI if you support people who are corrupting it and destroying its integrity.

00:23:13.420 What does it tell you that half of America doesn't trust the institution anymore because you've been so politicized and he has proven utterly incapable of seeing it and even less capable of taking it on and stopping?

00:23:27.640 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:23:36.880 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.70

00:23:43.060 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:23:47.080 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:23:48.180 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:23:49.400 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:23:58.900 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:24:02.140 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:24:07.880 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:24:11.920 You've been in a lot of debates, Senator, and you've been on the presidential debate stage.

00:24:18.220 You've debated Donald Trump.

00:24:20.140 But I and I one of my things that I love is debate prep.

00:24:24.760 And I was putting myself in the room tonight mentally.

00:24:28.860 All right.

00:24:29.260 If I'm in the room before the debate with Joe Biden, I know Joe Biden at some point is going to look over at Donald Trump and say, well, you're a convicted felon.

00:24:38.280 How does Trump respond to that?

00:24:42.900 And that's I mean, that's a pretty hardcore line that they have been obsessed with and they've got it now.

00:24:51.380 How do you overcome that when there's people watching that I'm sure are going to watch this thing and maybe just engage the very first time weren't watching the trial, don't understand how corrupt it was, don't understand how these charges shouldn't have ever been used, how they changed things to get rid of the statute of limitations, how the federal government didn't bring these charges eight years ago for a reason.

00:25:13.100 I mean, all of that they missed and they look at a president sitting president, look at Donald Trump, you're a convicted felon.

00:25:20.860 What do you do with that?

00:25:24.140 Well, look, I think the Biden debate prep team is going to spend a lot of time trying to convince Biden and try to help Biden not to seem like a smug SOP.

00:25:35.440 His instinct is going to be smug and sanctimonious and to rub Trump's face, Trump's face in it.

00:25:42.660 I think that is a bad look for Biden if he does it.

00:25:45.620 My prediction is they'll fail, by the way, that Biden can't resist being smug and sanctimonious on this.

00:25:51.660 I think he probably just will.

00:25:53.320 But if his debate prep team is any good, they will try to get him to resist that.

00:26:00.420 On Trump's side, on this whole topic, and more broadly on everything in the debate, I think they're going to try to stop Trump from just being volcanically angry.

00:26:13.600 Look, Trump typically engages in very little debate prep.

00:26:18.520 He is not.

00:26:19.180 You're right.

00:26:19.560 I have debated Trump many, many, many times.

00:26:21.900 He doesn't engage in extensive debate prep.

00:26:25.840 To the extent they have debate prep, I think the team around him, if they're any good, likely will try to get him to be calm and matter of fact and not angry and combative.

00:26:38.540 If you go back and look at the 2020 debates, the first debate, Trump was angry and combative.

00:26:44.500 And many observers believe that that hurt Trump because he was too angry and combative in the debate.

00:26:51.080 I think that will be an instinct here.

00:26:53.080 And Trump has reason to be pissed.

00:26:55.000 Look, he was just railroaded.

00:26:56.420 He was railroaded by a kangaroo court.

00:26:59.360 Any natural person, any person's natural reaction would be pissed.

00:27:03.960 And Trump is not someone who generally hides his emotions.

00:27:06.940 You know, I'm reminded of back in 2000.

00:27:12.420 So we were talking about Bush versus Gore earlier in the pod.

00:27:15.600 After Bush won, after the Supreme Court resolved the case and after he came in, he appointed his attorney general, John Ashcroft.

00:27:23.100 And I was part of the team that prepared John Ashcroft for his confirmation hearings.

00:27:29.460 And so we mooted John Ashcroft multiple times for his confirmation hearings as attorney general.

00:27:35.700 And, you know, I'm a young, at this point, 30-year-old lawyer, and there were several of us in the room,

00:27:43.080 but we would try to get obnoxious with Ashcroft in the preparation for confirmation.

00:27:48.760 We'd try to piss him off.

00:27:49.880 We'd try to insult him.

00:27:50.980 And in the prep sessions, he would blow his top.

00:27:54.700 He'd yell at us.

00:27:55.560 He'd get mad.

00:27:56.980 And we were asking obnoxious questions.

00:28:00.040 And he would scream at us.

00:28:01.760 And then we'd say, OK, Senator, because he was Senator at the time, we'd say, Senator, I get what you're saying.

00:28:06.760 You're right.

00:28:07.500 That was a totally unfair question.

00:28:09.860 It was completely wrong.

00:28:11.520 You were perfectly justified yelling at us.

00:28:14.340 Here's the problem.

00:28:15.980 They don't have the votes to defeat you right now. 1.00

00:28:18.760 The only way they defeat your confirmation is if they provoke you to say something stupid at the hearing. 1.00

00:28:27.680 And what you say tanks your nomination. 0.99

00:28:31.620 And so we worked with him.

00:28:33.040 We said, OK, yell at us.

00:28:34.180 Get all of your anger out at us.

00:28:36.000 But when you get in the hearing, don't yell at the senators.

00:28:41.980 Give them nothing because they have nothing to defeat you.

00:28:45.380 And they can only win as if you give it to them.

00:28:48.280 So you fast forward to the hearing. 0.99

00:28:49.820 And you had Democrat senators that just made fools of themselves. 0.97

00:28:55.300 I remember Ted Kennedy at one point leaning forward. 0.93

00:28:59.140 He was reading something Ashcroft has read about the Second Amendment.

00:29:02.860 And he talked about the Second Amendment being, as the framers, as James Madison and other framers wrote about it, a check on tyranny.

00:29:11.000 And Ted Kennedy in his Boston Brahmin voice goes, tyranny in the United States?

00:29:18.360 What?

00:29:18.840 You know what that is?

00:29:19.980 That is treason.

00:29:21.040 I tell you, treason.

00:29:22.200 And John Ashcroft, to his credit, he had Ted Kennedy screaming at him and calling him a traitor.

00:29:32.080 And John Ashcroft said, Senator, if confirmed as attorney general, I will follow the law.

00:29:38.360 And I don't know that his heartbeat got about 65.

00:29:41.760 And he got confirmed.

00:29:42.680 You know John Ashcroft well.

00:29:43.900 You and here are good friends.

00:29:45.400 Yeah, he's one of my mentors.

00:29:48.340 Yes.

00:29:48.680 His confirmation hearing, he didn't take the bait.

00:29:53.780 I promise you, in the prep sessions, he did.

00:29:56.640 It got it out of his system.

00:29:58.620 I think the Trump debate prep sessions will be similar.

00:30:02.460 They will try to get that out of his system.

00:30:04.840 I don't know if it will succeed or not.

00:30:07.040 Final question for you on this, and it deals with the presidency and Joe Biden.

00:30:13.380 I don't know how you can separate what this judge did from the corruption of the Biden White House.

00:30:23.740 We know the attorneys that left the DOJ to go work on this case.

00:30:28.160 We know that Alvin Bragg ran on this.

00:30:30.420 We know he raised money off of it.

00:30:32.120 We know that this judge has, as a daughter, that's heavily involved in fundraising in the Democratic Party.

00:30:39.340 And this all was orchestrated from the Biden administration down.

00:30:46.360 They're trying to act like now they're separate from it.

00:30:49.560 Like, this is, we stood back.

00:30:51.200 We were just watching the wills of justice and a man be found accountable by a jury of his peers.

00:31:00.060 That is clearly going to be their line.

00:31:02.840 But make no mistake, none of this would have happened without the direction of Biden.

00:31:09.840 I said today, America has its own Vladimir Putin now.

00:31:14.440 His name is Biden.

00:31:16.100 Joe Biden is America's Putin right now, going after his political opponent and trying to lock them up.

00:31:22.080 You know, in law, if you look at something like antitrust law, there's a concept in law called conscious parallelism,

00:31:30.120 which is people that all have similar incentives behaving similarly, but it's not a conspiracy.

00:31:37.780 They just all are acting according to the same incentives.

00:31:40.820 I don't know that Alvin Bragg is taking orders from the Biden White House.

00:31:48.060 I agree that Joe Biden has been dictatorial.

00:31:51.640 He's abused his power.

00:31:53.160 But I think Alvin Bragg is a petty dictator of his own.

00:31:57.200 He's a George Soros DA.

00:31:58.780 He ran on getting Joe Biden.

00:32:01.400 You know, when his was the first indictment, I think a lot of Democrats were kind of sheepish.

00:32:06.120 They said, OK, this one is really sketchy.

00:32:08.580 They didn't want this to be the lead case.

00:32:11.620 And look, ultimately, the Biden DOJ, they sent the number three lawyer at DOJ,

00:32:18.540 who had been a Democrat donor before and a Democrat consultant, they sent him to be part of the trial team.

00:32:23.960 So the Biden DOJ got in bed with this partisan prosecution.

00:32:28.560 But I'm not convinced that Alvin Bragg did so at the direction of the White House. 0.96

00:32:33.300 I just think he hates Trump's guts.

00:32:36.460 So does everyone in the Biden DOJ, Biden White House.

00:32:40.180 So does Fannie Willis down in Georgia.

00:32:43.160 So does just about every wild-eyed partisan Democrat.

00:32:47.060 And so I wouldn't say it is as much a direction from the White House as that they're all suffering from the same Trump derangement syndrome,

00:32:57.580 where they're willing to burn it all down, to destroy the rule of law, to abuse the justice system because they hate Trump so much.

00:33:07.800 And they've convinced themselves if he is reelected, if he's president, it's the end of democracy.

00:33:13.980 I mean, we played on Wednesday's pod, Robert De Niro, going on and on.

00:33:18.560 That'll be the last election ever if Trump is elected, which is just, it's deranged. 0.92

00:33:22.860 It's unhinged.

00:33:24.360 But I don't think De Niro is lying in that I think he believes every word he says.

00:33:29.380 I suspect Alvin Bragg does, too.

00:33:31.160 And I suspect the Biden White House and DOJ does as well.

00:33:35.140 Final question.

00:33:36.260 You're a poll guy.

00:33:37.300 I love polls.

00:33:38.160 I want your prediction.

00:33:39.820 The first major polls that come out after this verdict has obviously come down,

00:33:46.620 will they show that Donald Trump starts to lose momentum?

00:33:52.300 Do you think he'll go backwards in the polls nationally or in swing states?

00:33:56.660 Do you think this could even backfire more?

00:33:59.980 Because you did say, and I agreed with you, that if they indict him to make him more powerful,

00:34:04.580 his poll numbers would go up.

00:34:06.100 That happened.

00:34:07.060 When the court case started, you said it's going to make people solidify their support behind Donald Trump.

00:34:11.920 But now that he has the, he's a convicted felon around his neck, and that will be what happens in the polls.

00:34:19.480 So when the indictment first came down, the first indictment, I said on this podcast,

00:34:24.260 this indictment will be worth 10 points for Donald Trump in the polls.

00:34:29.280 Now, that's in the primaries.

00:34:30.800 A week later, Trump was up 10.

00:34:32.580 That prediction proved exactly accurate. 0.97

00:34:35.400 Now, to be fair, that's a primary poll.

00:34:38.100 Primary polls are different than general election polls.

00:34:40.460 And so it caused Republicans to rally around Trump, even some Republicans who were not supporting Trump at that time.

00:34:47.460 The general election, it's a little harder.

00:34:49.360 I think most of the views on both sides are baked in.

00:34:53.220 But if you force me to make a prediction, my prediction right now is Trump.

00:34:57.320 I think it is mildly beneficial for Trump at the polls.

00:35:01.900 I don't think it is majorly, because I think most of the people on both sides are baked in.

00:35:07.400 And it almost doesn't matter at this point.

00:35:10.000 They're not moving.

00:35:10.820 But if you press me, I would say I don't think it's going to cause Trump in the polls.

00:35:17.100 And I would say I think it's likely to be a mild, positive benefit for Trump in the polls.

00:35:24.240 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:35:30.140 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:35:33.800 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:35:37.060 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:35:40.900 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:35:44.460 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:35:47.340 Guaranteed human.

00:35:48.000 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 01, 2024

Biden Accused of Witness Tampering, Garland Proud of Mar-a-Lago Raid, & What's Next for Trump on Campaign Trail Week In Review

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