00:04:19.920Can you imagine if Donald Trump would have had alias email, like burner email accounts that he used while he was the president or anyone at the White House at any level of importance?
00:04:30.740Well, listen, if you use a burner email, a fake email, if you use a burner phone, as it's now been reported Joe Biden did, the natural implication is you're trying to hide something.
00:05:10.660It's going to be very interesting, Senator, to see how this plays out, because we do know the House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who we had on a two part series here.
00:05:19.120If you missed it, go back and listen to what he had to say about the money coming into the family.
00:05:23.100But he has requested the archives hand over all documents and communications in which then Vice President Joe Biden used these names.
00:05:32.740You just mentioned Robert Peters, Robin Ware, J.R.B. Ware.
00:05:37.740The archives, he says, need to be transparent and provide these unredacted records to the GOP oversight.
00:05:44.580It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
00:05:46.760We're going to keep covering it for you.
00:05:48.280Senator, I also want to move on to something else.
00:05:50.460And I don't think people realize what a day in the life in Washington or a week in the life of Washington can look like when it comes time to vote on important legislation.
00:06:02.040There's a lot of it that happened recently.
00:06:06.320We didn't get to talk about as much as I think we should have.
00:06:09.060And I want to fix that right now because there were some big wins that you were leading on, legislation you were leading on for the people in Texas and in this country as well.
00:06:19.960Let's talk about how big these wins were right before recess.
00:06:25.520And I want to focus on on a single day.
00:06:27.840And that was Thursday, the last week of July, which is the last day the Senate was in session.
00:06:33.100We've been on recess for the for the past several weeks.
00:06:37.080And so I've been traveling across the state of Texas and doing events all over Texas.
00:06:41.400But the last day we were in session was the Thursday, the last week of July.
00:06:45.240And on that one day, I passed eight separate pieces of legislation.
00:06:52.560It was a big deal to pass eight pieces of legislation that there are a lot of members of the Senate that don't pass eight pieces of legislation.
00:07:01.680After years of serving in the Senate, and I passed eight in a single day.
00:07:05.980And so I just wanted to walk through that day to give a sense of what can be accomplished fighting for Texas in a single day.
00:07:12.320So two of them passed out of the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:07:16.200And as you know, I'm the ranking member, the senior Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee.
00:07:20.580And there were two different bills that I'd introduced, both of which passed the Senate Commerce Committee that day.
00:07:27.740And we've talked about that bill here on this podcast before, which is that eight automakers announced they were pulling AM radios off of brand new cars and trucks.
00:07:39.220It's terrible for a lot of reasons, including that it denies people disaster information in the case of a hurricane or a fire or tornado or some other natural disaster.
00:07:48.960It hurts rural Americans who rely on AM radio, and it hurts conservative speech in particular.
00:07:55.500It's an example of corporate America silencing one of the most important platforms for conservative speech.
00:08:02.680Well, I teamed up with Ed Markey, the single most liberal member of the Senate, in legislation called the AM radio for every vehicle act, which mandates that new cars and trucks include AM radio.
00:08:19.020And that legislation passed the Commerce Committee, passed it with overwhelming bipartisan support.
00:08:24.540So that was victory number one, a big deal that impacts you.
00:08:28.260You have a radio station, a radio show.
00:08:30.720It impacts all sorts of people on the radio, but it impacts up to 80 million Americans who listen to AM radio every single month.
00:12:58.080Senator, you mentioned that there was not just these two pieces of legislation,
00:13:02.600but more than that that happened on this single day.
00:13:05.460Walk us down, again, that path of what else happened.
00:13:08.680Well, sure. The first two passed the Commerce Committee.
00:13:11.280The remaining six pieces of legislation that I passed that day all passed the entire Senate,
00:13:16.980the full Senate, and all of them on that day, the last Thursday in July,
00:13:21.920we passed the National Defense Authorization Act,
00:13:24.440which is the big bill that passes every year that authorizes the Department of Defense
00:13:29.280and our military, and it's critical for ensuring that we can defend our nation.
00:13:33.740And it is considered must-pass legislation so that if you can author amendments that get attached to it,
00:13:39.980those amendments get passed into law and signed into law.
00:13:42.860I had six different amendments that passed on this year's NDAA.
00:13:46.840So one of the amendments I had was very focused on defense in the state of Texas,
00:13:51.680and it was ensuring that B-1 bomber wings remain in service for at least three more years,
00:13:58.800at least until 2026, until they're actually replaced by newer B-21 bombers.
00:14:05.120And this is critically important, number one, to preserve the U.S.'s long-range strike capabilities.
00:14:11.840But number two, many of those B-1 bomber wings are right now housed at Dias Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas.
00:14:19.880And we're in the process of replacing B-1 bombers with B-21s.
00:14:24.160B-21s are much more advanced bombers, but it takes time to produce the B-21s.
00:14:28.840And there's great concern, number one, in West Texas, that the B-1s will be taken down before they're replaced by the B-21s.
00:14:37.600And so there's been a battle year after year to make sure that we don't decommission the B-1s until we have B-21s in place to replace them.
00:14:46.520That battle's happened every year for a number of years, and I've managed to win temporary delays in it.
00:14:52.520This year we got a three-year freeze, which is critically important for ensuring our defense capability,
00:14:58.260but also for protecting West Texas and Dias Air Force Base.
00:15:04.900So a second amendment that also passed that day is legislation that I introduced that focused on what are called spy fridges,
00:15:13.120which is there are all sorts of impliances that you buy, whether they're refrigerators, whether they're microwaves,
00:15:19.440whether they're stoves or ovens, that are smart devices, and they have built-in cameras and or recorders.
00:15:29.780And often people don't know when you're buying a fridge, you don't think to ask,
00:15:34.260gosh, is my refrigerator recording me in my kitchen?
00:17:01.840We've talked a lot about Nord Stream 2, which is the pipeline that Putin was building from Russia to Germany.
00:17:07.620And I had an amendment that holds accountable the corrupt officials who are responsible for building and or maintaining Nord Stream 2.
00:17:18.020And so that passed on that Thursday as well.
00:17:20.920The second one focused on U.S. oil and in particular, our strategic petroleum reserve.
00:17:27.020And as you know, Joe Biden has sold down our strategic petroleum reserve to the lowest level it's been at in four decades.
00:17:36.100And the strategic petroleum reserve is there to protect our economy, to protect our national security, to ensure that we have energy in a time of crisis.
00:17:43.700And Joe Biden's used it to try to temporarily lower gas prices right before the last election to get a political benefit from it.
00:17:51.540And so I teamed up with Joe Manchin and authored legislation to prohibit the federal government from selling oil from the strategic petroleum reserve to China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, not to sell it to our enemies.
00:18:08.340And that is not a hypothetical threat because Joe Biden, in fact, sold over a million barrels of oil from the U.S.'s strategic petroleum reserve to communist China.
00:18:19.440And given that, I thought that was absurd.
00:18:22.700Joe Manchin and I teamed up together to pass this legislation, and that was the fourth piece of legislation on the Senate floor that passed on that Thursday.
00:18:30.420How concerned are you, real quick, on that piece of legislation that this administration is setting us up for a disaster?
00:18:38.360Our strategic oil reserves are at the lowest levels.
00:18:42.920I can't remember how many decades it is, and they're getting lower.
00:18:46.140Also, the shock that we've been allowing when we do release some of this oil for it to actually go to our adversaries is even more shocking, especially when some of it was connected directly to companies that apparently the Biden crime family had a vested interest in, a tanker that went straight to China.
00:19:02.700But when you look at this just from a standpoint of national security, there doesn't seem to be a course correction yet.
00:19:09.680Is there anything that you guys can do in Congress, in the Senate, to correct this?
00:19:14.860Or is this the sole discretion where those reserves are of the president?
00:19:20.060Well, when this legislation is signed into law, and I fully expect that it will be, it will take out of the president's hands the ability to sell that oil to our enemies, to sell it to China or Russia or Iran and North Korea.
00:19:32.140Again, those four countries are specified.
00:19:34.820And I'll tell you, previously, I went to the Senate floor and tried to pass this legislation as freestanding legislation.
00:19:41.300And Senate Democrats came down and objected at that time, and they countered with their own proposal to make it illegal for any American company to sell any oil or gas to any foreign nation, which is utterly bizarre, would destroy tens of thousands of jobs in the United States.
00:20:00.540And as I debated on the Senate floor and made the case, I said, look, one of the reasons why we shouldn't be selling oil to our enemies is we ought to be instead sending it to our friends and letting our friends come off of Russian oil.
00:20:14.460Well, there's a war waging in Ukraine, and Russia's getting its revenue from selling oil and gas.
00:20:19.120And I pointed out the Democrats take the proposition, let's not sell oil to our enemies, and they translate it to let's not sell oil to our friends, which is an utterly bizarre next step because it hurts U.S.
00:20:34.040And I got to say, when it comes to energy policy, this administration and congressional Democrats regularly hurt U.S.
00:20:41.600national security by making us more and more vulnerable to foreign players and by weakening the U.S.
00:20:47.700energy industry and, in fact, waging war on domestic oil and gas production.
00:20:52.400And so this legislation that passed was was a significant step to take away the Biden administration's ability to to undermine our security and in pursuit of their own political agenda.
00:21:05.060And it truly is, I think, scary that in Washington now you would even have to pass legislation that says, yeah, don't give our oil reserves to our enemies.
00:21:13.680This should be a no-brainer, but but at least for the Biden White House, not only is it not a no-brainer, it's directly contrary to what they've done, which is why this legislation was necessary.
00:21:27.080The last two pieces of legislation that I passed on that day are the two biggest, and they both have huge consequences, not just for the state of Texas and for the entire country.
00:21:37.920One deals with four bridges from Texas to Mexico, and we've talked about this at length on the pod as well, so I'll just quickly summarize.
00:21:47.140But there are four bridge projects right now pending in Texas to either build brand new bridges that go from Texas to Mexico or to expand existing bridges.
00:21:56.480And the way it works is to build any bridge in the United States requires what's called a NEPA environmental review, and that's standard U.S. law.
00:22:05.760But if you're building an international bridge, if you're crossing a border to another country, you are required to get a special permit from the president of the United States.
00:22:16.000And the way it used to operate is the president would grant that permit contingent upon the NEPA review being completed, and that expedited the whole process because it let you move through quickly.
00:22:27.620When Biden came into power, they announced they were reversing that process, and in particular, the president announced he would grant no permits whatsoever for new bridges across the international borders unless and until the NEPA review was entirely concluded.
00:22:44.880What that did is it delayed all four of these bridge projects substantially, potentially two, three, four years, and not only did it delay it that long, it potentially delayed it even longer because a number of the project sponsors were having difficulty getting financing because the banks didn't want to commit to financing until the presidential permit was granted, and because the Biden White House wouldn't grant the presidential permit, everything slowed down.
00:23:12.200This was stupid. This was stupid. This hurt Texas. It hurt America. And so I introduced legislation expediting the approval of these bridges and mandating in particular that once the legislation is signed, that Biden has 60 days, has a shot clock.
00:23:29.200He has 60 days to grant the permits, and if he doesn't grant the permits within 60 days, they're deemed automatically granted as a matter of law.
00:23:36.960That legislation, I got bipartisan support, and it was passed on the Senate floor as part of the NDAA. Ben, this has massive impact for jobs and economic growth in the state of Texas. Every year, we have over $800 billion of trade and commerce between Texas and Mexico.
00:23:58.360And by speeding up the construction of these bridges or the expansion of these bridges, that will result in thousands upon thousands of new jobs in Texas.
00:24:09.020That will result in billions of dollars of new economic activity, and it will benefit Texas farmers and ranchers and small businesses and manufacturers, and it will benefit consumers all across the country who will be able to get goods in their stores cheaper with less transportation costs with less delay.
00:24:25.760And it also benefits U.S. national security by helping us move more and more manufacturing out of China and closer home either to the United States or to our close neighbors, which improves our national security as well.
00:24:39.620And that was a massive victory that I had spent two years fighting to get, and we got it passed with overwhelming bipartisan support on the Senate floor.
00:24:48.420Why does something like that take two years to get the votes when it seems like it's such a common-sense piece of legislation that helps not just Texas, but so many other states and individuals?
00:25:01.200And it really seems like it's something that's non-political.
00:25:05.000It's not like it helps Republicans more than Democrats.
00:25:08.900Well, it does, and look, to this date, I can't figure out why the Biden administration adopted this policy.
00:25:18.740We've never been able to find a senior official who takes responsibility for it or defends it.
00:25:23.500And my theory is there's some bureaucrat, either in the bowels of the State Department or in the bowels of the White House, who is a little Green New Deal knucklehead and who just decided, nope, nope, we don't want anything built, nothing until all the environmental stuff is fully complete because it makes this knucklehead feel good.
00:25:42.380Now, ironically, the policy of the Biden administration, not only was it terrible for jobs, it was terrible for the environment.
00:25:49.560If you look at the World Trade Bridge, the World Trade Bridge is in Laredo, and it is the largest land port in the United States.
00:25:57.960It is a bridge on which there are massive, massive amounts of commerce traveling through there every day.
00:26:05.400On any given day on the Mexican side of the bridge, you will see a line of 18-wheelers that will extend 4, 5, 6 miles.
00:26:13.280And those 18-wheelers will sit there sometimes 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hours waiting to cross the bridge in a giant bottleneck.
00:26:21.420And by the way, when they're sitting there, they're spewing pollution in the air.
00:26:26.780It is terrible for the environment to force those 18-wheelers to sit there.
00:26:31.560And you also have a problem that when they sit there that long, the drivers can time out.
00:26:37.140There are limits on how long a driver can drive, and if they sit there in a bottleneck all day long, they then have to park overnight, and it extends the transportation time even more.
00:26:47.540The city of Laredo wants to expand the World Trade Bridge from 8 lanes.
00:26:54.880They want to add 10 additional lanes that would dramatically accelerate trade and commerce across that bridge.
00:27:02.140And yet, so when I first found out about this issue was a little over two years ago, and it was fairly early in the Biden administration.
00:27:09.520And it was when the city leaders from the city of Laredo came to meet with me in D.C., and they came to my office.
00:27:16.260And I regularly meet with leaders from cities all across the state of Texas and counties across Texas and business leaders across Texas.
00:27:23.920And this was a number of leaders from Laredo who raised this issue, said, gosh, the new Biden administration, they just switched their policy, and now they're not granting these permits.
00:27:33.240And that was the first I'd heard of it because it was a new issue with the new administration.
00:27:38.060And so the process, it started with me having my policy team say, okay, let's look into this.
00:27:42.640Let's figure out how do these permits work?
00:27:46.280And we started by just pressing informally, by making a call to the State Department, by making multiple calls to the State Department, by pressing, number one, mid-level bureaucrats and ultimately senior-level leaders at the State Department.
00:28:01.900That, unfortunately, did not create movement.
00:28:04.580I sat down with Pete Buttigieg, the Secretary of Transportation, in my office, and I leaned in hard on him.
00:28:11.180And I said, look, this is a stupid policy, and the administration is hurting the environment, hurting transportation.
00:28:17.400You need to press State to change what they're doing.
00:28:20.040Buttigieg said he would try to be helpful, and then, as far as I can tell, did not do anything.
00:28:25.680Or if he did anything, it didn't succeed because State did nothing to change their policy.
00:28:29.420The next step is I worked to try to build bipartisan consensus in the South Texas congressional delegation, and I wrote a letter to Secretary of State Tony Blinken.
00:28:42.820The letter was joined by John Cornyn, my colleague in the Senate from Texas, and then it was joined by Henry Cuellar, who was a Democrat from South Texas, Monica De La Cruz, who was a Republican from South Texas, Vicente Gonzalez, who was a Democrat from South Texas,
00:28:58.660and Tony Gonzalez, who was a Republican from South Texas.
00:29:01.980So we got all of the South Texas congressional delegation all to join my letter to Tony Blinken saying, this new policy is idiotic.
00:29:11.520It hurts Texas. It hurts America. You need to change it.
00:29:16.720And unfortunately, once again, the Biden administration basically said, go jump in a lake.
00:29:20.740They just stiff-armed us. They just did nothing.
00:29:22.920And this is a good one to go a little bit of a deeper dive because it actually shows how you fight and win battles in the U.S. Senate, and that I did several things.
00:29:33.740One of the things I did is I placed holds on multiple State Department nominees, and I said, they can't move forward until we get this bridge problem solved.
00:29:43.680That has a way of really focusing the mind of the senior leadership, both in the State Department and the White House.
00:29:50.860And so I'm a big believer in using both carrot and stick.
00:29:54.620The stick was, you don't get your nominees until you fix that problem.
00:29:59.040The carrot, because I'm the ranking member on the Commerce Committee,
00:30:03.740I have the ability to sign off or block legislation that is moving through the Commerce Committee.
00:30:09.220And one piece of legislation we're working on is the FAA reauthorization.
00:30:14.780There are lots of senators who care about different elements of the FAA reauthorization.
00:30:19.820And so some of my colleagues in the Foreign Relations Committee had amendments they cared deeply about that I worked to get included in that bill,
00:30:28.240which in turn, when I needed to move this bridge legislation on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
00:30:34.240they were more than willing to help me move it forward.
00:30:38.180Ultimately, to move it through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
00:30:41.720I had to get the chairman, Bob Menendez, to support me.
00:30:45.220And that took significant horse trading.
00:30:47.360It took ultimately getting the Biden State Department and the Biden White House to back down.
00:30:52.740We had an email exchange where the Biden State Department said, so let me get this straight.
00:30:58.160If we agree to go along with Cruz's legislation, he'll lift the holds on our nominees.
00:45:54.300Don't you think that's something that should be investigated when the incumbent political party opens a counterintelligence investigation on the candidate of the opposing party?
00:46:04.280We know Trump is itching to politicize the Justice Department and the attorney general has been super shady.
00:46:09.700The president is weaponizing the Department of Justice to bring cases against his enemies.
00:46:14.760The Department of Justice is in an existential crisis.
00:46:17.620Again, it's yet another example of the Justice Department basically losing all of its independence in this administration.
00:46:24.560This is now about corrupting the next election.
00:46:26.780And for me, this was crossing the red line.
00:46:28.840The president who is actively trying to potentially steal the upcoming election.
00:46:34.000But to try to take out a political rival.
00:48:53.300And the fact that that all of these useful idiots on on TV use that language, it shows that they actually understand what abuse of power looks like, what it means.
00:49:11.120It is only from their perspective, an abuse of power.
00:49:15.040If it's the side they don't like, even if the side they don't like isn't doing it.
00:49:19.480And it's a principle we've talked about quite a bit, which is what what the left accuses their opponents of doing is almost without exception what they are in fact doing themselves.
00:49:32.300And I got to say that is powerfully, powerfully true in that montage, because every single thing they falsely accused the Trump Department of Justice and the Trump FBI of doing is exactly what the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI has been doing.
00:49:49.180Yeah, make sure you take this podcast, share this with your family and friends so they can hear that montage, because it is so powerful.
00:49:56.220Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
00:50:09.180Also, listen to my podcast, the Ben Ferguson podcast on those days when we don't publish on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays, as I do a podcast every one of those days.
00:50:18.800So we'll keep you informed on the latest breaking news.