Verdict with Ted Cruz - October 22, 2025


Biden DOJ Subpoenaed MY Phone Records, Spied on 20% of GOP Senators, plus Lunch w Trump in the Rose Garden


Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

186.95044

Word count

7,569

Sentence count

607

Harmful content

Misogyny

6

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergus Ferguson break down the latest in the Biden DOJ spying scandal and explain why it's a nakedly political action. They also talk about the fact that eight other Republican senators have also been subpoenaed for their cell phone records.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.600 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.340 Welcome.
00:00:06.040 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.500 And Senator, we've got to break some news here.
00:00:12.280 Apparently, I was spied on because I texted you during a period when you were spied on,
00:00:18.740 which means I was spied on.
00:00:20.480 I feel like my name should be in this a little bit here.
00:00:23.640 We thought it would happen.
00:00:25.080 It came out.
00:00:26.020 It's real.
00:00:27.280 Congratulations.
00:00:27.720 They really wanted to see what you were texting, and I think they're going to be highly disappointed.
00:00:32.500 I'm not going to lie.
00:00:33.880 Look, I think my texts are pretty damn amusing, and I'm sorry you have no sense of humor.
00:00:39.460 I need to text you more about when Ole Miss doesn't win a football game.
00:00:44.640 But you're right.
00:00:46.300 The news broke.
00:00:47.460 The news broke in the last couple of days that the Biden Department of Justice, Jack Smith,
00:00:53.320 issued a subpoena spying on me, trying to get information about my cell phone, about communications
00:01:01.080 I was having, about voicemails, about text, all the information they could from my subpoena.
00:01:06.840 That now makes nine Republican senators that the Biden DOJ issued subpoenas and tried to get their
00:01:14.620 cell phone records.
00:01:15.360 We're going to break that down.
00:01:16.180 We're going to talk about what an extraordinary abuse of power this is, what a nakedly political
00:01:21.760 action it is.
00:01:23.580 We're going to break all that down for you.
00:01:25.380 We're also going to talk about, I spent about two hours with President Trump at the Oval
00:01:30.580 Office today at the White House.
00:01:32.880 He invited all the Republican senators to have lunch with him.
00:01:35.760 We're going to talk to you about everything that went on and what's going on.
00:01:39.200 And by the way, the Democrats losing their minds because President Trump is paying to
00:01:45.480 improve the White House and to make some really significant additions to the White House.
00:01:51.180 And apparently that for the Democrats is unspeakably horrible.
00:01:55.540 Yeah, it really is incredible.
00:01:57.080 All right.
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00:03:54.320 All right, Senator, so let's start with the big news.
00:03:57.780 Where were you when you found out that you were spied on as part of Jack Smith's investigation
00:04:03.120 into Donald Trump?
00:04:05.020 This clearly is a fishing expedition.
00:04:07.800 And what were you told?
00:04:09.180 Have you been briefed on this, or are you just getting the same intel we are from reading
00:04:12.760 it in the news?
00:04:13.340 So I found out about this last week, last Thursday.
00:04:17.500 I got the information.
00:04:18.580 And let's back up a couple of weeks ago.
00:04:20.100 A couple of weeks ago, the news broke that Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the Biden DOJ that
00:04:26.800 was going after January 6th, that was going after President Trump, had subpoenaed eight
00:04:32.680 senators and one Republican House member and had gotten their cell phone records.
00:04:36.880 And the eight senators who had been subpoenaed were Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Bill Hagerty,
00:04:43.080 Josh Hawley, Cynthia Lummis, Lindsey Graham, Dan Sullivan, and Tommy Tuberville.
00:04:48.520 And then Mike Kelly, a Republican House member from Pennsylvania, was also subpoenaed.
00:04:53.580 All nine of them had their cell phone records handed over to the Biden Department of Justice.
00:04:58.600 Now, I got to admit, just over a week ago, Sean Hannity was in town and I had dinner with
00:05:04.820 Sean and with several of the senators on that list as well.
00:05:11.240 And I was laughing with Sean.
00:05:13.480 I was saying, I'm actually kind of offended.
00:05:15.680 Like, how did I get lift out of this list?
00:05:17.900 Like, what did I have to do?
00:05:19.840 You know, I was literally standing on the Senate floor on January 6th, objecting and leading
00:05:27.580 the fight.
00:05:28.120 And I had brought together 11 senators to stand together in fighting for an election commission
00:05:34.560 to assess the evidence of voter fraud and including many of the senators who were subpoenaed
00:05:41.120 were in the group that I'd brought together.
00:05:42.900 So I was joking with Sean, but I wasn't entirely joking.
00:05:45.780 Well, it turns out the reason I was not on the list is apparently all eight of those
00:05:50.400 senators, their cell phones are with Verizon.
00:05:53.840 And the evidence had come out that Verizon had handed over their cell phone information.
00:05:58.660 Well, my cell phone is with AT&T.
00:06:01.080 And I didn't know it at the time, but I found out late last week that Jack Smith sent a subpoena
00:06:07.380 at AT&T demanding my cell phone records.
00:06:11.600 And AT&T told him to go jump on a lake.
00:06:13.380 AT&T did not give my cell phone records.
00:06:18.500 I really, look, AT&T is based in Texas.
00:06:20.980 I'm proud of them.
00:06:21.700 They did the right thing.
00:06:22.600 I appreciate that.
00:06:24.880 And they assessed it.
00:06:27.440 They had a subpoena from Jack Smith.
00:06:29.340 By the way, the subpoena called for, quote, detailed records for inbound and outbound calls,
00:06:37.840 text messages, direct connect and voicemail messages, among other things.
00:06:44.280 So they were seeking that.
00:06:45.800 There was an also an order from Judge Boesberg, who was, you know, this left wing judge has
00:06:51.720 been presiding against over much of the litigation against against Trump, had an order from Judge
00:06:58.460 Boesberg ordering AT&T, you cannot disclose to Cruz that we're seeking his cell phone information
00:07:05.720 for a year.
00:07:06.380 Isn't that amazing, by the way?
00:07:07.860 Are you sitting in the United States center?
00:07:09.180 Don't tell him.
00:07:09.900 We don't want him to know.
00:07:11.460 Yes.
00:07:12.280 And so AT&T examined it.
00:07:14.840 And they actually, they came to the conclusion.
00:07:17.100 Now, the way it works.
00:07:18.640 So the subpoena just comes and they get a cell phone number.
00:07:22.640 So the Biden DOJ didn't identify who they were seeking.
00:07:27.680 And by the way, look, the telecom companies, typically, if they get a subpoena for phone
00:07:33.200 records on a number, they typically hand it over because it's usually a drug dealer, a
00:07:37.620 criminal.
00:07:38.040 You have a subpoena that's issued from a grand jury.
00:07:40.140 So they will routinely, in a criminal proceeding, hand over.
00:07:46.360 Well, it so happened that AT&T, even though they just asked for the number, they looked
00:07:50.700 and realized whose number it was.
00:07:53.180 And they talked with their legal team.
00:07:57.180 And they said, listen, what Cruz is saying is, and any member of Congress, what they're
00:08:02.620 saying is protected by the speech and debate clause of the Constitution.
00:08:06.360 The Constitution protects the ability of senators and House members to engage in debate, to do
00:08:13.680 our jobs.
00:08:14.480 Now, Article I of the Constitution vests all legislative power in the Congress.
00:08:21.420 And in fact, you know, on January 6, it was very literally speech and debate.
00:08:26.180 As I said, I was standing on the Senate floor giving a speech and raising an objection.
00:08:31.120 So it's literally the heart of what one does as an elected member of Congress.
00:08:35.880 And so AT&T concluded, listen, we're not going to comply.
00:08:42.100 As I said, I'm grateful for AT&T doing that.
00:08:45.040 But that now makes it nine senators that we know of and one House member.
00:08:49.560 So I'm guessing there might be other senators that were also at AT&T.
00:08:52.520 And they probably said, no, we're not going to do that either.
00:08:54.420 Right.
00:08:54.620 It would be Verizon just caved instantly and said, sure, here's everybody you're asking
00:08:58.460 for.
00:08:59.040 There could be easily, I would say, another four or five, six others.
00:09:02.400 Who knows how many outside the Senate, right, that they could have asked for, that they could
00:09:06.240 have said no to as well.
00:09:07.320 And I would assume there was a lot of people on AT&T.
00:09:09.600 Well, and look, the Biden DOJ also went after the Republican Attorney General's Association.
00:09:17.120 It went after Turning Point USA.
00:09:19.440 This was a massive fishing expedition.
00:09:23.240 And this was a political persecution.
00:09:26.020 Understand, Jack Smith was appointed special counsel to investigate and prosecute January
00:09:30.740 6th, three days after Donald Trump announced his campaign for reelection in 2024.
00:09:38.340 Literally three days later.
00:09:40.280 So it was 2022.
00:09:41.760 So it was two years after January 6th.
00:09:44.000 They had not appointed anyone.
00:09:45.080 And yet suddenly when Trump announces his campaign, they rushed to appoint Jack Smith
00:09:49.620 to say, go after Donald Trump because we want to stop the voters from voting for him.
00:09:55.620 Sure.
00:09:55.880 But nine senators, that is 20% of the Republicans in the United States Senate.
00:10:01.240 And I got to say, for the executive branch to engage in wholesale spying on their political
00:10:10.480 opponents and spying with, let's be clear, none of us engaged in criminal conduct.
00:10:17.120 None of us can engage in anything remotely criminal, arguably criminal.
00:10:21.140 This was political persecution.
00:10:23.140 This was snooping.
00:10:24.220 This is hoping someone said something.
00:10:27.160 So here's what I was going to ask you.
00:10:28.520 What were they hoping to find, right?
00:10:30.680 You go fishing.
00:10:32.220 And what is the smoking gun in that scenario?
00:10:34.680 They were just, hey, we'll just go after all these conservatives and maybe we get lucky.
00:10:40.760 Look, I don't know what they were hoping to find.
00:10:43.280 But they were asking for the cell phone records from January 4th to January 7th.
00:10:49.200 So all surrounding January 6th, I assume they were looking for some modicum of coordination
00:10:55.900 with those who engage in active violence on that day.
00:11:01.600 Part of their theory was the alternate electors that were being sent from various states.
00:11:07.080 So I assume they were looking for some modicum of coordination there.
00:11:11.140 But this was a political prosecution because they did not have evidence.
00:11:16.580 And so they said, well, let's go through their cell phone records and see if we can find something. 0.90
00:11:22.060 And by the way, who knows if somebody had sent something stupid via text, had a voicemail, had, you know,
00:11:29.740 I mean, people, when you go through someone's emails, when you go through someone's cell phones, 0.96
00:11:35.460 when prosecutors go looking for a crime, the nature of a fishing expedition is let's go look around.
00:11:44.780 You know, there's a book that was written decades ago that's called Three Felonies a Day.
00:11:51.140 And it talks about how the average American commits three felonies a day.
00:11:55.060 That in our regulatory state, things are so complicated, things are so mired in complexity that you can violate,
00:12:02.620 you know, you step on a wetland in your backyard.
00:12:05.240 And, you know, there's an old line that a prosecutor can indict a ham sandwich.
00:12:12.920 Yeah.
00:12:13.100 That a prosecutor goes in front of a grand jury.
00:12:15.540 When a prosecutor goes in front of a grand jury, you know, there's no defense attorney there.
00:12:19.160 It's just the prosecutor and members of the grand jury.
00:12:21.840 And so I don't know what they were looking for.
00:12:24.360 I think they were looking for anything that could stick because this was a political prosecution.
00:12:29.580 Let me ask you this.
00:12:31.640 And so, Ben, I just want to say I'm really grateful they did not find the pictures you sent of me of you in a pink tutu
00:12:40.700 because I just think that it's not criminal.
00:12:43.920 All the Ivy League jokes that I send you about the Ivy League snobs.
00:12:47.520 I mean, Jack Smith probably ended up going to one of those places.
00:12:50.200 That could have been very bad for me.
00:12:51.820 I, you know, it would have been, and I got to say, just the typos and misspellings that you have in your text,
00:13:01.800 that alone would have been a little bit embarrassing, too.
00:13:04.960 So I'm glad none of that came out.
00:13:06.480 The good news is they're very hard to decipher if it's in front of, you know, Congress.
00:13:11.320 Like, it's what was Ben really trying to say.
00:13:13.360 And I'm like, you're welcome.
00:13:14.620 I will tell you, Ben, I talked to AT&T today and I said,
00:13:18.760 look, you guys ought to start a marketing campaign and shift to AT&T.
00:13:22.380 We'll protect your stuff.
00:13:24.080 Like, kudos to them.
00:13:26.060 Yeah, we don't turn over your stuff like Verizon.
00:13:26.960 Look, I don't have a good answer to that, but I did.
00:13:31.740 And I didn't know about this until just a few days ago.
00:13:34.300 So this was when the first news broke.
00:13:37.400 Like, I was joking that I felt excluded, but it wasn't entirely a joke.
00:13:41.240 And then I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense.
00:13:43.680 And here we are.
00:13:45.400 Being able to protect my family is so important to me.
00:13:48.840 And it's one of the things that I want you to know
00:13:51.100 about how you can help protect your family as well
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00:14:34.020 from a play date just down the street from their house
00:14:36.360 when he noticed two unleashed pit bulls running down an alley,
00:14:40.000 aggressively charging right at them.
00:14:41.960 He quickly lifted his daughter over a fence of a yard to put her in a safe place 0.68
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00:14:53.320 Kyle fired five rounds of the two pit bulls,
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00:14:59.220 The dogs stopped in their tracks.
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00:15:21.220 So many people ask me that type of question.
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00:15:24.380 I get to ask that all the time.
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00:15:27.740 One, he may not be in an area where he could carry a gun.
00:15:30.440 Depending on the laws of your state,
00:15:32.180 it may limit where you can and can't carry a gun.
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00:15:37.280 Nobody wants to kill anybody but dogs either.
00:15:39.540 If we can use a lower level of force to affect a safe getaway for us and everyone else,
00:15:44.840 man, that's the way to do it, and that's exactly what happened here.
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00:16:08.540 All right, final question on this.
00:16:10.780 What is going to be the response from Congress?
00:16:14.580 Will there be any to this?
00:16:16.040 Or is this just old administration abuse of power?
00:16:19.040 It is what it is.
00:16:19.940 We're going to move on.
00:16:21.020 Or is there going to be a way to make sure, like,
00:16:22.900 we have standards that this is not allowed to happen
00:16:25.200 and that people are held accountable for this?
00:16:27.820 Look, I think we're going to see hearings.
00:16:29.260 I think we've got hearings coming in the House.
00:16:33.140 I think we'll see hearings in the Senate.
00:16:34.980 I will tell you the nine of us who were targeted,
00:16:37.580 we're talking to each other because we want to prevent this.
00:16:40.440 We want to prevent a subsequent DOJ from doing this,
00:16:44.320 from spying on their political opponents,
00:16:46.740 particularly in Congress.
00:16:48.520 The executive doesn't have the ability to go engage in spying
00:16:52.460 on members of the opposing party in Congress.
00:16:55.920 That is an abuse of power.
00:16:57.580 It is politicization and this entire effort.
00:17:06.020 So this prosecution was called Arctic Frost,
00:17:09.900 and I think this is going to be the water gate of the Biden DOJ.
00:17:13.940 I think it is a demonstration that Jack Smith
00:17:17.320 was a partisan prosecutor who was drunk on power.
00:17:22.100 And I don't believe Jack Smith made this decision on his own.
00:17:26.460 I think the decision-making goes all the way up.
00:17:28.920 I think it goes up to the attorney general.
00:17:30.520 I think it goes up to the White House.
00:17:32.400 And so I expect, number one, some real investigation
00:17:35.560 and hopefully transparency in terms of who approved,
00:17:39.100 let's go spy on members of Congress.
00:17:41.320 And that I think we're going to work to have some real transparency on.
00:17:46.960 And I think we're going to look at real and concrete steps we can take
00:17:50.380 to make sure this never happens again because this kind of abuse.
00:17:53.300 Is there part of you that just thinks like maybe this has just been going on
00:17:57.380 and never really stopped after the famous FBI director that had files on everybody
00:18:04.360 and people said, well, we won't have that again after Jagger.
00:18:08.800 And now it's like they're just like wild west.
00:18:12.860 You can do whatever the hell you want to if you're a Democrat and you're in charge.
00:18:15.440 Like we can spy on the president.
00:18:16.600 We can spy on the campaigns.
00:18:18.040 We can go after people in the situation room and entrap them.
00:18:20.980 We can try to go after their business associates and their kids
00:18:23.600 and get them to turn against them.
00:18:25.080 Like Eric Trump was talking about that on our show the other day.
00:18:27.520 If you miss that show, people should go back and listen to it.
00:18:29.600 He's like they were literally trying to turn Donald Trump's own children against him,
00:18:34.260 threatening that your life's going to be over and you're going to be in jail.
00:18:36.580 So you better get a get out of jail free card.
00:18:39.020 And now it's like, yeah, and we were also spying on senators.
00:18:41.440 I'm assuming some congressmen will come out.
00:18:43.440 Like who knows who's there?
00:18:45.380 I mean, Charlie Kirk said recently before his assassination,
00:18:50.060 it came out that he said during the campaign,
00:18:52.540 we either win the campaign or I may go to jail.
00:18:55.300 I actually believe now witnessing what we've seen,
00:18:59.060 that that's not far off from reality at all.
00:19:01.620 Look, the left was willing to weaponize the Department of Justice and the FBI.
00:19:07.480 As you know, I wrote an entire book entitled Justice Corrupted,
00:19:10.520 How the Left Has Weaponized Our Legal System.
00:19:12.720 And it talked about it actually started with Richard Nixon.
00:19:15.420 Richard Nixon tried to do that.
00:19:17.220 And you look at some of the some of the harebrained schemes
00:19:20.580 that the Nixon Justice Department came up with,
00:19:23.060 including creating underground stings to get people on film taking drugs
00:19:32.200 and with prostitutes to use to essentially blackmail them
00:19:35.260 and to go after their political opponents. 0.88
00:19:37.340 I mean, it was grotesque abuse of power.
00:19:40.460 And when that came to light, we actually saw an improvement.
00:19:44.180 And there were a couple of decades where I think this receded and occurred far less.
00:19:49.160 And then what Richard Nixon tried to do to the justice system,
00:19:54.860 Barack Obama succeeded in doing.
00:19:56.880 He came in as this almost messiah figure.
00:20:01.500 And DOJ, Eric Holder is his attorney general.
00:20:05.220 You had Lois Lerner at the IRS.
00:20:07.700 They began targeting their political opponents,
00:20:10.440 targeting anyone that they disagreed with and also protecting their friends.
00:20:15.380 During the Trump administration, the first term, they went underground,
00:20:18.300 but they waged war on the president.
00:20:21.100 These are the people that created fraudulent documents,
00:20:23.920 submitted to the FISA court in order to in order to try to go after President Trump.
00:20:28.680 They wanted to reverse the results of the 2016 election
00:20:32.800 because they were furious that the American people elected Trump.
00:20:35.660 And then during Biden, they were open.
00:20:37.860 They were flagrant.
00:20:38.720 They were out in the open and they were they were abusing their power.
00:20:41.460 And I think they felt that the ends justified the means and and and anything was was acceptable.
00:20:49.060 And and so I think we need to take real steps.
00:20:52.100 Do I think this has been going on forever and ever?
00:20:54.380 I don't.
00:20:54.940 I certainly hope not.
00:20:55.860 I'm not aware that it has.
00:20:57.060 Because there is there there's ancient history,
00:21:01.140 but it took really, I think, under Biden to to make it just as as viciously partisan as it became.
00:21:09.240 Yes.
00:21:09.920 Yeah.
00:21:10.380 It wills came off and no one cared about the rules anymore.
00:21:12.960 Clearly, it's it's incredible.
00:21:14.440 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.70
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00:21:27.700 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women,
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00:21:40.200 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcast.
00:21:44.440 All right.
00:21:46.780 So let's go to something else that is obviously big.
00:21:49.520 You were at the White House meeting with the president.
00:21:53.140 You guys were asked to come over and check out the construction site that the left is losing their minds over right now.
00:21:59.260 But by the way, can we just talk about that for a second before we get the government shut down?
00:22:02.800 This is hysterical.
00:22:04.440 There have been multiple presidents that, by the way, have done different things to the White House.
00:22:09.100 The majority of the time, it's actually paid for by taxpayers.
00:22:12.100 This time, this is being paid for by Trump and donors.
00:22:17.020 So it's not costing taxpayers a dime.
00:22:19.320 It's a huge improvement to the White House that every future president will be able to use.
00:22:23.840 I love that.
00:22:25.060 And yet the lies that are out there is that Donald Trump is like destroying the White House.
00:22:29.080 And he's gone rogue and he's destroying America's house and it's going to cost you money while the government shut down.
00:22:34.300 Like there's there's there's tons of Democrats out there putting it out there going, oh, so the government shut down.
00:22:38.860 But Donald Trump's paying money on this, implying that like this government shutdown doesn't involve his plans. 0.95
00:22:44.520 Yeah, because it's private money, you liars.
00:22:46.560 So you were there, you saw it, and I'm sure it came up.
00:22:50.380 Yeah.
00:22:50.640 So so we President Trump invited all the Republican senators to come over and and we came and joined him.
00:22:59.600 We had lunch with him.
00:23:00.840 He served cheeseburgers and French fries.
00:23:02.900 I got to say, the cheeseburgers were really good.
00:23:04.380 There was actually a rumor he was going to serve McDonald's.
00:23:07.160 I was going to say, was it McDonald's?
00:23:08.680 Because he did that before when there was a shutdown.
00:23:10.300 Yeah, look, there was a rumor that he was going to serve McDonald's, and I think it is at or near the anniversary of when he went to work at a McDonald's restaurant, which was one of the classic moments of the campaign last year.
00:23:21.340 Yeah.
00:23:22.920 And so he did not serve McDonald's.
00:23:25.180 They were I think the White House chef made the they were good cheeseburgers.
00:23:28.360 They were actually they were quite good.
00:23:30.760 And he was in as good a mood as I've ever seen him.
00:23:34.260 He was just happy.
00:23:35.640 So we met in the Rose Garden and the Rose Garden, it's right off the Oval Office.
00:23:40.840 And it is surrounded by rose bushes.
00:23:43.320 And it used to be like the ground was just just a lawn and it was just grass.
00:23:48.000 Yeah.
00:23:48.200 And it's actually the president talked about this quite a bit.
00:23:50.560 And you can actually watch it on TV.
00:23:51.900 He was on TV and the cameras were there as he was talking.
00:23:54.680 But he's a builder.
00:23:55.700 He he's excited about this, that there was a joy as he was talking about this project.
00:24:00.340 And he said, look, the Rose Garden, the problem was it was grass.
00:24:03.900 When it rained, it would get muddy.
00:24:05.420 You do events here and you're trudging through the mud and the grass.
00:24:08.480 He said, you know, women, I've been there for this. 0.99
00:24:11.160 Yeah.
00:24:11.280 Women, women would be there in expensive high heels. 1.00
00:24:13.800 The high heels would be sinking into the mud.
00:24:15.680 They'd ruin their shoes.
00:24:16.700 They would get upset.
00:24:17.720 And so what he did is is he built a patio instead.
00:24:20.460 So he did not you know, I was told not a single rose was killed.
00:24:24.520 The rose bushes are all there.
00:24:25.960 But instead of the grass in the middle, he built a white marble patio that that is matching the stone on the White House itself.
00:24:35.740 So it's so it's very much it's the same color.
00:24:37.760 It's the same thing.
00:24:39.600 It clearly ties in aesthetically.
00:24:41.800 And it's actually beautifully done.
00:24:43.920 Like, I was impressed and like, for example, around the patio, there are a series of drains and the way they built it.
00:24:53.180 The drains are an American flag where they have, oh, I don't know, probably an eight by eight, ten by ten marble square that is the stars.
00:25:00.720 And then they have the same size marble squares that is a series of horizontal slits that are the drains.
00:25:08.480 But they have them alternating.
00:25:10.640 So it's clearly American flags surrounding it all.
00:25:13.560 That's cool.
00:25:14.540 And it's really elegant.
00:25:16.200 It's it's very well done.
00:25:18.040 And it gives a place to to go and sit.
00:25:21.380 And it was it was a today was a beautiful fall day.
00:25:23.860 So it was a great day to gather.
00:25:26.300 And then the president is also building a ballroom.
00:25:29.560 You know, it's amazing.
00:25:31.400 The White House does not have a ballroom.
00:25:33.280 Correct.
00:25:33.940 The biggest room in the White House is the East Room.
00:25:36.340 Yeah.
00:25:36.540 But the East Room is not that big.
00:25:38.480 Like if you're doing a seated dinner there, you can get maybe 80 people there.
00:25:43.680 I mean, I've been in there for dinner.
00:25:45.240 It is.
00:25:45.660 I mean, it's like it's tight.
00:25:47.280 Like there's not a lot of room to mingle, much less dance.
00:25:50.960 And I don't think if you've never been to the White House, I do think this is something that people I think they think it's a lot bigger than it really is.
00:25:58.840 It's really not that big.
00:26:00.680 When you go in the West Wing, for example, it's extremely tight.
00:26:03.820 The offices are tiny for the senior staff, even the chief of staff, the White House press office.
00:26:10.200 Every office is extremely it's like a closet with a door.
00:26:13.300 That's the best way I can describe it.
00:26:14.700 Yeah.
00:26:14.800 The East Wing, by the way, and one of my dear friends worked for Laura Bush in her office.
00:26:19.340 So I was over there a lot and actually go see the dogs.
00:26:22.280 And so that they always had the dogs in the East Wing.
00:26:24.340 So like if you want a break just to get away, we would go over there and you'd give a treat, play the dog, throw the throw the ball outside on the White House lawn.
00:26:30.160 But it was also very tiny because it was not built for what our government is today, even the size of staff.
00:26:37.640 Like the White House, the First Lady staff was nothing in the First Lady's role was nothing compared to what it is in 2025. 1.00
00:26:42.940 So when they're like, we're going to expand this out in the East Side, it's like that makes sense.
00:26:46.840 Like this should have probably been done 30 years ago.
00:26:49.040 And there's a whole history of presidents going back more than a century of making additions to the White House, adding the West Wing, adding the Oval Office, adding the second floor, adding an indoor swimming pool.
00:27:01.260 And then Richard Dixon filled the indoor swimming pool.
00:27:03.720 It was actually very funny.
00:27:04.400 The bowling alley.
00:27:05.380 Yeah.
00:27:06.040 Look, look.
00:27:07.140 By the way, hold on.
00:27:08.120 Go back to the swimming pool story.
00:27:09.920 That's a good one.
00:27:10.840 Yeah.
00:27:11.080 So Trump was telling the swimming pool story.
00:27:13.760 He said, you know, when JFK was president, Jackie would come by and she'd say, wait, am I here?
00:27:18.500 Because this was an indoor swimming pool.
00:27:20.360 Yeah.
00:27:20.540 And Jackie's like, am I hearing women?
00:27:22.120 And Trump was saying, the Secret Service said, no, no, ma'am.
00:27:24.540 No, no, no.
00:27:24.940 There are no women in there. 1.00
00:27:26.060 You have to move on.
00:27:27.380 And, you know, it was a very funny like riff.
00:27:31.980 And then when Nixon came in, he filled up the swimming pool and turned it into the press briefing room.
00:27:40.440 Yeah.
00:27:40.640 And so that's where the, you know, the White House press briefings are today is they're literally standing on top of what used to be the indoor swimming pool.
00:27:48.500 Those previous, many of those previous revisions used taxpayer money.
00:27:52.520 Trump is not using taxpayer money.
00:27:54.200 The building the patio was not done.
00:27:57.380 The American flag he just put up, the two big American flags he's put up is a great example of that.
00:28:01.760 And the ballroom, the project is expected to be over $200 million.
00:28:06.960 It's going to be a beautiful ballroom.
00:28:09.060 They're building it.
00:28:10.120 They're talking about it being able to seat six, seven hundred people.
00:28:14.360 And by the way, every subsequent president will use that.
00:28:17.220 If you're doing a state dinner, if you're doing a gathering, the ability to host a larger gathering is a very useful thing for a president to be able to do, regardless of your party.
00:28:27.400 I mean, it will be a real and material improvement to the White House.
00:28:31.360 And I got to say, just listening to the president talk about it, he's so proud of he likes building things.
00:28:37.200 I mean, I mean, this goes back to his roots like this is this is him at a core.
00:28:42.260 Well, and then so we had a lunch and he was talking about the shutdown.
00:28:45.060 He was talking about everything that's going on.
00:28:47.720 And then afterwards, he said, OK, and I want to ask all you guys, come on into the Oval Office with me and join me in the Oval.
00:28:53.160 So we had, you know, there were 50 plus of us there.
00:28:55.920 So we all came into the Oval, which is not that big.
00:28:57.980 And we crowded around.
00:28:59.680 And Trump took us back to what he calls the Monica Lewinsky Room.
00:29:03.900 Yes.
00:29:04.620 It's not complicated to figure out why he calls that the Monica Lewinsky Room.
00:29:08.300 It's now the great gift shop that you cannot buy anything in.
00:29:11.780 You're only gifted it directly from the president.
00:29:14.080 So it's the room where Bill Clinton was alone and, shall we say, stained the blue dress with Monica. 0.59
00:29:23.920 I have to admit, I love how you say, shall we say.
00:29:26.880 I like that.
00:29:27.400 That was nice.
00:29:28.000 I have to admit, I was I was tempted to suggest to President Trump that he actually put up a sign naming it the Monica Lewinsky Room.
00:29:34.100 But but but I haven't yet.
00:29:36.160 I might suggest that to him because I actually think there's a good chance he did.
00:29:39.300 By the way, he created the Hall of Presidents along the Rose Garden where he has a photograph or of every president.
00:29:48.260 He starts with Washington.
00:29:50.120 He's either a photograph or a painting of every president going up to 45 and 47, obviously both him.
00:29:56.340 And in between 46, instead of a picture of Joe Biden, he has a picture of the auto pen, which is just hysterical.
00:30:01.800 Like it's just it's that's the presidential picture along the Rose Garden is the auto pen, because that's that's who who was president for four years.
00:30:10.700 So he invites us all into the Oval and and he's and then he takes everyone into the and the Monica Lewinsky Room is not very big.
00:30:18.140 No, it's tiny.
00:30:19.440 It's a closet by 10 feet.
00:30:20.900 I mean, I mean, it's it's a little office right off the Oval.
00:30:24.280 So it's down in like a really short hallway and it's to the left.
00:30:27.860 And as he's basically put a gift shop there and he has all sorts of bling.
00:30:33.960 All right.
00:30:34.180 So if you're watching the video, here's one of the blings. 0.99
00:30:37.280 That's something that he gave me when I was there.
00:30:40.040 And like it's he's got it's all this kind of stuff.
00:30:42.900 And it's like and then he and then I always like this one because he always like he's like, Ben, he goes, give it.
00:30:47.520 Make sure you get your kids taken care of.
00:30:49.180 So the presidential M&Ms, he'll have those in there.
00:30:51.880 The best part is the M&M on the back.
00:30:53.160 That's what my kids love the most.
00:30:54.860 This is just random tokens on my desk here.
00:30:56.900 By the way, the kids, if you you know that they don't care that much because the M&Ms are gone.
00:31:01.000 They're like, we're going to eat those.
00:31:02.100 Yeah.
00:31:02.240 I'm like, all right, you might want to save the box.
00:31:04.380 So so and he's got tons of hats.
00:31:06.500 He's got MAGA hats.
00:31:08.040 He's got Trump 2028, which he was laughing.
00:31:11.180 He says this drives the press crazy.
00:31:13.840 They just lose their mind when it when I have Trump 2028.
00:31:18.380 He had cuff links and he had and he told every senator, take whatever you want, like just grab whatever you want.
00:31:25.000 It's all it's all free.
00:31:26.320 He's paying for it all.
00:31:27.660 And so like I got, there's a very cool golf towel that they had that I just got me one.
00:31:32.000 Thank you.
00:31:32.860 Way to look out for your co-host here.
00:31:34.720 I appreciate you getting me a golf towel because you don't play golf.
00:31:38.320 That means a lot.
00:31:39.160 That means a whole lot.
00:31:40.320 It is a beautiful golf towel.
00:31:42.080 It has the presidential seal.
00:31:43.340 What a nice guy you are.
00:31:43.900 It has Donald Trump's signature.
00:31:46.320 It's gorgeous.
00:31:48.040 By the way, I just want the audience to be clear.
00:31:49.840 He did not commit that that golf towel is for me.
00:31:52.060 Keep going.
00:31:52.680 OK, let's be clear.
00:31:53.580 You know the answer to that.
00:31:56.760 But what is funny.
00:31:58.940 And so Trump said, hey, grab whatever you want.
00:32:00.620 He said, I'll sign whatever you want.
00:32:02.880 And he sat there for 30 minutes at the Resolute desk just signing stuff.
00:32:08.300 Yeah.
00:32:08.440 And what was funny, he was laughing.
00:32:10.900 He made this joke, but he's true. 1.00
00:32:12.240 He said, it's amazing.
00:32:13.360 You have like some stuff in the gift shop and suddenly senators turn into five-year-old kids.
00:32:19.140 I mean, we're literally lined up and being like, oh, that looks cool.
00:32:22.760 I'm going to grab like people were grabbing.
00:32:25.140 He's got his Pro V1 golf balls he's very proud of with the presidential seal on there.
00:32:28.640 He signed one of those for one of my boys.
00:32:30.200 And his cufflinks, by the way, are truly incredible.
00:32:33.220 You've got a pair, right?
00:32:34.660 I do.
00:32:35.460 Yeah.
00:32:35.620 I mean, they're nice.
00:32:36.740 And he's got like challenge coins he's made that are about this big.
00:32:41.340 I mean, they're probably three inches in diameter.
00:32:43.460 They're really cool.
00:32:44.900 And I have two on my desk, but I will confess.
00:32:47.100 So he keeps the challenge coins on the Resolute desk right there.
00:32:50.060 I will confess.
00:32:51.020 I snagged two of those because I'm going to give one to each of my daughters.
00:32:53.880 I figured that would be kind of a cool, you know, cool thing to bring back home.
00:32:58.400 I want to take a moment and just talk to you real quick about an incredible opportunity
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00:35:22.460 Senator, one more question on the Senator's meeting today.
00:35:26.160 Serious question.
00:35:27.500 And that is, give us a real update on where we are with the shutdown.
00:35:31.580 We had the No Kings rally.
00:35:32.900 I think your prediction and mine are going to be spot on.
00:35:36.140 We're going to see some movement probably in the next five, six, seven days.
00:35:40.320 That's my gut.
00:35:41.180 You know more.
00:35:41.880 You were there today.
00:35:43.240 What is the temperature and where are we?
00:35:45.720 So, look, it's hard to say.
00:35:47.020 We keep voting.
00:35:47.800 I think we voted 11 or 12 times to reopen the government.
00:35:51.180 The Republicans are voting to reopen the government.
00:35:53.060 I voted over and over and over again to reopen the government.
00:35:56.200 And the Democrats are voting party line to keep the government shut down.
00:35:59.580 We have had, to date, only three Democrats have voted to reopen the government.
00:36:04.380 Everyone else has voted no.
00:36:05.760 Now, the reason that matters is in order to pass legislation funding the government,
00:36:10.660 you need 60 votes in the Senate under the Senate rules.
00:36:13.180 If you can't get 60 votes, you can't pass it.
00:36:15.280 We only have 53 Republicans.
00:36:17.940 That means we need at least seven Democrats.
00:36:20.180 If we're getting three Democrats, we don't have the votes.
00:36:23.160 Now, at some point that is going to change.
00:36:26.420 What's interesting is it's not just the radical left.
00:36:30.080 It's not just the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens who are voting to shut the government down.
00:36:33.840 It's not just Chuck Schumer, who's terrified of being primaried by AOC.
00:36:37.720 It's everybody else.
00:36:39.420 It's people who are claiming that they're moderates that are voting to shut the government down.
00:36:44.180 John Ossoff, who is the most vulnerable Democrat in the Senate.
00:36:48.520 He's running in Georgia next year.
00:36:51.640 John Ossoff has voted 11 times to keep the government shut down.
00:36:54.980 It's very clear, even though Georgia is a purple state, even though there are a lot of people
00:37:01.300 who are not happy, by no stretch of the imagination is Georgia a radical left state.
00:37:08.040 And yet it's clear Ossoff is more afraid of the radicals at the No Kings rallies than he is
00:37:13.620 of just ordinary people living in Georgia.
00:37:17.460 You know, Mark Kelly, who says he calls himself a moderate, he keeps voting to keep the government
00:37:22.740 shut down. In order for this to change, what you're ultimately going to see is seven, eight,
00:37:28.720 nine Democrats. I think mostly retiring Democrats who are no longer going to face the voters who are
00:37:34.540 not worried about being primaried.
00:37:36.540 Bingo.
00:37:37.120 At some point, they're going to say enough is enough.
00:37:40.320 Let's reopen the government.
00:37:41.700 But I don't know if it's a day or two.
00:37:44.440 I don't know if it's a week or two.
00:37:46.060 I don't know.
00:37:46.620 Look, we're having discussions that things could be shut down, you know, through Thanksgiving.
00:37:53.400 One of the challenges is we're so tribalized and divided right now that I think the Democrats
00:37:59.560 are listening to an echo chamber of the radical base.
00:38:03.020 Yeah.
00:38:03.240 And the radical base is happy with the shutdown.
00:38:05.640 So they want to burn it down.
00:38:07.600 They want this country to fall.
00:38:08.880 They want there to be a demise of our government, especially when they're not in charge of it.
00:38:13.180 If they're not in charge of it, they want to burn it down.
00:38:14.840 And listen, on Friday, I went to Hobby Airport in Houston and I did a press conference there.
00:38:21.540 And I pointed out that right now there are 50,000 TSA agents who are going into work who
00:38:27.020 are not getting paid.
00:38:28.500 Right now there are 14,000 air traffic controllers who are going into work, but they're not getting
00:38:34.300 paid.
00:38:34.700 And what we're seeing is more and more delays.
00:38:37.640 We're seeing flight cancellations.
00:38:39.120 Hobby just today had a ground stop because they said a shortage of personnel, air traffic controllers.
00:38:44.840 Yep.
00:38:45.540 And the Democrats, they don't care.
00:38:48.520 They're perfectly happy.
00:38:50.180 One Democrat told Politico, said, we'll keep it shut down, quote, until planes start falling
00:38:56.760 out of the sky.
00:38:58.140 Like, that's how radicalized they are.
00:39:02.480 And they don't care about the government workers.
00:39:05.820 They're mad at Trump for paying the troops.
00:39:08.760 Yeah.
00:39:09.440 And so, look, I think at some point sanity will prevail and they'll allow the lights to
00:39:15.560 be turned on.
00:39:16.560 I'll tell you what I've advised the president.
00:39:19.420 You know, the president referred to Russ Vogt, who's the head of OMB, the Office of Management
00:39:23.360 and Budget.
00:39:23.900 And he laughingly called Russ Darth Vader.
00:39:26.400 He said the Democrats are terrified because Russ is using the shutdown to permanently lay
00:39:32.500 off left-wing bureaucrats who are advancing programs and priorities that the Democrats
00:39:37.940 care about that are inconsistent with the president's agenda.
00:39:40.840 I think that's one of the keys to ending this shutdown is continuing to do that.
00:39:45.300 And so making it painful to the radical left because they're losing their influence.
00:39:52.300 Yes. 0.79
00:39:53.240 And so this will end at some point, but honest answer, Ben, damned if I know when.
00:39:59.400 Interesting.
00:40:00.060 Don't forget, we'll cover it all here.
00:40:01.560 We do this show three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
00:40:04.060 A lot of them we do on video, so also subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:40:09.560 Hit that subscribe or auto-download button so you don't miss an episode.
00:40:13.040 We'll keep you updated on what's happening with a government shutdown.
00:40:15.580 You'll know about it probably before a lot of others will because you get insider information.
00:40:20.380 That's why I love doing this show.
00:40:21.640 And the center, I will see you back here on Friday morning.
00:40:25.580 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:40:28.460 Guaranteed human.