Biden Goes to War w⧸ Texas, China Donates to Penn Biden Center, & The Hard Road of a Presidential Campaign Week In Review
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Summary
Ted Cruz breaks down the Supreme Court ruling allowing the Border Patrol to resume removing the razor wire along the southern border. Also, China is donating massive amounts of money to the Biden Pen Center. And finally, Senator Cruz shares his thoughts on the race for the 2020 Republican nomination.
Transcript
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Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, The Week in Review.
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Ben Ferguson with you, and these are the stories that you may have missed
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First up, Joe Biden goes to war with the state of Texas,
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and now it's gone all the way to the Supreme Court
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over the issue of securing the southern border.
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So why did the Supreme Court actually go with the Biden administration?
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Also, China donating massive amounts of money to the Biden Pen Center.
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And finally, Senator Cruz shares his thoughts on the race for the GOP nomination.
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It's all over, so why is Nikki Haley still staying in?
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It is The Week in Review, and it starts right now.
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Can you explain exactly what just happened at the Supreme Court
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when it came to the Supreme Court ruling that the Biden administration,
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in a 5-4 decision, can resume removal of the razor wire that was installed by the state of Texas
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along the border, specifically near Eagle Pass.
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And they say at least while the litigation is ongoing.
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What was even more shocking, I think, is the fact that Roberts and Amy Comey Barrett
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sided with left-leaning justices to rule in Biden administration's favor
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and allow the Border Patrol to go in and remove the razor wire,
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which the Texas National Guard then put back up,
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at least from the latest videos we've seen from the border.
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Many people in Texas are angry about this, saying,
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and how could these two conservative justices side with the Biden administration?
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We are seeing an invasion at our southern border.
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Remember, 9.6 million illegal immigrants have crossed in under Joe Biden.
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It is the worst illegal immigration in our nation's history.
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They are actively wanting more and more and more of it.
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So Texas, understandably, is responding to defend ourselves.
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I commend our state legislature for acting to protect the sovereignty of Texas
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and for investing billions of dollars in border security and law enforcement
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and putting personnel and putting up barriers to try to stop this invasion of our state.
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Now, what happened on this case, it arose to the Supreme Court on an emergency appeal on an injunction.
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There was an injunction against the federal government to stop the federal government
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from cutting down the razor wire, the Constantino wire that Texas had erected.
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And the Fifth Circuit, the Federal Court of Appeals, had upheld the injunction.
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What happened today, Tuesday, is the Supreme Court, by a vote of 5-4, vacated that injunction.
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What that means is right now the federal government has the legal ability to cut down that razor wire,
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to allow illegal immigrants to continue invading the state.
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Now, the good news, the merits of the appeal is still pending.
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And so the Fifth Circuit can still rule on the merits of the appeal as to whether Texas has the authority.
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And by the way, the Supreme Court could still rule on the appeal.
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So it is possible that Texas prevails, that the results of an emergency appeal on an injunction
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are not always the same as the merits results on the substantive issue.
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But at the end of the day, you had the three liberals, plus John Roberts, plus Amy Coney Barrett,
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ruling for the Biden administration, saying you can cut down this razor wire.
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Now, on one level, I understand it, that there is a heavy presumption in Washington in federal courts,
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which is that the federal government gets to trump the states.
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And that is part of the Constitution is the supremacy clause that says the Constitution,
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the federal law is the supreme law of the land.
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I think it is a real problem that John Roberts is a creature of Washington.
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I don't think he understands what is happening at the southern border.
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I think Amy Coney Barrett is a law professor from Indiana.
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I don't think she has any understanding of what's happening at the southern border.
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In ordinary times, if this were just a regular time and a state were trying to block what the federal government was doing,
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the Supreme Court would fairly routinely rule with the feds.
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What I don't think these justices have a real appreciation for is how horrifically bad it is,
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how lawless it is, what the Biden administration is doing.
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There's never been a president who refuses to follow the law like Joe Biden did.
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So here's the statement that the Border Patrol Union put out today.
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Quote, the Supreme Court's decision today is going to undoubtedly encourage more illegal immigration.
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Unfortunately, this means Border Patrol agents are going to be tied up dealing with give-ups
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rather than going after the criminal elements that constantly cross our border illegally.
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The administration no doubt will say this is a win for border security.
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But if they sought rank-and-file input, they would be told this will do the exact opposite.
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Agents support what Texas was trying to accomplish in the absence of true border security policies from this administration.
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I think they're just reflexively agreeing with the federal government against the states.
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And I think it is a profound mistake that continues the invasion that's happening on the southern border.
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To be clear, one other thing on this is when you hear the Biden administration say that they are working to secure the border,
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I think everybody needs to remember at this moment that they, not only are they not,
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they went all the way to the Supreme Court to make sure they could unsecure portions of the border
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where razor wire was put up to secure the border.
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That's how much they wanted to open the border.
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Hold on, I want to underscore what you're just saying.
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So today in the Capitol, as I was walking to the Capitol, lots of reporters wanted to ask me about this decision.
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And they said, well, gosh, Biden just says if Congress will pass the supplemental bill,
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then he'll have the ability to secure the border.
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And I said, listen, understand, Biden doesn't want to secure the border.
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And I said, for Pete's sakes, Biden is actively litigating against the state of Texas to stop Texas from securing the border.
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And that's exactly what the Biden administration is doing with the emphatic support of essentially every Democrat member of the Senate
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But I want to make sure that we got this out there for many people that are asking that same question.
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Why do these two justices, a lot of people, you know, believe they were conservative and they screwed the state of Texas.
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Your explanation hopefully will make a little bit of sense to people and understanding of why this happened.
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I think that's something else we need to be clear about.
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How long would it take for this to get a final ruling through this litigation?
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And if Trump wins, it will become mooted because Trump will stop litigating.
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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.
00:08:30.000
More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:08:34.480
And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:08:40.600
And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:08:44.360
Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.
00:08:50.120
So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:08:53.320
Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:09:04.880
And the University of Penn, to remind people, is what hosts the Biden think tank.
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And we are seeing now, through the Biden-Penn Center, Chinese donations have skyrocketed,
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including money directly from the CCP-linked sources.
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It says, the University of Pennsylvania, home of President Biden's think tank,
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recently tripled its donations originating from China.
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The Washington, D.C. office of Biden's think tank, the Penn-Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement,
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previously found itself under a microscope after confidential documents, top-secret documents,
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The discovery led to questions regarding Chinese donations to the University of Pennsylvania,
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So, from 2021 to 2022, Penn received $8.6 million from Communist China.
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But actually, the next year, they tripled their haul.
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So, between mid-2022 and mid-2023, Penn pulled in $25 million from entities and individuals in China.
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And overall, Penn has amassed nearly $130 million in donations from China between mid-2018 and mid-2023,
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And Penn, just quinky-dinky, happens to be the place that was paying Joe Biden, before he was president,
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nearly a million dollars a year for a no-show job, where he occasionally showed up to teach a class,
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and other than that, jetted around the world, living like the idle rich.
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Coincidentally, is a university where we now know that Joe Biden illegally had classified documents stored.
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We know that Hunter Biden and the Biden family made millions of dollars from Communist China,
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that Hunter Biden shook down the Chinese communists for personal enrichment.
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And the obvious inference is it wasn't just enrichment of their family.
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It was also enrichment of Penn, which, in turn, was enriching the Biden family.
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And the part that also is so frustrating is there's really no one that's covering this story.
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Stuart Varney on Fox Business, he did cover it, and this is what it sounded like,
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Now, there's the University of Pennsylvania seeing a big surge in Chinese donations.
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Lauren, how much are we talking about, and do we know why we got this big surge?
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How much? $25 million in one year between mid-2022 and the middle of last year.
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One donor is actually a political consultant for the CCP.
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Another, a private equity founder in China with ties to President Xi.
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President Biden was a professor at Penn after he was vice president.
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I mean, the Biden family has taken a great deal of money from China.
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And now the Chinese are giving money to the school where his think tank is
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and where his personal classified documents were found.
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One of the things in that reporting there that I think we should talk about is
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you're getting a donation from someone that advises the Chinese Communist Party.
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Senator, you deal with a lot of donations when you're running for office.
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If somebody gives you a massive donation and they're advising the Chinese Communist Party,
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I'm assuming you're not going to accept that or you're going to give it back.
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hey, are you guys going to give this money back to communists that are trying to clearly buy influence?
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Well, they're clearly trying to buy influence at Penn.
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And nobody gives that kind of money for nothing.
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They don't give that kind of money without expecting to get a benefit in return.
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Look, the Bidens, all of the evidence indicates that the Bidens made a decision decades ago
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that they were going to get rich by shaking down the enemies of America
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and shaking them down, demanding millions of dollars in exchange either for favors from Joe Biden
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or millions of dollars in order not to be targeted for retribution by Joe Biden.
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Now, if that is correct, that is called bribery.
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It is also explicitly enumerated in the Constitution as grounds for impeachment.
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And the entire corporate media could not care one iota.
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if the President of the United States has been bribed by Communist China.
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Because none of the corporate media is willing even to cover it.
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Will there be any of this that you think will be used to actually expose the Biden family in this campaign cycle?
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I mean, when you're talking about this much money, it's not a little bit of money.
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And the other part here is they mentioned the numbers tripled right when we got closer to this election,
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when he announced he was running for reelections like, oh, wait, he's still in the game.
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Look, I think there needs to be a serious investigation.
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There needs to be enhanced federal scrutiny of universities that are on the take from Communist China.
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One of the very first pieces of legislation that I ever authored and passed when I was a brand new baby senator
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was legislation focusing on exactly this issue and in particular what are called Confucius Institutes.
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So Confucius Institutes have been started at U.S. universities all across the country,
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And China goes to the schools and say, hey, we'll start this institute and your students can learn Chinese
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And China uses them, number one, for espionage and number two, for propaganda,
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to push the messages that they want U.S. college students to hear from Communist China.
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And so when I was newly elected to the Senate, I introduced legislation that prohibited federal Department of Defense dollars
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from going to a university that has a Confucius Institute, that if you're going to take the Chinese money,
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And I was on the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time.
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I ended up getting bipartisan support for it, and it was adopted with both Democrats and Republicans supporting it.
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It passed through the Harry Reid Senate, so we had a Democrat-majority Senate,
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and ultimately Barack Obama signed it into law.
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And my legislation resulted in dozens of Confucius Institutes shutting down
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because universities made the very reasonable decision that they wanted DOD dollars more than the Chinese money for Confucius Institutes.
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We need to cut off this Chinese money that is going to universities across the board.
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But with Penn, there appears to be more than simple influence peddling.
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China's doing this in a lot of universities, and it's a broad problem.
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But with Penn, the volume is so great that on the face of it, it seems to be deeply intertwined with Joe Biden
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and the fact that Penn gave a home for him, and so giving money to Penn was a way to give money directly to Joe Biden.
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Do you believe that Joe Biden will dodge the debates against Donald Trump
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because now he's going to have to answer these questions on stage?
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I mean, he's much more vulnerable now than he was when they ran against each other last time
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because last time he could just say, hey, it's all a lie.
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I think Biden, if he is the nominee, will debate.
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I think their strategy will be to hide Joe Biden in the basement for the entirety of the campaign,
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and so the debates may be about the only time you see Biden during the entire campaign.
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And I think for the debates, they'll pump him full of a bunch of drugs
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and try to make him alert for an hour or for 90 minutes, and that'll be it.
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The governor of Pennsylvania refused to debate a Democrat.
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The governor of Arizona refused to debate a Democrat.
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I think the Democrats will conclude that if Biden ducks the debate,
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the American people will assume he's too feeble and mentally diminished to be able to debate.
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And so I think that will scare them enough that they will end up producing Biden for a couple of debates,
00:18:52.760
As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic,
00:18:57.340
you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
00:19:04.520
More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:19:08.980
And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:19:15.120
And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:19:18.780
Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:19:24.300
So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:19:27.840
Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:19:33.480
I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
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I think anyone that runs for president that's a serious candidate and drops out.
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People have asked me, what's it like on a president's campaign when it's over?
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If you're a true believer in the campaign, in the candidate, you're giving it your all.
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You're a staffer, you want your guy to win, and it's over.
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And I spent a lot of time after, like, our team.
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I still think the team we assembled, and I'm not impartial, but I think the team we assembled
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is the best campaign team, certainly, that I've ever seen.
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This is like a day or two later, I thanked everyone and brought them in and just talked
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about, reflected on what the campaign meant and what they'd accomplished.
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And when we started, nobody thought I had a prayer.
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Nobody thought we could win a single state, and we came within inches of winning the whole
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So our campaign office was like an entire floor of cubicles here in Houston.
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Very close, very close to where we are right now.
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And as everyone, you know, went home, I remember walking through that campaign office and just
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And you know the song from Les Mis, Empty Chairs and Empty Tables?
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In fact, I'm sure Ron and Casey are feeling the same thing.
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And it is a hard thing because everyone pours themselves into it.
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You know, years ago, someone told me there's a reason that both politics and war use the
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Like, when you are on a campaign, it is 100% of your will and your heart and your mind
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And, you know, you do feel like you've let people down.
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You know, you're getting people that are pouring, they're uprooting their lives, they're moving
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their families, they're giving sacrificially, they believe in you.
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And look, at this point, I've won elections, I've lost elections.
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But the reality here, I think this outcome was ordained the night of the Iowa caucuses.
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When Trump won a dominating victory, it was clear DeSantis had no oxygen.
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And Haley, as I mentioned, she will likely be competitive in New Hampshire.
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And so, now, we are going to test, look, there are some big donors in the Republican Party.
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That who do not like Trump and are writing millions of dollars to try to change the outcome.
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At this point, you know, they've got enough money in New Hampshire.
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They could practically send a masseuse to give everyone a back rub and a foot rub on the way to the polls.
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But as you get on to South Carolina, I think Trump's lead is way too large for Haley to have a chance.
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And from there, I don't think there's any path beyond.
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Your advice to Nikki Haley, if you don't have that pathway that you just described, what's the point of staying in?
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Oh, look, you know, I actually try to refrain from giving advice to other candidates that everyone's got to follow their own heart and do what they think is right.
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I mean, it's, you know, calling on people to get out.
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It's going to play out naturally and pretty quickly, I think.
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And so, you know, I recognize the decision to suspend a campaign is not easy.
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And look, depending on when it occurs, it can often mean, so in 2016, you know, a bunch of the candidates suspended early, long before Iowa.
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And so I ended up, of my opponents, five of my opponents ended up endorsing me in that race.
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And so I got endorsed by Rick Perry and Carly Fiorina and Scott Walker and Jeb Bush and Lindsey Graham all backed me.
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So, you know, Rick Perry, you know, went and campaigned with me in Iowa.
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And look, Rick Perry was my governor, someone who I knew and respected.
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So it was a little surreal having someone like Rick Perry come and campaign and say, go vote for Ted.
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You know, Lindsey Graham, my colleague, you know, he had famously said that if you killed me on the floor of the Senate and the jury were other senators,
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you couldn't find a jury to convict me, to convict the murderer.
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And so when Lindsey endorsed me, you know, I jumped on and he helped raise some money for me.
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And I remember saying at the time, I said, wow, this is the first time in my life I've ever been endorsed by someone who's publicly called for my murder.
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And Lindsey and I have become friends since then.
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Carly Fiorina, who I thought was a terrific candidate that cycle.
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You'll recall I announced that if I'd won, she would have been my VP.
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But frankly, I was trying to break through the narrative, the wall of the three billion dollars of free media.
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And I was trying to find something that actually would be heard by the voters.
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But but the corporate media had no interest in anything being heard.
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Frankly, I think most of the media wanted Trump to be the nominee because they wanted Hillary to win.
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And they thought that was that that was what all of them are saying was, give us Trump.
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And Hillary Clinton will become the president of the United States of America and will break that glass ceiling of that beautiful building.
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I think that was a very deliberate strategy.
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And I will say for all those bastards that kind of backfired, they got four years of Donald Trump as president.
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They may be about to get four more years of Donald Trump as president.
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And it's, you know, the self-declared media overlords.
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There is an old saying, be careful what you wish for.
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Thanks for pulling back the curtain on 16 and explaining it from a candidate's perspective.
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Because, as you mentioned, what people go through when they have to drop out, especially DeSantis right now, it's tough.
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It takes it can take months to come out from that fog of war afterwards, because all of a sudden you go from night to nothing to it's all over, as you mentioned.
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And how long does it take to get out of that fog?
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Look, everyone has a period where you just kind of.
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I assume Ron will do this, but just about everyone goes and goes somewhere on vacation.
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And my advice when I talk to a candidate after they've lost, and this is true, I talk to lots of candidates who are running for Senate in the House, and some win, some lose.
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But for the ones that lose, I say go somewhere, unplug, get off email, get off your phone, get off Twitter.
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Just go sit by the beach with a pina colada, and just recharge.
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Be with your family, hug your kids, just get away for a while.
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You know, in a presidential campaign, it's deafening.
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And then when you suspend it, it's like, okay, I'm out of this crazy game, at least for now.
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And then to come out of the funk, listen, every presidential candidate that loses, I think without exception, goes into a funk.
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I mean, you have a bit of depression and grieving.
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And the key to kind of, I was no exception to that.
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And I think the key to coming out of it is finding something to lean in that you love, that you engage in.
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And, you know, listen, I have a day job of representing 30 million Texans, which I love doing, and pour all of my heart, mind, and soul into it.
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And I rolled up my sleeves and said, I am going to lead the fight in the Senate for us to deliver on our promises.
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And so pouring yourself into the fight and into the work is, I think, a really important part of coming out of it.
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And some candidates do that more quickly than others.
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As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
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And you can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.
00:28:53.380
I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:28:57.120
And we will see you back here on Monday morning.