Verdict with Ted Cruz - Biden Lied About Laptop from Hell, Catch and Release but w Terrorists at the Border plus Trump Luncheon-What's Next w GOP Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.620 Welcome.

00:00:05.360 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:07.140 Week in review.

00:00:08.480 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.680 And we've got a lot of major stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.

00:00:14.020 First up, Joe Biden.

00:00:15.980 Yeah, he's now been busted line to the American people along with the intelligence community.

00:00:20.640 They knew when they gave him that letter to get him through the presidential debate,

00:00:25.060 claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation.

00:00:29.080 The entire time they knew they were lying to the American people.

00:00:32.580 Will there be accountability for that?

00:00:34.400 We're going to talk about it.

00:00:35.700 Also, terrorists are coming across the southern border and we're catching them.

00:00:40.280 And the Biden administration is letting them go.

00:00:42.700 Now we have multiple terrorists that are connected with ISIS-K who have been arrested in this country.

00:00:49.840 And finally, Donald Trump has closed door meetings with House Republicans and the GOP in the Senate.

00:00:57.680 And what they have planned next, if he wins, is going to be huge for this country.

00:01:03.420 We'll break all that down for you.

00:01:05.120 It's the Week in Review, and it starts right now.

00:01:08.860 Hold on, let's not forget this.

00:01:10.640 Let's remind people why that letter was so important.

00:01:13.860 It was before a presidential debate and they needed to get out of jail free excuse.

00:01:17.460 Yeah, and Biden cited the letter in the debate.

00:01:21.400 He relied on it.

00:01:22.640 Here, take a listen. 0.94

00:01:24.100 If this stuff is true about Russia, Ukraine, China, other countries, Iraq, if this is true, then he's a corrupt politician.

00:01:32.720 So don't give me the stuff about how you're this innocent baby. 0.66

00:01:36.640 Joe, they're calling you a corrupt politician. 0.98

00:01:39.540 Take a look at the laptop from hell. 0.99

00:01:40.840 I want to stay on the issue of race. 0.96

00:01:42.660 We're talking about the issue.

00:01:43.760 Take a look at the laptop from hell.

00:01:44.660 President Trump, we're talking about race right now, and I do want to stay on the issue of race.

00:01:49.260 President Trump, you've just...

00:01:50.120 And I have to respond to that.

00:01:50.940 Please.

00:01:51.100 Because, look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this he's accusing me of is a Russian plant.

00:01:59.720 They have said that this has all the... 0.99

00:02:02.800 Four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he's saying is a bunch of garbage. 0.98

00:02:09.720 Nobody believes it except his and his good friend Rudy Gianni. 0.96

00:02:14.040 You mean the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax?

00:02:17.980 That's exactly what...

00:02:19.420 Is this where you're going?

00:02:20.220 That's exactly what it was called.

00:02:21.320 This is where he's going.

00:02:22.500 The laptop is Russia, Russia, Russia?

00:02:24.240 Gentlemen, I want to stay on the issue of race.

00:02:26.340 You have to be kidding.

00:02:27.600 Here we go again with Russia. 0.96

00:02:29.080 Yeah, we're going to...

00:02:30.040 I love, by the way, how the whole time the moderator's like, we've got to move on from this.

00:02:34.000 We've got to move on as fast as we can.

00:02:35.960 We don't need to be talking about this.

00:02:37.280 Yeah, she did not want any topic about this.

00:02:39.040 Look, I mean, the moderators, they might as well wear Biden campaign hats.

00:02:44.420 And that is just where the press is, and they're even worse now.

00:02:48.180 But every word Biden said there was a deliberate lie.

00:02:52.220 And by the way, Hunter Biden knew as an absolute fact the laptop was accurate then,

00:02:57.940 which means either Joe Biden knew as a fact that it was accurate,

00:03:02.420 or if he didn't know, it's because he didn't want to know it.

00:03:04.860 He didn't ask his son.

00:03:06.020 Those are the two options.

00:03:07.400 So he was lying.

00:03:09.360 And he was lying because it helped him politically.

00:03:13.380 And the person who organized that letter was Tony Blinken.

00:03:17.280 The reward for doing that, Blinken becomes the U.S. Secretary of State.

00:03:21.060 That's how important it was.

00:03:22.960 That letter saved him.

00:03:24.020 I mean, let's be clear.

00:03:24.900 I don't think he would have been – Joe Biden would be president now if it wasn't for that letter.

00:03:29.140 And it was a flat-out lie.

00:03:31.540 And you look at the press – all right, take a listen to Leslie Stahl when she's interviewing Trump,

00:03:39.380 and she's making very much the same point.

00:03:41.660 I think it's one of the biggest scandals I've ever seen, and you don't cover it.

00:03:47.660 You want to talk about –

00:03:49.220 Well, because it can't be verified.

00:03:50.660 You want to talk about insignificant things.

00:03:52.880 I'm telling you.

00:03:53.740 Of course it can be verified.

00:03:55.300 Excuse me.

00:03:55.940 They found the laptop.

00:03:57.240 Leslie, Leslie.

00:03:58.180 It can't be verified.

00:03:59.380 What can't be verified?

00:04:00.640 The laptop.

00:04:01.660 Why do you say that?

00:04:02.580 Even the family hasn't – the family on the laptop, he's gone into hiding for five days.

00:04:11.240 He's gone into hiding.

00:04:12.380 He's preparing for your debate.

00:04:14.000 Oh, it's taken him five days to prepare.

00:04:15.720 I doubt it.

00:04:16.500 I doubt it.

00:04:17.100 Okay.

00:04:17.520 All right.

00:04:17.960 All right.

00:04:18.400 So let's get back to the name calling.

00:04:20.440 I love that.

00:04:21.180 So let's just get back to the name calling here.

00:04:23.140 We're going to move on.

00:04:23.780 We can't talk about it because it hasn't been verified.

00:04:26.320 I've got an agenda.

00:04:28.020 And facts can't get in the way.

00:04:29.940 Look, Leslie Stahl pretends she's a journalist. 1.00

00:04:32.300 That's 60 Minutes.

00:04:33.460 That's CBS.

00:04:35.040 And what she's saying, it can't be verified.

00:04:37.540 It's a flat-out lie.

00:04:38.380 Of course it could be verified.

00:04:39.820 It's called journalism.

00:04:42.000 But CBS had no interest in doing journalism, nor do they now.

00:04:45.880 You know, if Leslie Stahl had –

00:04:46.780 Well, she gave him an excuse.

00:04:48.220 She said they're – well, he's been preparing for the debate.

00:04:49.800 Well, they're busy.

00:04:50.180 They're preparing for the debate.

00:04:51.540 So you can't expect them to respond to the overwhelming evidence of corruption because, you know, let's get back to the name calling.

00:04:59.440 I'm busy attacking you, Donald Trump.

00:05:01.300 So don't you bring up anything that Biden is doing.

00:05:05.460 And, you know, look, if Leslie Stahl, if any journalist had a shred of integrity, they would stand up and say, I was totally wrong.

00:05:13.180 What I said was false.

00:05:14.660 I didn't do my job.

00:05:16.060 And I apologize.

00:05:17.440 She's not going to do that. 0.73

00:05:18.460 None of them are. 0.50

00:05:20.160 And, by the way, the people who have signed this letter, they're not coming back and admitting, okay, I was completely full of crap, and I lied to the American people right before an election, and it influenced the election profoundly.

00:05:34.120 Not just that.

00:05:34.860 But James Clapper told Fox News that he stands by the letter of the laptop.

00:05:40.300 You know, the Biden intelligence and the Obama intelligence hardcore partisans, facts have no bearing for them.

00:05:53.380 They are so partisan, they will stick to their lie no matter what.

00:05:57.300 Senator, one other question I want to ask you about your trip before we wrap things up is, you met with a guy by the name Zelensky.

00:06:06.400 Now, what matters the most to me was, was he wearing a suit, or was he still wearing the military fatigues?

00:06:12.940 I just, I got to know.

00:06:14.720 Yeah, no, he was in the military fatigues.

00:06:16.360 That's what he wears every day.

00:06:17.780 Oh, man.

00:06:18.320 I mean, back in the good old days when he was meeting with Trump and you guys, he was wearing a suit when he came to ask for money.

00:06:23.420 Yeah, ever since the war started, he's in the fatigues every day, and so he was in kind of an olive green sweatshirt.

00:06:31.900 So, you meet with him, and he's got a bunch more money, a couple hundred million dollars more, 200 and something, I think, is what Biden said during this trip that he was going to give to them again.

00:06:44.940 You guys met with him.

00:06:46.440 What was it like this time, and what did he have to say?

00:06:49.700 So, well, there was a group of senators that went to D-Day for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, went to Normandy, and there were 19 senators.

00:06:58.240 It was a big, big trip, and there were, I think, 53 House members, so it was a significant percentage of the United States Congress.

00:07:06.320 And so Zelensky sat down, had a meeting with all the senators, and then after that, he had a meeting with the House members, so both sides sat down and met with him.

00:07:14.100 We met in the historic Talleyrand Hotel, which is this beautiful hotel in Paris that actually the U.S. government now owns.

00:07:22.240 It's no longer a hotel, and it is where the Marshall Plan was signed.

00:07:26.220 And so there's a big room that has gold, you know, gold on the ceiling.

00:07:31.360 It's very elaborate, and it's a historic meeting space.

00:07:37.200 So that's where we met, and it was a good discussion.

00:07:40.580 Look, Zelensky was there with several of his aides, and he was describing what is happening, and he was, you know, he is a wartime leader.

00:07:48.840 And listen, there are some who are big critics of Zelensky.

00:07:55.100 I don't put myself in that camp.

00:07:56.820 I think he is trying to defend his nation from an invasion, and an invasion from Russia, and Vladimir Putin is a bad guy.

00:08:04.520 And so Zelensky is doing what you would hope any leader when his country is at war is doing, which is trying to defend his country and trying to get help wherever he can get it.

00:08:13.080 And so he's coming in, and he's asking for American help, and he's laying out his goals in the war.

00:08:20.640 And so he laid them out, and then each of us had the opportunity to ask questions.

00:08:26.860 My principal question, I asked him, I said, how would you define victory?

00:08:34.340 What does victory mean, and what is the path to getting there?

00:08:40.600 Look, I want Russia to lose.

00:08:44.400 The difficulty, and I've got to say, that question that I asked, he didn't really answer me on how he would define victory.

00:08:51.120 He has, in other contexts, defined victory as Ukraine winning back essentially every square inch of territory that Russia has taken.

00:08:59.980 I understand why Zelensky would say that's victory.

00:09:04.300 If you were Zelensky, you'd probably say the same thing.

00:09:08.180 But that doesn't mean it is in the United States' interest to demand every square inch of territory be taken back.

00:09:15.960 The reason we have an interest in this war is that we want, we do not want our enemy Russia to win and get stronger. 0.97

00:09:23.140 And instead, we want Russia to be weaker so that they're less able to pose a threat to America. 0.94

00:09:32.560 There are also, by the way, very, very significant resources, in particular rare earth minerals in Ukraine, that are critical for the economy going forward.

00:09:44.180 One of the reasons Russia's invading Ukraine is to get a stranglehold on those rare earth minerals.

00:09:50.460 We don't want Putin to have those.

00:09:51.980 Those, those, that would not be good for America.

00:09:56.600 And, and, and so, but, but, you know, what was really striking then is in the meeting with Zelensky and we also had a classified meeting with, with senior leaders of the Pentagon talking about details of what exactly is happening in the war, where the battles are, where the victories are, where the losses are.

00:10:14.780 And, and, and, and it was, it was a very interesting and worthwhile briefing.

00:10:19.240 But, but the question of what does victory mean?

00:10:25.200 This administration is not asking that question.

00:10:28.440 No Democrat in that room is asking that question.

00:10:32.100 What is victory?

00:10:33.020 And I got to say it really, you know, when it struck me, it is, we went out to lunch two days ago at a little Paris cafe in between meetings.

00:10:41.740 And we're sitting there at lunch talking and, and I was, most of the, the, the senators there at the lunch table were Democrats and they were all talking about Vietnam.

00:10:52.420 And it struck me looking around the table that they're all baby boomers.

00:10:56.700 They're all children of Vietnam. 1.00

00:10:58.500 They all kind of got their start in politics protesting against Vietnam.

00:11:03.620 And, and look for, for you and me, I mean, neither of us were alive when Vietnam was a thing.

00:11:09.600 You weren't alive at all.

00:11:11.180 And, and I was like two when the Vietnam war ended.

00:11:15.120 So I have no memories.

00:11:16.400 Vietnam did not impact my awareness of the world.

00:11:19.980 It was done by the time I was learning about the world.

00:11:25.400 And so I got to say a lot of the boomers, particularly the Democrat boomers, they took the wrong lesson from Vietnam.

00:11:35.080 And, and, and, and I think there are lots of lessons to take from Vietnam.

00:11:38.540 But one of the central ones is that you should have a clear, defined objective that you know what it is that is directly related to your national security that is achievable.

00:11:48.140 You should have a plan to achieve it, and then you should get the hell out.

00:11:51.820 And, and Vietnam, we just let it go on and on and on and be a quagmire and just kept pouring money and American soldiers and lives into it without a clear objective that we were willing to use overwhelming force to accomplish. 0.63

00:12:06.380 This administration has no objective.

00:12:08.220 They can't articulate one.

00:12:09.700 They're not even asking that question.

00:12:12.100 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:12:20.160 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.98

00:12:27.140 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:12:30.860 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:12:32.040 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:12:33.280 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:12:37.060 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

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00:12:45.760 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:12:50.160 Now on to story number two.

00:12:54.400 Senator, as I said at the beginning, shocking how crazy the news cycle is in the last 24 hours.

00:13:00.820 Hunter Biden trial is a big story, yes, being found guilty.

00:13:04.220 But there is an even bigger story that we have been warning about for months on this show.

00:13:10.580 And that is prospective terrorists, those that are on the terrorist watch list, hundreds that have been caught,

00:13:17.060 a lot of gotaways that have not been caught.

00:13:19.340 And even when terrorists are getting caught, we're letting them go.

00:13:23.760 This is the second story of this happening.

00:13:26.440 And now we have multiple arrests of ISIS-K coming across our southern border.

00:13:33.280 Here is how CBS News broke the story last night.

00:13:36.660 Eight individuals, all from the Central Asian country of Tajikistan, were arrested in Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.

00:13:45.520 They entered the United States this year and in 2023, crossing the Mexican border.

00:13:51.820 They were vetted and allowed to remain in the country.

00:13:55.180 CBS News has learned further investigation uncovered the men had possible ties to ISIS-K,

00:14:02.100 the terror group which claimed responsibility for an attack at a Moscow concert hall that killed more than 140 people earlier this year.

00:14:10.540 Senator, that's eight across the entire country, from the extreme West Coast to the East Coast and Philadelphia.

00:14:20.500 And these are just the ones that we've caught that have been arrested.

00:14:25.240 You've been warning about this open border, and we've had the numbers to back it up of those on the terrorist watch list.

00:14:31.460 And the administration is saying, we're willing to roll the dice and take that risk to bring in illegal immigrants. 0.99

00:14:37.260 Well, sadly, that's exactly right. 0.87

00:14:39.240 This story is a big damn deal. 0.89

00:14:42.500 We have eight suspected terrorists with ISIS-K who've been arrested. 0.94

00:14:48.320 They've been arrested in Los Angeles, in New York, and in Philadelphia.

00:14:53.060 Now, they came into this country illegally at our southern border.

00:14:57.000 The Biden administration apprehended them, and then they let them go.

00:15:02.020 They let terrorists go.

00:15:03.480 And I've been saying for a long time, we are at a greater risk of a major terrorist attack in the United States right now

00:15:11.060 than we have been any time since September 11th.

00:15:17.740 And let's go.

00:15:19.020 So the first outlet to break this story was the New York Post.

00:15:22.920 And the New York Post announced that these people had been arrested,

00:15:27.680 and they were arrested in a coordinated sting operation that occurred in three cities, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia.

00:15:37.200 Two ICE sources confirmed to the Post that they arrested six people from Tajikistan over the last week after the FBI contacted the agency to warn them.

00:15:46.920 Two others who were part of the same group were also arrested after being under surveillance for several months by the multi-agency Joint Terrorism Task Force.

00:15:56.440 Part of the investigation featured a wiretap, which revealed one of the now-arrested individuals was talking about bombs.

00:16:05.920 And here's a quote.

00:16:08.480 Quote,

00:16:09.200 Remember the Boston Marathon bombing?

00:16:12.500 I'm afraid something like that might happen again or worse, one of the sources told the Post.

00:16:17.500 The subject, the target who was the subject of the wiretap, was previously released by federal authorities at the southern border with a court date next year.

00:16:30.120 But it has since emerged that he has potential ties to ISIS.

00:16:33.360 And by the way, it is worth noting, who is ISIS-K? 0.59

00:16:37.880 So ISIS-K is a splinter group, but it is the group that carried out the terror attack that we just saw, the terror attack that happened in the concert hall in Moscow.

00:16:53.580 And that was carried out by terrorists from Tajikistan.

00:16:57.980 So the same country these folks are from, the same terror group, ISIS-K.

00:17:01.980 And remember what they did.

00:17:03.420 They killed 145 people in that Moscow terror attack.

00:17:10.340 And so the Biden administration has an open border.

00:17:14.340 It is effectively a red carpet.

00:17:15.920 If you're a terrorist, come to America. 1.00

00:17:17.860 And we, the idiot Democrats, will let you in if we catch you. 1.00

00:17:22.120 And by the way, they catch all these guys because, and what happens? 1.00

00:17:25.640 They turn around and let them go.

00:17:27.300 How many terrorists are Joe Biden and the Democrats going to let go?

00:17:30.620 And by the way, is anyone in the news covering this?

00:17:34.100 Is anyone asking Joe Biden this?

00:17:36.000 Is anyone asking any other Democrat?

00:17:37.800 You know, I've got 51 Democrat colleagues.

00:17:40.000 How many of them in Capitol Hill are being asked, why does your party keep releasing terrorists into America?

00:17:46.000 And why are you endangering the lives of American families across this country?

00:17:51.220 This goes back to another story that happened in April.

00:17:53.800 And we talked about it here.

00:17:55.360 There was a man on the terror watch list that was released also by Border Patrol.

00:18:00.580 With border security funding blocked in Congress, this became an issue.

00:18:05.780 And they said, quote,

00:18:06.640 The case illustrates the challenges U.S. officials face in identifying migrants who pose national security threats because we're being overrun at the border.

00:18:16.020 Remember, NBC News at the time, and we played this, and I just think it's important to remind them.

00:18:20.700 It's not just these eight ISIS-K, but go back just to April 11th. 0.97

00:18:26.400 NBC News broke the story.

00:18:27.080 This is happening over and over and again.

00:18:29.220 Yeah, listen to what they said back in April.

00:18:31.040 An alarming development in the border crisis.

00:18:33.440 Among the record number of migrants crossing the southern border was a member of an Afghan terror organization who was released into the U.S. by border agents, according to U.S. officials.

00:18:43.060 48-year-old Mohammed Harwin illegally crossed into California in March of last year.

00:18:48.600 His name is on a U.S. terror watch list, identifying him as a member of HIG, a terror group that's killed Americans in Afghanistan.

00:18:56.820 I mean, Senator, this is another story that is completely unrelated.

00:19:01.720 A month before that, we found out that another man on a terrorist watch list was released, and they had to go grab him up in upstate, I think it was upstate New York.

00:19:10.460 So you have these headlines that keep happening.

00:19:15.480 We are catching some of these people, and we're releasing them because we're overrun.

00:19:21.660 So, and it's worth remembering that the FBI director, Chris Wray, has repeatedly testified before Congress about possible ISIS terror plots being carried out on U.S. soil.

00:19:33.320 And the group's potential for using the southern border to get into this country illegally.

00:19:39.180 And Chris Wray has warned about a possible, quote, coordinated attack that could take place on the United States from ISIS-K. 0.87

00:19:48.320 So they know this risk is there.

00:19:49.860 And I want to point out also, you know, we had a couple of months ago, we had the impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, and it came over to the Senate.

00:19:56.400 And I and many others on the Republican side wanted to lay out the facts that this administration, that Mayorkas' lawless refusal to follow federal immigration law and his releasing of millions and millions and millions, over 11 million illegal immigrants that have come into this country under Joe Biden,

00:20:15.300 that a major threat from that are the terrorists that they keep releasing over and over and over again.

00:20:21.040 And it's worth noting, Ben, every single Democrat voted not to hear the case, to throw it out, to dismiss it at the outset.

00:20:28.980 They didn't want to hear the evidence of terrorists being released in the country.

00:20:34.140 They didn't want to allow the House managers to present that evidence.

00:20:37.000 They didn't want the American people to hear that evidence.

00:20:39.580 And we are on borrowed time.

00:20:41.540 It is not complicated that if you continue to invite terrorists from all over the world, whether Hamas or Hezbollah or Palestinian Islamic Jihad or ISIS-K or anybody else,

00:20:52.920 if you invite terrorists from all over the world come into this country, if when you catch them, you release them and allow them to continue planning terror attacks,

00:21:02.700 it is only a matter of time before, tragically, Americans are going to die. 0.56

00:21:07.860 March the 11th, Christopher Wray, in his own words, before Congress.

00:21:12.940 From an FBI perspective, we are seeing a wide array of very dangerous threats that emanate from the border.

00:21:19.620 There is a particular network that has, where some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about,

00:21:30.880 and that we've been spending an enormous amount of effort with our partners investigating.

00:21:35.160 That's at least his second, if not third, warning to Congress.

00:21:39.620 I think in the last six to seven months, Senator, does this give you guys leverage to now say,

00:21:45.840 we've got these eight ISIS-K, ISIS-K is the same group that had the spinoff that had the attack in Russia,

00:21:51.920 the FBI director has now warned us a couple of times, why are you guys not changing the policy at the southern border,

00:21:57.840 Mr. President, and clearly, you should know now from all of these warnings that this policy is a disaster,

00:22:04.400 and there are multiple terrorists that are already in this country that we don't know where they are.

00:22:08.600 So frankly, the only leverage we have is what I'm doing right now, is shining a light and informing the American people.

00:22:15.080 Why is that?

00:22:16.340 Because not a single Democrat in the United States Congress cares.

00:22:19.460 Look, the Mayorkas impeachment, every single Democrat, all 51 of them, they voted,

00:22:26.620 no, we don't want to hear the evidence, we don't care.

00:22:29.040 I sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:22:31.380 In three and a half years of Biden's presidency, we have had zero hearings on the risk of terrorism from illegal immigrants coming into this country. 0.94

00:22:40.440 Joe Biden and the Democrats, they don't want to hear it, which means as long as Chuck Schumer is the majority leader

00:22:48.400 and the Democrats have control over the Senate, the Senate is not going to do anything.

00:22:51.640 And there are 49 of us.

00:22:52.540 We can jump up and down and yell, but 49 cannot outvote 51.

00:22:57.040 And so fundamentally, the Senate will do nothing as a matter of law to hold Joe Biden and the Democrats accountable.

00:23:04.640 And the media will do nothing.

00:23:06.160 It's why you and I do this podcast, because the only solution is the ballot box is throwing Joe Biden and the Democrats out of office. 0.99

00:23:16.240 And then, listen, in January, in a Trump administration, that we're going to secure the damn border. 0.95

00:23:22.620 But you've got to have a president willing to follow the law. 0.99

00:23:25.660 And Joe Biden refuses to follow the law.

00:23:29.080 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic,

00:23:32.740 you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:23:38.020 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.64

00:23:44.180 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

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00:24:03.040 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:24:08.820 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:24:13.560 Senator, this was a very interesting moment on Capitol Hill.

00:24:17.660 Donald Trump came and met with a lot of the Republican leadership.

00:24:23.000 A lot of your colleagues were there.

00:24:24.720 And the initial reports that came out were saying it was a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of excitement from the Republican leaders that were there.

00:24:34.860 You were in the room.

00:24:35.760 Tell us what was happening.

00:24:37.280 So, I was.

00:24:38.380 So, Trump began the day by meeting with the House Republicans.

00:24:41.220 I was not in that meeting.

00:24:42.920 Some of the reports of that is that was a little bit wild and woolly.

00:24:46.140 That got into all sorts of topics.

00:24:47.800 But Trump came by the Senate to have lunch with us.

00:24:51.160 And so, we met at the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is like three blocks away from the Capitol.

00:24:57.880 And Trump joined us for the lunch.

00:25:00.040 And it started.

00:25:00.980 We're all sitting in a room.

00:25:02.860 It started with him talking for about, oh, 20, 25 minutes.

00:25:07.000 And then we did a whole series of Q&A where probably about a dozen of us asked him questions and he commented on those.

00:25:14.160 And then we went out and we did a press conference where we stood.

00:25:17.480 We all stood behind him and he stood up and gave the press conference.

00:25:21.860 And, listen, I got to say the biggest thing about the lunch that struck me was the unity in the room.

00:25:28.720 Look, the media likes to talk about divisions in the Republican Party, and there are certainly some.

00:25:33.380 But today I didn't see any of that.

00:25:36.000 And today everyone in the room was focused on winning in November and turning the country around.

00:25:43.020 And Trump was in great spirits.

00:25:44.700 You know, one of the things I asked him after the meeting, I came up and spent a couple of minutes talking with him.

00:25:50.480 I just asked, how are you doing?

00:25:51.640 I mean, it's been this BS you're dealing with with these New York convictions. 1.00

00:25:56.220 They're utter garbage. 0.99

00:25:57.680 But, listen, it's not fun to be convicted of felonies. 1.00

00:26:02.820 I mean, it's been he's been through hell.

00:26:04.740 And so just as a personal level, I was asking him how he was doing.

00:26:08.680 And he he said he was doing fine and it seemed real and genuine.

00:26:11.920 I mean, he was not he was not down in the dumps.

00:26:14.700 He was not discouraged.

00:26:15.480 In fact, he was he was really in good spirits.

00:26:18.980 He was optimistic.

00:26:19.880 And his message to everyone is, listen, let's stand together.

00:26:23.900 And he emphasized several things.

00:26:26.500 Number one, he emphasized the border, that we've got to secure the border, that it is insane that we have open borders, that it's an invitation to terrorists.

00:26:34.540 And he's exactly right.

00:26:36.240 If and when Trump wins, we will secure the border in the first month or two of the next Trump administration.

00:26:42.720 And I can say that because we know how to do it.

00:26:45.340 We did it before and we'll do it again.

00:26:48.280 He also talked a lot about inflation and energy in particular.

00:26:52.860 And he pointed out quite rightly that energy is foundational to inflation.

00:26:56.440 One of the reasons that prices have gone up on just about everything is that energy prices have skyrocketed because the Biden administration has been waging war on American energy.

00:27:07.740 And we are an energy powerhouse.

00:27:09.980 We're the number one producer of oil in the world.

00:27:11.960 We're the number one producer of natural gas in the world.

00:27:14.420 And the Biden administration is doing everything they can to stifle that.

00:27:18.420 And Trump was very clear that that we're going to reverse that.

00:27:21.620 We will reverse that fast, early next year, and that's going to have a real impact on energy prices and inflation across the board.

00:27:30.100 We also talked about national security and, in particular, how insane it is that the Biden administration has flowed $100 billion to Iran.

00:27:39.760 And if and when Trump wins, that's going to end as well.

00:27:43.000 You mentioned a moment ago that there seemed to be unity in the room.

00:27:47.180 That's incredibly important for getting legislation passed.

00:27:51.220 Yes.

00:27:51.620 And you need that.

00:27:53.600 And we didn't have that type of unity, I would argue, last time in 2016, early on.

00:28:00.180 There were some splinters.

00:28:01.360 There were some divisiveness on the House and Senate side.

00:28:05.000 What you seem to be describing this time is if Donald Trump is elected and Republicans have control of the House and Senate, it's game on from January 2nd.

00:28:15.560 There's not going to be, you know, let's get to know each other time and have some meetings and maybe come over to the White House.

00:28:20.700 Like, there's an agenda and it's ready to go for the American people.

00:28:23.920 Yeah, I think that's exactly right.

00:28:25.860 And let me put it in broader context, which is yesterday, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, came and had lunch with all the Republican senators.

00:28:33.780 And by the way, that almost never happens.

00:28:37.000 When Paul Ryan was Speaker, he didn't do that.

00:28:39.160 When John Boehner was Speaker, he didn't do that.

00:28:41.240 When Kevin McCarthy was Speaker, he didn't do that.

00:28:43.380 Mike Johnson has done that this multiple times.

00:28:46.060 This is either the third or fourth time he's come and had lunch with all the Senate Republicans.

00:28:50.520 I think that's great.

00:28:51.900 He was talking at lunch yesterday.

00:28:53.520 He said, you know, it's amazing that the media treats it as a news story, that the House and Senate are talking to each other.

00:29:00.520 And the reason he came over and talked to us is he said he's focused on his end very much on developing the agenda and the plans to hit the ground running if and when we win in November.

00:29:14.420 If we come in to January of next year with a Republican president, Republican Senate, Republican House, we got an enormous amount to accomplish.

00:29:23.440 And the Speaker, to his credit, is very focused on the first hundred days.

00:29:27.920 What can we accomplish?

00:29:29.040 What can we do to change the path of the country?

00:29:32.500 I encouraged him to dig in on that.

00:29:34.800 In fact, I shared with the Speaker and with everyone else in the room, you know, a lot of the senators that are there now were not there.

00:29:42.660 Back in 2017, when Trump first became president, you know, the Speaker said, look, when Trump first became president, he was a freshman.

00:29:50.520 He was brand new in the Congress.

00:29:52.160 And he was amazed that the Congress was not prepared with a legislative agenda from day one.

00:29:58.200 And he pointed out that he thought a lot of Republicans were surprised that Trump won.

00:30:02.760 They were expecting Hillary to win. 0.99

00:30:05.400 And so when the administration came in, they weren't ready for primetime.

00:30:08.640 They didn't know what to do.

00:30:09.540 In this instance, I'm very glad the Speaker is trying to think proactively.

00:30:14.080 And I described something that I did back in the summer of 2018.

00:30:20.480 So summer of 2018, we did a lunch with all the Senate Republicans.

00:30:27.440 And I prepared a PowerPoint that was about 50 pages long.

00:30:30.820 And I spoke to my colleagues probably the better part of an hour.

00:30:34.960 And the title of the PowerPoint was Carpe Diem.

00:30:39.700 And what I did in the PowerPoint is I looked in the past in previous instances when one party controlled the White House, the House and the Senate.

00:30:50.040 It happens pretty rarely.

00:30:51.040 When the Democrats do it, they fundamentally transform the country.

00:30:56.840 So in the last century, the first time they did it, they passed the New Deal.

00:31:02.400 The second time they did it, they passed the Great Society.

00:31:06.500 The third time they did it, they passed Obamacare and Dodd-Frank.

00:31:10.080 And now for the last two years, we've seen they've spent us into an absolute inflation and recession hole.

00:31:19.000 And on the other hand, Republicans, when we have unified control, we tend to do small and piddling things.

00:31:27.780 So what I argued in the PowerPoint is at the time I presented it was August of 2018.

00:31:35.300 I said, listen, any rational political observer recognizes that there's a very real chance that we will lose at least one House of Congress in November.

00:31:45.720 Yeah.

00:31:46.400 And I said to my colleagues, particularly the guys who were the sophomores, who were the people who had been elected two years earlier.

00:31:53.340 And I said, look, for you guys, we have 183 days till the next Congress.

00:32:03.600 For many of you, if we do not pass things now, you will never again have another chance to pass anything into law.

00:32:11.320 And so I put together a spreadsheet.

00:32:13.360 It was about 50 different bills.

00:32:15.180 All of the bills had been written by different Republican senators.

00:32:18.780 Some I had written, but most of them were my colleagues.

00:32:22.260 And all of the bills were bills that had a reasonable prospect of garnering 51 votes.

00:32:30.560 They weren't fringe things that would get 10 or 12 votes.

00:32:33.940 They were all things that would easily get 45 Republicans and that had a real shot at getting 50.

00:32:40.440 And what I argued is I said, listen, this is this is going to sound radical to you, Ben.

00:32:45.620 We should do something.

00:32:51.880 We should not do nothing.

00:32:57.840 Amazingly enough, that argument proved unpersuasive.

00:33:02.100 Mitch McConnell said, well, so the principal avenue that if you look, the biggest legislative victory of the Trump years was the 2017 tax cuts.

00:33:13.020 We passed that using what's called budget reconciliation.

00:33:17.120 Budget reconciliation is a process under a bill called the Budget Act of 1975.

00:33:23.980 The budget piece is not terribly consequential.

00:33:26.580 What's consequential is under the terms of the statute.

00:33:29.020 You have an up-down vote at 50 votes and it can't be filibustered.

00:33:34.740 So it's one of the most important exceptions to the filibuster.

00:33:39.780 We could have, if you look at the Democrats, they did three budget reconciliations.

00:33:44.360 It's how they passed almost all of their agenda that put us in this hole.

00:33:49.460 When the Republicans had the majority, we did only one budget reconciliation.

00:33:53.760 We did not do a single one in 2018, which, frankly, Ben is indefensible.

00:33:58.820 And so I made the case to the Speaker and my colleagues, let's not make that mistake again.

00:34:03.180 Let's hit the ground running.

00:34:04.520 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.

00:34:08.840 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:34:09.760 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:34:13.420 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:34:16.800 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:34:20.300 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:34:23.760 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:34:26.620 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 15, 2024

Biden Lied About Laptop from Hell, Catch and Release but w Terrorists at the Border plus Trump Luncheon-What's Next w GOP Week In Review

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