Verdict with Ted Cruz - Biden's Chinese Balloon Theatre

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.480 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.680 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:08.540 And much of the nation, Senator, has been focused on this balloon,

00:00:13.760 this Chinese spy balloon that was spotted all the way back on January the 28th

00:00:19.040 over Alaskan airspace, over America's airspace.

00:00:22.120 That, according to senior military officials.

00:00:24.360 Now, one of the earliest sightings was confirmed in Montana on February the 1st.

00:00:30.000 That balloon then continued to fly over the country to Kansas City area,

00:00:33.540 where it drifted eastward on February the 3rd.

00:00:36.260 And then finally, on February the 4th,

00:00:39.080 the balloon was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet off the coast of South Carolina,

00:00:43.540 and that was where it ended.

00:00:45.760 Moral of the story is, unless I'm wrong, this looks like it was mission accomplished.

00:00:51.080 The mission was completed by the Chinese, 0.74

00:00:53.180 and then we shot it down after it had gotten everything it wanted on the American landscape.

00:00:58.760 Whatever they wanted, they got it.

00:01:02.360 Well, Ben, that could very well be the case.

00:01:05.400 I will say this was not a good week for the Biden administration.

00:01:09.960 It was not a good week for the country.

00:01:12.180 I will say, you know, I rarely am in the business of commending Joe Biden,

00:01:17.500 but I do at least have to commend that he had the guts to shoot the thing down,

00:01:22.220 which, given the last two years,

00:01:24.140 there was very little to think that he would have the guts to give that order.

00:01:27.740 That was the right thing to do.

00:01:28.940 So I'm glad he shot the balloon down.

00:01:31.520 It would have been worse if he hadn't shot it down at all.

00:01:35.060 That being said, he waited a week to shut it down.

00:01:37.840 January 28th is when this Chinese spy balloon first entered American airspace. 0.90

00:01:44.000 And from January 28th to this weekend, he did not a damn thing.

00:01:49.700 And unfortunately, on that entire journey, this spy balloon was collecting information.

00:01:55.220 It was hovering over sensitive U.S. military bases.

00:01:59.440 It was collecting information, both photographs, presumably infrared,

00:02:04.420 and also very potentially attempting to intercept communications.

00:02:07.940 And the data, presumably, were in turn being beamed upwards to a Chinese spy satellite

00:02:14.660 and sent back to Beijing.

00:02:16.820 So we don't know the extent of what they captured,

00:02:19.440 but they had an entire week to spy on our military bases

00:02:22.300 while the Biden administration did nothing.

00:02:26.340 There's another, even more troubling consequence,

00:02:30.580 which is the Biden administration sent a very clear message of weakness

00:02:36.260 to Xi and the Chinese government.

00:02:40.100 Why is that?

00:02:41.540 Well, ask the simple hypothetical, Ben.

00:02:44.940 What would have happened if nobody had spotted this balloon?

00:02:49.540 If nobody in Montana, if no private citizen in Montana had looked up and said,

00:02:55.100 hey, what's that giant thing 60,000 feet up there?

00:02:57.900 If there hadn't been pictures on the Internet,

00:03:00.260 if there hadn't been pictures on the news, the answer is obvious.

00:03:04.260 If the public hadn't noticed the balloon,

00:03:08.060 Joe Biden would have done nothing.

00:03:11.740 Zero.

00:03:12.680 Nada.

00:03:14.140 That's what they did for the entire week.

00:03:16.460 That's what they did before the public spotted it.

00:03:18.880 They didn't tell anyone.

00:03:20.140 They didn't make a public disclosure.

00:03:22.100 They didn't try to shoot it down.

00:03:23.540 It was only after it began driving the news that Biden made the decision to shoot it down,

00:03:30.320 but shoot it down after it had gathered all the intelligence it was sent to gather.

00:03:35.800 In other words, for this White House, it wasn't a national security question.

00:03:41.920 It was a politics question.

00:03:43.440 It was a PR question.

00:03:44.660 And it's because in this White House, it's always politics all the time rather than putting America first.

00:03:53.620 Question I've got to ask you now is, and it's a question I want to know,

00:03:57.060 can Congress get an answer to this?

00:03:59.120 You mentioned that if it wouldn't have been spotted by average Americans

00:04:02.780 and then it wouldn't have gone viral on the Internet,

00:04:05.020 we probably would have never known about this.

00:04:07.660 Right.

00:04:07.760 That brings up the question, has this happened before and they allowed these balloons

00:04:12.460 to just completely own America's airspace, go across our country from one side to the other

00:04:18.440 and collect any data that they want to that we don't even know about?

00:04:22.560 So it is entirely possible.

00:04:25.200 I will say this first entered American airspace in Alaska on January 28th.

00:04:30.900 Congress was in session last week.

00:04:32.620 I was in D.C. last week.

00:04:34.700 They didn't brief us.

00:04:35.940 We had no briefings in Congress.

00:04:37.480 We had no classified briefings.

00:04:39.140 I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

00:04:41.780 They didn't say a word to us.

00:04:43.780 Now, this coming week, we're going to be in session as well.

00:04:47.020 They damn sure better have a classified briefing this week.

00:04:50.120 I have every expectation that they will because I think members from both sides of the aisle

00:04:54.980 want to know what the heck happened.

00:04:57.340 But they did zero to inform Congress, even in a classified setting.

00:05:03.340 Now, I will say once this became public,

00:05:06.580 there are a series of talking points that the Biden White House began putting out.

00:05:11.640 Remember, they treated this as a communication and political challenge, not as a national security challenge.

00:05:18.120 And one of their talking points is they said, well, this has happened before.

00:05:21.940 And they also said, in particular, it happened under the Trump administration.

00:05:28.180 I will tell you, sitting here today, I don't know if that's true or not.

00:05:31.740 I have not received any classified briefing or unclassified briefing that confirms that.

00:05:37.240 All I know is what the administration is telling the press trying to deflect responsibility, my view.

00:05:43.640 Now, even as they've spun that story, they've conceded that, well, they were very different contexts in the Trump administration.

00:05:52.140 So I don't know what that means exactly, what it means that they're very different contexts.

00:05:57.680 What we know is that this balloon was over U.S. airspace for a week,

00:06:02.040 that it repeatedly hovered over very sensitive military installations for an extended period of time. 0.97

00:06:09.040 If the Chinese had done it previously, we should have shot the damn thing down previously. 1.00

00:06:14.780 But right now, they're doing the same sort of thing they do on the classified documents at Joe Biden's house 0.91

00:06:24.120 or compared to Trump's, which is they selectively leak and then make it impossible for you to compare

00:06:31.760 the severity of what you're talking about.

00:06:34.660 I am perfectly happy to say that any president, Republican or Democrat,

00:06:39.900 if the Chinese send a spy balloon over America and begin committing major acts of espionage 0.63

00:06:47.940 that are threatening U.S. military secrets, we need to act to prevent it.

00:06:52.480 And Joe Biden didn't do that.

00:06:56.280 We don't know whether or not the prior administration did.

00:06:59.420 I want to ask you about dereliction of duty because there have been some of your colleagues

00:07:03.740 that are now calling it that.

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00:08:15.600 Senator, some of your colleagues, I know a friend of yours, Marco Rubio,

00:08:19.440 he said Biden's failure to address the nation on Chinese balloon

00:08:24.200 is the beginning of a dereliction of duty, saying the fact he's not even addressing us.

00:08:29.320 We've got the State of the Union coming up on Tuesday,

00:08:31.420 and it's like, who's running this country right now if it's not him?

00:08:36.580 Well, unfortunately, that follows a pattern where Biden does not address the nation.

00:08:40.980 He doesn't take on these challenges directly.

00:08:44.000 And the consequence of that, it may be that, look, I assume at the State of the Union

00:08:51.180 that Biden is going to try to victory lap this.

00:08:54.040 He's going to try to say, the Chinese sent a balloon, and I shot it down.

00:08:57.720 And he's going to beat his chest on that.

00:08:59.900 But what a responsible commander-in-chief would do is, number one, assess

00:09:04.800 what was the damage to U.S. national security?

00:09:08.280 What valuable intelligence did they gather?

00:09:11.380 And, you know, the Biden administration is using a series of talking points

00:09:15.140 their surrogates are pushing out.

00:09:16.460 One they're saying is they're saying, well, it was actually good for the United States

00:09:20.440 to have the balloon in the air longer because we blocked its intelligence gathering,

00:09:24.560 and instead we gathered intelligence about the Chinese.

00:09:28.620 To the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence for that assertion.

00:09:31.920 That that strikes me as a talking point drafted by a political operative rather than anything

00:09:40.420 that is, in fact, accurate.

00:09:41.980 They tried to cover this up because Tony Blinken was planning to travel to China.

00:09:48.440 He was going to be here, be in China this week, and they wanted the trip to happen.

00:09:53.200 And then once the news broke publicly, they were stuck.

00:09:58.580 And so on Friday, they downplayed the threat, said no big deal.

00:10:03.760 Now that the balloon's been shot down, they're acting like Biden got there with a sniper rifle 0.98

00:10:08.580 himself and took the damn thing out over the Atlantic. 0.97

00:10:11.480 They can't make up their message because they're trying to treat it as politics rather than national 0.99

00:10:17.720 security.

00:10:18.140 There's another aspect of the politics and national security of this, and that is the

00:10:23.580 response from China.

00:10:25.060 I think some Americans were taken aback by China's response to us shooting down their

00:10:32.660 balloon.

00:10:33.160 They've said it's theirs.

00:10:34.240 They try to claim it was some sort of weather balloon that got off course.

00:10:38.340 And now they're saying they basically reserve the right to respond with military-esque action.

00:10:44.740 Their words, after coming in and spying on our country, are stronger than our own commander 0.99

00:10:51.040 in chief's words about what happened here.

00:10:53.800 That is concerning to me as well.

00:10:56.160 Sure.

00:10:57.080 There is some real risk of Chinese retaliation.

00:11:01.160 Their language is suggesting that they're going to take action in retaliation.

00:11:06.940 And part of the reason why the likelihood of that is not zero is that the Biden White House's

00:11:14.720 response was so weak throughout this, they shot down the balloon after its mission was

00:11:21.180 complete, after it had gathered the intelligence it was sent to gather, presumably after it had

00:11:26.620 already transmitted that intelligence back to Beijing.

00:11:29.020 Only then did Biden shoot it down.

00:11:32.260 And that lesson, the Chinese Communist government took.

00:11:37.580 They observed it.

00:11:38.800 And what this White House doesn't understand is that weakness is provocative.

00:11:45.300 The weaker the president is, the more likely our enemies are to be aggressive and hostile.

00:11:51.400 Also, we saw President Biden's weakness in foreign policy in Afghanistan with the disgraceful surrender

00:12:00.160 and withdrawal of Afghanistan, surrendering to the Taliban, abandoning Americans behind,

00:12:06.560 leaving 13 servicemen and women to be murdered because they botched the withdrawal so badly.

00:12:12.260 That weakness encouraged our enemies.

00:12:15.940 It encouraged China. 0.81

00:12:17.280 It encouraged Russia. 0.93

00:12:18.240 It encouraged Iran. 0.99

00:12:19.780 It encouraged North Korea. 0.99

00:12:21.400 Biden's weakness played a major part in Putin invading Ukraine.

00:12:26.720 Biden's waiving the sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, sanctions that I authored into law,

00:12:32.700 that President Trump signed into law, that had prevented a Russian invasion.

00:12:37.540 Biden waived those sanctions.

00:12:39.500 And the direct result of waiving those sanctions is we've had the most significant land war in Europe

00:12:45.640 since World War II.

00:12:47.720 Weakness is provocative.

00:12:49.300 And Biden's weakness this week on the spy balloon significantly increases the chances of the Chinese military doing things like harassing American planes and ships in Asia,

00:13:03.240 doing things like trying to find American assets to do damage to.

00:13:08.060 I think those are real possibilities because the Chinese government will assess that the U.S. commander-in-chief will not respond with any meaningful response.

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00:13:52.340 You look at Joe Biden, and I'm going to ask you from a Senate perspective solely here.

00:13:58.120 Has there been a single issue to date where the president has shown true leadership with China, standing up to China?

00:14:06.580 I mean, we know that we've given them oil from our strategic oil reserves.

00:14:10.620 That happened right before the election.

00:14:12.960 That was shocking to many Americans.

00:14:15.460 We know that many believe that he and certainly his son are compromised by the Chinese Communist Party.

00:14:20.720 They had billions of dollars in loans going into the family business and millions and millions of profits.

00:14:25.660 We know what happened with this Chinese oil company, CEFE.

00:14:29.980 And we know that they've never really answered those questions, but there are people that believe that they're clearly compromised.

00:14:37.480 Has there been a single issue yet that's been significant where this administration has stood up to China to date?

00:14:44.440 Well, look, I suppose you could say they shot down a spy balloon after it had finished its espionage mission.

00:14:50.260 So that's something.

00:14:51.500 That's not nothing.

00:14:52.800 But I will tell you more broadly, it's not just Joe Biden in this White House.

00:14:58.340 There are obvious personal issues dealing with with allegations of Biden family corruption, the Biden family making millions of dollars from communist China, from Hunter selling access to his father when he was vice president.

00:15:11.900 There are those issues.

00:15:13.280 But there's a broader issue about the Democrat Party, which is the Democrat Party is structurally pro-China.

00:15:20.980 And there's a reason for that, which is the major stakeholders who support the Democrat Party.

00:15:27.080 Big business, big tech, big Hollywood, and big universities.

00:15:34.240 All of them are fully in bed with China. 0.98

00:15:37.400 As a consequence, today's Democrat Party is fully in bed with China. 0.65

00:15:42.960 In the last Congress, I forced a vote on the Senate floor to block the U.S. government from purchasing electric vehicles or batteries that were manufactured with slave labor in concentration camps in China. 0.95

00:15:59.860 There are right now over a million Uyghurs being held in concentration camps in China.

00:16:05.000 And I forced that vote every single Democrat except one, every Democrat except Joe Manchin voted no.

00:16:12.920 They all voted in favor of the federal government buying products from concentration camps made using slave labor. 0.91

00:16:22.140 I got to tell you, Ben, I don't think history is going to be kind.

00:16:24.060 Why would they do that?

00:16:25.000 I mean, people hear that the way you just described it.

00:16:27.840 You also mentioned this on Face the Nation.

00:16:29.660 You had an appearance there on Sunday morning.

00:16:32.260 Why is it that more people are not asking the question, what was their logic on that one to say, we're going to keep buying from slave labor camps when we claim that we're in favor of protecting basic human rights around the world?

00:16:44.880 Well, I think it's two things.

00:16:46.920 I think it is, number one, the dynamic I just described, that the Democrat Party structurally is unwilling to stand up to China because too much of their support, their financial support, their intellectual support, their manpower is dependent on China.

00:17:02.400 But secondly, when it comes in particular to electric vehicles and batteries, today's Democrat Party has handed much of its agenda over to the radical environmentalist left.

00:17:14.560 And so those issues trump human rights.

00:17:17.500 John Kerry, who is supposedly the climate czar in the White House, when he was asked about, are you troubled about buying products made with slave labor in concentration camps?

00:17:29.060 He said, with the haughty aloofness of a man who married his millions, he said, well, that's not my department.

00:17:38.540 I don't have to worry about that.

00:17:40.720 I have suggested previously that John Kerry should be named the concentration camp customer of the year. 0.97

00:17:48.920 And I want you to pause and think for a second.

00:17:52.360 What is history going to think?

00:17:54.040 What are historians going to think 10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now?

00:17:58.000 Imagine concentration camps in the bank in the past.

00:18:01.640 Imagine concentration camps where if you have businesses purchasing products made by slave labor.

00:18:10.060 Today's Democrat Party is very big on seeking reparations.

00:18:15.220 Does that mean the Uyghurs can sue John Kerry and Joe Biden?

00:18:19.000 Because they are funding the concentration camps, not 100 years ago, not 50 years ago, not 10 years ago.

00:18:26.960 Today, John Kerry and Joe Biden are funding concentration camps with over 1 million people enslaved.

00:18:34.420 It's immoral, but yet the press, by and large, won't cover it.

00:18:39.660 Let's talk about the spin of this.

00:18:41.840 You mentioned political operatives a moment ago.

00:18:44.000 You did believe that the president on the State of the Union Tuesday night is more than likely going to be like, look, I shut this down.

00:18:50.220 And the Democrats will stand in applause.

00:18:52.480 But they also seem to be kind of pushing out a narrative that we waited so long to shoot down also because we were just trying to keep you safe.

00:19:00.600 Mayor Pete was on this morning with Jake Tapper on CNN, and he basically says to the American people, you owe us.

00:19:09.180 We kept you safe.

00:19:10.140 Now, Senator, you and I have flown together several times.

00:19:12.320 I've taken flying lessons, and when you're in those little Cessna 172s, you realize there's a lot of places where there aren't a lot of people in this country.

00:19:21.660 I mean, it's a very big country.

00:19:23.560 And when you're flying, you see a lot of areas where there's not dense populations.

00:19:27.640 The idea that from Alaska all the way to New York, we couldn't shoot this thing down anywhere because we were keeping you safe, I think may be one of the most absurd lines I've heard so far.

00:19:37.600 Yet they're testing it out on TV this morning.

00:19:40.280 The United States infrastructure, there's Malmstrom Air Force Base and nuclear ballistic missile fields in Montana, if you look at the map there.

00:19:47.480 Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, Fort Bragg and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

00:19:54.160 Is the assumption that the balloon was able to gather sensitive information and transmit it back to the Chinese government?

00:20:01.700 Well, the U.S. has stated that steps were taken to prevent any problems in terms of intelligence collection.

00:20:08.380 Remember, we are talking about a country that has a space program.

00:20:12.300 So I don't know all the ins and outs of what this balloon was doing or what its capabilities were.

00:20:17.280 I do know that when the president gave the order to have this handled, the military gauged the different risks and the different benefits of different approaches, made the decisions that they did, brought this thing down with that incident.

00:20:29.160 Right, but the presumption has got to be that the Chinese were able to gather intelligence hovering over the United States for day after day, especially over some of these sensitive sites.

00:20:37.160 I'm sure there's a similar presumption about what spy satellites do.

00:20:40.580 That is well outside of my lane.

00:20:42.500 I'm just glad that nobody was hurt as this thing came down.

00:20:44.720 When did the Biden administration first learn about this balloon, this spy balloon entering U.S. airspace?

00:20:52.420 We're told it first did so, it first entered U.S. airspace over Alaska two Saturdays ago.

00:20:57.780 Is that when the Biden administration learned about it?

00:21:00.060 I really can't speak to that.

00:21:01.220 What I can speak to is the great cooperation we have between the FAA and the Pentagon to make sure that when you have a special military operation like what it took to bring down this balloon,

00:21:11.120 that it happens without any threat to American lives or property.

00:21:13.840 I mean, you hear that, and it's like, you can apparently now fly anything you want to over America,

00:21:19.300 and they're going to tell you we kept you safe, and there was nowhere that we could have even thought about taking out a balloon.

00:21:26.740 So let me make a couple of observations.

00:21:28.920 One, just something I noticed listening to that.

00:21:31.900 Did you pick up on Buttigieg's cadence that he is mimicking Barack Obama?

00:21:39.460 There must be a similar presumption about what spy satellites do.

00:21:42.620 He's doing this sort of speed up and pause, speed up and pause, and it's interesting.

00:21:47.160 Hakeem Jeffries, the new Democrat leader in the House, has the exact same cadence.

00:21:52.840 He did that on the night when he was having to hand over the gavel to Gavin Newsom, finally, in his long, long speech he did.

00:21:58.380 It sounded almost exactly like Barack Obama.

00:22:00.820 And Buttigieg didn't used to speak that way.

00:22:03.520 I think he's getting ambitions of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and there's no real mystery about that.

00:22:12.060 But it is a little amazing, given the train wreck he's presided over at the Department of Transportation for two years,

00:22:19.200 that his ambitions have soared so high.

00:22:21.240 But let's focus on the substance of what he said and not the amusing cadence and affectation that he's put on.

00:22:30.060 I do not know the military's assessment of what the risks of civilian damage would have been from shooting it down earlier.

00:22:38.360 If and when we have a classified briefing this week, I intend to ask that question.

00:22:45.020 And obviously, if the military briefs that there's a risk of significant civilian damage or lives lost, that's a significant factor.

00:22:54.820 That being said, the point you made, listen, this thing entered U.S. airspace in Alaska.

00:23:00.340 It traveled over Alaska, it traveled over rural Canada, it traveled over Idaho, it traveled over rural Montana.

00:23:08.120 If you were to pick locations that have the sparsest population that are the most suitable to shoot down a hot air balloon,

00:23:18.540 it would be hard to come up with locations better suited to that.

00:23:22.940 So I will say I will await the classified briefing to get a military estimation.

00:23:28.480 But I've got a great deal of skepticism that they couldn't have taken this down in the middle of the wilderness,

00:23:36.300 in the middle of nowhere before it had engaged in its espionage.

00:23:40.900 I think the problem wasn't the feasibility.

00:23:43.920 The problem was the lack of political will to carry it out.

00:23:49.840 And the only reason they got the political will was not because they said, gosh, the risk of espionage is really significant.

00:23:58.500 I think they completely minimized the risk of espionage.

00:24:03.240 And it's not even because they said, gosh, if we appear weak to the Chinese,

00:24:07.940 that will be provocative and encourage them to engage in more acts of hostility.

00:24:12.560 I don't think they care about that.

00:24:13.980 I think they project weakness every day of the week.

00:24:17.040 The reason they finally shot it down once it was over the ocean and its mission was complete

00:24:22.360 was because private citizens had spotted it.

00:24:26.580 It went viral on the Internet.

00:24:28.300 It was leading the news.

00:24:29.520 And suddenly everyone was aware of it.

00:24:31.580 And then it became, hey, let's shoot the balloon down now that we've already exposed ourselves to espionage.

00:24:39.960 And it was a communication and media play rather than a military action to keep America safe.

00:24:48.020 Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more on that one.

00:24:50.100 I want to ask you about this important meeting in our last verdict episode.

00:24:53.520 We talked about Anthony Blinken and bringing up a hostage that's been held in China for a decade now,

00:24:58.840 10 years, an American hostage.

00:25:00.640 How does that change?

00:25:01.540 I'm going to ask you about that in a moment.

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00:26:22.780 Senator, you and I talked about this, and it made a lot of news, thank goodness, about

00:26:28.420 an American that's being held hostage in China.

00:26:30.920 You talked about this important meeting with Anthony Blinken, meeting with the Chinese.

00:26:34.660 Do we know the status of that meeting now that this has happened with this balloon?

00:26:38.440 And what can the American people do now, really, to be an advocate for this American that's

00:26:43.680 being held hostage?

00:26:45.080 Well, unfortunately, the meeting is not happening.

00:26:48.560 And we don't know when it will happen in the future.

00:26:50.860 Mark Swidan has been wrongfully imprisoned in China for over a decade now.

00:26:57.760 He's a Texan.

00:26:58.560 He's from Luling, Texas.

00:27:00.180 I've spoken to his mother multiple times.

00:27:02.640 His mother, Catherine, is a wonderful woman who loves her son, who's been praying for her

00:27:07.840 son, who's been speaking out for her son.

00:27:10.120 This past week, I introduced a resolution in the Senate calling on China to release Mark

00:27:15.080 Swidan, laying out the facts of his case that he was prosecuted over a decade ago.

00:27:21.000 He was sentenced to death on very flimsy charges, charges for which there's little to no evidence.

00:27:28.640 The State Department has concluded he's unjustly detained.

00:27:31.820 The United Nations has concluded he's unjustly detained.

00:27:34.880 And I'll tell you, the case I made on the floor of the Senate last week and the case I made on

00:27:41.280 Face the Nation yesterday is that China aspires to be a great nation.

00:27:46.900 China aspires to be a great power.

00:27:49.160 China argues to the world it should be considered a great nation and a great power.

00:27:53.500 Well, great nations and great powers don't hold hostages.

00:27:56.840 They don't behave like tin pot dictators by targeting hostages and political prisoners

00:28:03.440 from other countries.

00:28:04.700 And so I have urged China at very senior levels of government to release Mark Swidan.

00:28:11.780 I had urged Tony Blinken to press and use the tools we have for China to release Mark Swidan.

00:28:18.020 And I'm going to continue pressing the Biden administration to move that forward.

00:28:22.080 It is unfortunate that Blinken will not be able to make that case in person this next week.

00:28:29.280 I don't know when he will next have communications with his Chinese counterparts.

00:28:34.320 One last question on this.

00:28:36.100 If you go back to D.C. this week and it's the week of the State of the Union,

00:28:39.620 obviously that sucks all the oxygen out of the room.

00:28:42.520 But when will you guys find out if you are going to get a classified briefing on what happened this last week?

00:28:47.060 And if it doesn't pop up on the schedule,

00:28:49.700 can you guys request it or can you demand it?

00:28:53.200 How does the protocol work with Congress from that perspective?

00:28:56.500 If they just decide to say we're going to mention the State of the Union,

00:28:59.360 but you guys aren't getting any intel out of us.

00:29:01.600 You know, I think it is likely that we'll have a classified briefing.

00:29:05.540 We can request it.

00:29:06.940 We can press for it.

00:29:08.660 Sometimes the administration will come to Congress and say we want to present a classified briefing.

00:29:13.760 Sometimes those briefings are presented to particular committees.

00:29:16.720 So you frequently have classified briefings presented to the intelligence committees.

00:29:22.220 Those get the most classified, the most sensitive briefings.

00:29:26.540 You frequently have classified briefings presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee

00:29:30.860 or to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

00:29:33.100 I spent six years on armed services.

00:29:35.080 I'm currently on foreign relations.

00:29:36.740 And so I'm often in classified briefings on matters such as this.

00:29:40.860 And then periodically you'll have a classified briefing for all senators.

00:29:45.180 So all hundred senators are invited.

00:29:47.140 And that happens, oh, I don't know, probably once every two months or so is about the frequency of those briefings.

00:29:54.020 I can tell you I and others have asked for briefings on the classified documents that were found

00:30:00.300 at Joe Biden's multiple residences and also at Mar-a-Lago and Pence's residence

00:30:06.100 to get classified briefings on all those documents.

00:30:08.860 What kind of documents are we talking about and where do things stand?

00:30:14.220 To date, the administration has said go jump in the lake.

00:30:17.180 They have only briefed the Intelligence Committee and the Intelligence Committee members,

00:30:21.580 both Republicans and Democrats, are ticked off.

00:30:24.680 They've said that the briefing they got was woefully inadequate.

00:30:29.460 So I and others are pressing for a full briefing on this.

00:30:33.200 Typically, the way it would work if Congress wants a briefing is that you would get Schumer and McConnell

00:30:41.060 to press the administration and say we need a briefing on this topic.

00:30:44.780 As I said, I think the odds are pretty good that that that they will schedule one,

00:30:50.260 because I think the interest on on this Chinese spy balloon is widespread.

00:30:54.780 And I think it's on both sides of the aisle.

00:30:56.900 People have a lot of questions and are irritated that we learned about it via Twitter

00:31:02.340 and not being the via the administration actually telling us what the hell was going on.

00:31:08.880 Tuesday night is the State of the Union.

00:31:11.160 I will be there at the State of the Union.

00:31:13.120 I've been been at a lot of State of the Union addresses.

00:31:16.600 You know, I'll tell you, for the State of the Union, each senator is given the opportunity to invite a guest.

00:31:22.940 And so the guest I've invited to Tuesday State of the Union is Lieutenant Levi Baird,

00:31:28.660 who's a Navy Surface Warfare Officer.

00:31:31.220 He's a Texas resident.

00:31:32.680 He's a top rated officer.

00:31:34.120 And he's currently assigned as an instructor at the Navy Surface Warfare School.

00:31:38.360 And in March of 22, he faced a separation board because he declined to get the COVID vaccine.

00:31:47.820 And before they could kick him out, a federal judge entered an injunction preventing them from kicking him out.

00:31:55.860 But now the Navy is trying to recoup from him $75,000 that they already paid him

00:32:01.960 because he wasn't named a department head.

00:32:04.560 And he didn't make department head because he made the personal decision not to receive the COVID vaccine

00:32:11.440 due to his sincere religious objection.

00:32:15.180 And so I'm really proud to be welcoming Lieutenant Baird to the State of the Union.

00:32:19.960 And I hope that his being there will cause those in the media to tell his story

00:32:26.060 because it really underscores how grotesquely unfair Joe Biden's policies are

00:32:31.800 that are punishing these American heroes, these sailors and soldiers and airmen and Marines and Coast Guardsmen

00:32:39.460 who spent their lives defending this nation.

00:32:42.380 And yet this administration is doing everything they can to punish them

00:32:49.080 for making their own personal medical choice consistent with their own conscience, consistent with their own faith.

00:32:56.020 Yeah, it's a perfect person to invite the State of the Union and bring light to that.

00:33:00.700 We will be back with you, by the way, doing a special show the night of the State of the Union, super late.

00:33:06.860 You guys will get that on Wednesday morning as well.

00:33:09.740 So make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button.

00:33:13.440 Make sure you tell your family and friends about this podcast.

00:33:16.340 Please pray for that American hostage and reach out to your congressman center.

00:33:20.860 We don't need this to lose any momentum right now.

00:33:25.300 We need to keep focusing on that.

00:33:27.320 We'll see you back here Wednesday morning.

00:33:29.440 Make sure you join us then, Senator.

00:33:31.260 Have fun at the State of the Union, as always.

00:33:33.160 And over, under, this is a short or long speech.

00:33:36.500 Under 30 minutes or over 30 minutes?

00:33:38.760 Your thoughts?

00:33:39.360 That's an easy one, I feel like.

00:33:41.580 I'm going to predict an hour and 21 minutes.

00:33:44.720 Oh, I like it.

00:33:45.840 All right, hour and 21.

00:33:46.820 I'm going to go 52 minutes.

00:33:49.460 All right.

00:33:50.020 Well, you know, you didn't quite prices right me.

00:33:52.760 You didn't say an hour and 20 minutes.

00:33:54.800 So we'll see how it shakes out.

00:33:57.260 Done.

00:33:57.720 I love it.

00:33:58.360 All right.

00:33:58.620 We'll see you guys back here Wednesday morning.

00:34:00.920 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:34:03.600 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 06, 2023

Biden's Chinese Balloon Theatre

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