Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 07, 2026


BONUS POD： Trump’s New Counterterror Strategy Rewrites the Rules


Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

146.46

Word count

2,163

Sentence count

66

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The Trump administration has a new counterterrorism strategy that will focus on border security and hemispheric safety. It will be an aggressive response to a growing threat from the drug cartels. What does that mean for the war on the cartels?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.640 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.900 The president thought, I think originally,
00:00:07.760 that if we showed determination,
00:00:09.640 that we'd be dealing with rational people
00:00:11.520 and we could find some kind of a deal.
00:00:13.720 He probably thought it would happen six or eight weeks ago.
00:00:15.960 But in fact, we're dealing with religious fanatics 0.96
00:00:18.680 and I think they may well be prepared
00:00:21.480 to offer remarkable concessions more than I would have guessed
00:00:24.880 because they see that over the next three or four weeks,
00:00:28.000 the writing's on the wall.
00:00:28.880 You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
00:00:32.960 Good Thursday morning. Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update.
00:00:36.660 And we've got a major story for you coming out of the White House.
00:00:40.140 The Trump administration has now put out a new counterterrorism strategy.
00:00:45.520 It will be an aggressive response with border security and what they're describing as hemispheric safety.
00:00:52.740 In translation, the Trump administration is declaring war on the drug cartels.
00:00:57.800 So what does that mean?
00:00:59.260 We'll explain it all to you.
00:01:00.780 It's the 47 Morning Update, and it starts right now.
00:01:04.120 Story number one.
00:01:05.340 We are now getting new information that the President of the United States of America
00:01:08.900 certainly is not just focused on Iran, but the President now has a new agenda item.
00:01:14.040 It is counterterrorism strategy that is going to be aggressive in its response,
00:01:19.660 as well as border security and hemispheric safety.
00:01:23.580 So what does that actually mean?
00:01:25.120 With the new White House counterterrorism strategy document is now looking to seize the initiative from terrorists as well as criminal cartels by taking aggressive action against hostile regimes, keeping America's borders secure to minimize threats at home.
00:01:43.420 And also, they say, to push malign foreign influence out of our Western hemisphere.
00:01:49.600 quote our new u.s counterterrorism strategy is a return to common sense and peace through strength
00:01:56.220 the president said and is forward to the plan as i said after our first successful counterterrorism
00:02:02.140 mission just days after i was sworn back into office if you hurt americans or are planning to 0.99
00:02:08.060 hurt americans we will find you and we will kill you the president not backing down now trump's 0.98
00:02:14.820 introduction and the rest of the document were highly critical of the counterterrorism strategies 0.99
00:02:20.000 that we've had in the past they've been pursued by the way by both Republican and Democrats
00:02:24.740 and Trump said he returned to the White House in 2025 to find four years of weakness failure
00:02:31.740 surrender and humiliation under the last Biden administration now the body of the White House
00:02:37.900 counterterrorism strategy document made it very clear that it faulted the Biden administration
00:02:44.000 for perverting national security into an endless crusade against its domestic political enemies.
00:02:51.160 That would obviously be Donald Trump and other conservatives.
00:02:54.800 That destroyed public confidence in the honesty and accountability of American security agencies.
00:03:00.880 The document also blasted the Democratic president, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama for ignoring
00:03:06.080 what is described as a growing threat of criminal cartels,
00:03:10.320 appeasing hostile powers in ways that made further hostility look profitable
00:03:14.840 and above all for throwing the borders open
00:03:18.860 to admit everything from vicious criminals to hostile foreign operatives
00:03:23.640 including those on the terrorist watch list.
00:03:27.600 Now to be clear, this wasn't all partisan
00:03:29.660 because the Trump team also criticized the Bush administration 0.99
00:03:33.080 for failing to confront the dangers of Islam head-on
00:03:37.340 giving a hostile ideology plenty of time to put down roots on American soil now both Democrat and 0.82
00:03:44.060 Republican administrations have clearly been slow not only to condemn or counter jihadi purges
00:03:49.960 against Christians in the Middle East and Africa and the Trump administration saying that indifference
00:03:55.580 not only was brutal to the persecuted Christians but it was also dangerous for the entire world
00:04:01.620 because it allowed jihadists to consolidate their grip on territory
00:04:05.400 as well as seize money and resources to continue to operate and grow
00:04:09.520 and to begin dismantling the weakened governments of Africa as well.
00:04:15.100 So this new counterterrorism strategy,
00:04:18.000 number one, it recognizes the threats close to the American homeland
00:04:21.740 and says those are the most immediate and dangerous.
00:04:24.480 It prioritizes neutralization of hemispheric terror threats
00:04:28.480 by incapacitating cartel operations.
00:04:33.060 Let me say that again.
00:04:35.420 Incapacitating cartel operations
00:04:37.420 until these groups are incapable of bringing their drugs,
00:04:41.980 their members, and their trafficking victims
00:04:45.120 into the United States of America.
00:04:47.180 Now, let's just stop there and break that down.
00:04:49.800 When you look at what the president just used in his words in the White House,
00:04:53.360 saying he's ready to incapacitate cartel operations,
00:04:57.080 that means going after their drug operations that means going after their drug houses that
00:05:02.680 means going after their manufacturing houses many of those by the way are in mexico and then he says
00:05:09.500 we're not stopping until these cartels are incapable of bringing their drugs he noticed
00:05:15.520 that he uses drugs first then their cartel members second and they're trafficked victims
00:05:22.360 into the u.s so what the president is doing is declaring war on the drug cartels and declaring
00:05:29.800 war not only on their drugs but also their members quote at the same time we will continue to find
00:05:36.620 and remove the cartel and gang members who were led into our country under the biden administration
00:05:41.960 while using foreign terrorist organization designations to strangle the commercial and
00:05:47.560 logistical connections of their organizations the trump white house has vowed now the white house
00:05:53.080 also held up its strikes against cartel drug boats and the capture of narco-terrorist dictator
00:05:58.460 nicholas maduro of venezuela as examples of its aggressive approach to hemispheric security
00:06:04.220 the document noted that maritime drug smuggling has decreased by more than 90 percent since the
00:06:11.440 drug boat strikes began and some of those smuggling and financial networks are also used by islamic
00:06:18.340 terrorists now the white house argued that making its determination to achieve hemispheric security
00:06:24.100 clear and demonstrating america's ability to act decisively towards that goal is crucial to bring
00:06:31.160 america's neighborhoods into the western hemisphere and bringing them on board so the president is
00:06:38.680 now saying clearly we're moving on to step two phase two we are going after the drug dealers
00:06:44.720 the drug cartel members the leadership and where they're making their drugs now much of this
00:06:52.020 criticism is directed to prior administrations concerned that the mixed signals sent by a
00:06:57.960 combination of lofty pronouncements and tepid action as security threats in latin america
00:07:05.100 were allowed to fester for years on end the white house says in contrast what the president was
00:07:10.300 saying today is he's now making it clear that not only is his determination to secure the hemisphere
00:07:16.120 against terrorism and organized crime crystal clear but doing it in a way that only kinetic
00:07:23.140 action meaning they're going to use guns folks and assertive prosecutions can do it now this
00:07:30.260 new strategy also has a second priority and that is this the targeting and destruction of the top 0.89
00:07:36.800 five islamic terror groups that have the intent and the capabilities to execute external operations
00:07:44.160 against the united states of america that is also in this document from the white house now these
00:07:51.080 groups would include al-qaeda the islamic state and their most aggressive subgroups such as al-qaeda
00:07:57.340 in the Arabian Peninsula, or ISIS.
00:08:00.320 The White House argued the importance of including the International Muslim Brotherhood
00:08:04.680 as a terrorist organization as well, a step the Trump administration took in January of
00:08:10.000 this year.
00:08:10.560 And then the third priority of this new CT strategy was to depoliticize security agencies
00:08:18.640 that were weaponized under the Biden and Obama administrations.
00:08:23.280 They want to take action against the growing threat of violent left extremist groups in this country, whose bloody handiwork included the assassination of Charlie Kirk by a radical who espoused extreme transgender ideology.
00:08:38.180 Again, this is in the White House's document.
00:08:40.300 In addition, it says to cartels and Islamic terror groups, our national CT activities will also prioritize the rapid identification and then neutralization of violent secular political groups whose ideology is anti-American, radically pro-transgender and anarchist.
00:09:03.640 The document said, noting that some of these groups have ties to dangerous international organizations.
00:09:10.620 The document specifically mentioned the left-wing terror group Antifa as a priority now of the White House to target.
00:09:17.740 That is massive.
00:09:19.200 Now, the fourth priority of this strategy singled out a special strategic category all on its own.
00:09:25.820 And that was to combat what they described as non-state acquisition and use of weapons of mass destruction.
00:09:33.640 especially the terrorist use of nuclear or radiological devices the strategy document
00:09:39.820 placed the current operation against iran specifically into that category since iran is
00:09:46.380 a state actor but the proxy groups it might furnish with nuclear weapons are not the white
00:09:52.780 house vowing to ensure that the regime in tehran is no longer a threat to the united states of
00:09:58.040 America, either directly or through many of its tentacles, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Shiite
00:10:04.460 militias, and the Houthi terrorists of Yemen, who must never again, they say, be allowed
00:10:09.560 to hold strategic waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz or the Red Sea hostage. 0.61
00:10:15.400 Now, this CT strategy presented the destruction of the Islamic State, the caliphate during
00:10:21.500 the first Trump administration, and they used that as an example of the swift and decisive
00:10:26.080 of action. The Obama administration envisioned the ISIS caliphate as a generational threat to
00:10:32.780 be slowly degraded over years and decades. But President Trump unleashed the greatest fighting
00:10:37.840 force in the world that we've ever seen. And within a matter of weeks, the jihadi insurgency, 0.95
00:10:42.480 which controlled vast territories across Iraq and Syria, well, they were gone. ISIS then fell
00:10:49.300 back to Africa. And that is leaving governments like Nigeria and Somalia with solid control over
00:10:55.960 mere fractions of their own territory well the trump 2026 strategy they say envision tackling
00:11:03.360 these threats by rebuilding bilateral ct relations with african governments who have been ignored or
00:11:10.780 insulted they say by the biden era neocolonial policies focused on globalist left wing cultural
00:11:18.180 issues now this was a blunt acknowledgement of the uncomfortable truth that some african nations
00:11:25.800 have grown reluctant to partner with America or Europe on security issues
00:11:30.720 because they fear agendas like homosexual and transgender rights
00:11:34.380 will be forced upon them.
00:11:36.400 Some of those nations prefer to partner with Russia or China as a result,
00:11:40.220 and the results have been disastrous for Africa and world security.
00:11:44.860 So the Trump White House has proposed reversing the dynamics
00:11:48.760 by marrying CT cooperation with the stabilizing effort
00:11:54.300 An effect of heightened trade and commercial relations, as witnessed by President Trump's historic peace deal between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
00:12:04.860 An example of our security is a prerequisite, he says, for prosperity.
00:12:09.780 So here we are, common sense and realism.
00:12:13.100 That is the major theme of this new strategy laid out by the White House.
00:12:16.700 especially on the delicate subject of expecting allies like the europeans to begin shouldering
00:12:22.420 more of the burden of their own security the document blasted the european governments for
00:12:28.120 creating a permissive operating environment for plotting against europeans and americans
00:12:32.980 by allowing a conglomerate of nefarious actors like al-qaeda isis cartels and state actors
00:12:39.900 to exploit Europe's weak borders and diminish CT resources.
00:12:45.980 Saying this, it is unacceptable that wealthy NATO allies
00:12:49.840 can serve as financial, logistical, and recruitment hubs for terrorists,
00:12:55.580 the document bluntly declares.
00:12:58.100 Unfettered mass immigration has been the transmission belt for terrorists, it warned.
00:13:03.520 Europe can be strong again if it rediscovers traditional principles of freedom of speech. 0.68
00:13:09.900 has honest conversations about Islamism, 0.96
00:13:12.720 devotes sufficient resources to mitigate terrorism
00:13:16.120 and cartel threats within its nations,
00:13:18.840 and then gets serious about global threat intelligence.
00:13:22.780 Finally saying this,
00:13:24.540 it is clear to all the well-organized hostile groups
00:13:27.860 that have exploited the open borders
00:13:30.120 and related globalist ideals, 0.99
00:13:33.260 the more these alien cultures grow
00:13:35.540 and the longer current European policies persist, 1.00
00:13:38.760 the more terrorism is guaranteed this is the new ringing of the alarm bell that no prior
00:13:46.600 administration of either party would have been willing to touch since september the 11th of 2001
00:13:51.520 but what the white house has just laid out is an america first counterterrorism strategy
00:13:57.140 that they say will bring security not only to the u.s but across the world by setting successful
00:14:03.620 examples of border security and threat detection that allied nations can follow. The Trump
00:14:10.740 administration and the White House say America first not only is an expression of what we need,
00:14:15.960 but it's common sense and honesty that would guide and inspire the rest of the civilized world.
00:14:23.220 This now is the new priority of the president, clearly thinking far beyond what's happening
00:14:28.780 right now in Iran.
00:14:30.400 Thank you for listening
00:14:31.180 to the 47 Morning Update
00:14:32.880 with Ben Ferguson.
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00:14:43.920 and we will see you
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