Breaking Down the GOP Debate-Did Anything Change？
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Summary
Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons break down the latest Republican primary debate, and offer their thoughts on what they liked and didn't like about the candidates' answers to a wide range of tough questions from the audience. They also talk about how the debate changed the landscape of the race, and whether or not it was a turning point in the race.
Transcript
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It is a special pod verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you, and also Senator
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Cruz's book, Unwoke, How to Defeat Culture, Marxism, America.
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It's at number one in multiple categories right now on Amazon.
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It is a special pod because it's the GOP debate.
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And I want to get your first overall thoughts on the night, Senator.
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I didn't really think there was any big shock or anything that's going to catapult somebody
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I found parts of it a little fatiguing and just kind of boring.
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And I didn't see anything this evening that fundamentally changed the race.
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The last debate, there were seven candidates on the stage.
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And so you had Mike Pence has dropped out of the race.
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And you had Doug Bergman, who didn't make the threshold for this debate.
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I think you're seeing more and more that the battle for who is the principal alternative
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to Trump is shrinking down to DeSantis and Nikki Haley.
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Chris Christie continues just throwing bricks at Trump, but not getting, as I see it, any
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But he has been having real trouble getting traction in this race.
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And Vivek, look, Vivek had some some colorful moments, some fiery moments.
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But but at the end of the day, most of the dynamic tonight seemed to be a battle between
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And you could tell they were both throwing some hard, hard shots at each other, trying
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to knock the other off and say, OK, I'm the lead person to take on Trump.
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You've you've obviously done this, been in a presidential debate, quite a few of them.
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And as that stage gets smaller and smaller, there is a perk, I think, for the voter.
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There was one part of this debate that dealt with the border.
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It was a part where DeSantis, I think, was really trying to to make himself be the front
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And it dealt with the issue of going after drug cartels and actually using special ops
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Here's part of what he had to say on the debate stage.
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Well, first, I was speaking to a dad who lost a son to fentanyl overdose.
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He had taken some pill that happened to be laced with fentanyl and it was a fatal overdose.
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And when he told me, obviously, the pain of losing a child is as bad as it gets.
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But he said what was salt in the wounds is that these elites in D.C. don't give a damn
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They don't care that we have tens of thousands of opioid deaths that the fentanyl is pouring
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They are not taking the type of action we need to.
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We're declaring it a national emergency on day one.
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I am going to deport people who came illegally.
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And I'm even going to build the border wall and have Mexico pay for it like Donald Trump
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Yeah, Mexico is not going to fork over money.
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We're going to impose fees on the remittances that foreign workers send to foreign countries.
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But we are going to designate the cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations or something
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And we're going to authorize the use of deadly force.
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We're going to have maritime operations to interdict precursor chemicals going into Mexico.
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If someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fentanyl across the border when I'm president, that's
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We're going to shoot them stone cold dead.
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We're going to shoot them stone cold dead.
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The audience absolutely erupted to that line saying, hey, we'll treat them like terrorists.
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So, look, I think on the fentanyl question, the answers from the candidates were all fine.
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To be honest, many of the answers felt like talking points.
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There was very little done in terms of an indictment of Joe Biden.
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In fact, it was really hard to hear Joe Biden's name even tonight.
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It was really striking that the candidates didn't say Joe Biden's name and they didn't
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I think most people think the most likely nominees are Biden and Trump.
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And yet the five on the stage rarely mentioned either name.
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On the border, you know, I think it would have been more effective to see someone really
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vigorously, passionately litigate the case against Biden.
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Joe Biden inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.
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And he came in and deliberately screwed it up and he screwed it up by ending remain in
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He screwed it up by reimposing catch and release.
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He undermines the Border Patrol and the president can fix this.
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And I got to say, I didn't hear any of the candidates really explain it.
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I don't know if they understand it or not, but they didn't explain it, that this is one
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of the issues on which a president can fix it and can fix it immediately.
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I have to say that the several of the candidates talked about using the military to go into Mexico
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I got to say, I think that position is loopy.
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We shouldn't be invading Mexico or Canada or any place else.
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Now, what I do think we need, and I've talked about this before, is something like Plan
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Colombia, which happened under George W. Bush when you had the Medellin cartel, when you
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had a massive wave of drugs coming in, and President Uribe in Colombia asked for America's
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help, said, please come in and help us get rid of the drug dealers.
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We sent the military in and eradicated much of their leadership.
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But I didn't hear anyone point out that to do this, you would need the Mexican government's
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approval that we should not be in the business of invading Mexico.
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And I think fundamentally, the reason people are saying, let's send the military in and
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invade Mexico is because they're not explaining what has caused this crisis.
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It is a deliberate, deliberate choice by Joe Biden, by Kamala Harris, by Alejandro Mayorkas,
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and by the Democrats in Congress to open up our borders.
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And that choice could be reversed immediately by a president who understood the problem and
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was prepared to say, if you are apprehended, you will be deported.
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Both the numbers of illegal immigration and the numbers of drugs coming into this country
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I'll mention something else also, which is on immigration, Vivek talked about our northern
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And he said another thing that I thought was was really kind of odd.
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And he said, we need to build two walls, one on our southern border, one on our northern
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border, I don't know what the guy's talking about.
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The idea that we would build a wall on our border with Canada, number one, it would be
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That's a much, much bigger wall than our southern border.
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And number two, there is nowhere near the traffic to justify building a massive wall across
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what is in many cases open wilderness between Canada and very spartily populated parts of the
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But I think, look, people are looking for something that sounds catchy and sexy to solve
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this problem rather than explaining and articulating what really caused it.
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Well, I want to get the facts compared to talking points so that people understand this
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I hear the idea that we go after the cartel members and we treat them like terrorists
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And yes, in theory, Senator, that sounds great.
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But if we're not welcomed, and there's no indication that Mexico would welcome that right now,
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they haven't asked for it from what I understand, unless you know something different than what's
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been publicly reported, they're not begging or clamoring for us to come down there and
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Could a president do that without the permission, just airspace and all the other logistics that
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are involved and go after these cartels they're bringing in fentanyl?
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Because that sounds like a great promise that may be very hard to fulfill legally.
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A president's commander in chief, you could order the military to go in.
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But ordinarily, if you invade another country, that's considered a declaration of war.
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And listen, I would love to send the military after the cartels if, if, if the Mexican government
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And to be clear, Colombia did, but it took, it took the situation getting bad enough that
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And, and one of the problems is under Joe Biden, because he's opened up the border, the cartels
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in Mexico have, have increased their profits by 2,600%.
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Back in 2018, they made roughly $500 million profits from human trafficking.
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Last year, they made $13 billion from human trafficking.
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The consequence of that is the cartels have become one of, if not the dominant player in
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We see murders and kidnapping and disappearing all across Mexico.
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We see Mexican politicians, Mexican journalists.
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We see prosecutors, judges threatened at massive numbers.
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I sat down with, with, with the mayor of Reynosa, major American city right across from McAllen
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just a few weeks ago for lunch, along with several others in McAllen.
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He was describing how in Reynosa, they've had roughly 6,000 people disappeared by the cartels.
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And, and so right now, at least AMLO, who is viciously anti-American and has become more
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anti-American with a weak president like Joe Biden, would never, ever, ever invite the
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But, but I, I think the answers on illegal immigration were fine, but, but, but none of
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them expressed a deep understanding of what in fact is happening.
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It was interesting as I was watching it and I want to get your take, I was looking at
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these answers and almost like they were saying, I'm with Trump too.
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And then Ramaswamy is like, I'm with Trump and then I'll build even more wall in Canada.
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There wasn't any sense of, of like ownership of their own ideas on how to deal with fentanyl,
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how to deal with China and how to deal with the cartels and how to deal with the Southern
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It was regurgitating what I think it's like they'd all already heard that was popular.
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And, and remember, look, every one of these candidates is theoretically running to be
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Having an immigration debate where nobody mentions the name Joe Biden and nobody mentions Donald
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Trump, it's just kind of weird, like it's, it's sort of missing the point.
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It's people reading a few kind of, like I said, talking points without acknowledging
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number one, this is an area Trump had very significant success and, and he negotiated
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And then Biden on his first week in office, ripped it to shreds and caused this crisis.
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And, and, and to have that discussion without acknowledging that context, I, I think, let
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I don't think any of those candidates in discussing illegal immigration moved a single voter and,
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There was also a grand debate over pro Hamas propaganda on TikTok.
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It's been banned on, on government devices and many states have banned it from state government
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Uh, is it a spying apparatch and is also in a sense of mind control, uh, where they're pushing
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propaganda in the face of young people in the face of people on TikTok 24 seven.
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What we saw after what happened with it, with the attack on Israel is a massive, and there's
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data to back this up, a massive onslaught of pro Hamas propaganda that was being pushed into
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the feeds, into the scrolling, uh, of, of people that are on TikTok.
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I believe it is nothing more than a Chinese, uh, communist party spying apparatus and, uh,
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I want you to hear it and I want to get your debate, uh, your, your reaction to it as well.
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We're going to stay on China and we're going to talk specifically about TikTok.
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Last week, Congressman Mike Gallagher, who is chairman of the House Bipartisan Select Committee
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on the Chinese Communist Party, published a long essay on TikTok following the flooding
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of pro Hamas propaganda on the TikTok accounts across the United States.
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He called the app predatory, controlled by America's preeminent adversary.
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One used to push propaganda and divide America, it's spyware, he said, in means of surveillance.
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Governor Christie, do you agree with Chairman Gallagher?
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And if so, would you ban or force the sale of TikTok?
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And let me say this, TikTok is not only spyware.
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It is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country.
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And when you saw what happened in the last few weeks with all of this anti-Semitic, horrible
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stuff that their algorithms were pushing out at a gargantuan rate, this is China trying
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to further divide the United States of America.
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And this is one of the big failings among many of the Trump administration.
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But when it came down to it, he did not ban them when he could have and should have.
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And now since then, we've had an additional nearly six years of this type of poison be put
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out throughout the United States, even putting aside the spying, which we know is going on
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in the theft of American personal data and information.
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So in my first week as president, we would ban TikTok.
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But I'll tell you another reason we would do it.
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They're not permitting a free flow of information to the Chinese people from our social media
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Yet we just open the door and let them do what they're doing.
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And TikTok should be banned because they are poisoning American minds.
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Senator, you hear those talking points that came there from a guy that actually I think
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And it probably hit with a lot of Americans the way that Chris Christie described them.
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And I think the compare and contrast with China is brilliant.
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He's like, look, they ban our stuff all the time.
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Why are we so shy as a nation to get rid of a of tick tock or force the sale?
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And and but but at the same time, one of the things that was striking is is as I saw it,
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there was basically complete agreement on tick tock across the debate stage that immediately
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after that, Hugh Hewitt asked asked DeSantis if he agreed.
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He asked Nikki Haley and and and Ramaswamy Vivek said that he agreed, although he he said
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more broadly that other tech companies are sharing information with China.
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And and then he asked Nikki Haley and Nikki Haley used it as a chance to punch back at other
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can other candidates on the stage who had attacked her on China generally.
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So so I didn't hear her answer the question, but look, the answers were good.
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And what you just played from Chris was well articulated.
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Again, I don't know that any of these answers are differentiating.
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When you get everyone on the stage agreeing, it's difficult to see what votes are being
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If they're all saying the same thing, it's status quo.
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And and I will say, you know, Chris, they're saying if I were president, I would ban it.
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You know, I would have liked to actually have seen a follow up from the moderator.
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Well, what under what legal authority would you ban it?
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Look, she and China can ban whatever the hell they want because it's a dictatorship.
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But but to actually ban something in America takes some legal authority.
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And it's one thing to say I would go to Congress and push legislation to ban it.
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That's that's a position that is a reasonable position for a presidential candidate to make.
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But but I have not seen an effective argument that the president has the unilateral power
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to wave a magic wand and suddenly say tick tock is banned in America.
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And and if Christie has an argument for that, he certainly didn't articulate it.
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I mean, explain to people how that would work legally.
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If you if let's let's say that any one of these people magically could do this instantly
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tomorrow, it's not as simple as you just described it.
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This is one of those empty promises in a campaign that people make, which drive voters insane.
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But what would it actually take to get rid of tick tock or force a sale?
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Oh, look, you could have and there was discussion under Trump of trying to force a sale and their
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There's there's there's a process called CFIUS that deals with foreign investment in the United
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I'm not saying it is impossible to come up with an argument of executive power to do
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But but Christie did not present any argument under that.
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And I haven't seen a persuasive argument that it can be done as an executive matter.
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If it's not done as an executive matter, then it would take legislation.
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And you'd have to actually get get that to move through Congress.
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The Chinese government has has control of tick tock, the ability to monitor monitor what's
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I think they are deliberately harming the United States.
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They're targeting our kids with self-harm messages.
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They're targeting our kids with with substance abuse and drug use messages.
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The pro Hamas propaganda that's being pushed on on tick tock.
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Now, I will say that we saw we saw a back and forth where Nikki Haley slammed Vivek because
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Um, and and he came back with a pretty good response and said, well, look, you know, all
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the lefties are on tick tock and we need to actually have some positive messaging there.
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I'm not on tick tock myself, but but but because of the Chinese control.
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But it worries me at time that if all conservatives abandon that platform and so many kids are
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following it, that that that we're leaving it to be almost entirely negative.
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And so I thought Vivek's response there was pretty good until he went too far and he
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had a nasty shot at Nikki Haley where he said, well, your daughter's on it and you're a hypocrite.
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And and and Nikki quite rightly got pissed off at that.
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And this was this was that response for this point.
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And if you missed it, here's what it sounded like.
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Well, I want to laugh at why Nikki Haley didn't answer your question, which is about looking
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In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining tick tock while her own daughter
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So you might want to take care of your family first.
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The next generation of Americans are using it.
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The easy answer is actually to say that we're just going to ban one app.
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I'm going to jump back in there because you heard the back and forth where she even says
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Look, I think that was a very, very bad moment for Vic.
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When you're attacking someone's kid, she was exactly right to pop back at him.
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But going after their kid, I think Vivek lost votes and lost support on that.
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And I think a lot of parents are like, leave the kids the hell out of it.
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And her reaction, the disgust she had where I think that was real.
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And that was, I think, one of the most consequential moments of the debate.
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And I want to move to Israel real quick and get your reaction.
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This obviously has become a presidential election cycle that is that is heavy in now foreign policy.
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Ron DeSantis was asked the question about Israel.
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There is an obsession by the left for a ceasefire.
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Now, the White House is pushing for a ceasefire.
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No, if you want to ceasefire, then release all of the hostages.
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Otherwise, we're moving forward and we're not stopping until we get rid of Hamas.
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And now there's new warnings coming from the U.N. and even the White House about Israel.
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If you go too far in their words, they're now turning Israel into the bad guys.
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Also, what you predicted, they had a few weeks to do what they need to do.
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And after that, they were going to people are going to turn on them very quickly.
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But DeSantis said this when he was asked about America's foreign policy and Netanyahu.
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I would be telling Bibi, finish the job once and for all with these butchers, Hamas.
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They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could.
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He cannot live with that threat right by his country.
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That Hamas should release every hostage and they should unconditionally surrender.
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I'm sick of hearing other people blame Israel just for defending itself.
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We will stand with Israel in word and in deed, in public and in private.
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And I can tell you, as governor, I actually did something about it.
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We had Floridians that were over there after the attack.
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There could have been more hostages had we not acted.
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I met the first plane load when they came to Florida.
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And one of the mothers pointed to a six-year-old daughter.
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And she said, my daughter had been saying the last two nights, mommy, I don't want to hear
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So there's a difference between words and deeds.
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Not just about American leadership and how we should make sure that we get people out of
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And this is, I think, a clear, indirect shot, in essence, at the president for what happened
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But also him saying to Bibi, you can't expect him to do anything but what he's doing now
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It was one of, if not the strongest moment of the night.
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It was excellent both on substance that he was calling out the need to support Israel in
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He called out Biden, so unlike the other points I made where they were reluctant to call out
00:27:01.020
And part of what made that answer so strong is that DeSantis acted decisively.
00:27:06.600
He had something to say there because as governor of Florida, sending those planes to bring Floridians
00:27:17.280
It's part of why Ron has such a strong record as governor of Florida.
00:27:21.140
As an executive, he's able to act unilaterally in a way the other candidates can't.
00:27:26.000
It's not something it's not like Chris Christie could suddenly send planes to take people to
00:27:37.300
There are 50 governors in America and only one did that.
00:27:39.800
And so it was a combination of substantively strong combined with a unique moment in his
00:27:48.980
And look, this is one of the things that I've been emphasizing.
00:27:53.200
Debates are all about one of a couple of things.
00:27:59.000
Are you moving votes and moving them from whom?
00:28:02.160
So if you are adding to your vote total, you're taking votes from somebody else for the candidates
00:28:08.520
If they're adding to their vote total, they're either taking votes from one of the other candidates
00:28:16.900
And and you do that through points of differentiation.
00:28:20.160
If you all say the same thing, nothing changes.
00:28:24.440
Well, that's an instance where what DeSantis was saying was different.
00:28:28.220
And I think that was that was a differentiating moment.
00:28:32.220
There needed to be more of those in the debate for the candidates.
00:28:40.020
I think it is more and more becoming between DeSantis and Haley.
00:28:51.540
Uh, but, um, I think all of the candidates would have been better off by having more
00:28:59.000
differentiators between themselves and the other people on that stage and critically
00:29:03.700
between themselves and Trump and between themselves and Biden.
00:29:06.860
Do you think lastly on the debate that there will be this many candidates on the next debate
00:29:11.860
stage or do you think there will be more that fall off and it goes to, as you mentioned
00:29:16.060
earlier, that DeSantis, Nikki Haley, you know, kind of two people.
00:29:23.640
So the RNC has increased the threshold for the next debate.
00:29:28.280
Uh, and at least the press speculation is that Tim Scott is unlikely to clear that next
00:29:33.800
I don't know if that's right and we'll see where things are, but I do think falling off
00:29:38.300
the debate stage is, is effectively fatal in this race that if you're not there, uh, it
00:29:43.860
is difficult to see how a candidacy survives if it can't make the debate stage.
00:29:47.760
Um, I don't know if Christie makes this, the debate stage or not.
00:29:52.040
I just, I, I have not looked at his numbers closely enough to see if, if he would make
00:29:57.120
the stage, it would be a very different debate if it were down to three people.
00:30:01.100
I think the three that, that will make it for sure are DeSantis, Haley, and probably Vivek,
00:30:08.520
And I will say, so in 2016, when I was doing debates, and this is true of every debate that,
00:30:14.160
that I do, you, you try to think in terms of moments.
00:30:17.360
Do you have a moment that, that catches fire, that goes viral, that results in fundraising?
00:30:24.300
So if you have a really good moment that catches fire the next day, and even that night, your
00:30:30.240
I had debates where within 24 hours, we'd raise millions of dollars because you had a
00:30:41.200
You know, when we had a great debate, it was striking where we'd go to events and events
00:30:45.720
that used to have 300 people would have 2000 people.
00:30:49.980
And, and, and it was an immediate effect of a really strong debate.
00:30:55.420
You can really feel like, wow, we really did well last night because the people showed
00:31:01.280
And so there were not a whole lot of moments like that.
00:31:04.500
Now I will say Vivek had a, a good moment in his opening and his opening, he blasted
00:31:11.760
the RNC and it was memorable and he blasted the debate moderators.
00:31:16.240
And if you have that clip, you ought to play that because that was, uh, that was one of
00:31:25.220
Why would you, uh, why should you be the nominee and not the former president?
00:31:29.860
I think there's something deeper going on in the Republican party here.
00:31:32.640
And I am upset about what happened last night.
0.98
00:31:35.700
We've become a party of losers at the end of the day.
0.98
00:31:38.560
It was a cancer in the Republican establishment.
0.98
00:31:42.340
I mean, since Ronna McDaniel took over as chairwoman of the RNC in 2017, we have lost
00:31:54.700
And I think that we have to have accountability in our party for that matter.
00:31:58.660
Ronna, if you want to come on stage tonight, you want to look the GOP voters in the eye
00:32:06.380
And frankly, look, the people there cheering for losing in the Republican party.
00:32:11.980
This should be Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Elon Musk.
00:32:15.040
We'd have 10 times the viewership asking questions that GOP primary voters actually care about
00:32:22.540
You think the Democrats, and we've got Kristen Walker here, you think the Democrats would
00:32:26.420
actually hire Greg Gutfeld to host a Democratic debate?
00:32:31.680
And so the fact of the matter is, I mean, Kristen, I'm going to use this time because
00:32:33.740
this is actually about you in the media and the corrupt media establishment.
00:32:37.840
Ask you the Trump-Russia collusion hoax that you pushed on this network for years.
00:32:42.220
Was that real or was that Hillary Clinton made up disinformation?
1.00
00:32:54.060
We need accountability because this media rigged the 2016 election.
00:32:58.540
They rigged the 2020 election with a Hunter Biden laptop story.
00:33:06.420
And by the way, I love how fast he jumped in there to take those blows, which, by the
00:33:15.160
way, his attack on that debate moderator is accurate.
00:33:19.500
She did, in fact, push the Russian hoax for years on the network.
00:33:25.740
So listen, I will say that that was a striking opening.
00:33:30.580
That may be unique in the in the history of presidential debate openings and it will be
00:33:37.060
I'm not sure that it moved a lot of votes, but it's the sort of thing that will go viral
00:33:51.800
So, for example, unloading on on Ronna McDaniel.
00:33:58.060
We're all frustrated at the election results last night and that we've had multiple elections
00:34:05.820
And we can have long discussions about why that is.
00:34:09.020
I got to say it is a bit of a weird argument to say it's Ronna McDaniel's fault.
00:34:14.200
Like, I'm sorry, the head of the RNC is not winning or losing national elections.
00:34:19.940
And so what I felt that was is really Vivek has run his whole campaign never, ever, ever
00:34:30.640
And so Ronna was kind of a convenient whipping boy for that.
00:34:35.380
But but the sort of solution he was pointing to is you need to resign, I thought was less
00:34:45.080
You could point to to candidate selection as to why we lost.
00:34:50.240
But but targeting Ronna on there, I thought was odd.
00:34:54.060
Look, going after the media is pretty much always a good strategy in a Republican debate.
00:34:59.100
And I will say his substantive point is exactly right and something I've called for for a long
00:35:05.140
I believe Republican presidential primary debates should only be moderated by people who will
00:35:14.560
If you look at Democrat primary debates, you have media journalists, all of whom are Democrats
00:35:19.560
who moderate the debates and every one of the moderators wants one of the Democrats on
00:35:26.080
If you look at many Republican debates, they're moderated by journalists.
00:35:30.660
Often all of them are going to vote in the Democrat primary and they want every person on the stage
00:35:38.260
And so tonight, the only person on that stage who's going to vote in a Republican primary
00:35:47.760
He's very knowledgeable on foreign policy and national security.
00:35:52.400
And I did think Vivek's point about Welker pushing the Russia hoax was really, it scored.
00:36:03.160
I will say it would have been more effective if the moderators had been more blatantly biased.
00:36:10.260
And I will say I did think that Welker and Lester Holt did not do a bad job tonight.
00:36:15.980
There have been debates where we've seen moderators do horrible, horrible jobs and make it all about themselves.
00:36:25.100
And here, I thought the moderators were fairly restrained and did a good job of not making it about themselves.
00:36:33.900
And it's striking there even at the end after he blasts Welker where she doesn't engage.
00:36:40.680
And, you know, when it comes to authenticity, I mean, that that whole riff felt to me a bit like a performance piece
00:36:48.100
because he was resolved to blast the moderators before they'd done anything.
00:36:52.720
I think it would have been more effective in response to demonstrated bias.
00:36:58.400
And I didn't see nearly as much bias from the moderators as we've seen in other debates.
00:37:06.020
And it was like you said, when sometimes you have lines that you get ready for and you look for.
00:37:10.420
And he played that hand before they showed their bias in this debate.
00:37:14.000
And it may have looked, like you said, too pre-planned there.
00:37:17.160
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00:39:00.640
I also am waiting for the restraining order because he's absolutely obsessed with you.
00:39:04.840
Your new book that is out, Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
00:39:10.040
He gave it a prime time promotion on his show last night.
00:39:22.040
You can tell it's Ted's book because the dust jacket doesn't quite fit.
00:39:31.460
The last one was called Ted Cruz, A Time for Truth.
00:39:39.140
Um, he wrote Glued Pubes, The Guide for Guys Who Can't Grow a Beard.
00:39:43.400
Of course, the New York Times bestseller, A Partially Digested Rat, and other things I found on my chin pouch.
00:39:49.680
There are many interesting musings and revelations in the books.
00:39:52.400
Uh, he says, The Princess Bride is his favorite movie, and he's seen it hundreds of times, which is definitely not true.
00:40:00.760
And apparently, he's not a big fan of late-night television.
00:40:08.360
I love comedy, but watching angry leftists scream about how much they hate Donald Trump isn't remotely funny.
00:40:14.880
Well, all I'll say is, it's an honor to be called pitiful by a man who abandoned his dog in an ice storm to go to Mexico.
00:40:25.820
And seriously, I do want to say, you know, writing a book like this is a huge accomplishment, especially for him.
00:40:33.200
You know, it's very difficult to type with hoops.
00:40:36.820
I mean, Senator, doesn't it prove your point that you just wrote in your book?
00:40:41.740
That was the part that made me laugh, is as he's forcing this comedy on the audience and there's some awkward laughter, it's like, yeah, thanks for proving the point of what you just wrote about in your book.
00:40:52.540
Look, I mean, it was when he did that last night.
00:40:55.520
I actually tweeted his monologue out this morning, and I said, hey, thanks for pitching my book.
00:41:03.440
And I sent the link, and I did something that is fairly obligatory also, which is Kimmel regularly blasts me in his late night monologues.
0.97
00:41:13.360
And every time he does, I respond and I point out that ever since I whipped Jimmy Kimmel's ass in one-on-one hoops, it seems that I'm living rent-free in his head.
00:41:26.820
And so I sent a video of me scoring on him and blocking him just to remind him of that moment that I think he probably still wakes up in tremors about.
0.97
00:41:40.160
What he read there was an actual excerpt from the book, and then he put up the book cover.
00:41:44.280
And I think that's fabulous, but I do wish the substantive point that late night humor, I wish, was actually funny.
00:41:55.500
I like real comedians who are funny, and they used to be funny.
00:41:59.360
And now it's one of the many examples, and I discuss it at length in the book Unwoke, how Trump broke the media, Trump broke the Democrat Party,
00:42:08.980
and Trump broke late night comedy because they just, it's a partisan primal scream instead of, good comedy makes fun of both sides.
00:42:20.940
I'm perfectly fine with making fun of me, but they never ever make fun of the Democrats.
00:42:30.360
Don't forget, grab the book, especially, you know, now that Jimmy Kimmel's promoting it, Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
00:42:36.700
Yeah, congrats, Senator, it's number one in multiple categories right now on Amazon.
00:42:43.900
You can grab a copy for a great Christmas gift as well, or wherever you get your books.
00:42:50.560
Unwoke, How to Defeat Cultural Marxism in America.
00:42:54.080
And there's also another liberal book, by the way, that you were beating earlier today.
00:42:59.000
Rachel Maddow has her new book out, and you were ahead of that, which made me just grin a little bit, Senator.
00:43:04.780
Well, that is a good thing, and beating lefties is a great American pastime.
00:43:13.720
Don't forget, this show is Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
00:43:15.920
Hit that subscribe, auto-download, or follow button, because if you don't, you'll miss special pods like this one when we give you debate reaction on a normal night where we don't do it.
00:43:26.580
So make sure you hit that subscribe, auto-download button as well, and give us a five-star review.
00:43:31.440
And the Senator and I will actually see you back here tomorrow for our regular episode on Friday, and we'll see you then.