Verdict with Ted Cruz - Can Trump Drain the Swamp, Kamala's Cognitive Biden Debacle & Why Harris is in Texas Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.340 Welcome.

00:00:05.980 It is a verdict with Ted Cruz and it's the week in review.

00:00:09.680 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:10.760 And we had some major stories this week that you may have missed.

00:00:13.820 First up, voters, you've heard it before about the idea of draining the swamp.

00:00:18.520 What does it actually look like this time with the Trump presidency?

00:00:21.840 And will it be different than 2016?

00:00:24.960 The answer is yes.

00:00:26.300 And we'll explain just how big of a difference it could be.

00:00:30.060 Also, Kamala Harris was cornered about lying to the American people on the cognitive decline of Joe Biden.

00:00:36.560 She now has a new date when she says she noticed a difference, but also defended him as being a brilliant man.

00:00:42.600 It didn't go well in an NBC interview, and we're going to play that for you.

00:00:46.260 And finally, Kamala Harris, just days away from Election Day, is in Texas.

00:00:51.080 Why? 0.99

00:00:51.720 Well, she wants to tell you Texas is evil and that you should be able to kill your babies whenever you want to on demand with abortion. 1.00

00:00:57.880 Is that going to play with voters across the country? 0.98

00:01:00.980 It's the weekend review, and it starts right now.

00:01:04.380 Yeah, not at all.

00:01:05.760 And this goes back to the cover-up.

00:01:07.700 I don't think this was an accident.

00:01:09.560 This was deliberate by them because they knew they needed this to be a campaign issue.

00:01:13.840 That, hey, things aren't that bad, right?

00:01:16.200 Inflation is actually not that bad.

00:01:18.820 Immigration, we saw them do this deal with Mexico to make the numbers artificially go down in August and September going into the election.

00:01:28.780 Going, see, we're securing the border.

00:01:30.740 It's no different with the violent crime stats here.

00:01:33.460 This is why so many Americans now don't trust the government, certainly the deep state, certainly, unfortunately, the FBI, and yet no one's going to get fired for screwing up their job this bad because it wasn't a screw-up.

00:01:48.080 It was done deliberately.

00:01:49.840 Well, you may be wrong that no one's going to get fired because—

00:01:53.120 Well, that would be amazing and a first in my lifetime.

00:01:55.640 Well, if we have a good election, I think if Donald Trump gets elected, we will see a new attorney general.

00:02:02.740 I think we will see a new head of the FBI.

00:02:05.380 Oh, for sure.

00:02:06.140 And I am praying the people involved in this will be fired if we win a majority in the Senate.

00:02:11.880 I think we're likely to win, and the Republicans are likely to win a majority in the Senate.

00:02:15.880 As you know, I'm on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

00:02:17.980 I'm going to press the Judiciary Committee to launch an investigation into the FBI as to who specifically put out the false data.

00:02:29.020 And I think we should push to get every email exchange, every conversation.

00:02:35.100 I think it is likely that this was partisan, but we need to get to the bottom of it.

00:02:40.480 And the fact that the FBI is not even providing any explanation when they're caught red-handed really does damage.

00:02:47.100 And by the way, look, I'll tell you something.

00:02:49.300 Again, as I travel around campaigning, regularly people ask me, should we abolish the FBI?

00:02:57.040 And I've got to tell you that actually that question concerns me because the FBI does a lot of things that are incredibly important.

00:03:04.440 The FBI is designed to battle terrorism, to catch terrorists before they commit another 9-11.

00:03:11.080 The FBI catches serial killers.

00:03:14.520 The FBI catches child predators.

00:03:17.220 The FBI helps with kidnapped children.

00:03:19.720 I mean, there is a very, very important law enforcement mission of the FBI.

00:03:24.020 And I'll tell you, with first James Comey and now Chris Wray running the FBI,

00:03:29.520 I think the integrity and the reputation of the FBI has been so profoundly tarnished 0.98

00:03:35.500 that half the country wants to get rid of the damn thing altogether. 0.95

00:03:38.620 That is really bad from a law enforcement perspective, from a perspective in stopping terrorists and stopping criminals. 0.98

00:03:46.100 And I'll tell you, I have chewed out Chris Wray that when he circles the wagons and defends the hardcore partisans who have politicized the FBI,

00:03:56.920 he is lighting on fire the FBI's credibility and its reputation.

00:04:02.400 And I think if Trump wins, there needs to be a wholesale cleaning house getting rid of the wildly partisan career bureaucrats who burrowed into senior leadership positions at the FBI. 0.82

00:04:15.520 All right, let's let's dive into this even on it on a more intense level, because this is one of those moments where I think there's a lot of voters that are listening right now.

00:04:26.480 They're saying, OK, my worry is we've heard this before, that there's going to be a real draining of the swamp.

00:04:35.260 What how different do you think a Trump administration will be this time compared to 2016 when there was a lot of people that were on a list?

00:04:46.000 And you've done transitions. I've done it before when when people win.

00:04:51.260 And what you go through is you say, OK, well, there's a certain group of people over here.

00:04:54.240 These are nonpolitical. We don't mess with them. Right.

00:04:56.980 They stay throughout administrations. And then here's your here's your political ones.

00:05:02.000 And you can deal with them how you want. But there's these certain areas where you don't touch it.

00:05:06.720 I think Donald Trump learned there's a lot of these, quote, nonpolitical positions that have become highly political.

00:05:13.600 Yes. And and this is a great example of that.

00:05:17.220 So do you believe that there is is the political will to actually clean house the way that many voters are expecting?

00:05:24.680 And I say that I think there's a lot of voters are expecting it.

00:05:27.880 They're like, OK, if we're going to put you back in there, Republicans, a.k.a.

00:05:32.900 Trump, then you guys better do what you said you're going to do this time and clean house, because that's what we're voting for.

00:05:37.640 Well, as you know, this is the topic of the third book that I wrote, which which is called Justice Corrupted, how the left has weaponized the legal system.

00:05:46.100 And in the book Justice Corrupted, I lay out how Barack Obama weaponized the Department of Justice and the FBI and the IRS and the alphabet soup of federal agencies to target and attack his political enemies.

00:05:59.080 And then when Trump became president, by that point, many of these hard partisans had burrowed into senior career positions in the agency.

00:06:08.140 And they spent the four years of the Trump presidency waging war on Donald Trump.

00:06:13.240 They hated him. They tried to destroy the president.

00:06:15.760 They tried to to frustrate and oppose every aspect of his agenda.

00:06:19.880 And now under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, they're brazen and out in the open.

00:06:23.380 They are nakedly politicized, that they repeatedly are employed to target and persecute the political opponents of the White House.

00:06:31.620 And it is disastrous.

00:06:33.480 I think it is one of the most important things in a Trump administration to depoliticize the Department of Justice and the FBI.

00:06:39.900 I've said a lot of times I don't want a Republican DOJ.

00:06:43.140 I don't want a Democrat DOJ.

00:06:44.340 I want a DOJ that follows the law and that prosecutes people when they break the law, regardless of their party.

00:06:49.860 I want an FBI that does the same thing.

00:06:52.220 And look, will it be better the second time around?

00:06:56.460 Absolutely.

00:06:57.200 I don't think Trump and I know his his senior team in the White House, they didn't realize what it is they were fighting.

00:07:04.820 They didn't realize how the swamp operated.

00:07:07.140 And they left in place a lot of people who actively waged war against the Trump administration.

00:07:13.760 Look, classic example of that is James Comey.

00:07:16.220 I believe that that that the Trump White House should have fired James Comey on January 20th, 2017.

00:07:21.900 No one would have blinked.

00:07:23.380 First day Trump comes in office.

00:07:24.900 Mr. Comey, thank you for your services.

00:07:26.380 He was the old head of the FBI.

00:07:28.220 You're gone.

00:07:29.640 They didn't.

00:07:30.420 They thought, oh, we can co-opt this guy and get him to work with us.

00:07:33.780 Well, it was a disaster and the whole Russia, Russia, Russia nonsense. 0.99

00:07:38.780 James Comey was behind a lot of that.

00:07:41.220 And so this time around, I think they're certainly they realize the threat now fighting.

00:07:47.240 It's not easy.

00:07:47.860 I'm not going to, you know, just just blow smoke at you and say it's all going to be rosy if Trump wins again.

00:07:53.660 Fighting the swamp and the career bureaucrats is incredibly difficult.

00:07:58.540 But I do think you will see a much, much greater seriousness of purpose from the Trump White House this time around.

00:08:05.000 I think they realize much more the magnitude of the threat they're dealing with.

00:08:08.560 Final question for you, Senator.

00:08:10.680 There's a story and we're getting more details on it, but we're going to talk about this one on Wednesday, I'm sure.

00:08:15.940 But there is a headline that just popped and it says big tech censoring ahead of the elections.

00:08:21.820 I was not surprised by this.

00:08:23.780 I think it's a no brainer.

00:08:24.880 But we're seeing now that this is a real problem yet again, weeks before Election Day.

00:08:32.180 Yeah, the Washington Post had an investigation that said that Instagram, which is part of Meta, buries political posts and it slashes the audience by 63 percent when the word vote is posted.

00:08:48.360 And one influencer faced, faced, as I said, a 63 percent drop.

00:08:54.840 And this is an investigation done by Washington Post tech columnist Jeffrey Fowler that showed that Meta across its platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and Threads, actively suppress content related to the upcoming 2024 election.

00:09:11.200 And it affects partisan political posts, but it also just nonpartisan content like vote that they are suppressing it.

00:09:21.000 And Fowler found that that that whenever an Instagram account creator named Mrs. Frazzled, whose real name is Ariel Fodor, whenever Fodor mentioned anything related to politics over the last six months, her audience size decreased by about 40 percent compared to her nonpolitical posts.

00:09:39.160 And when she used the word vote in a caption across 11 posts, the average audience was 63 percent smaller and her experience is not isolated.

00:09:50.280 Fowler, this is a Washington Post investigative reporter, found several other Instagram creators who noticed a similar pattern and it's not unique to individual accounts.

00:09:59.520 There was a wider study by an advocacy group called Accountable Tech that quantified the audience drops for five prominent leftist Instagram accounts, including the Human Rights Campaign and Feminist.

00:10:11.420 And over 10 weeks this spring, their average audiences fell by 65 percent.

00:10:16.320 The study found that conservative accounts experienced a similar drop in engagement when discussing political topics.

00:10:21.520 And meta suppression of political content happened when when Zuckerberg in 2021 decided to pull back on political content and and just just try to avoid politics.

00:10:37.520 Now, look, I'd rather they avoid politics than then actively be biased, which is how they were in the 2020 election.

00:10:45.740 But silencing the ability of citizens to talk about politics is a really bad dynamic.

00:10:51.580 And you contrast that to X, which I think X with with Elon Musk's having purchased it is the new town square.

00:10:58.200 But but Facebook and Instagram have huge reaches and silencing politics is really harmful for democracy.

00:11:07.480 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.

00:11:13.960 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97

00:11:21.000 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:11:24.740 I'm Jennifer Stewart and I'm Catherine Clark.

00:11:27.120 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:11:36.620 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:11:39.620 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:11:43.960 Now on to story number two, MSNBC pushes her on Joe Biden's cognitive state.

00:11:52.460 And again, her answer is terrible.

00:11:54.200 Give a listen.

00:11:55.280 Can you say that you were honest with the American people about what you saw in those moments with President Biden as you were with him again and again, repeatedly in that time?

00:12:02.860 Of course, Joe Biden is an extremely accomplished, experienced and capable in every way that anyone would want if they're president.

00:12:20.200 You never saw anything like what happened at the debate night behind closed doors with him?

00:12:24.260 It was a bad debate.

00:12:25.520 People have bad debates.

00:12:27.240 Should he?

00:12:27.480 That he is absolutely.

00:12:29.660 But that's the reason why you're here.

00:12:30.920 And he's not running for the top of the ticket.

00:12:34.060 Well, you'd have to ask him if that's the only reason why.

00:12:37.780 What do you think?

00:12:38.440 I am running for president of the United States.

00:12:42.120 Joe Biden is not.

00:12:43.820 And my presidency will be about bringing a new generation of leadership to America that is focused on the work that we need to do to invest in the ambitions and aspirations of the American people.

00:12:57.240 I mean, that's that's just a bad answer.

00:13:00.420 Like, it's an answer that you're sitting there.

00:13:02.300 And if you work on her staff, you can't think that this is going well.

00:13:06.560 Well, and she continued to get pressed on the fact that Biden is obviously diminished and she dug in even more.

00:13:12.240 Give a listen to how she continued.

00:13:13.980 It's a judgment question.

00:13:14.980 That's why I ask.

00:13:16.020 Can the American people trust you in these moments, even when it's maybe uncomfortable for Americans to have to level with Americans in that way?

00:13:22.940 So that's why I ask.

00:13:24.040 And it sounds like what you're saying is you feel like you never saw anything like that from President Biden.

00:13:27.460 I have worked with Joe Biden, whether hours and hours and hours over these four years, whether it be in the Situation Room or the Oval Office.

00:13:37.240 Joe Biden is the one who was able to bring NATO together during a crisis where for the first time in 70 years, Europe saw and has seen war.

00:13:48.060 Joe Biden has done the work that has been about being a leader on what we have done to fix so much of what has been broken in terms of the economy because of Donald Trump's mismanagement.

00:13:59.520 I speak with not only sincerity, but with a real firsthand account of watching him do this work.

00:14:10.600 I have no reluctance in saying that.

00:14:12.500 No, of course I don't.

00:14:13.260 She, by the way, was not happy at the end of that question because I think she knew this was a screw up for her.

00:14:22.300 Well, look, in a lot of ways, it's an impossible question for her because let's assume for a second that that Kamala Harris hires Ben Ferguson to coach her on this question.

00:14:33.180 And let's assume that Ben Ferguson, his brain is captured by body snatchers and he decides he's willing to work for Kamala Harris.

00:14:42.920 I ask you in all seriousness, what would you tell her?

00:14:45.180 Because there's nothing she can say.

00:14:46.600 There is no answer to give to this question because the truth of the matter.

00:14:49.920 OK, here's the honest answer.

00:14:51.880 Yes, of course I knew he was senile. 0.97

00:14:54.060 Of course I knew he was incompetent. 0.98

00:14:55.540 Every person in the room knew he was incompetent. 0.80

00:14:57.540 The guy couldn't tie his shoes.

00:14:58.860 He was utterly and completely in the full throes of dementia.

00:15:02.580 That was obvious to every person there.

00:15:04.940 Now, that would have the advantage of being true.

00:15:08.420 But it would also be an admission that she spent four years lying to the American people on a daily basis.

00:15:14.160 So she can't say that.

00:15:16.160 So she has to instead say, nope, nothing seemed wrong to me.

00:15:21.140 Everything seemed fine.

00:15:22.540 He was the smartest, most handsome, most amazing leader I've ever seen.

00:15:26.380 Huh? Who knew?

00:15:28.600 Who knew that there were issues there?

00:15:31.020 Mind you, you and I were talking about this years ago.

00:15:33.180 Anyone observing knew this years ago.

00:15:35.880 But but she is trapped by her own misconduct because the truth, I guess she figures, is more damning than the lie.

00:15:46.080 I mean, seriously, what would you advise her bet if she hired you?

00:15:49.340 Yeah, I would have told her, look, I think you can say, hey, I saw the man.

00:15:53.220 And this if I was writing a response, I would have said, do it this way.

00:15:56.640 I look, I work to the man every day.

00:15:59.360 I I I when you see somebody every day, sometimes you may not realize how much there is a decline.

00:16:05.420 But when I watched him during the debate, many of us privately after that knew that we need to have a conversation.

00:16:11.400 That conversation took place and and he did the right thing for the country.

00:16:16.000 And that's why I'm sitting here in front of you today.

00:16:18.040 But you also have to understand that she could give him smack that he did this well and this well and well and this well.

00:16:23.380 And I think even now, Joe Biden understands it's time for him to retire.

00:16:26.660 That's why I'm sitting in front of you.

00:16:27.880 That would have been a better answer than just straight up lying to the American people saying, I saw nothing at all, because that's when they don't believe you.

00:16:34.500 Yeah, look, hers is the the Sergeant Schultz answer from Hogan's hearing.

00:16:38.440 I see nothing.

00:16:39.200 I know nothing that that was her answer.

00:16:41.120 Yeah, it is.

00:16:42.640 And this is goes back to the trustworthy aspect of Kamala.

00:16:47.260 And if you look at her, she was confronted, for example, on Bidenomics, which she's touted as being amazing.

00:16:54.340 Right.

00:16:54.840 She's obsessed with it.

00:16:56.020 It was awesome.

00:16:57.380 We've got a great economy.

00:16:59.180 Bidenomics is everything.

00:17:00.560 It's doing well.

00:17:01.460 And then she's asked about it now because the majority of American voters and minority voters especially are going, no, it's not great.

00:17:10.500 We're suffering.

00:17:11.380 We're hurting.

00:17:12.580 And I wonder, are the last four years an obstacle to you in this race?

00:17:16.140 Here's how I look at it.

00:17:18.600 First of all, let me be very clear.

00:17:21.200 Mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.

00:17:23.900 I bring my own experiences, my own ideas to it.

00:17:26.280 And it has informed a number of my areas of focus, most of which are, on to your point, lowering costs.

00:17:33.000 So part of my plan includes what we need to do to bring down the price of groceries, including the work I will do dealing with price gouging, something I dealt with when I was attorney general, something I will deal with going forward.

00:17:43.660 Then why do you think that's not landing with voters?

00:17:45.520 Because in the numbers, it's the opposite.

00:17:47.180 Former President Trump leads you on this issue.

00:17:48.800 Well, when I'm out, this is why I'm going out to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, excuse me, just got in late this morning, actually, but going to three states yesterday, and I'm going to continue being on the road.

00:18:03.620 I have to earn the vote.

00:18:06.660 That's breaking news.

00:18:08.360 My administration will not be a continuation of his. 0.93

00:18:11.420 In other words, yes, what we did was what sucked.

00:18:13.860 It was bad for the American people, and so, therefore, I don't want to be connected. 0.98

00:18:18.480 But then I want to immediately tell you that I'm proud of what we've done together while I was in office.

00:18:23.460 It's like if you say that to the American people that are hurting, I don't see how that ends well for you.

00:18:28.380 Well, and remember, that's the exact opposite of what she told The View.

00:18:31.520 The View asked her, how will your administration be different from the Biden administration?

00:18:35.960 She said, oh, I can't think of a thing I'd do differently.

00:18:37.920 I can't think of anything.

00:18:38.940 And yet now she's saying mine will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.

00:18:42.520 How is it different?

00:18:43.300 Well, I'm me.

00:18:44.700 I'm not him.

00:18:45.240 I'll just do exactly the same thing he was doing.

00:18:47.120 But we're different people.

00:18:48.280 That's how it's different.

00:18:49.520 Senator, one other question I want to ask you about this interview with Harris is they say that she took a day off.

00:18:57.120 When you ran for president, did you ever take a day off in the last two weeks when you're running in a primary to get ready for an interview?

00:19:06.700 The whole entire campaign right now seems to be in at least a strategy in shambles.

00:19:13.920 Like you're coming to Texas where you're not competitive because you want to highlight abortion issues.

00:19:18.840 I get it.

00:19:19.180 But why not do that in Pennsylvania?

00:19:21.000 Why not do it in a swing state?

00:19:22.740 Why not do it in a place that you think you're going to win, but it's gotten tight in the polls?

00:19:25.960 Yeah, I'll confess I'm a lot less critical of her on that front than some folks are.

00:19:32.880 Even in the most intense campaigning times, I try to take a down day a week.

00:19:39.680 I try to take Sundays down and be home with the kids, home with Heidi, home with the girls.

00:19:45.820 And look, do I do that 100% of the time?

00:19:48.960 No.

00:19:49.380 So, for example, like right before Election Day, I might not do that a day or two before Election Day.

00:19:56.220 But even through a long campaign, a campaign is a grind.

00:19:59.400 A campaign, you're going 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 hours a day.

00:20:04.740 It's exhausting.

00:20:06.680 And so I actually think it matters to take a down day, to be with your family, to unplug, to sleep in, to go to church at home, to sleep in your own bed.

00:20:16.520 And I find you come back a better candidate.

00:20:20.240 So on that piece, I'm not particularly critical.

00:20:24.040 I think almost every candidate you're better off, if you just grind yourself to where you can't see anymore, it ends up doing more harm than good.

00:20:32.360 Well, and the last thing I want to ask you is the news that has come out, and it's quietly broken.

00:20:37.300 The mainstream media is not talking about it.

00:20:39.560 But Harris's town hall moderator admitted the questions were, quote, predetermined.

00:20:45.900 The moderator, Maria Shriver, admitted that the questions, again, were predetermined.

00:20:53.300 This is her in her own words.

00:20:55.720 You're not, unfortunately.

00:20:57.440 We have some predetermined questions, and hopefully I'll be able to ask some of the questions that might be in your head.

00:21:03.760 I hope so.

00:21:04.820 That was her talking to the audience. 0.96

00:21:07.220 That video has been leaked.

00:21:09.100 Someone said, are we going to be able to ask her own questions? 1.00

00:21:11.580 And she says, no, you can't.

00:21:13.600 They've been predetermined, meaning the campaign's got them.

00:21:17.020 Kamala knew it.

00:21:17.820 This whole thing was a ruse from the very beginning.

00:21:20.060 It wasn't an authentic or real town hall.

00:21:23.100 Well, look, I can tell you I've done hundreds of town halls.

00:21:27.880 I don't think I've ever known the questions before in any of them.

00:21:31.900 It is not 100 percent clear from what Maria Shriver said whether they were determined, predetermined by the network or by the Kamala Harris campaign.

00:21:40.960 And I will say those are different.

00:21:42.820 It is possible that she's saying, no, no, no.

00:21:46.280 We, the network, picked which one of the audience questions we want asked because we wanted to divvy up the topics and not have 19 questions on abortion.

00:21:55.220 We wanted to talk about something else.

00:21:56.960 That's possible.

00:21:58.280 And that might be more understandable.

00:22:00.300 But I'll tell you, if that's the case, they certainly haven't clarified it.

00:22:03.580 It absolutely raised the inference that the Kamala Harris campaign had information about what the predetermined questions were.

00:22:12.120 And if that's true, then it completely it makes a laughingstock about what is supposed to be journalism, because that's certainly not like any town hall I've ever done.

00:22:22.560 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.

00:22:31.140 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97

00:22:38.340 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:22:42.060 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:22:43.240 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:22:44.460 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:22:53.960 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:22:56.940 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:23:02.900 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:23:07.220 This is, I do believe, going to be the Achilles heel for her on Election Day.

00:23:11.760 And that is this overall lack of cohesion of ideas.

00:23:16.480 I think the flip flopping is hurting her, which brings me to what she's doing today in Texas.

00:23:24.740 She's not coming to campaign necessarily in Texas because I don't think she believes she's going to win in Texas.

00:23:31.260 She is coming, however, to attack Texas and Texas laws to say to the rest of the country, 1.00

00:23:38.460 better vote for me so that you don't have people and things and ideas that actually are brought to light like they've done in Texas that go against what we believe in,

00:23:48.020 which is, for example, abortion on demand.

00:23:50.600 This is a very interesting and radical strategy all at the same time.

00:23:54.180 Do you believe it's going to work?

00:23:56.920 Well, I don't.

00:23:58.460 And I think, Kamala, one of the things the left has decided is that they're going to describe Texas as this horrible hellhole

00:24:04.340 and like her message is going to be, vote for me to avoid America becoming like Texas.

00:24:10.440 And I got to say, you do have sort of facts and reality that crashes into that, which is for more than a decade, Texas has had over a thousand people a day moving to our state.

00:24:22.860 People are voting with their feet.

00:24:24.180 They want to be here.

00:24:25.120 And where do they come from?

00:24:26.420 They come from bright blue states.

00:24:28.000 They come from her state.

00:24:28.840 They come from California.

00:24:29.960 They come from Illinois.

00:24:31.420 They come from New York.

00:24:32.260 They come from New Jersey.

00:24:33.040 They come from Connecticut.

00:24:33.900 They come from states that have adopted these high tax, high regulation, terrible environment for small businesses, terrible environment for jobs, and then soft on crime.

00:24:47.560 And by the way, all right, let's listen to her answer when she was confronted about her soft on crime policies.

00:24:54.820 Let's listen to what she says on that.

00:24:56.520 On the issue of law and order, as you mentioned, I think there's just a whole lot of misinformation, to be honest with you.

00:25:02.840 I have personally prosecuted very serious crime.

00:25:07.840 It's how I started my career.

00:25:09.820 I spent most of my career as a prosecutor, not in Washington, D.C.

00:25:14.640 And as my first priority had and remains as a first priority to me, the safety of the American people.

00:25:22.260 So that has not changed.

00:25:23.780 And sadly, I think that there's a bit of misinformation, if not more than a bit.

00:25:28.860 But I'm glad that you raised the subject so that I can address it.

00:25:32.820 Again, generalities, no actual real answer to the question.

00:25:37.600 Yeah.

00:25:37.860 Does she address true or false?

00:25:39.480 You have repeatedly called for defunding the police.

00:25:42.300 Answer true.

00:25:42.980 True or false?

00:25:43.520 You voted for defunding the police.

00:25:44.960 Answer true.

00:25:45.920 True or false?

00:25:46.400 You've called for abolishing and defunding ICE.

00:25:48.820 Answer true.

00:25:49.920 True or false?

00:25:50.400 You've called for shutting down ICE detention centers and pledged to do so on your first day as president.

00:25:55.360 Answer true.

00:25:56.220 True or false?

00:25:56.840 You've advocated for releasing violent criminals from jail.

00:26:00.360 True.

00:26:00.960 True or false?

00:26:01.520 You've advocated for ending cash bail and letting criminals out without even paying bail.

00:26:06.360 True.

00:26:06.740 True or false?

00:26:07.380 You've advocated for decriminalizing illegal border crossings.

00:26:11.540 True.

00:26:11.720 True or false?

00:26:13.640 You raised bail money to bail out violent rioters in Minneapolis.

00:26:20.760 Answer true.

00:26:22.040 Now, in the face of all those facts, what does she say?

00:26:24.840 Misinformation.

00:26:25.740 By the way, with no counter narrative, she just says, no, no, no, I'm a prosecutor.

00:26:30.300 Look, I was raised in the middle class.

00:26:32.040 Look, I'm a prosecutor.

00:26:33.280 Those are her two crutches that she goes to repeatedly.

00:26:36.500 But then she actually does not address anything that resembles facts.

00:26:41.400 Let me also ask you another question about this town hall.

00:26:45.700 And it dealt with her plan.

00:26:47.820 And it's the socialist plan.

00:26:49.600 Her plan on groceries.

00:26:52.080 She's now tripling down.

00:26:54.120 She tried to run away from it.

00:26:55.540 That didn't work.

00:26:56.280 So now she's back at it again saying, if you vote for me, I'm going to give you communist price control.

00:27:01.700 She was actually asked a question from someone in the audience about this.

00:27:05.840 Listen, prices have gone up quite a bit in the last four years.

00:27:10.920 And some people blame former President Trump.

00:27:13.180 Some people blame President Biden.

00:27:14.880 Who would you say is correct?

00:27:17.240 And what would you do to bring prices down for Americans?

00:27:20.700 Thank you, Eric.

00:27:21.420 And you're absolutely right.

00:27:22.580 You know it.

00:27:23.060 I know it.

00:27:23.480 I think most Americans know it.

00:27:25.060 Price of grocery is still too high.

00:27:27.040 And we need to address it in a number of ways.

00:27:29.400 One of my aspects of doing what we need to do to bring down the cost of living for working

00:27:34.620 people and the middle class in America is to address the issue of grocery prices.

00:27:39.420 Part of my background and how I come to it is probably a new approach grounded in a lot

00:27:44.220 of my experiences as a former attorney general where I took on price gouging.

00:27:48.300 And part of my plan is to create a new approach that is the first time that we will have a

00:27:54.660 national ban on price gouging.

00:27:57.700 I mean, that seems like the most ridiculous answer, this national ban on price gouging.

00:28:04.060 We already have a lot of laws on price gouging.

00:28:06.640 A lot of states have those laws.

00:28:08.900 And they're the ones that usually are implementing them.

00:28:10.920 So what is she actually offering up here?

00:28:12.980 That everybody that has a big store is evil if I don't like their price today?

00:28:19.160 Well, and listen, in the grocery context, it's particularly absurd.

00:28:22.840 So states that have price gouging laws, and by the way, Texas has a price gouging law.

00:28:28.080 They're typically focused on emergency.

00:28:30.360 So if you have, say, a hurricane, price gouging laws are if, you know, ordinarily you charge

00:28:37.600 a dollar for a bottle of water, and a hurricane hits, and you decide you're going to charge

00:28:42.420 $50 for a bottle of water.

00:28:44.800 That's when price gouging kicks in, is that when you're taking a disaster and just taking

00:28:50.720 advantage of people in a time of crisis.

00:28:53.040 And states do have laws for that.

00:28:55.040 They don't apply just to day in, day out, the ordinary pricing of goods and services.

00:29:00.660 And particularly in the grocery context, the average profit margin in a grocery store

00:29:05.820 is typically 1% or 2%.

00:29:07.820 So the idea that the feds are going to come like forced grocery stores, it's, you know,

00:29:15.180 big grocery that is the cause of inflation rather than the disastrous policies she has 1.00

00:29:22.220 led is asinine. 0.95

00:29:24.840 But I will say, look, to Anderson Cooper's question, you know, to his credit, he pointed 0.99

00:29:33.460 out, wait a second, you're in the White House right now.

00:29:36.260 If this is a good idea, why aren't you doing it?

00:29:38.620 And listen to her response about why she hasn't done what she's proposing, despite the fact

00:29:43.460 that she's been in the White House four years and in power.

00:29:46.960 Take a listen.

00:29:47.940 Simple question from Anderson Cooper.

00:29:50.140 Asked to Kamala Harris, and her response is laughable.

00:29:54.840 Some voters, though, might ask, you've been in the White House for four years.

00:29:58.180 You were vice president, not the president.

00:29:59.460 But why wasn't any of that done for the last four years?

00:30:03.960 Well, there was a lot that was done, but there's more to do, Anderson.

00:30:06.800 And I'm pointing out things that need to be done that haven't been done but need to be done.

00:30:12.900 You couldn't write a better script for Saturday Night Live.

00:30:16.560 There you go.

00:30:17.320 I'm pointing out the things that need to be done that haven't been done that need to be done.

00:30:20.560 And by the way, I'm the one that didn't do them, but I'm the one you can count to do them.

00:30:23.860 But actually, compare that and combine that with, let's remember her biggest mistake.

00:30:30.440 But when she's asked, look, people want to change the page.

00:30:32.820 They want to turn the page.

00:30:33.800 They recognize that the Biden-Harris record is a disaster.

00:30:37.460 So when she's asked how she's different from Joe Biden, take a listen to her answer.

00:30:41.160 Considering you have been in the position of vice president for the past four years under

00:30:46.580 the Biden administration, how can we expect you to deviate from the direction of that

00:30:51.100 administration compared to your own?

00:30:53.280 How can we differentiate your policy and your beliefs from that of Biden's?

00:30:57.900 That's a great question, and thank you.

00:31:00.000 Well, first of all, my administration will not be a continuation of the Biden administration.

00:31:05.220 I bring to this role my own ideas and my own experience.

00:31:12.120 I represent a new generation of leadership on a number of issues and believe that we have

00:31:18.080 to actually take new approaches.

00:31:19.880 For example, what we talked about in terms of housing.

00:31:22.900 My experience that leads to that priority includes what I did to take on the big banks around the

00:31:30.640 foreclosure crisis when I brought billions of dollars to homeowners that were the subject

00:31:35.460 of predatory lending.

00:31:36.920 I know what homeownership means to the American people, not to mention what it meant to my

00:31:41.900 mother who worked very hard and saved up so that by the time I was a teenager, she was

00:31:46.700 able to buy our first home.

00:31:48.260 I bring to it my experience actually taking care of my mother when she was sick, and it

00:31:53.440 was as it turned out dying from cancer.

00:31:55.220 And so I know what it means and have the experience of taking care of an elderly relative, and

00:32:02.840 I have raised children.

00:32:05.120 And so I bring to my priorities and will, as president, a new approach and a new idea,

00:32:11.920 frankly, about what we need to do to deal with the sandwich generation. 0.81

00:32:15.900 There it is.

00:32:16.900 It's, it's, I'm not him.

00:32:18.880 His policies are terrible.

00:32:20.960 I'm different.

00:32:21.760 But a month ago, I told you we were amazing together and his policies were amazing.

00:32:27.080 And the difference is I'm a new generation.

00:32:29.160 I actually care about people, unlike that old geezer. 1.00

00:32:32.020 By the way, I know what it's like to care for old geezers. 1.00

00:32:33.980 Look at the one I care for in the White House right now that I lied to you about and said

00:32:36.920 was brilliant and engaged when he actually isn't.

00:32:39.300 I mean, I mean, it truly is, it, it is a miracle of circularity.

00:32:46.000 But, but we actually should close on what we opened on. 0.97

00:32:51.000 We talked about how she held a press conference to say that Trump is a fascist and Trump is 0.99

00:32:55.680 Hitler. 0.98

00:32:56.280 She's not running away from that, that, that, that, that, that's her big October surprise.

00:33:00.420 So, so, so, so give a listen when, when, when she's asked, asked whether she thinks Trump

00:33:04.680 is a fascist. 0.78

00:33:06.260 Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist? 0.99

00:33:08.320 Yes, I do.

00:33:09.860 Yes, I do.

00:33:11.480 And I, and I also believe that the people who know him best on this subject should be trusted.

00:33:18.220 Senator, I go back to the dog whistle.

00:33:22.040 This is so concerning to me because all I hear is, hey, if there's someone out there that

00:33:27.380 wants to finish the job, these other two attempted assassins were trying to finish.

00:33:31.880 The president's already been shot once. 0.94

00:33:33.700 We've dehumanized him to the point where we're right back to calling him a fascist.

00:33:38.700 And earlier today in front of the, the official American flag at the home of the, of the vice 0.85

00:33:44.100 president, I'm telling you, he's Hitler. 0.97

00:33:46.820 I cannot believe the level of hatred and irresponsibility from Kamala Harris in this moment.

00:33:53.800 At the same time that they're sending out Barack Obama to say, we need more civility and decency

00:33:58.900 in this, this bitterness is too much.

00:34:00.620 And by the way, my opponent is Hitler. 0.50

00:34:01.940 Or the, the, the, the, they, they managed to say those without taking a breath between

00:34:06.080 those two statements.

00:34:07.500 As always, thank you for listening to verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:34:12.700 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:34:16.340 You're not listening to verdict or each day when you listen to verdict afterwards, I'd

00:34:19.980 love to have you as a listener to again, the Ben Ferguson podcast, and we will see you

00:34:24.140 back here on Monday morning.

00:34:26.880 This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - October 26, 2024

Can Trump Drain the Swamp, Kamala's Cognitive Biden Debacle & Why Harris is in Texas Week In Review

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript