Verdict with Ted Cruz - China Must Pay

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.420 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.480 For decades, politicians in the United States

00:00:07.060 on both sides of the aisle have cheered along

00:00:10.120 as China has grown in prominence.

00:00:12.880 Now, as they're exerting more and more influence

00:00:15.580 over our economy, over Hollywood, over our universities,

00:00:19.880 amid a global pandemic that they unleashed, 0.78

00:00:22.780 we are beginning to ask how to fight back.

00:00:26.360 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:30.000 Senator, before we get into everything today,

00:00:38.320 Hollywood, the economy, the media,

00:00:40.660 I have to ask you, is Kim Jong-un alive or dead?

00:00:45.020 Who the hell knows?

00:00:46.660 I've seen media reports on both sides.

00:00:49.540 For all I know, they're propping them up

00:00:51.360 like we can at Bernie's,

00:00:52.800 about the same as the Democrats are doing with Joe Biden.

00:00:56.620 That's true.

00:00:57.460 I guess I could ask you the same question

00:00:59.400 about the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

00:01:02.580 Senator, you have said that we need to fundamentally change

00:01:06.000 our relationship with China.

00:01:08.080 You have been leading the fight in the U.S. Senate

00:01:10.760 from what I can see on this.

00:01:12.660 Specifically, how are we going to push back

00:01:15.540 against a China that now seems to exert 0.77

00:01:18.000 massive influence on our country?

00:01:20.060 Yeah, the most significant change that I think is going to come out of this pandemic

00:01:26.180 is, I hope, a fundamental reassessment of the United States' relationship with China

00:01:31.800 and the world's relationship with China.

00:01:34.180 I've been saying for a long time,

00:01:36.500 China is the single most important, 1.00

00:01:39.200 the most significant geopolitical competitor to the United States for the next century.

00:01:44.540 They've got 1.3 billion people.

00:01:47.280 They're governed by a communist government that lies,

00:01:50.920 that murders, that tortures its citizens. 0.59

00:01:53.360 They invest billions in their military,

00:01:56.020 billions in expanding their economic influence.

00:01:59.760 And I think this pandemic really illustrates just how dangerous

00:02:04.460 that repressive regime of lying is.

00:02:07.580 I've been saying that a long time.

00:02:09.500 What's interesting now is a whole lot of other people are suddenly noticing, 0.84

00:02:13.280 hey, wait a second, these Chinese communists are not good guys.

00:02:18.000 Right.

00:02:18.560 And we're now seeing, I mean, I just read a report

00:02:21.400 that there's a Chinese propaganda radio station

00:02:24.360 that is now broadcasting into the United States.

00:02:27.140 We're allowing that to happen.

00:02:28.480 I mean, is there legislation right now going on

00:02:30.960 to try to stop some of these activities?

00:02:34.520 No, that's exactly right.

00:02:36.200 It's the Phoenix TV station.

00:02:38.180 You may remember this Chinese reporter who was at the White House

00:02:40.940 who asked the president a question,

00:02:42.820 and the president had the wherewithal to ask,

00:02:46.000 where are you from?

00:02:46.600 You're from China.

00:02:47.300 And she says, no, no, Hong Kong.

00:02:48.980 And it turns out, well, yes, they're nominally Hong Kong,

00:02:52.300 but they're owned and controlled by the Chinese communist government.

00:02:55.760 And that same company, that same Phoenix TV station,

00:03:00.460 set up a broadcast TV station in Mexico, right over the border.

00:03:06.320 It's more powerful than any broadcast stations we have in the U.S.

00:03:10.580 And they're broadcasting into California.

00:03:13.060 Right now you've got those waves since you're in California going through you

00:03:16.860 in Chinese language.

00:03:18.040 So the Chinese government is controlling the contents on Chinese language radio

00:03:23.600 throughout Southern California.

00:03:26.020 I've got legislation to stop the FCC from allowing them to do that.

00:03:31.160 They applied for an FCC license.

00:03:32.940 I wrote a letter to the FCC two years ago asking the FCC to block them,

00:03:38.180 block the Chinese propaganda from coming in.

00:03:41.060 The FCC did so, so they agreed with me.

00:03:43.520 But they got a license on a provisional appeal.

00:03:46.140 They've appealed it.

00:03:47.340 And during the appeal, they're able to saturate the airwaves with propaganda.

00:03:51.580 We got to take these threats seriously.

00:03:54.520 And I think what's going on right now illustrates why.

00:03:58.060 Well, I hope that that bill becomes a law.

00:04:01.260 And I hope that that actually goes into force because the problem,

00:04:04.760 Senator, here in Southern California,

00:04:06.380 it's a lot worse than just the Phoenix TV station broadcasting.

00:04:09.840 One thing I've noticed living right here in Hollywood is that China basically owns Hollywood 1.00

00:04:15.980 at this point.

00:04:17.100 There is such a financial tie between our media apparatus, entertainment and I suppose news

00:04:23.180 media, and the Chinese government.

00:04:25.700 Is there any way to break that apart or are the ties just too deep at this point?

00:04:30.520 So Hollywood is almost entirely bought and paid for by China. 0.74

00:04:36.600 It's such a big part.

00:04:38.060 If you're making a movie, you don't want to tick off China because it's too big a part

00:04:43.640 of your global revenues.

00:04:44.640 And so the great free speech warriors of Hollywood are perfectly happy to let China edit out portions 0.89

00:04:54.440 of their movie they don't like.

00:04:56.360 You know, you look at Bohemian Rhapsody, wonderful, wonderful biopic of Freddie Mercury, fantastic

00:05:01.520 portrayal.

00:05:02.380 When they released it in China, they edited out anything to illustrate that Freddie Mercury

00:05:07.460 was gay. 0.98

00:05:08.560 Like, what in the hell are you talking about? 0.99

00:05:10.340 It's Freddie Mercury's life story. 1.00

00:05:12.380 Yeah, the guy is gay. 0.67

00:05:13.400 I mean, but you know what? 0.98

00:05:15.180 Hollywood was perfectly fine to say, just erase it.

00:05:18.360 We are the Chinese communist government.

00:05:20.260 This does not exist.

00:05:21.760 And Hollywood went along with it.

00:05:23.120 It's dangerous.

00:05:23.700 I'll give you another example.

00:05:24.640 Top Gun, the sequel to Top Gun is coming out, expected later this year.

00:05:30.580 Top Gun, the original, may be the greatest Navy recruiting film that ever came out.

00:05:35.940 Also, it was pretty awesome for beach volleyball in terms of the numbers after that.

00:05:40.080 So Maverick, the jacket that Maverick wears, on the back of it, it has the Taiwan flag and

00:05:47.440 the Japanese flag.

00:05:49.760 The new Top Gun, they edited them out because they didn't want to piss off the Chinese overlord. 0.76

00:05:56.320 And God knows if you acknowledge Taiwan's there or even Japan.

00:05:59.940 And what the hell does it say, Michael, that Maverick is terrified of the Chinese communist? 0.99

00:06:05.600 I mean, this is garbage and Hollywood kowtowing is wrong. 0.97

00:06:10.860 I also introduced legislation actually just this week called the Script Act that says if 0.98

00:06:16.440 any Hollywood producer, if any movie maker lets the Chinese communist government censor 0.79

00:06:22.600 or edit a film, that they can't have access to our military, to our ships, to our planes,

00:06:28.000 to everything they use to film movies like Top Gun.

00:06:30.980 They don't get access to that if they're going to hand over the censorship power to the Chinese 1.00

00:06:36.180 communist government.

00:06:37.140 See, this, I'm so pleased to hear that because this seems like a proper use of government.

00:06:41.860 When you've got another foreign hostile government exerting a huge amount of influence on your

00:06:47.740 own country, then it's incumbent on us to try to push back against that.

00:06:51.440 So I'm glad that there are actually some concrete steps that are being taken here to push back

00:06:55.760 on China.

00:06:56.220 I know that you sat down again with our friend Nigel Farage.

00:06:59.760 You know, we had him on the show and then you spoke with him separately and he spoke

00:07:04.520 about some other concrete ways that we can push back on China, specifically as it relates

00:07:10.020 to Huawei, the Chinese technology giant, which is building a lot of telecommunications software

00:07:16.700 and hardware out there.

00:07:18.720 Let's just play a quick clip of Nigel speaking on this and then I want to get your reaction

00:07:23.420 for how it relates to the US.

00:07:24.920 Yes, I mean, when you and I were talking about this a couple of months back, criticism of

00:07:30.600 China was kind of a bit of a minority sport because the establishments had all across the

00:07:37.160 West had accepted China and seen China as being an opportunity, not as a threat.

00:07:41.800 And there's now a completely different conversation going on.

00:07:45.020 I have a feeling, hope at least, that when Boris Johnson is back at his desk, you know, he will

00:07:55.240 realise that public opinion is deeply unhappy with the role that China has played in this

00:08:01.760 coronavirus crisis from the very beginning.

00:08:04.500 And I think we've now got a very good chance, a very good chance, an odds on chance of getting

00:08:11.300 that decision reversed.

00:08:12.620 And I hope so, because it was doing huge damage to our relationship with Australia, our relationship 0.89

00:08:18.660 with Japan, indeed, our relationship with the United States of America and all the implications

00:08:24.120 that has for NATO, for trade, for everything else.

00:08:27.140 And so I'm now beginning to think that the wind has changed.

00:08:31.240 And I think we can I think this decision can be reversed.

00:08:34.580 Well, there, Nigel and I were following up on what you and I and he discussed a couple

00:08:39.480 of months ago, which was he told the story of Brexit, which was fabulous on this podcast.

00:08:44.940 But we were also talking in particular about the UK government's decision to allow Huawei,

00:08:50.400 the giant telecom company that's owned and controlled by the Chinese communist government.

00:08:55.440 And that is essentially a global surveillance outfit.

00:08:59.060 It's designed to help them monitor and surveil your communications, my communications,

00:09:03.740 communications.

00:09:04.740 The UK government announced plans to allow them to build some of their 5G telecom infrastructure,

00:09:11.320 about 30 percent.

00:09:12.340 They said it was just civilian.

00:09:14.340 But the consequence of that is in building that hardware, they were giving the Chinese communist 0.98

00:09:19.740 government the ability to intercept communications.

00:09:23.580 And the UK is part of what's called the five eyes intelligence sharing networks, which which

00:09:29.200 are five close allies that in America, we share our intelligence with them.

00:09:34.340 We share our most sensitive intelligence with them.

00:09:36.940 And the problem is, if we're sharing that intelligence with them and they're building Huawei equipment,

00:09:42.100 the odds become very high that the Chinese communist government can intercept that intelligence.

00:09:47.740 And so what I said on this podcast with you and with Nigel is that four eyes are better than 1.00

00:09:53.860 six.

00:09:54.480 In other words, if they're going to set up infrastructure that lets the Chinese government intercept our intelligence, 0.61

00:10:00.900 maybe we'll have to exclude the Brits from that intelligence sharing.

00:10:05.340 And they are among our closest allies on the face of the planet.

00:10:08.840 Well, I'm pleased to say that since that discussion, one of the consequences of this pandemic, there have

00:10:15.040 been multiple reports now out of the UK that the government may be shifting its decision and not

00:10:21.540 allowing Huawei to build that infrastructure.

00:10:23.860 I hope that's the case because they're conflicting media reports on this.

00:10:27.120 But I hope not Nigel is right that that they're going to step back from from Huawei.

00:10:31.640 Well, this is I think the key problem.

00:10:33.960 This is what makes this whole issue of China so difficult is Huawei goes out there and they

00:10:38.740 say, hey, we'll build you guys telecoms equipment for cheap.

00:10:41.840 You know, you will save you a lot of money.

00:10:43.320 I mean, China invests heavily in Hollywood.

00:10:46.000 China buys up a lot of our debt, right?

00:10:48.140 China sends us a lot of cheap goods and services that we're all addicted to.

00:10:51.400 And we like the money.

00:10:52.700 We like the cheap stuff.

00:10:53.840 But now we're seeing that there actually might be a hidden cost to all of that.

00:10:57.920 In your discussion with Nigel, I know you touched on the topic of this dependency that

00:11:02.880 comes along with globalism.

00:11:04.520 Let's play that clip.

00:11:05.600 Yeah, no, I think there's a really good chance of that happening.

00:11:07.620 And I think there is a much broader debate now happening amongst British people about the

00:11:12.560 fact we've become so reliant upon China.

00:11:15.480 We're reliant upon China to provide us with medical equipment.

00:11:19.780 We're reliant upon China for so many of the drugs that we take for a whole range of medical

00:11:25.460 conditions.

00:11:26.140 And I think one of the things that comes out of all of this is we realise that globalism

00:11:32.040 was a means of leaving each nation state unable to stand up for its own interests, all in the

00:11:40.260 favour of the Blairs, the Clintons, these kind of politicians, the big companies, some of the

00:11:46.220 big banks that supported them.

00:11:48.040 And I think what you're going to see is quite a cultural change coming after this horrible virus.

00:11:54.300 And that is countries will say, do you know what?

00:11:56.600 We need a much bigger degree of self-sufficiency.

00:11:59.580 And I can see that debate happening in the British people right now.

00:12:03.420 So, Senator, is Nigel right?

00:12:05.120 Is globalism on the ropes?

00:12:08.200 Look, I hope so.

00:12:10.000 I hope our dependency on China is on the ropes.

00:12:12.880 You know, if you look at what China does, they employ a host of strategies.

00:12:17.280 Number one, they lie. 0.70

00:12:18.980 They lie and they lie shamelessly, repeatedly over and over again. 0.99

00:12:23.980 Number two, they murder and torture.

00:12:26.360 They've got over one million of their own citizens, Uyghurs, a religious minority, in concentration

00:12:31.540 camps right now being tortured.

00:12:34.220 Number three, they steal.

00:12:35.440 And in the scope of human history, we have never seen a nation state with trillions of

00:12:41.140 dollars of resources use intellectual property theft as a state strategy.

00:12:46.880 They steal on a widespread level, on a military level, on a commercial level, on an academic

00:12:52.840 level.

00:12:53.780 They censor and they also extort.

00:12:57.320 They use access to their market.

00:12:59.240 There's a reason Hollywood's terrified of ticking them off.

00:13:01.740 There's a reason the NBA is terrified of ticking them off.

00:13:04.380 There's a reason just about all of the Fortune 500 is terrified of ticking them off because

00:13:09.980 they'll close off their market to anyone who does.

00:13:13.380 And, you know, I got to say a lot of folks have been oblivious.

00:13:17.160 I'm, you know, I'm reminded of Winston Churchill wrote, wrote a very famous book, While England

00:13:23.220 Slept, that talked about how the free world sat there as Nazi Germany built up its military 0.71

00:13:29.380 power.

00:13:29.800 JFK, his senior thesis at Harvard was, While England Slept.

00:13:33.720 He published a book of the same title, laying out the case, how the world let this happen.

00:13:39.380 Well, a whole lot of people in America have been sleeping on the danger that China poses. 0.92

00:13:45.280 And, you know, last fall, last October, I did an Asia tour.

00:13:49.940 I went to Pearl Harbor.

00:13:50.980 Then I went to Japan.

00:13:53.000 Then I went to Taiwan, India and Hong Kong.

00:13:56.580 And that was designed, Michael, really as a friends and allies tour.

00:14:00.500 Those are all countries surrounding China.

00:14:02.860 Every one of them, the meetings and discussions there were, what do we do about China?

00:14:06.860 What do we do about the military threat, the diplomatic threat, the economic threat?

00:14:10.180 In Taiwan, I was there on Taiwan's national day, was the first U.S. senator to be in Taiwan on national day in 34 years.

00:14:21.500 Wow.

00:14:21.600 In Pearl Harbor, I met with our Pacific Command leadership there that were describing how militarily one of the threats we face is that they've stolen a lot of our military technology.

00:14:32.300 They don't have to pay for R&D because they steal it from us.

00:14:35.560 And they're implementing much of our technology against us.

00:14:40.740 You know, in Hong Kong, I met with the protesters, the pro-democracy protesters there.

00:14:46.480 You may remember I did a Sunday show from Hong Kong.

00:14:51.340 Right.

00:14:51.880 Dressed in all black in solidarity with the protesters, the protesters dressed in black.

00:14:58.020 And something I've said many times is Hong Kong is the new Berlin. 0.93

00:15:02.780 Just as Berlin was the outpost of freedom against the Soviet Union, against communism, when Reagan said, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, Hong Kong is where we're seeing the touch points of this battle against China. 0.54

00:15:20.800 And I hope that Americans are waking up.

00:15:23.940 I do think for a long time, when I would lay out the harms of the Chinese communist government and the need to fight against it, the need not to be dependent on China, you would get almost crickets in the Senate from both Democrats and Republicans.

00:15:38.920 There was not a whole lot of support for that proposition.

00:15:42.080 They're lying.

00:15:43.500 Their cover up on coronavirus has now taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars in poverty and suffering.

00:15:54.220 I hope that really causes people to open their eyes to what the danger is here.

00:15:57.520 Well, the analogy that you're drawing here is to the Cold War, right?

00:16:01.160 And the Cold War, luckily, was mostly cold.

00:16:03.760 But there were a few moments there where it seemed to get pretty hot.

00:16:06.940 After all of this, after this pandemic, after China's repeated deceptions, after their aggression on some of our interests, do you think there's a chance that we could be headed for a direct confrontation? 0.93

00:16:20.400 I hope not.

00:16:22.000 But of course there's a chance.

00:16:24.000 It is the number one question.

00:16:26.880 When I was on the Friends and Allies tours, I talked with our allies about what, you know, when I was in Taiwan, I said, look, what would y'all do if Chinese ships began an amphibious landing on Taiwan?

00:16:37.780 I talked in Japan about that.

00:16:39.260 I talked in Pearl Harbor about that.

00:16:41.480 The threat of military aggressiveness from China is enormous.

00:16:45.720 You know, there's another threat.

00:16:47.740 The supply chain is one of the things Nigel and I were talking about.

00:16:50.560 So much of the U.S. supply chain has gone to China.

00:16:54.100 And in some ways, it's more dangerous than the Cold War because we didn't have all our manufacturing based in the Soviet Union.

00:17:01.360 Right.

00:17:01.460 In this instance, not only is China dangerous militarily, but you look at the pharmaceutical industry. 0.64

00:17:07.520 China systematically laid out a strategy to monopolize the production of pharmaceuticals, to go after American production, put American factories out of business.

00:17:19.040 By the way, U.S. companies were more than happy to oblige to move pharmaceutical manufacturing to China.

00:17:26.060 So now we're dependent on China for antibiotics, for blood pressure medicines, for heart medicines, for for anti-anxiety and depression medicines.

00:17:35.700 They're moving more and more into cancer medicines.

00:17:38.500 And and in the midst of this, this this coronavirus pandemic, one newspaper in China that's that's owned and controlled by the Chinese communist government threatened to cut off life saving medicines to the United States as a weapon.

00:17:56.660 Now, in that instance, if they did that, that's not just economic warfare.

00:18:01.000 That's real warfare.

00:18:02.100 That is literally threatening the lives to kill Americans. 0.64

00:18:06.060 And we have willingly, happily handed them that degree of power.

00:18:11.820 We've got to change that and make sure critical infrastructure is not under the control of the Chinese government.

00:18:18.740 Of course.

00:18:19.520 And so we're seeing action on that front.

00:18:21.640 We're seeing action, thanks to you, on the Hollywood front and on the news media front.

00:18:26.540 There is one area, though, where China's influence has gone basically without any consequence.

00:18:32.160 And that would be at a certain disreputable institution that I believe you received your law degree from, America's oldest university, Harvard, which seems to be sucking up to the Chinese Communist Party. 0.90

00:18:44.340 Dare you defend your alma mater?

00:18:47.640 It is shameful.

00:18:49.480 I do not.

00:18:50.420 I never like to see a Yalie be able to gloat. 1.00

00:18:53.400 But you have reason to gloat, although your alma mater ain't much better.

00:18:58.220 Yeah, it's not.

00:18:58.620 Sadly, most of the big academic institutions are a train wreck on this.

00:19:03.160 Yeah.

00:19:03.620 But, you know, Harvard has been particularly problematic.

00:19:07.400 There's an article came out just this week that I tweeted out from the Harvard Crimson, from their own publication,

00:19:12.500 that details how Harvard, how a senior official at Harvard Law School asked a Chinese dissident to cancel a speech at Harvard.

00:19:22.460 Why?

00:19:23.300 Because the president of Harvard was in China meeting with President Xi, and they didn't want to offend.

00:19:29.460 They didn't want to embarrass the Chinese Communist government.

00:19:32.060 So forget academic freedom, forget courage, forget standing for dissidents.

00:19:37.480 They wanted to kiss up to the big bucks of China. 0.65

00:19:40.160 And I got to say, this article from the Harvard Crimson, I recommend reading it because it talks about how, for decades,

00:19:48.040 Harvard had greater leverage over China, that China felt they needed more from Harvard than Harvard needed from China

00:19:53.920 because they wanted access to the university, to the research, to everything there.

00:19:57.740 And it talks about how that balance of power has shifted, and now Harvard depends more on China.

00:20:03.640 And it really is dangerous.

00:20:05.160 And our academic institutions as a whole are so subject to espionage, to faculty members literally on payroll of the Chinese Communist government.

00:20:18.000 There's been another, I've been very active in pushing legislation, trying to prevent espionage at our universities.

00:20:23.920 And the self-censorship, it's just, it's the same thing the NBA did.

00:20:30.520 You don't want to piss off Daddy Warbucks.

00:20:34.800 You don't want to piss off the market whose billions of dollars you're dependent on.

00:20:41.120 That is really, really dangerous.

00:20:43.520 And I think Harvard is very much a canary in a coal mine here, and there are a whole lot more canaries in that Chinese coal mine. 0.72

00:20:50.700 Well, this is the whole equation, right?

00:20:52.540 If it's the case that, you know, we're getting more than China is getting, if we're benefiting more than China is,

00:20:59.100 if they need us more than we need them, then it seems like an okay situation.

00:21:03.340 And that's been the situation apparently for my whole lifetime, basically.

00:21:07.140 Now it seems that we're at this tipping point where the relationship with China is no longer working for us.

00:21:13.680 So do you think on all of these fronts that we're now at a point where we have to distance from China, 0.99

00:21:19.940 or is there still a push to keep that tight relationship and keep cheering on a rising China?

00:21:26.180 Look, I think there's a massive push.

00:21:28.940 There's enormous money to be made in China, and big business remains all in in that regard.

00:21:35.080 Hollywood is terrified to take them off.

00:21:36.860 Universities are terrified to take them off.

00:21:38.760 But I do think, so I introduced legislation last week that is focused on the censorship regime in China.

00:21:46.260 China has a comprehensive censorship regime, and we used to think about it in terms of human rights.

00:21:54.360 So I've given multiple speeches on the Senate floor highlighting dissidents in China. 0.79

00:21:59.180 And as you know, and you and I have talked about this before, I hate communists.

00:22:04.220 My family was imprisoned and tortured by communists. 0.84

00:22:08.800 I find nothing cute about the Chinese communists. 1.00

00:22:11.940 They're evil bastards. 1.00

00:22:13.180 Communists are bad. 1.00

00:22:15.200 That is a simple proposition the media and the academy seems unable to understand.

00:22:21.400 We used to think about their censorship in terms of human rights.

00:22:26.540 We now understand it's not just human rights.

00:22:29.160 It's national security and it's public health because this coronavirus pandemic, their censorship regime covered it up and they punished the whistleblowing doctors who tried to draw attention to it.

00:22:42.820 If they had behaved like any other responsible country, if they'd sent in doctors and public health professionals, there's a real chance we could have contained this as a regional outbreak and not had a worldwide pandemic.

00:22:55.420 But because of their censorship, they cared more about saving face, about protecting the image of the Chinese communist government than about saving hundreds of thousands or even potentially millions of lives.

00:23:08.800 And that so the legislation I introduced would sanction every official in the communist government involved in censoring that public health information as a way of starting to ensure real accountability for their responsibility here.

00:23:22.840 You know, it's such common sense.

00:23:24.460 It's something that conservatives have always known about the world and I guess a lot of other people forget it.

00:23:29.740 There's no such thing as a free lunch.

00:23:31.900 You know, it's great to get the cheap goods from China.

00:23:34.200 It's great to get their investments.

00:23:35.520 It's great to have the cheap manufacturing.

00:23:37.560 But the bill comes due and I think we're seeing the costs of that now.

00:23:41.440 Senator, before we go, we've got to get to some mailbag.

00:23:43.720 Obviously, people still have a lot more questions than answers when it comes to this whole shutdown.

00:23:48.960 So let's try to go through here from Norman.

00:23:51.420 Do you think governors should take their cue from Trump's federalism and subsidiarity, the things he said about the states deciding when they want to reopen, delegating authority, therefore, over the coronavirus lockdown to city mayors?

00:24:06.680 Should we push these decisions even more local?

00:24:10.620 Look, I think that makes sense.

00:24:13.140 Generally speaking, I think the role of the federal government is what Trump has done, which is to lay out guidelines, to lay out principles,

00:24:19.580 to bring to bear the resources and the assets of the federal government, things like CDC.

00:24:24.440 That kind of expertise is valuable and it's valuable to provide to the states.

00:24:30.000 With the pandemic, the response we need to engage in has to be based on the facts on the ground.

00:24:35.460 I got to tell you, one of the things that drives me crazy about this crisis is so much of the reaction to the coronavirus pandemic is politicized.

00:24:45.100 Yeah.

00:24:45.380 And the way people react depends upon whether you hate Trump or you love Trump.

00:24:51.440 And so the people that hate Trump, the only reaction they seem to have is they hate Trump.

00:24:57.520 And so everyone must lock down.

00:25:00.080 Everyone must stay home.

00:25:01.220 Shut everything down forever and ever.

00:25:03.780 And I got to say, that's nutty.

00:25:06.240 You know, hydroxychloroquine, you know, that I don't know if that works or not.

00:25:11.300 Right.

00:25:11.760 But but you saw lefties who hate hate the president saying, well, we got to prohibit any doctor prescribing it because Trump said it's good.

00:25:18.540 Now, let me be clear on the flip side.

00:25:20.880 Both sides are doing this.

00:25:21.920 The people who love Trump, I think too many of them are too quick to say, oh, it's not real.

00:25:28.220 It's all bogus.

00:25:29.060 It's made up by the media.

00:25:31.320 Everyone needs to go back to work right now.

00:25:34.260 Well, look, I got to say, neither of those positions makes much sense to me.

00:25:39.800 It seems the right position that makes sense is be guided by the science, protect public health.

00:25:45.660 That means in reopening, it should vary geographically.

00:25:48.900 Listen, what New York City and New Jersey are facing, over half the deaths in America have been in New York and New Jersey.

00:25:56.460 Nobody in their right mind would say New Yorkers should go back to work right now.

00:26:00.100 That doesn't make any sense.

00:26:01.780 But there are other parts of the country.

00:26:04.000 The state of Texas, the governor of Texas laid out guidelines to start reopening, to start going back to restaurants and stores and movie theaters with reduced capacity for social distancing.

00:26:14.220 I think that makes sense.

00:26:15.600 But even within Texas, it'll vary geographically.

00:26:18.720 So a dense urban city like Houston or Dallas will be different than more sparsely populated rural areas.

00:26:25.620 So, yes, as much as possible, these decisions ought to allow people to get back to work, get the economy moving, but do it based on the facts and science actually on the ground.

00:26:35.500 Of course.

00:26:36.020 And look, if the coronavirus pandemic can teach people a lesson about federalism, I suppose every storm cloud has a silver lining.

00:26:43.360 And, you know, also, Senator, you made this point about the media going back to work.

00:26:47.360 I'm perfectly happy with the mainstream media remaining shut down in perpetuity and never going back to work.

00:26:53.160 But I guess we'll have to see how that how that turns out from the pandemic.

00:26:57.460 And by the way, as an intersection of that, we've also seen the media acting as shills for China.

00:27:03.800 One of the most stunning examples CNN put out as a story, literally a story that came from the Chinese Communist Party.

00:27:12.940 The Chinese Communist Party put out a propaganda story.

00:27:15.640 Chinese military does better with coronavirus than American military.

00:27:19.440 And CNN just dutifully reported that, oh, the Chinese website says their military is doing better than ours.

00:27:27.340 Well, get your head out of here.

00:27:29.820 I mean.

00:27:30.640 Right.

00:27:31.520 Yeah.

00:27:33.940 That's my reaction.

00:27:35.460 That would be my detailed reputation of their simply repeating propaganda stories from the Chinese government.

00:27:41.360 You took the words out of you took the scream out of my mouth.

00:27:44.300 But this question, last one we'll get to, is from, I guess, a Twitter account because it's called the Panda Tribune.

00:27:50.100 I assume that's not somebody's name.

00:27:52.200 Does Ted Cruz think that Joe Biden will be the Democrats nominee by Election Day?

00:27:58.340 Probably.

00:28:00.000 But I got to say, I think a lot of Democrats are getting nervous.

00:28:04.040 I mean, I mean, he is.

00:28:06.200 You know, I joked about Weekend at Bernie's, but it seems like he's in witness protection.

00:28:10.300 I mean, where's where's Waldo?

00:28:12.820 Where's Biden?

00:28:13.480 And they're just, they're terrified.

00:28:16.220 Look, the Democrats are making a gamble that they, that the economy will collapse, that more and more people will lose their jobs,

00:28:23.220 and that people will throw Trump out because they'll get mad at him.

00:28:26.220 And that gamble could work.

00:28:27.500 That's that.

00:28:28.080 I worry about that risk.

00:28:29.500 I don't want to see that happen.

00:28:30.880 And I worry about it.

00:28:32.720 But I also think there are a lot of Democrats that are really getting nervous that Joe doesn't seem remotely up to this challenge.

00:28:42.100 And we'll see what happens.

00:28:49.840 I think Joe probably has to stumble a little more in the next month or two for Dees to pull the ripcord.

00:28:56.320 But but they're definitely nervous, which is why they're hiding him.

00:28:59.860 Here's a great principle in politics.

00:29:03.220 If your political team is hiding you and trying to avoid anyone hearing what you have to say, it ain't good.

00:29:10.640 You're not in a good spot then.

00:29:11.900 Well, I remember, Senator, you made this point during impeachment during one of our 3 a.m. recording sessions.

00:29:17.240 You said that it seemed like the winds in the Democratic elites were turning against Joe Biden,

00:29:24.220 which is why they were allowing some of the allegations about Hunter Biden and Joe's possible corruption to start coming out.

00:29:29.980 I can't help but notice now we're, you know, a little bit of ways away from the Democratic convention and some new allegations have come out about Joe Biden.

00:29:38.140 And it does raise that question and that observation you made have the Democratic elites decided they need a new guy.

00:29:45.360 Well, and media is terrified about even covering the allegations against Biden.

00:29:50.860 And, you know, you go back to Hunter Biden.

00:29:54.200 Listen, we went in great length through Burisma and the Ukrainian issues with Hunter Biden.

00:29:58.860 There's a whole other set of issues with China.

00:30:01.140 And you better believe if Joe Biden is the nominee, we're going to be talking about Joe Biden's direct financial benefits from China as well.

00:30:09.600 That's going to be a major issue in the election. 0.77

00:30:11.360 It's one of the reasons some Democrats are nervous and want to jettison Joe.

00:30:14.840 That's why the details matter.

00:30:16.420 That's why the specificity matters.

00:30:17.920 And I can't tell you how happy I am to know that at least you, hopefully some other people, too.

00:30:22.980 But at least you are taking specific action on China, a specific action on how to make sure that something like this doesn't happen into the future and make sure that we're not continuing to be so vulnerable.

00:30:35.260 So much more to get to.

00:30:36.200 But as usual, we've run out of time.

00:30:37.940 Thank you, Senator.

00:30:39.020 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:30:39.980 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:30:47.920 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.

00:31:02.040 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 29, 2020

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