Verdict with Ted Cruz - Civil Liberties Under Attack

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.500 Remember civil liberties?

00:00:06.480 With all the Obamagate spying and due process under attack and the endless lockdowns,

00:00:12.100 they might seem like a distant memory.

00:00:14.640 We will get into all of it.

00:00:16.200 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:23.780 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:25.680 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:26.620 Senator, the last time that we spoke, the biggest story of the day was the exoneration

00:00:31.500 of Michael Flynn, President Trump's first national security advisor.

00:00:36.280 The DOJ dropped the case into him.

00:00:38.740 The FBI set him up.

00:00:40.500 This was a huge miscarriage of justice.

00:00:42.500 But thankfully, the case was being dismissed until I just read a headline that the judge

00:00:49.160 is not letting go of the case, even though the prosecution said that they were pulling

00:00:54.160 out of it.

00:00:54.520 Can you explain to me how that's even possible?

00:00:57.020 What's going on? 0.99

00:00:57.860 It is ridiculous. 0.97

00:00:59.860 This federal judge, we've seen too many judges on the bench behaving like they're members 0.97

00:01:05.120 of the resistance and signing up to really the partisan objective of attacking the president

00:01:14.580 and this administration.

00:01:16.560 Listen, everything about this Michael Flynn investigation and prosecution stinks from the

00:01:22.620 get-go.

00:01:23.060 And what has come public in the last couple of weeks is stunning.

00:01:29.080 What we now know is, number one, Attorney General Bill Barr, when he came in, assigned a U.S.

00:01:35.640 attorney who is a longtime experienced veteran with the FBI and the Department of Justice to

00:01:42.640 go and invest, go look at this case and make sure nothing untoward happened.

00:01:47.380 And he went and investigated, and they were horrified by what they found.

00:01:51.540 They found that the FBI agents going after Michael Flynn, number one, the FBI was going

00:01:55.720 to dismiss the case because they didn't have any evidence.

00:01:57.880 And then Peter Strzok, who we've seen is a rabidly partisan Trump hater, stopped it from

00:02:04.600 being closed and said how lucky they were that their incompetence, that's his word, was such

00:02:09.520 that it saved them from closing the case.

00:02:11.620 And they decided, all right, let's go interview him and see if we can somehow entrap him in

00:02:19.440 a lie in order to, and this is the FBI's own notes, get him fired.

00:02:24.460 Get him to lie so we can get him fired.

00:02:27.060 That's not the FBI's job.

00:02:28.960 Why are they trying to get the national security advisor for the newly elected president fired?

00:02:34.780 So that came out initially, but it gets worse.

00:02:37.560 And by the way, James Comey bragged, the old FBI director bragged in an interview how essentially

00:02:44.420 he suckered General Flynn, who's a decorated three-star general, by the way, who spent his

00:02:50.540 whole life fighting to defend this country.

00:02:52.980 They suckered General Flynn into this interview where they said, oh, you don't need a lawyer.

00:02:59.300 No, no, no.

00:02:59.580 You don't need to tell the White House counsel about it.

00:03:01.500 We're just coming to chat.

00:03:02.980 Just to chit-chat.

00:03:03.820 And actually, Comey said something to the effect of, you know, a White House that knew

00:03:10.780 what they were doing would never have fallen for this.

00:03:12.780 Of course, they did this right after Trump was elected, right when they're getting started,

00:03:16.540 when they're getting their team in place.

00:03:18.480 But it's worse than that.

00:03:20.620 What's come out in this last week are two things that are beyond stunning.

00:03:25.200 One, we know that there was a January 5th meeting in the White House with President Obama,

00:03:32.100 that President Obama was directly part of the meeting where it was discussed with senior

00:03:37.160 law enforcement and intelligence.

00:03:38.620 They were targeting the national security advisor for the incoming president.

00:03:43.140 Not only that, we know that Joe Biden was at that meeting and stunningly that Joe Biden

00:03:50.360 personally directed the unmasking of General Flynn.

00:03:54.140 Again, let's unmask his name.

00:03:56.300 Normally, the intelligence reports, the intercepts come around with names blocked out.

00:04:00.300 Joe Biden personally said, unmask him.

00:04:03.060 Let's see his name.

00:04:05.060 And then on top of that, in the last week of the Obama administration, Susan Rice, the national

00:04:12.820 security advisor, sent an email to herself and to the intelligence community saying, under

00:04:19.440 the directions of President Obama, and she made this clear, this was coming from Barack Obama

00:04:23.460 himself, you may not be able to share certain aspects of national security information concerning

00:04:31.280 Russia with the incoming president. 0.97

00:04:35.020 What in the hell?

00:04:36.280 Like, this has never happened in the history of our country.

00:04:39.400 An outgoing administration launching a political investigation, a political persecution, and telling

00:04:47.180 all of the deep state bureaucrats, when the new president comes in, he's not your president.

00:04:53.300 You don't have to tell him what's going on.

00:04:55.300 Just go after him, target him, and trap him, set him up.

00:04:59.400 I mean, it was stunning.

00:05:01.980 And in more than two centuries of our nation's history, I am not aware of any outgoing administration

00:05:08.500 that ever so much has tried to do this to the new administration.

00:05:12.560 It is wrong.

00:05:13.880 It is offensive.

00:05:14.900 It is grotesque.

00:05:15.920 And so the Department of Justice came in and said, we shouldn't have brought this case.

00:05:21.000 We don't have the evidence.

00:05:22.320 Let's dismiss it.

00:05:23.060 Now, here's what happens when the prosecutor does that. 0.84

00:05:26.120 The judge says, case dismissed.

00:05:28.220 Right.

00:05:28.580 Prosecutor's not going to prosecute you.

00:05:30.320 The case is dismissed.

00:05:31.240 But this judge apparently has strapped on his little pink hat, and he's decided he's part

00:05:37.540 of the resistance.

00:05:38.220 So number one, he issued this call to Amiki, to friends of the court.

00:05:43.080 You guys tell me if this prosecution should continue, even though the prosecutors aren't

00:05:49.220 prosecuting it.

00:05:50.500 And then he appointed another judge, who happens to be a Democratic appointee as well.

00:05:54.920 Coincidence.

00:05:55.580 To go assess whether he should charge Michael Flynn with perjury.

00:06:02.040 All right, well, let me give you a clue, judge.

00:06:06.400 You or your buddy who you've appointed, don't charge anybody with anybody.

00:06:11.660 Go read that document that you may have put away a long time ago.

00:06:14.600 It's called the Constitution.

00:06:15.820 There are three articles, Article 1, Article 2, and Article 3 that set up our Constitution.

00:06:19.660 There are seven altogether.

00:06:20.700 But three that set up our government.

00:06:22.880 You're in Article 3.

00:06:23.940 You're the judiciary.

00:06:24.700 It is the executive that charges.

00:06:27.420 It is the judiciary that tries the case.

00:06:29.800 And so this is grotesque.

00:06:33.120 It is a violation of civil liberties.

00:06:35.440 And of course, all the left-wing partisans don't care because they hate Trump.

00:06:40.680 It is offensive.

00:06:42.060 This is a very bizarre case.

00:06:44.600 I'm glad you could lay that out because I've had trouble trying to relate.

00:06:47.820 You have the Michael Flynn part of it relates to this January 5th meeting, how it relates

00:06:52.920 to Susan Rice and Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden, we've learned.

00:06:56.580 This is being called Obamagate.

00:06:58.780 The mainstream media are denying that Obamagate exists, just like they denied all the rest of

00:07:04.060 Barack Obama's presidential scandals.

00:07:06.340 You're saying this is possibly unprecedented.

00:07:10.040 This is historic.

00:07:11.340 This is an egregious abuse of power.

00:07:13.820 I don't know of any history.

00:07:15.860 There have been administrations that didn't like each other before, that shifted from

00:07:19.700 one to the other.

00:07:20.940 But one of the hallmarks of our democratic system, of our constitutional republic, is

00:07:26.680 the peaceful transition of power from one party to another.

00:07:30.440 We're not a banana republic.

00:07:31.900 We don't go try to prosecute those we disagree with because of political disagreements.

00:07:38.300 We enforce the law regardless of party.

00:07:40.420 That's what our tradition is.

00:07:41.620 You know, the closest I can think of is when the Clinton administration was leaving and

00:07:48.920 the George W. Bush administration came in.

00:07:51.880 Well, we knew that the Clintons did steal the silverware from the White House residents.

00:07:57.300 Some of the furniture.

00:07:58.420 That was uniquely characteristic of them.

00:08:01.220 But the outgoing Clinton White House staff, they did on a number of the keyboards in the

00:08:08.280 White House, they pulled the letter W off of.

00:08:10.940 And, you know, it was George W. Bush.

00:08:12.320 And that was sort of a juvenile prank.

00:08:15.560 But they didn't unleash the Department of Justice and the FBI and the intelligence community

00:08:21.640 to set up, to entrap, to prosecute, to target the incoming administration, the national security

00:08:28.720 advisor, to unleash wiretaps on the incoming administration's campaign, to base it on a

00:08:38.020 bogus dossier compiled by the opposing, by, I guess, the outgoing administration's own

00:08:45.360 party, paid for by the DNC, paid for by Hillary Clinton.

00:08:50.220 What a grotesque abuse of power.

00:08:53.120 And let me tell you something.

00:08:55.800 The Senate needs to do something about it. 0.98

00:08:58.560 The Senate needs to have every one of these clowns that abused their power brought in front 1.00

00:09:04.260 of us and testify under oath. 0.95

00:09:06.020 The entire array of them, the ones that were sitting in that White House, I'm talking James

00:09:11.400 Comey, I'm talking Yates, I'm talking Susan Rice, I'm talking Joe Biden, I'm talking Barack

00:09:16.580 Obama, every one of them should testify about their weaponizing and politicizing law enforcement

00:09:23.960 and the intelligence community to prosecute, target, and wrongfully go after the next, the

00:09:32.720 incoming president of the United States.

00:09:34.060 That's right, and it's so corrupt, and even if you're a Trump hater out there, even if

00:09:38.540 you're glad, you know, that the outgoing administration was going after the incoming administration,

00:09:44.100 all of that, it does come down also to a question of civil liberties, and it's not just being

00:09:49.280 attacked by government thugs who are spying on people, we're also seeing this in other

00:09:54.700 places.

00:09:55.220 You had a great tweet earlier today.

00:09:57.500 This was in regard to Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, who said that Betsy DeVos has now

00:10:04.460 issued these policies that will protect the accused on college campuses, but the ACLU is

00:10:10.300 now going after Betsy DeVos for protecting civil liberties, even though the ACLU is supposed

00:10:15.560 to be the American Civil Liberties Union.

00:10:17.300 So you tweeted out, ACLU moves to delete the C and the L from their name.

00:10:22.280 Hereafter, it shall be the ADPU, the American Democratic Party Union.

00:10:27.400 They are for all criminal defendants, unless they're Republicans, and they are for all sexual 0.62

00:10:32.300 assault victims, unless they are accusing Democrats.

00:10:36.080 Can you just tell us a little bit about the Betsy DeVos decision, what that means on campus,

00:10:41.140 and how on earth the ACLU now opposes civil liberties?

00:10:46.260 Look, it is crazy.

00:10:48.780 Let's start with Betsy DeVos, the secretary of education.

00:10:51.100 The Obama administration, when it came to college campuses, they really got radicalized, and

00:10:58.160 sexual assault is a horrific evil.

00:11:00.560 I've spent a lot of my life in law enforcement prosecuting those who commit sexual assault.

00:11:07.080 It has been a lifelong passion of mine.

00:11:09.120 And it is a grotesque evil that should be punished.

00:11:12.940 But criminal defendants have rights.

00:11:14.620 We have due process.

00:11:15.720 We have a Bill of Rights.

00:11:16.760 We have where people, an accused is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

00:11:22.000 What the Obama Department of Education did is they used the federal education dollars

00:11:26.400 to try to coerce, frankly, a bunch of radicals on campuses who were happy to do this anyway,

00:11:31.860 into creating these star chambers where if there's an accusation of sexual assault,

00:11:37.400 the accused is presumed guilty, and has little or no rights, can't confront their accuser,

00:11:43.780 can't even know what the charge is in some cases.

00:11:45.920 I mean, it really is, it's Kafkaesque, where you have been charged, we will not inform you

00:11:51.820 what the charge is.

00:11:52.680 We will not inform you who's raising the allegations.

00:11:55.000 You can't call witnesses in your defense because you don't know what you're charged with,

00:11:58.220 but here are the consequences.

00:11:59.600 Okay, that's not fair.

00:12:01.140 That's not right.

00:12:01.780 That's not just, but in the radical leftist world, it was politically expedient.

00:12:10.040 The Department of Education said, no, we're going to follow federal law, and that means

00:12:16.840 we're not going to force colleges just to immediately, summarily execute anyone who's

00:12:24.280 facing an accusation.

00:12:25.560 Instead, there should be a fair fact-fighting proceeding that respects due process.

00:12:31.080 Now, in any ordinary circumstance, you take the ACLU.

00:12:34.860 ACLU, I disagree with a lot of the things they do, but they were formed to protect civil

00:12:40.100 liberties, and in fact, to protect civil liberties of those who have been charged with

00:12:44.560 something, those who have been accused with something.

00:12:46.940 Many times they're guilty, and if they're guilty, they should be punished, but you're entitled

00:12:51.280 to have due process protections.

00:12:54.700 Here's the problem.

00:12:55.520 The ACLU, like most of the left, Donald Trump has driven them nuts.

00:12:59.520 I mean, they're just, they're in straitjackets babbling like Bugs Bunny.

00:13:05.180 I mean, they just, they don't make any sense anymore.

00:13:08.120 And so, ACLU is to support all criminal defendants.

00:13:11.920 Okay, I understand that.

00:13:12.900 Sometimes I don't like it.

00:13:13.800 If it's mass murders, they've taken it too far.

00:13:16.060 But okay, that's at least a coherent position is I'm going to support criminal defendants against

00:13:20.980 government prosecution, defend their rights.

00:13:23.420 ACLU isn't doing that anymore.

00:13:24.700 Where is the ACLU and Michael Flynn?

00:13:26.400 Show me the ACLU coming in and saying, judge, if the prosecution is dismissing the case,

00:13:33.020 you can't become judge, prosecutor, and presumably executioner.

00:13:36.740 I don't know if the judge is going to lock him in his own jail cell too.

00:13:40.000 Any reasonably coherent ACLU would be standing alongside Michael Flynn.

00:13:44.620 But God forbid he's a Republican and worked for Trump.

00:13:48.220 Oh, no, no, no, no.

00:13:49.100 ACLU has got nothing to do with it.

00:13:50.480 On the flip side, you know, they want a virtue signal on sexual assault.

00:13:57.560 Where's the ACLU on the allegations against Joe Biden?

00:14:00.700 I don't recall the ACLU.

00:14:02.520 And by the way, you remember the sitting lieutenant governor of Virginia?

00:14:06.780 That's right.

00:14:07.580 Who had pretty serious allegations of rape against him.

00:14:10.360 But he's a Democrat.

00:14:11.440 Of course you've forgotten him.

00:14:12.420 Has any media outlet covered that?

00:14:15.060 For six months it's disappeared.

00:14:16.820 Why?

00:14:17.160 Because he's a Democrat.

00:14:18.740 Where's the ACLU on that?

00:14:20.220 And so it is at this point so shamelessly partisan that it ought to be possible to defend principles,

00:14:33.180 defend the Constitution, defend the Bill of Rights with coherency and fairness.

00:14:41.320 Look, when there's a sexual assault allegation, I believe the alleged victim should be treated

00:14:46.960 with respect, should be listened to, should the allegations should be treated seriously.

00:14:51.300 But it still depends on the evidence.

00:14:53.320 The accused deserves a presumption of innocence and you should look to the facts.

00:14:57.800 That's actually a fair and neutral way to apply it.

00:15:01.040 It's not the way these hardcore lefty partisans are treating it.

00:15:04.620 That's right.

00:15:05.080 We have kangaroo courts on college campuses that are trampling over the due process rights

00:15:10.080 of the accused and that for some reason these panels of professors are dealing with one

00:15:15.180 of the most serious crimes you can commit.

00:15:16.920 Not our criminal justice system, but for some reason these random professors and deans.

00:15:21.100 You've got the kangaroo courts there.

00:15:22.280 You've got the kangaroo courts at the federal level now trying to continue the persecution

00:15:25.860 of Michael Flynn.

00:15:27.140 We're looking around.

00:15:28.020 We're saying, what happened to our civil liberties?

00:15:29.600 And I think for most Americans, the way it really affects our lives is we were told 15 days

00:15:36.160 to slow the spread.

00:15:37.200 We're going to give up some of our civil liberties because obviously there's this epidemic going

00:15:41.200 around and we want to keep everybody safe.

00:15:43.560 Now, you know, I think a lot of states are being very reasonable about this, reacting to

00:15:47.840 evidence.

00:15:48.720 Some states, some cities are becoming downright arbitrary in their power grabs.

00:15:54.020 They're saying that these power grabs are going to go on indefinitely.

00:15:57.420 Or have those places just simply lost our civil liberties?

00:16:03.960 Well, let me make two points.

00:16:06.680 One on sexual assault and then one more generally on individual liberty and civil liberties.

00:16:11.520 Yeah.

00:16:12.040 On sexual assault, look, I have argued and won numerous cases dealing with prosecuting and

00:16:23.420 in some cases seeking the death penalty for child rapists and those who committed sexual

00:16:27.620 assault. 0.61

00:16:28.040 I think it needs to be punished very seriously.

00:16:31.420 I've also been leading the fight along with New York Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand to change

00:16:37.320 the way sexual assault is prosecuted in the military.

00:16:39.980 The military, unfortunately, has been a long problem where the decisions, charging decisions

00:16:44.640 right now are made by the commanding officer.

00:16:46.600 And the problem is you get conflicts of interest and victims of sexual assault in the military

00:16:52.480 don't feel confident to come forward with those allegations.

00:16:55.860 So I've long been an advocate of changing the charging decisions from the commanding officer

00:17:01.660 to a military career prosecutor.

00:17:05.140 So keeping it within the military, but not in the immediate change of command so the prosecutor

00:17:10.400 can fairly evaluate the evidence, be credible, and decide whether or not there's sufficient

00:17:16.060 evidence to charge sexual assault.

00:17:18.500 The reason I bring that up is all of the virtue signaling lefties.

00:17:23.100 For eight years, Barack Obama was president.

00:17:25.240 He could have changed it any day.

00:17:27.260 He could have changed how sexual assault in the military is prosecuted, and Barack Obama

00:17:31.440 for eight years refused to do it.

00:17:34.400 That actually would make a difference, and it needs to be done.

00:17:37.420 So your second point about individual liberties, we're seeing in any crisis, you remember the

00:17:46.000 movie Wall Street?

00:17:46.920 Yes.

00:17:48.240 There's a great scene where Lou, the old broker, says to Charlie Sheen, I'm going to paraphrase

00:17:58.220 this and mess this up, but something to the effect of there comes a time in a crisis when

00:18:02.880 a man stares into the abyss, and in the abyss is where he finds his character.

00:18:07.420 And that is what saves him from the abyss.

00:18:10.120 That's close to it.

00:18:11.660 That's a good rendition.

00:18:12.660 Look, in a time of crisis, you see someone's character.

00:18:19.620 Yeah.

00:18:20.000 And we are seeing the character of these petty authoritarian tyrants who are running around

00:18:26.440 stripping away civil liberties.

00:18:28.780 You know, just earlier today, I saw a video of a woman in New York, an African-American mom,

00:18:34.260 who was walking with her son.

00:18:37.080 He's, I don't know, maybe three, four years old, young child, walking through the subway,

00:18:41.440 and she committed apparently the cardinal sin of she wasn't wearing a mask. 0.88

00:18:46.080 And she was surrounded by police officers who threw her to the ground, wrestled her to the 0.90

00:18:51.340 ground, pushed her into, number one, the nasty, dirty subway station floor, which I can't imagine

00:18:57.640 anyone laying down, and handcuffed her, and her little son is sitting there watching this.

00:19:03.320 By the way, where's the ACLU?

00:19:05.300 You want to talk about, like, okay, and I'm not saying, it's so easy for people to embrace extremes.

00:19:13.320 I'm not saying never wear a mask ever.

00:19:16.140 I wear a mask when I'm on an airplane.

00:19:17.780 I wear a mask when I go to the grocery store.

00:19:19.820 I'm wearing a mask.

00:19:20.660 I want to be, respect public safety, but it could have been really different if they

00:19:25.280 had given her a mask, if they hadn't, like, you shouldn't be throwing young moms to the 1.00

00:19:33.580 ground in front of their little kids and handcuffing them for not wearing a mask. 1.00

00:19:37.820 That's just stupid. 1.00

00:19:38.900 But these authoritarian tyrants, they believe in government power. 1.00

00:19:43.380 They hate liberty.

00:19:44.280 It's the same numbskulls, different numbskulls, but the same type of numbskulls, who sent in 0.96

00:19:51.520 bulldozers in California to fill a skate park with sand.

00:19:58.120 Like, what, I mean, that video, if you haven't seen it, you ought to watch it.

00:20:02.780 And by the way, I think it would be perfectly reasonable for the local officials to have a

00:20:08.160 police officer there and say, kids, you guys need to socially distance.

00:20:11.360 Don't all gather together, spread apart, and be safe.

00:20:14.720 But, you know, look, if a kid wants to go skateboarding, like, it's only malicious tyranny

00:20:22.100 that fills a skate park with sand. 1.00

00:20:24.700 That's just dumb. 0.99

00:20:26.200 And it's the same malicious tyranny that throws a mom on the floor and handcuffs her in front 1.00

00:20:31.320 of her little kid.

00:20:32.080 And of course, the people who filled that skate park should have known that teenage skateboard 1.00

00:20:36.040 punks are not exactly known for following the rules.

00:20:38.640 So they were obviously going to dig the sand out and go right back to skateboarding.

00:20:42.420 More power to them.

00:20:43.380 I really enjoyed it.

00:20:44.280 And lest I checked it, skateboarders are loners.

00:20:48.440 Certainly all the skateboarders I've known.

00:20:50.300 And by the way, for anyone who's sort of young and hip and rebellious, remember it is the lefty

00:20:59.920 Dems that are trying to strip away your freedom.

00:21:03.080 Remember who's doing it.

00:21:04.380 Remember the tyrants.

00:21:05.100 And by the way, you know, you're in California right now.

00:21:08.960 I don't see actually the monitors watching you, although I kind of expect a Skynet drone

00:21:15.680 to come in any moment now and like find you.

00:21:19.260 But I got to say, there are a lot of Californians looking to flee, including some pretty prominent

00:21:25.680 players.

00:21:26.800 I, you know, I noticed Elon Musk, was it, is, I mean, he's one of the wealthiest guys,

00:21:32.240 one of the most successful guys in California.

00:21:33.580 I think he's put his houses on the market.

00:21:35.940 He said he's going to move to either Nevada or Texas.

00:21:38.340 You're seeing a number of other people.

00:21:40.140 Senator, is this an invitation?

00:21:41.360 Are we, should we all just go down to Texas now?

00:21:45.180 Yes, with a caveat.

00:21:46.540 So, so you're all invited, but there needs to be an entrance exam.

00:21:50.440 If you're going to vote for the sort of lefty commies that screwed up California, please

00:21:54.380 stay where you are and enjoy what you voted for.

00:21:56.620 If you're willing to come for freedom, we would welcome you.

00:22:00.480 So Elon Musk, look, his Tesla factory, he wants to open, his workers want to open.

00:22:05.860 And the petty tyrant said, no, you can't work.

00:22:08.620 And by the way, there was a Democratic state legislator who sent out a tweet that was, F-U,

00:22:15.760 Elon Musk.

00:22:17.480 What on earth is going on that elected officials are tweeting expletives at their constituents? 0.97

00:22:24.640 These are the same clowns who last week we talked about the elected Democratic judge in 0.97

00:22:30.220 Dallas that demanded of, of Shelley Luther, the hairdresser, apologize to your elected 0.95

00:22:34.620 officials. 0.95

00:22:35.540 You guys are not frigging overlords. 0.99

00:22:37.800 Get off your power trip and, and don't curse at your constituents. 0.97

00:22:42.060 And so I, I sent out a tweet to, to Elon Musk saying, come to Texas.

00:22:46.400 We welcome you.

00:22:47.300 We love jobs.

00:22:48.360 We like making cars and trucks down here.

00:22:50.340 We'd love to have Tesla.

00:22:51.560 Tesla, um, by the way, I got to say Tesla's, I don't have a Tesla.

00:22:55.660 I have some friends who have it.

00:22:57.140 They're, they're amazing drives.

00:22:59.400 And my girls desperately want us to get a Tesla because, so the coolest thing is on the

00:23:04.900 giant TV screen in the middle, I guess there's a button that makes a fart noise from each of

00:23:09.980 the seats, which to a nine-year-old and 12-year-old and even to a 49-year-old is really damn funny.

00:23:17.340 Yeah, that is, I, I didn't know about that.

00:23:20.040 Wow.

00:23:20.500 I, how do I want.

00:23:21.180 And you know who also was talking about moving to Texas?

00:23:23.920 Yeah.

00:23:24.540 Is Joe Rogan.

00:23:25.800 That's right.

00:23:26.520 Now, Joe Rogan, Joe Rogan said, all right, I can't stand it.

00:23:31.000 I may move to Texas.

00:23:32.060 I, I said, Joe, we'd welcome you here.

00:23:34.760 Now, now you and I know Joe had been the number one podcast until, till, till Joe Rogan

00:23:39.580 was dethroned by yours truly in this podcast here.

00:23:43.400 Oh, that's right.

00:23:43.580 Yes, I do remember that.

00:23:45.260 Well, I, I hope, I hope he didn't take it so hard that he, he realized that, you know,

00:23:50.500 really that huge podcast is in Texas.

00:23:52.640 It's at the Cruz residence.

00:23:53.900 So he's got to go, go see where the magic is.

00:23:56.680 And look, Joe Rogan had his flirtation with Bernie Sanders.

00:24:00.560 And if he thinks that, that, that big government status are the way to go, then stay where you

00:24:04.820 are, Joe.

00:24:05.340 We don't want you, if you want to bring that, that, that, that, that kind of totalitarianism

00:24:09.740 to us.

00:24:10.420 But, but if, if this has made you realize, you know, people like to be free, leave me

00:24:15.940 the hell alone.

00:24:16.740 That doesn't mean anarchy.

00:24:18.420 Yeah.

00:24:18.580 It means respect civil liberties, respect freedom.

00:24:21.560 If you're willing to stand for freedom, come to Texas.

00:24:25.460 We want you.

00:24:26.260 And you know, the, the Joe Rogan move and the Elon Musk move are both interesting because

00:24:30.620 I know that Joe was a Bernie bro for a while, but he really is a sort of independent thinker.

00:24:34.720 You can't always nail them down on one political party or the other.

00:24:38.400 And the fact that the, the effect of this government overreach has been to tell people

00:24:43.220 who like Elon Musk or like Joe Rogan, who are a little more independent minded, hmm, maybe

00:24:47.660 the left is really not where the future is.

00:24:50.000 Maybe the left is not, not where your interests are.

00:24:52.460 That could have some serious effects for November.

00:24:55.060 Obviously there are a lot of, a lot of variables.

00:24:57.100 Profound.

00:24:58.160 Well, am I remembering right that, that, that Joe Rogan had an episode that he had Elon Musk

00:25:03.980 on, were they both smoke pot on the podcast?

00:25:09.160 I don't know if he inhaled, but they did both smoke pot.

00:25:12.800 So, so I don't know if, if, if maybe there's sort of a libertarian streak that's coming out.

00:25:18.200 That's okay.

00:25:18.900 You're welcome to come here too.

00:25:20.420 You and I might have an episode in, in, in which, you know, I was asking you before,

00:25:24.400 if you owned a smoking jacket, I can see you pull it out like a Sherlock Holmes pipe or

00:25:28.280 something.

00:25:28.660 That's true.

00:25:29.180 We could.

00:25:29.540 That's, I guess that's one thing I could bring from California to Texas.

00:25:32.840 Uh, well, we'll have to save that for a future episode.

00:25:36.020 Obviously before we go, we got to get to some mailbag questions.

00:25:39.060 There are a lot of people who have questions all over the place.

00:25:42.540 So let's get right into it from Nick.

00:25:44.200 Senator, what do you think?

00:25:45.600 If you think anything at all about that video that came out of Georgia, the shooting of the,

00:25:51.160 uh, man, Ahmaud Arbery by those two guys in the truck.

00:25:55.400 Do you have any take on this?

00:25:56.780 This is being on one hand, people are saying that these were crypto Klansmen and it's a modern 0.93

00:26:01.300 day lynching. On the other hand, people are saying even possibly it was justified. I think

00:26:05.960 most people are not taking, uh, either of those extreme positions. What, what is your take?

00:26:11.400 Uh, look, I, I, I saw the video, the shooting. I think, I think it's really troubling. Uh, and,

00:26:16.280 and so I, I'm glad to see that the prosecution is moving forward based on what I've seen.

00:26:21.920 And what happened seems wrong. Now, now look, this whole theme has, uh, of this show, we focused

00:26:27.940 on civil liberties. And so the defendants have a right to presumption of innocence. They have a

00:26:32.380 right to due process. And so, so, so the trial ought to go forward. They ought to look at what

00:26:37.080 the actual evidence is. We don't know all the evidence, but I got to say, you know, anytime you

00:26:42.300 have two people driving up in a truck and, and, and shooting an unarmed man, uh, that's really

00:26:48.780 problematic. And, and, and certainly with the, the, the, the tragic history of race in our country, 0.95

00:26:54.040 um, it, it, it raises, uh, it's messed up. So I'm glad that the prosecutors are moving forward

00:27:00.900 based on what I've seen. There's certainly enough evidence to move forward, but the process needs to

00:27:06.100 play out and, and we need to, to, to find out the truth. That's too reasonable, Senator that has no

00:27:10.800 place on Twitter or anywhere else on the internet. You have to have a very extreme position or else you're,

00:27:15.200 you're not allowed to voice it on the internet from Vince. Is there any

00:27:18.400 legislation planned or being proposed to curtail the suppression of content on social media platforms

00:27:24.600 or could, or should this be a private citizen endeavor to sue where needed or where possible?

00:27:30.820 All of the above. Yes. As you know, a huge focus of mine has been the power of big tech

00:27:36.680 and, and big tech is engaging in censorship. It's a handful of Silicon Valley billionaires who,

00:27:42.560 who frankly are, are, are too often petty tyrants and authoritarians themselves. And then they

00:27:48.260 feel unchecked. Uh, you know, I, I shared a hearing a number of months ago on, on censorship of big

00:27:56.140 tech, where we put up an internal PowerPoint from Google, uh, and it was entitled the good sensor.

00:28:03.420 And by the way, that's Google's own term. That's not my term. That's how they entitled it. And they

00:28:08.020 described how the internet used to be believe in laissez-faire free speech. Yeah.

00:28:13.900 But instead, big tech, they said had made a decision to move towards what they called

00:28:18.960 a European style censorship model. And they identified Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

00:28:25.540 as the kind of major players. That's exactly right. And, and, and, and I think it is a profound

00:28:31.000 threat to democracy. I'll give you a recent example, YouTube, which has been Google and YouTube have

00:28:36.780 been the worst offenders, by the way. I mean, Google, they used to have their motto be, uh, do no evil.

00:28:42.380 Now I think they've just deleted the first two words. Now their motto is just evil, like they're

00:28:47.820 just shameless. Um, you know, Google's gone after Prager university. One of the more absurd

00:28:53.260 examples, they, they restricted as adult content Prager use episode on the 10 commandments. You

00:29:00.160 really can't make this crap up. The 10 commandments because it discussed murder. I mean, I guess it 1.00

00:29:07.440 does. Really? Like, like, like, you know, you would think that, that, that, that these techie

00:29:15.980 autocrats would actually pause and say, okay, maybe we're beclowning ourselves too much here. Let's 0.77

00:29:21.120 stop. But YouTube's latest in, in the midst of the pandemic, they said they're going to block and pull

00:29:26.620 down any video that disagrees with the health recommendations from the world health organization.

00:29:31.640 Now the WHO, as you know, has really disgraced itself by its willingness to be a puppet for the

00:29:42.860 communist government in China to repeat Chinese communist lies to repeat in January, the WHO was

00:29:49.980 loudly saying that the Chinese lie, there is no human to human transmission of coronavirus. Okay. If 0.99

00:29:55.600 YouTube followed that, that, that plan, if you were one of the communists, the, the, the Chinese 0.94

00:30:01.200 physician whistleblowers who heroically stood up against it, stood up and pointed out the coronavirus.

00:30:07.500 If you made a video on YouTube, apparently under YouTube's policies, they'd pull you down

00:30:12.020 because the WHO says coronavirus cannot pass from person to person. What utter garbage. 0.97

00:30:20.120 And so we need to do much more to go after big tech. That includes potentially repealing section 0.94

00:30:29.440 230, the communications decency act, which gives them a special protection from liability that Congress

00:30:35.620 has passed. Nobody else gets. I've been leading the edge on that. Uh, it also includes looking at

00:30:41.420 antitrust, uh, litigation, uh, or, or, or a case from the department of justice. These are monopolies

00:30:49.340 that are abusing their monopoly power. I think we've got to do more. And I think it's a profound

00:30:53.600 threat to our democracy. It is. It's an urgent threat. It does happen a lot on YouTube. Maybe

00:30:57.680 they'll take this episode down. I don't know. I hope they don't. And if they do, I bet the ACLU

00:31:02.820 will be nowhere in sight to defend us. Uh, so much more. No, no, no, no, no, no. The ACLU will be with

00:31:08.920 big tech saying, yes, we're all for silencing speech because we are partisan lefties. It really,

00:31:17.160 it's sad. I, it's a sad thing to see. That's the ACLU, the ADPU, as you say, that that will be the

00:31:24.060 next one. Uh, we'll probably be even further into the upside down by then, but we'll, we'll just have

00:31:29.320 to wait until next time. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:31:40.500 This episode of verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by jobs, freedom, and security pack,

00:31:46.260 a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes,

00:31:50.400 organizations, and candidates across the country. In 2022 jobs, freedom, and security pack plans to

00:31:56.760 donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican party across

00:32:01.620 the nation. This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 16, 2020

Civil Liberties Under Attack

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