00:18:56.800Shortly thereafter, he launches his presidential campaign.
00:18:59.540And we had a reporter from I think it was The New York Times who called our comms director and said, hey, you know, all that oppo you had on Beto that we didn't want to run.
00:19:54.480So in the Senate race, when he did a press interview, it was like the Rolling Stones talking to, like, teenage girls throwing their panties at him.
00:20:04.620I mean, that was – and then suddenly in the presidential, he was doing the exact same thing, and they stopped swooning and started attacking him, and he had no idea what to do.
00:21:15.960I mean, to give you a sense of the financial imbalance, Q3 of 2018, so third quarter of 2018, we announce our fundraising, and my campaign has raised $12 million in the quarter.
00:21:30.480That was the most money any candidate for Senate had ever raised in the history of the state of Texas.
00:21:36.620It was pretty – you know, we were impressed with that.
00:22:31.000Conservatives make fun of him, the sort of skateboarding cool punk rocker.
00:22:35.700But that, for voters who are not paying that much attention, being affable is a potent tool.
00:22:47.560Now, at the end of the day, I think 2022 is going to be a really good Republican year.
00:22:53.020I think it's going to be a red wave like 2010 was.
00:22:56.720And that's one of the reasons I think Abbott is going to beat him significantly, because it's going to be such a good Republican year that no matter how charming Beto is,
00:23:07.020I don't believe a Democrat is winning statewide in Texas this time around, but I do think that the folks on the Republican side that make fun of him are underestimating how skilled this guy is.
00:24:18.200That's a good point, actually, that that there is a real benefit for Republicans if Beto can attract a lot of money, especially a lot of Hollywood money and the big Democrat donors.
00:24:28.060Now, one of the reasons that the poll numbers are looking terrible for Democrats right now, one of the things that if there is a Republican wave is going to be impelling this is inflation.
00:24:52.500We're seeing it everywhere at the gas pump, but especially in California.
00:24:56.320Shocked at how the prices have gone up.
00:24:57.820The Biden White House has said they do not bear responsibility for inflation.
00:25:02.740This is just natural coming out of covid long term economic forces and that it's a cheap Republican talking point to blame Biden for inflation.
00:25:12.260I don't know anything about economics.
00:26:05.780It's one of the reasons, for example, why Biden, when Afghanistan went south, the Biden White House was so terrified because they're used to the toughest questions he gets being, you know, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
00:26:19.900And so they don't know how to handle scrutiny.
00:26:22.380You know, Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland was a judge for 24 years.
00:26:33.480Everyone around him kissed his behind every waking moment of the day.
00:26:38.640And so when he's suddenly in front of the Senate and the Senate is engaged in oversight, he's flabbergasted that anyone would dare criticize him.
00:26:49.160It reminded me of, if you remember, the Democratic debates when Michael Bloomberg was standing there and Elizabeth Warren took a chainsaw to him over the sexual harassment charges against him.
00:27:01.520And Bloomberg is worth, what, $37 billion, or those are probably outdated numbers.
00:27:07.560For 50 years, nobody has dared to say no, sir, to Michael Bloomberg.
00:27:14.160He's been surrounded by sycophants with their lips planted on his derriere.
00:27:18.740And he was just flabbergasted that she would criticize him.
00:27:24.220Well, you fast forward to the Biden White House on inflation.
00:27:50.820They actually retreated, retracted the story within minutes because I think the reaction was so resoundingly filled with ridicule and laughter.
00:28:02.320At the end of the day, so their latest argument is if you want to stop inflation, we need to spend trillions more dollars on the Bernie Sanders socialist budget.
00:28:41.200Inflation prices are simply the way we make relative valuations of one good versus another.
00:28:50.100And if you inflate the currency, if you have lots more dollars.
00:28:53.420So if a gallon of milk is worth two dollars and you double the number of dollars in the world, and this is simplified, but the principle is the same.
00:29:04.960That same gallon of milk is suddenly four dollars because it is relative.
00:29:11.160It's how you value a gallon of milk versus an automobile.
00:29:17.120But what of what of the Democrats who say, well, no, the reason that the milk is more expensive now is not because we've doubled the money, but because we've reduced the supply of the milk.
00:29:27.080That it's all a problem of production and the supply chain.
00:29:31.060And so if you're going to blame anyone, actually, you should blame Donald Trump and pay pay no attention to our own policies.
00:29:36.640Do they you hear this a lot on the left wing news channels?
00:30:30.740But supply is is reduced because of things like the supply chain where you can't get the goods you need.
00:30:39.320So. So, for example, I was talking to a contractor who was putting in some irrigation pipes at our house and a 90 degree elbow PVC pipe is probably, I don't know, four or five inches in diameter.
00:30:53.600A contractor told me, he said, that used to cost that piece of plastic used to cost 20 bucks.
00:31:18.480So supply and demand both play an impact in prices, but also monetary factors play a role in prices and in particular the number of dollars that are out there.
00:31:26.960If there are more dollars, you have more inflation, you know, you look at the Weimar Republic, the predecessor to Nazi Germany.
00:31:36.920So, you know, you had hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.
00:31:41.560You literally had people bringing a wheelbarrow full of cash to buy a loaf of bread and the wheelbarrow was worth more than the cash that was in it.
00:31:51.680They were they were printing money like crazy and the more money you print, the higher prices go.
00:33:02.860And, you know, we sort of grumble that we couldn't get it for two point six.
00:33:05.820Like like it's we've been in this weird holiday from history for the last 20 years where inflation has been largely nonexistent.
00:33:16.160Last week, the Labor Department put out the latest numbers, the price inflation in the month of October was point nine percent on an annualized basis.
00:33:30.200It was eleven point nine percent annualized.
00:33:35.340And and the thing about it is inflation.
00:33:38.660You know, Biden promised said I'm not going to raise taxes on anyone making under four hundred thousand a year.
00:33:43.740Inflation impacts low income people the hardest.
00:33:48.920So gazillionaires, you know, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, they don't care.
00:33:53.600So does their Lamborghini cost another fifty thousand dollars?
00:35:00.320And they don't really care the people that are getting hurt on the receiving end of it.
00:35:08.300And I think inflation, I remember the 1980 election really well.
00:35:12.900It was the first political election I paid attention to as a kid.
00:35:17.720And the inflation and we had what we called stagflation because the economy was stagnant and you had inflation, which was a really nasty double whammy.
00:35:28.060I think Joe Biden is heading into very similar territory of ideological extremism combined with just incompetence.
00:35:40.040And that mix, that's part of the reason I think both 2022 and 2024 are going to be such good elections.
00:35:46.040Now, the way that you explained that, because economics for a lot of people, I just think our eyes glaze over.
00:35:58.280And the Democrats, it sounds sort of conspiratorial, but they have said, yes, we do want energy prices to go up because, yes, we do want these alternative forms of energy.
00:36:05.940And we want to incentivize people to develop that.
00:36:10.760I think you might be so talented at explaining those sort of things, putting them into really simple terms, because you apparently are the mayor of Sesame Street, Senator.
00:36:21.760Before we go, we can't go without recounting this.
00:36:25.440If if you watched Saturday Night Live this past week and I know that basically no one did.
00:36:31.200But if you did, you or at least you saw the clip going around, then you saw that that Sesame Street is now really run by Senator Ted Cruz because of your fight with Big Bird.
00:36:42.600So so the cold open this week was instead of Sesame Street, it was Cruz Street.
00:36:48.080And the whole cold, cold open was focused on me and Big Bird.
00:36:52.800And, you know, I have to admit, I did show it to my girls who thought it was pretty damn funny that, like, the opening skit of Saturday Night Live is like pounding their dad.
00:37:05.080But it was and you had Big Bird whose whose feathers are falling out because he got the covid vaccine and it made him sick.
00:37:12.260And and you had cameos from among others, Joe Rogan, although it was Pete Davidson playing Joe Rogan and Britney Spears.
00:37:22.760And and I have to admit, I laughed and I tweeted it out to everyone and I said, wow, so Cruz Street has Joe Rogan and Britney Spears.
00:37:30.960Sounds pretty damn awesome to me. Like, OK, cool.
00:37:33.560We've we've got. It's where they're coming from.
00:37:38.100This this is the thing that struck me about it.
00:37:40.920I'm not saying they couldn't have made a funny sketch out of it.
00:37:45.580I'm not saying that the premise is not kind of funny, but so many of the lines fell completely flat.
00:37:53.080You've got the Joe Rogan character is talking about how he's eating horse dewormer, which was this lie pushed by CNN, which about ivermectin, which was completely untrue or, you know.
00:38:04.600So so all I guess the thing that struck me about it is as unfunny was that whereas an ordinary comedy, you know, the comedy that we've all understood, ha ha kind of comedy is subversive, attacks the power, speaks truth to power.
00:38:20.760This comedy was all just pushing the same old talking points of the ruling class itself.
00:38:26.040Look, I think that's exactly right. And one of the things I mourn, I grieve in our woke, politically correct cancel culture.
00:38:36.520Is the death of comedy, like good comedy.
00:38:40.780And you think of the traditions you go back to the Lenny Bruce or you go back to George Carlin or you go back to Richard Pryor, you go back to Eddie Murphy.
00:38:48.880I mean, they were subversive, they were taking on power, they were using they were ridiculing the powerful and it's it's it's incredibly potent.
00:39:01.460If you look at SNL now, SNL is the power and they're you know, when they go after Joe Rogan, they're basically all the blue chart checkmark lefties.
00:39:14.080Everyone that has a little blue checkmark next to them on Twitter, we're giving the golf clap.
00:39:19.400Yes, yes, yes. Silence that pesky little little troublemaker, which is how they view a Joe Rogan.
00:39:26.580Right. You know, it's and it's not funny.
00:39:32.700It's not funny for the same reason that that late night comedy isn't funny anymore.
00:39:37.300You know, Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, they're unwatchable.
00:39:41.440Yeah. Yeah. And both of those guys are funny guys.
00:39:44.760You know, Colbert, when he was on the Jon Stewart show, you know, was was funny as all get out.
00:39:50.680But they've just become a hard partisan F you.
00:39:54.680That's basically their whole monologue is is like an angry Bernie Sanders cursing at everyone who disagrees with them.
00:40:02.880And it's like, OK, that's just not funny.
00:40:05.240Well, unwatchable and and unwatched, I think, you know, that the ratings have plummeted for all of those guys.
00:40:11.940And I have to tell you, let me know if maybe my theory is too too out there.
00:40:18.040When SNL was going after Donald Trump, I'm not saying it was funny.
00:40:22.480Occasionally it would be funny, but at least they had a target.
00:40:24.580At least you kind of knew what the joke was and where they were coming from.
00:40:27.500Now they don't they don't have old Trump to kick around anymore.
00:40:30.260And so they're going after you. So what does that say?
00:40:33.980I mean, maybe it's not pleasant to be the butt of their jokes, but maybe it is.
00:40:37.940I mean, maybe maybe you're the one that they're that they're afraid of now.
00:40:43.080Look, what I can say is it is I laugh at it.
00:40:47.220You know, today, someone with someone tweeted it.
00:40:50.220Oh, no, I laugh, laugh at it hysterically.
00:40:52.440You know, today, someone someone tweeted out a picture of four women dressed as as Big Bird and other characters of from Sesame Street and said, retweet this and you'll make Ted Cruz's head explode.
00:41:25.140I mean, this this actually gets back to what we were talking about at the very top of the show with Mayorkas in order to tell a joke, in order to give relevant testimony, in order to have a story that resonates with people is true.
00:41:38.500You need to have some connection to reality and you need to have your feet held to the fire every now and again.
00:41:44.640And you need to know what ordinary people are saying.
00:41:47.080And if and if you're the direct the secretary of Homeland Security and your answer is, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
00:41:52.260I'll circle back if you are Saturday Night Live and Joe Rogan is too extreme for you.
00:41:58.360Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country.
00:42:01.700Maybe maybe you're the one with the problem.
00:42:03.980Maybe you're the one who's a little bit divorced from reality.
00:42:06.800And maybe that's reflected in your poll numbers.
00:42:10.880Number one, you know, I don't want to get you in trouble with your colleague, Ben Shapiro, who would argue on the Joe Rogan title.
00:42:18.780And so, by the way, did you see the bit with Ben where he was at some college campus and some smarmy smarmy little twit stood up and said, you know, how come you say you're five nine when you're actually five five and you're lying?
00:43:05.820I saw that today, maybe during one of the boring moments of the Mayorkas hearing.
00:43:13.240But, you know, I'll say something about.
00:43:17.880Oh, a year or two ago, the New York Times was doing a big feature piece on Texas, and they periodically do these pieces where they're like, you know, this was on how Texas is changing the new Texas.
00:43:30.320And so the reporter who interviewed me, this guy named Jonathan Martin, who's a longtime New York Times reporter I've talked to many times.
00:43:38.960And he's interviewed me and I shared a lot of thoughts and I gave him one of the quotes I gave him.
00:43:46.220As I said, Texas is no longer just home to oil and gas wildcatters.
00:43:52.220So he uses the quote, and in fact, it's the ending quote of a story.
00:44:06.020But the ending quote of a story in the very last paragraph, it ends with Texas is no longer just home to oil and gas wildcatters, period.
00:44:16.000And he cuts off the second half of the quote.
00:44:20.540And so I actually I saw the reporter, his nickname, everyone calls him J-Mart.
00:44:24.980And I'm like, J-Mart, what the hell was that?
00:45:14.800This has always been one of the issues at these legacy establishment news places is often they'll have decent reporters.
00:45:22.100But but the editors are shaping public opinion.
00:45:24.620They're keeping the story in their own narrative.
00:45:27.540But then sometimes the narrative gets out, whether that's because the secretary of Homeland Security needs to face a question, whether that's because people are shopping for Thanksgiving and they see the prices.
00:45:39.100Ultimately, reality is going to reassert itself in the end.
00:45:42.940And the fabulists are going to have a hard time dealing with that.
00:46:01.900This 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.
00:46:23.120In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.