Verdict with Ted Cruz - Cruz Uncaged

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.580 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.260 How many children have been in the Biden cages in calendar year 2021?

00:00:10.460 Senator, I respectfully disagree with your use of the term cages.

00:00:16.520 Fine. You can disagree with it.

00:00:17.800 How many children have been in the Biden cages?

00:00:19.520 I've been to the Biden cages.

00:00:20.800 I've seen the Biden cages.

00:00:22.140 How many children have you detained at the Donna Tent facility

00:00:25.880 in the cages you built told kids?

00:00:27.860 How many children have been in those cages?

00:00:30.000 Senator, I can provide to you the following figure that when,

00:00:36.000 and let me say that when a child...

00:00:38.840 I don't...

00:00:39.840 It's a simple question.

00:00:41.240 How many children have been in those cages?

00:00:43.140 I respectfully am not familiar with the term cages and to what you are referring.

00:00:48.900 There are...

00:00:49.180 Enclosures in which they are locked in,

00:00:51.560 in which I took photographs and put them out

00:00:53.720 because you blocked the press and didn't want people to see the Biden cages.

00:00:57.000 Secretary Mayorkas, you're not answering my question,

00:00:59.140 so let me ask you this.

00:01:01.020 In the past year, has Joe Biden been down to see firsthand the Biden cages?

00:01:06.320 Senator, I will again...

00:01:07.860 Has Joe Biden been down to see this facility?

00:01:11.240 Yes or no?

00:01:11.980 The president has not been down to...

00:01:14.080 Okay, no.

00:01:14.820 Yes or no.

00:01:15.660 Has Kamala Harris been down to see these detention facilities?

00:01:20.700 She has not been down...

00:01:21.980 Has any Democratic senator on this committee been down to see the Biden cages?

00:01:26.600 I will once again disagree with your use of terminology.

00:01:29.800 These facilities...

00:01:30.700 Has any Democratic member of this committee given a damn enough to see the children being

00:01:35.880 locked up by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris because of your failed immigration policies?

00:01:40.800 Senator, I cannot speak to the members of this committee.

00:01:44.780 You don't know if any Democrats have been down there?

00:01:48.120 To...

00:01:48.560 Oh, I believe...

00:01:49.880 Democrats have been down...

00:01:51.280 To see this facility, yes or no?

00:01:52.960 ...on a facility.

00:01:53.760 Whether they are members of this committee, I do not know.

00:01:56.220 Thank you.

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00:05:35.700 Welcome back to VERDICT with Ted Cruz.

00:05:37.660 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:05:40.140 Wonderful to be joined now by the senator.

00:05:43.140 Unfortunately, our friend Liz Wheeler is on the road. 0.95

00:05:45.560 She will not be joining us.

00:05:47.300 And I suspect next week, the senator won't be joining us, and Liz will be, because the

00:05:52.500 senator will be indicted for murder.

00:05:55.320 That was Zodiac Strikes Again.

00:05:57.300 Senator, how could you do that to the poor Secretary of Homeland Security?

00:06:02.060 God bless this administration's cabinet officials.

00:06:05.200 Their testimony really is terrible.

00:06:07.160 You know, we had Merrick Garland a couple of weeks ago.

00:06:10.640 Now we've got Alejandro Mayorkas.

00:06:12.860 And it's, they really do follow the Sergeant Schultz line of defense, which is, I see nothing,

00:06:19.800 I know nothing.

00:06:21.220 And Mayorkas, you know, talk about half-assed. 1.00

00:06:25.880 You know, there was another portion of that hearing where Mayorkas was asked how he would

00:06:29.300 grade himself.

00:06:30.080 And he said he would give himself an A for effort.

00:06:34.500 I got to say, this guy grades on a serious curve.

00:06:37.380 If that's an A for effort, it really is striking.

00:06:42.140 And frankly, listen, the fact that he did such a half-assed job is indicative that this

00:06:49.060 administration doesn't care about what's happening at the border.

00:06:53.800 At a different portion of the cross-examination, I asked him a whole series of questions.

00:06:58.840 I asked him, all right, how many gotaways have there been this year?

00:07:02.040 How many people have escaped and gotten away and haven't been apprehended?

00:07:05.640 He said, I don't know.

00:07:06.380 The estimates are about 400,000, but he said, I don't know.

00:07:10.500 I asked him, how many deaths have there been?

00:07:13.280 How many illegal immigrants crossing over by human traffickers?

00:07:17.440 How many of them have died in the process?

00:07:19.180 He said, I don't know.

00:07:20.420 I said, how many of the women have been sexually assaulted by the human traffickers bringing

00:07:25.300 them in?

00:07:25.820 He said, I don't know. 0.67

00:07:26.540 I said, how many of the children have been sexually assaulted by these human traffickers?

00:07:32.220 He said, I don't know.

00:07:34.100 I asked him, how many illegal aliens have you released who were COVID positive?

00:07:39.560 He said, I don't know.

00:07:41.160 I mean, on just issue after issue after issue, he didn't have an answer on any of those.

00:07:47.160 You know, on the gotaways, I said, oh, you just didn't think that was relevant for this

00:07:50.520 hearing?

00:07:50.840 He said, no, no, it's very relevant.

00:07:51.960 I just don't have an answer for you.

00:07:54.320 And listen, I think part of it is he understands the Democratic senators don't care about any

00:08:01.540 of this.

00:08:01.940 So none of the Democrats asked any of these questions.

00:08:04.700 They don't care about the kids in the cages. 0.68

00:08:06.980 They don't care about the children being sexually assaulted, about the women being sexually 0.86

00:08:12.560 assaulted. 0.94

00:08:13.040 They don't care about the illegal immigrants being released with COVID.

00:08:16.100 And if they did, they would actually go and see the Biden cages.

00:08:19.740 None of the Democrats have been down there.

00:08:21.400 If they did, they would demand answers from the Biden administration on this.

00:08:27.300 But I got to say, it's one of the most stunning examples where partisan politics trumps everything.

00:08:33.900 Because, you know, I have friends who ask, who say, well, why would they be doing this?

00:08:39.500 Why would they be allowing this absolute disaster to unfold?

00:08:44.460 And the best answer I can come up with is they've made a political judgment that every

00:08:50.740 person who comes here illegally, they believe is likely over time to become a Democratic voter.

00:08:55.660 And they just want the maximum number of Democratic voters.

00:08:59.600 And if the consequences are that people die in the desert, abandoned by coyotes, well, that's

00:09:06.960 perfectly fine.

00:09:08.080 That's a risk to be taken.

00:09:09.400 If the consequences are sexual assault, if the consequences are children being violated,

00:09:15.540 that's a risk to be taken.

00:09:16.980 And the degree to which politics trumps reality, facts, humanity, substance, public safety,

00:09:26.580 public health, the whole combination is pretty stunning.

00:09:30.380 I agree.

00:09:31.240 They're certainly playing the long game.

00:09:32.680 I do think it's cynical.

00:09:34.420 I'm with you on the A for effort answer.

00:09:38.340 First of all, I don't care about Mayorkas's effort.

00:09:41.140 I care about the results.

00:09:42.360 And he isn't showing results.

00:09:43.420 And, you know, time and time again, he had no answers.

00:09:47.560 The part, though, that I found actually the least plausible of the entire grilling and

00:09:54.000 his answers to that grilling was when he said he didn't know what you were referring to when

00:09:59.580 you mentioned the kids in cages.

00:10:01.740 Where has he been for the past four years where that was the number one Democrat talking point?

00:10:07.920 You know, it he's just willing to be a partisan shill.

00:10:11.880 He he's not actually there to testify about substance.

00:10:15.800 As you know, I put up a picture of the kids in cages.

00:10:19.260 I said, all right, how about that one right there?

00:10:23.200 And he just, you know, I'm sorry.

00:10:25.800 I know nothing.

00:10:26.960 It was Sergeant Schultz.

00:10:28.480 Yeah.

00:10:28.640 He knows exactly what cages I'm talking about.

00:10:31.400 And and it's not accidental.

00:10:33.500 You remember when Kamala Harris, after she took months and months of grief for not going to the

00:10:36.860 border, she finally did.

00:10:38.560 And she went to El Paso, El Paso is 800 miles away from the Rio Grande Valley, 800 miles

00:10:44.740 away from the Biden cages. 0.99

00:10:47.120 It's not that they're dumb. 0.99

00:10:49.000 It's not that they just like, oops, we went to the wrong place. 0.97

00:10:52.880 The reason she went to El Paso is if she'd gone to McAllen, she'd have to go see the Biden

00:10:58.440 cages.

00:10:58.840 And if she went to see the Biden cages, the TV cameras would follow her and they don't

00:11:04.400 want to admit that they exist.

00:11:06.540 And, you know, it's stunning to me.

00:11:08.020 I mean, I think back, you know, you may remember a couple of years ago when Heidi and I and the

00:11:11.920 girls were in an airport, we were at LAX out in L.A.

00:11:14.900 and these group of it was actually union activists from the University of California system

00:11:21.580 saw us in the airport, surrounded us, chased us to our gate.

00:11:26.800 And I'm there with two little girls screaming and yelling. 0.98

00:11:30.380 They were screaming about kids in cages, kids in cages.

00:11:32.880 At the time, I told them, I said, look, I am very concerned about the kids in cages.

00:11:37.300 What what you're not acknowledging is Barack Obama built the cages.

00:11:41.620 They said, we don't care.

00:11:43.180 Yeah.

00:11:43.520 And I guarantee you, those activists don't care at all that under Joe Biden, the cages

00:11:49.420 are more full.

00:11:50.380 They're bigger.

00:11:51.260 They're packed.

00:11:52.400 It doesn't matter anymore.

00:11:54.780 And the amazing thing is every Democrat, every corporate media talking head who went on

00:12:02.440 incessantly about kids in cages, if they don't care about the Biden cages, then they were just 1.00

00:12:09.880 full of crap, that they were just hypocritical, partisan, cynical liars. 1.00

00:12:15.520 And sadly, apparently, that's that that that is a hat they're more than happy to wear. 1.00

00:12:21.040 Well, I agree with you on the substance of the issue, but I have to ask you a kind of political

00:12:27.160 nerd question here.

00:12:28.300 I have to ask you about the way the grilling went down, because I noticed in it, you never

00:12:34.960 let Mayorkas control the language. 0.98

00:12:37.560 This is a topic near and dear to my heart.

00:12:39.540 He kept trying to weasel out of this phrase, kids in cages.

00:12:42.800 He kept trying to deny that and use his own language.

00:12:45.720 And you wouldn't let him do it.

00:12:46.880 And you you forced your terms, which I think are fair terms, especially after four years

00:12:51.300 of the Democrats using them on him.

00:12:53.940 What and I think the testimony was very effective.

00:12:56.880 Is there a lesson here for other conservatives when they're having these debates?

00:13:00.240 Maybe we'll be having some of these debates at the Thanksgiving table next week.

00:13:03.740 Yeah, look, I think language matters intensely and the Democrats are very good at doing it.

00:13:09.120 We're usually terrible at it.

00:13:12.160 A good example where on the Republican side on language, we actually did it right is the

00:13:18.320 death tax.

00:13:19.640 So for years, the death tax was referred to as the estate tax.

00:13:23.200 And the estate tax makes you think of the Rockefeller estate and, you know, sitting there

00:13:28.480 sipping sherry on your the back of your estate, whereas the death tax, people are like, you're 0.82

00:13:35.160 frigging kidding me.

00:13:36.080 You're telling me when I die, the IRS shows up and seizes half my stuff like like and just

00:13:43.780 that change in term, which happened to be accurate, change the dynamic of it really powerfully.

00:13:53.960 Usually Republicans are terrible at this.

00:13:56.020 And so and I'm a big believer in using the other side's terminology against him.

00:14:01.860 So, you know, on the question of vaccine mandates, I the phrase I keep using, the hashtag I use

00:14:07.120 is your body, your choice, which which lefties, their heads explode. 1.00

00:14:12.140 They're like, like, like you get that out of your mouth.

00:14:13.960 You're not allowed to say that.

00:14:14.920 I'm like, look, I believe that very strongly.

00:14:16.780 Do whatever the hell you want with your body.

00:14:19.320 Now, of course, as you know, they immediately try to come back and own you.

00:14:23.300 Ah, so you're pro choice and pro abortion.

00:14:25.360 I'm like, nope, you can do anything you want to your body.

00:14:28.000 Just don't hurt the child's body.

00:14:29.740 If the child is fine, don't mess with his or her body. 0.99

00:14:32.400 You want to cut your foot off.

00:14:33.800 I hope you don't. 0.87

00:14:34.680 That's that's really bad for you.

00:14:35.800 Don't cut your foot off.

00:14:36.680 I would urge you not to.

00:14:38.600 But if you want to, you got a right to do that.

00:14:40.740 If you want to get a bunch of ugly tattoos, your body, your choice.

00:14:44.840 And it ought to be your body, your choice, whether you stick a needle in it and take a vaccine, 0.98

00:14:48.760 too.

00:14:49.260 Well, Senator, speaking of people who have made very bad choices in their life, speaking

00:14:54.560 of people who use language in a way that I think is pretty dishonest, speaking of incompetent

00:15:01.480 Democrat politicians.

00:15:02.940 I've got to bring up your old rival, Robert Francis, Beto O'Rourke, the next possible governor

00:15:12.860 of Texas.

00:15:14.040 I do like how Beto O'Rourke there, you had a leprechaun lilt and I was waiting for you to

00:15:20.560 do the lucky charms.

00:15:22.000 It just naturally comes out.

00:15:23.660 I don't I can't stop it.

00:15:24.580 Well, look, you know, Beto has powerfully managed to go over to to lose his last two

00:15:31.420 elections.

00:15:31.940 And apparently that wasn't enough. 1.00

00:15:33.880 And he really wants to get his ass kicked a third time. 1.00

00:15:37.040 And so so he jumped in. 1.00

00:15:39.620 And of course, you know, bestill my beating heart.

00:15:43.320 The the the media groupies are all excited now.

00:15:47.820 And it's all a partisan game.

00:15:50.300 You know, when when when Beto ran against me and and by the way, I always refer to his

00:15:59.300 name as Beto.

00:16:00.160 So his name is Robert Francis.

00:16:01.860 He uses the nickname.

00:16:03.500 There is a Spanish nickname for Robert, which is Beto.

00:16:08.900 And he likes to pronounce it Beto.

00:16:12.040 My view, some Irish dude is not Beto.

00:16:14.920 Now, I didn't really want to call him Beto because that was a bit much.

00:16:18.680 That was a bit in your face.

00:16:19.700 So Beto is a nice like Texas version of.

00:16:22.480 All right.

00:16:22.660 If you're going to make up a name and by the way, a dishonest name, because the reason

00:16:27.860 his whole signs just say Beto is is he wants Texas voters to think he's Hispanic.

00:16:33.600 Right.

00:16:34.120 I mean, it is very much designed to do that.

00:16:37.520 But look, his campaign when he ran against me, we were outspent three to one.

00:16:44.600 It was the most expensive Senate race in hard money in the history of the country.

00:16:51.860 I actually joined a club that is a very small and exclusive club.

00:16:58.780 It now has four members.

00:17:00.300 And that is me, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins.

00:17:04.520 And we're the only four Republican senators on the face of the planet to have ever survived

00:17:10.080 a an election where we were outspent by 30 million dollars or more.

00:17:13.920 So it's a lot of money and the onslaught was massive.

00:17:21.640 I mean, to give you a sense in that campaign, the twenty eighteen campaign, my campaign team

00:17:28.200 had 17 paid campaign staffers.

00:17:31.540 Beto's campaign had eight hundred and five.

00:17:33.480 Whoa, whoa, I knew he outspent you, but I didn't I didn't realize the asymmetry was that great.

00:17:40.140 We had 17 against eight hundred and five.

00:17:43.440 It was massive.

00:17:44.600 They more than doubled Democratic turnout.

00:17:46.880 They took it from one point eight million all the way up to four million.

00:17:51.240 And we saw this coming.

00:17:53.000 We did a statewide barnstorming tour.

00:17:55.840 We did a bus tour, went 50 stops in the last six weeks.

00:17:58.880 And we drove Republican turnout from two point eight million all the way up to four point

00:18:03.900 two million.

00:18:04.400 And the difference, that point two million was our margin of victory.

00:18:08.040 Now, I'll tell you some some inside stories about the press.

00:18:12.600 So during that campaign, the press refused to cover anything negative about Beto.

00:18:18.980 They just wouldn't do it.

00:18:20.560 They.

00:18:22.000 Every press story was this glowing.

00:18:25.080 All right.

00:18:25.400 The adjective of choice was Kennedy ask.

00:18:28.260 Yeah.

00:18:28.880 They'd say, oh, the hair, the smile, the teeth.

00:18:32.380 Oh, Kennedy ask, Kennedy ask, Kennedy ask.

00:18:34.940 And and we would we would have all of these hits on him.

00:18:38.280 Now, mind you, these are policy hits.

00:18:39.800 These are bad votes he took.

00:18:41.280 These are policy positions that are radical left wing and out of step with Texans.

00:18:47.640 And the press refused to run it.

00:18:49.360 We'd bring it to them.

00:18:50.120 They said, nope, nope, won't cover it, won't cover it, won't cover it.

00:18:52.580 So after we beat him.

00:18:56.800 Shortly thereafter, he launches his presidential campaign.

00:18:59.540 And 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.

00:19:08.480 And we said we weren't interested in.

00:19:09.760 Can we have it all now?

00:19:11.460 Now we're interested.

00:19:12.760 Now that he's running against Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris, now it was really worthwhile.

00:19:18.660 And it showed the just naked partisanship that they weren't pretending to be journalists covering the news.

00:19:27.640 They wanted any Democrat to beat me or frankly, probably any person on planet Earth to beat me.

00:19:33.100 But then once Beto was in the primary, they preferred a full on socialist to be the nominee as compared to him.

00:19:42.480 And so they savaged him.

00:19:43.660 And I got to admit.

00:19:45.260 Part of me in the presidential felt a little sorry for Beto.

00:19:48.260 Yeah, because he was so shell shocked.

00:19:51.080 It was his groupies turned on him.

00:19:54.480 So 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.

00:20:04.620 I 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.

00:20:18.100 And now he's running for governor.

00:20:20.440 Listen, I think Greg Abbott is going to beat him like a rented mule.

00:20:24.740 He is not going to do well in this race.

00:20:26.880 Now, he's formidable.

00:20:28.480 I will say there are Republicans laughing, ha, ha, ha, Beto, Beto, Beto.

00:20:31.920 No, this is – we all make jokes about Beto, and he is a Jack Kerouac reading, skateboarding joke of a man-child.

00:20:41.780 We can all laugh about that.

00:20:43.400 But he is persistent, and persistence worked for Richard Nixon.

00:20:47.640 Persistence worked for Joe Biden.

00:20:49.780 We know that Beto can raise money.

00:20:52.280 Beto, by Democrat standards, he came pretty close.

00:20:55.000 Not that close, but he came pretty close in Texas.

00:20:58.100 And so is there a chance that he wins this?

00:21:01.420 Do Republicans have something to be worried about?

00:21:04.720 Sure.

00:21:05.720 There's always a chance.

00:21:07.400 Last time he raised $80 million.

00:21:09.360 You want to talk about a monster email list.

00:21:12.700 He's got donors all over the country.

00:21:14.560 Most of that was small dollars.

00:21:15.960 I 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.

00:21:30.480 That was the most money any candidate for Senate had ever raised in the history of the state of Texas.

00:21:36.620 It was pretty – you know, we were impressed with that.

00:21:38.120 $12 million.

00:21:39.200 That's a lot of people who went to TedCruz.org who contributed and gave the money.

00:21:43.880 That record lasted three hours, three hours until Beto announced his fundraising.

00:21:51.760 What do you think Beto's fundraising was that same quarter?

00:21:54.540 I'm going to say, you know, I want to be cautious and say $13 million.

00:21:58.860 Something tells me it's more than that.

00:22:01.660 $38 million.

00:22:02.880 Oh, gosh.

00:22:05.060 More than three times as much.

00:22:07.280 So $12 million was the record more than anyone in history, and he shattered it with $38 million.

00:22:12.620 So he will have the access to a ton of money.

00:22:17.100 The press will return to adoring fangirl.

00:22:20.580 There will be no more criticism of him.

00:22:22.200 They will be rooting for him with all their might.

00:22:26.560 And listen, he is a charming, affable guy.

00:22:29.540 That is a potent thing.

00:22:31.000 Conservatives make fun of him, the sort of skateboarding cool punk rocker.

00:22:35.700 But that, for voters who are not paying that much attention, being affable is a potent tool.

00:22:47.560 Now, at the end of the day, I think 2022 is going to be a really good Republican year.

00:22:53.020 I think it's going to be a red wave like 2010 was.

00:22:56.720 And 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,

00:23:07.020 I 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.

00:23:22.380 I'm not skilled in the policy sense.

00:23:26.480 He's got a very light resume.

00:23:28.060 He did almost nothing in Congress.

00:23:30.120 He spent six years in Congress, basically was a backbencher.

00:23:34.520 I had never met him.

00:23:35.840 Do you know when he launched for Senate against me?

00:23:38.520 I mean, I know the Texas delegation, all the D's and R's. 0.87

00:23:41.480 I never met the guy.

00:23:42.400 I mean, he was such a backbencher as to be nonexistent.

00:23:45.660 But what he is skilled in is being a, you know, likable guy.

00:23:55.340 And when surrounded by the puffery of the media, that's a potent combination.

00:24:00.840 And I don't think we should dismiss it.

00:24:03.060 I don't think he's going to win.

00:24:04.340 But but but I am glad that he's going to suck a ton of money away from from Democrats and races and other parts of the country.

00:24:12.540 That's good. And a public service to the rest of the country.

00:24:16.340 We just got to make sure we beat him.

00:24:18.200 That'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.

00:24:28.060 Now, 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.

00:24:38.380 We're seeing inflation.

00:24:39.700 We're all seeing it.

00:24:40.620 I very rarely go to the grocery store.

00:24:42.680 My wife does most of the grocery shopping.

00:24:44.420 I went in the other day and even I I barely pay attention to this stuff.

00:24:47.980 I was shocked at how the prices have gone up.

00:24:50.500 I was just back in California.

00:24:52.500 We're seeing it everywhere at the gas pump, but especially in California.

00:24:56.320 Shocked at how the prices have gone up.

00:24:57.820 The Biden White House has said they do not bear responsibility for inflation.

00:25:02.740 This 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.

00:25:12.260 I don't know anything about economics.

00:25:14.640 What's the what's the reality of it?

00:25:17.180 Well, what's interesting is the Biden White House can't figure out what to say on this.

00:25:21.220 So they're talking points.

00:25:23.800 Let me make a.

00:25:26.740 Substantive point, but before I do it, let me make a broader political point.

00:25:29.880 Why is it that a Mayorkas is so terrible at a hearing? 1.00

00:25:34.440 Why is it that a Merrick Garland is so terrible at a hearing?

00:25:37.940 Part of it is Democrats.

00:25:39.980 Why is it that a Beto does so terribly in the presidential race?

00:25:44.540 Democrats are used to the corrupt corporate media shilling for them.

00:25:49.160 You know, you think about it.

00:25:50.040 If you're a media flack for a Democrat, basically you type up some talking points.

00:25:54.240 You email it to a reporter and the reporter writes it as their story.

00:25:57.040 But that's what being a flack is, is just, OK, here's here's what we want you to say.

00:26:01.720 The media goes, OK, they say it.

00:26:04.140 They're not used to any scrutiny.

00:26:05.780 It'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?

00:26:19.900 And so they don't know how to handle scrutiny.

00:26:22.380 You know, Merrick Garland, Merrick Garland was a judge for 24 years.

00:26:28.680 Nobody asked him questions.

00:26:29.880 He got to ask the questions.

00:26:31.120 No one scrutinized what he said.

00:26:33.480 Everyone around him kissed his behind every waking moment of the day.

00:26:38.640 And 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. 0.74

00:26:49.160 It 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.

00:27:01.520 And Bloomberg is worth, what, $37 billion, or those are probably outdated numbers.

00:27:07.560 For 50 years, nobody has dared to say no, sir, to Michael Bloomberg. 0.97

00:27:14.160 He's been surrounded by sycophants with their lips planted on his derriere. 0.96

00:27:18.740 And he was just flabbergasted that she would criticize him. 0.98

00:27:24.220 Well, you fast forward to the Biden White House on inflation.

00:27:29.000 They can't figure out their message.

00:27:30.960 So their first message, you know, Ron Klain, the chief of staff, says, well, it's a high class problem.

00:27:36.840 Right.

00:27:37.180 The next message was, well, inflation is a good thing.

00:27:41.320 MSNBC, of course, the standard pattern.

00:27:43.980 Biden White House says inflation is a good thing.

00:27:45.980 And like clockwork, MSNBC puts out a story.

00:27:48.960 Why inflation is a good thing.

00:27:50.820 They actually retreated, retracted the story within minutes because I think the reaction was so resoundingly filled with ridicule and laughter.

00:28:02.320 At 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.

00:28:17.360 That's the way to fight inflation.

00:28:19.220 And it's reminiscent of, you know, I'm drowning.

00:28:22.200 Please give me more water.

00:28:23.780 Right.

00:28:25.340 This, at the end of the day, is not rocket science in terms of the economics.

00:28:29.640 Inflation, inflation is caused when you print a bunch of money and you spend a bunch of money from the government.

00:28:39.480 That causes inflation.

00:28:41.200 Inflation prices are simply the way we make relative valuations of one good versus another.

00:28:50.100 And if you inflate the currency, if you have lots more dollars.

00:28:53.420 So 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.

00:29:04.960 That same gallon of milk is suddenly four dollars because it is relative.

00:29:11.160 It's how you value a gallon of milk versus an automobile.

00:29:17.120 But 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.

00:29:27.080 That it's all a problem of production and the supply chain.

00:29:31.060 And so if you're going to blame anyone, actually, you should blame Donald Trump and pay pay no attention to our own policies.

00:29:36.640 Do they you hear this a lot on the left wing news channels?

00:29:39.580 Do they do they have any point?

00:29:42.140 Well, look, there are certainly supply effects that are driving up costs as well.

00:29:47.840 And many of these supply effects are being driven by the Biden administration.

00:29:51.940 So you have, for example, vaccine mandates.

00:29:54.920 You know, you're firing doctors, you're firing nurses, you're firing truck drivers, you're firing airline pilots, you're firing air traffic controllers.

00:30:02.580 You're threatening to do it with all of those.

00:30:04.400 And the supply is shrinking.

00:30:06.960 Price at the end of the day is is economics 101.

00:30:10.300 It's the intersection of supply and demand.

00:30:12.220 So if demand rises or supply drops, it drives the price up.

00:30:17.720 In this instance, yes, we're seeing demand rise.

00:30:21.620 Why? 1.00

00:30:22.100 Because last year, idiot politicians had shut the entire economy down. 1.00

00:30:27.380 So, yes, people are going back to work. 1.00

00:30:28.940 That's a good thing.

00:30:30.740 But supply is is reduced because of things like the supply chain where you can't get the goods you need.

00:30:39.320 So. 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.

00:30:53.600 A contractor told me, he said, that used to cost that piece of plastic used to cost 20 bucks.

00:31:00.280 He said, now it cost me 70 bucks.

00:31:02.780 That is a massive shift in prices from 20 bucks to 70.

00:31:09.720 And we're seeing that across the board.

00:31:12.160 Look, gasoline, the price of gasoline has gone through the roof.

00:31:16.700 And the Biden administration's.

00:31:18.480 So 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.

00:31:26.960 If there are more dollars, you have more inflation, you know, you look at the Weimar Republic, the predecessor to Nazi Germany.

00:31:36.920 So, you know, you had hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic.

00:31:41.560 You 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.

00:31:51.680 They were they were printing money like crazy and the more money you print, the higher prices go.

00:31:59.040 Democrats.

00:32:01.340 Jimmy Carter discovered this and it took Reagan coming in to get everything under control and to pull the inflation down.

00:32:10.220 And Paul Volcker at the Fed played an important part in that, too.

00:32:14.500 But I got to say, there's a whole generation of young people.

00:32:17.720 Do you have like real live in your life memories of inflation?

00:32:22.780 No, this is the clearest, the only real experience of inflation that I have had in my conscious life.

00:32:30.100 So late 70s, early 80s, we had significant inflation.

00:32:34.400 So I was born in 1970.

00:32:36.020 So, you know, late 70s, I'm eight, nine, 10 years old.

00:32:39.660 And and I mean, I remember I remember when you had inflation rates that were soaring, when you had double digit home mortgage rates.

00:32:48.600 I think I believe my parents home mortgage was at 14 percent, if I remember correctly, although I was a kid.

00:32:54.240 So it's in that neighborhood.

00:32:56.480 You know, now Heidi's in my home mortgage. 0.96

00:32:59.580 I think we paid two point six five percent.

00:33:02.480 Right.

00:33:02.860 And, you know, we sort of grumble that we couldn't get it for two point six.

00:33:05.820 Like like it's we've been in this weird holiday from history for the last 20 years where inflation has been largely nonexistent.

00:33:16.160 Last 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.

00:33:30.200 It was eleven point nine percent annualized.

00:33:35.340 And and the thing about it is inflation.

00:33:38.660 You know, Biden promised said I'm not going to raise taxes on anyone making under four hundred thousand a year.

00:33:43.740 Inflation impacts low income people the hardest.

00:33:48.920 So gazillionaires, you know, Bloomberg, Zuckerberg, they don't care.

00:33:53.600 So does their Lamborghini cost another fifty thousand dollars?

00:33:56.960 Probably.

00:33:58.120 But they don't care.

00:33:59.020 Doesn't make a difference to them.

00:34:00.360 OK, fine.

00:34:01.140 You know, Scrooge McDuck just, you know, throw a few more gold coins on it.

00:34:04.740 And the problem solved.

00:34:06.200 You know, if you're a senior citizen.

00:34:09.860 If you're living on a fixed income, you know, seniors, by and large, they're not. 0.86

00:34:14.300 Out in a job.

00:34:15.340 They don't have an enormous ability to alter their income if they're no longer working.

00:34:21.980 And they suddenly see the cost of everything go up.

00:34:24.640 They see the cost of their food going up, the cost of milk, the cost of eggs, the cost of chicken.

00:34:30.140 They see their rent going up or they see their gasoline going way, way up.

00:34:35.940 They see their electricity going up.

00:34:37.780 They see their heating oil going up.

00:34:40.780 And on the energy side, energy is a big piece of where we're seeing inflation.

00:34:45.620 The Biden administration wants energy prices to go up and they want them to go up even further.

00:34:51.000 Because they believe in the Green New Deal.

00:34:54.280 So the suffering, the cruelty is the point.

00:34:57.600 They want the prices to be so high.

00:35:00.320 And they don't really care the people that are getting hurt on the receiving end of it.

00:35:08.300 And I think inflation, I remember the 1980 election really well.

00:35:12.900 It was the first political election I paid attention to as a kid.

00:35:17.720 And 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.

00:35:28.060 I think Joe Biden is heading into very similar territory of ideological extremism combined with just incompetence.

00:35:40.040 And that mix, that's part of the reason I think both 2022 and 2024 are going to be such good elections.

00:35:46.040 Now, the way that you explained that, because economics for a lot of people, I just think our eyes glaze over.

00:35:54.420 I'm speaking myself included here.

00:35:56.340 But that does make sense to me.

00:35:58.280 And 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.

00:36:05.940 And we want to incentivize people to develop that.

00:36:09.320 OK, that's all well and good.

00:36:10.760 I 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.

00:36:21.760 Before we go, we can't go without recounting this.

00:36:25.440 If if you watched Saturday Night Live this past week and I know that basically no one did.

00:36:31.200 But 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.

00:36:42.600 So so the cold open this week was instead of Sesame Street, it was Cruz Street.

00:36:48.080 And the whole cold, cold open was focused on me and Big Bird.

00:36:52.800 And, 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.

00:37:05.080 But it was and you had Big Bird whose whose feathers are falling out because he got the covid vaccine and it made him sick.

00:37:12.260 And and you had cameos from among others, Joe Rogan, although it was Pete Davidson playing Joe Rogan and Britney Spears.

00:37:22.760 And 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.

00:37:30.960 Sounds pretty damn awesome to me. Like, OK, cool.

00:37:33.560 We've we've got. It's where they're coming from.

00:37:38.100 This this is the thing that struck me about it.

00:37:40.920 I'm not saying they couldn't have made a funny sketch out of it.

00:37:45.580 I'm not saying that the premise is not kind of funny, but so many of the lines fell completely flat.

00:37:53.080 You'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.

00:38:04.600 So 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.

00:38:20.760 This comedy was all just pushing the same old talking points of the ruling class itself.

00:38:26.040 Look, I think that's exactly right. And one of the things I mourn, I grieve in our woke, politically correct cancel culture.

00:38:36.520 Is the death of comedy, like good comedy.

00:38:40.780 And 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.

00:38:48.880 I 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.

00:39:01.460 If 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.

00:39:14.080 Everyone that has a little blue checkmark next to them on Twitter, we're giving the golf clap.

00:39:19.400 Yes, yes, yes. Silence that pesky little little troublemaker, which is how they view a Joe Rogan.

00:39:26.580 Right. You know, it's and it's not funny.

00:39:32.700 It's not funny for the same reason that that late night comedy isn't funny anymore.

00:39:37.300 You know, Stephen Colbert or Jimmy Kimmel, they're unwatchable.

00:39:41.440 Yeah. Yeah. And both of those guys are funny guys.

00:39:44.760 You know, Colbert, when he was on the Jon Stewart show, you know, was was funny as all get out.

00:39:50.680 But they've just become a hard partisan F you.

00:39:54.680 That's basically their whole monologue is is like an angry Bernie Sanders cursing at everyone who disagrees with them.

00:40:02.880 And it's like, OK, that's just not funny.

00:40:05.240 Well, unwatchable and and unwatched, I think, you know, that the ratings have plummeted for all of those guys.

00:40:11.940 And I have to tell you, let me know if maybe my theory is too too out there.

00:40:18.040 When SNL was going after Donald Trump, I'm not saying it was funny.

00:40:22.480 Occasionally it would be funny, but at least they had a target.

00:40:24.580 At least you kind of knew what the joke was and where they were coming from.

00:40:27.500 Now they don't they don't have old Trump to kick around anymore.

00:40:30.260 And so they're going after you. So what does that say?

00:40:33.980 I mean, maybe it's not pleasant to be the butt of their jokes, but maybe it is.

00:40:37.940 I mean, maybe maybe you're the one that they're that they're afraid of now.

00:40:43.080 Look, what I can say is it is I laugh at it.

00:40:47.220 You know, today, someone with someone tweeted it.

00:40:50.220 Oh, no, I laugh, laugh at it hysterically.

00:40:52.440 You 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.

00:41:05.120 So I retweeted it.

00:41:08.380 And it's just kind of the left can't laugh at themselves if you can't.

00:41:16.420 Make fun of yourself like I think it's pretty, pretty hysterical.

00:41:22.440 And there is a kind of tone deafness.

00:41:25.140 I 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.

00:41:38.500 You need to have some connection to reality and you need to have your feet held to the fire every now and again.

00:41:44.640 And you need to know what ordinary people are saying.

00:41:47.080 And 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.

00:41:52.260 I'll circle back if you are Saturday Night Live and Joe Rogan is too extreme for you.

00:41:58.360 Joe Rogan, the most popular podcaster in the country.

00:42:01.700 Maybe maybe you're the one with the problem.

00:42:03.980 Maybe you're the one who's a little bit divorced from reality.

00:42:06.800 And maybe that's reflected in your poll numbers.

00:42:08.540 So let me say two things.

00:42:10.880 Number 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. 0.86

00:42:18.780 And 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?

00:42:36.720 And Ben handled it beautifully.

00:42:40.120 He kind of chuckles and he says, well, how tall are you?

00:42:43.060 And the guy's like, I'm five nine, actually.

00:42:46.340 And Ben says, well, here, come on upstage.

00:42:48.160 And he comes up on stage and they're exactly the same height.

00:42:50.960 And the guy, as soon as he sees it, he kind of laughs and surrenders.

00:42:54.980 That kid was a totally plant.

00:42:56.680 That kid was five foot five.

00:42:58.420 I am taking that to my grave.

00:43:00.600 It was a great bit.

00:43:01.620 It was a great bit.

00:43:02.880 It was that I had fun with.

00:43:05.820 I saw that today, maybe during one of the boring moments of the Mayorkas hearing.

00:43:13.240 But, you know, I'll say something about.

00:43:17.880 Oh, 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.

00:43:30.320 And 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.

00:43:38.960 And he's interviewed me and I shared a lot of thoughts and I gave him one of the quotes I gave him.

00:43:46.220 As I said, Texas is no longer just home to oil and gas wildcatters.

00:43:52.220 So he uses the quote, and in fact, it's the ending quote of a story.

00:44:06.020 But 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.

00:44:16.000 And he cuts off the second half of the quote.

00:44:20.540 And so I actually I saw the reporter, his nickname, everyone calls him J-Mart.

00:44:24.980 And I'm like, J-Mart, what the hell was that?

00:44:28.080 That that was a money quote.

00:44:29.960 I mean, I mean, seriously, that that was a quality quote.

00:44:33.900 Why didn't you use it?

00:44:35.380 And here was his answer, Michael.

00:44:37.540 He said, well.

00:44:40.120 New York Times readers don't know who Joe Rogan is.

00:44:45.920 And I thought that was revealing on so many levels.

00:44:49.440 And I don't know this for sure, but how I interpreted the conversation.

00:44:54.560 I think he actually included the full quote.

00:44:57.680 Yeah.

00:44:57.940 And I think his editor cut out the second half and said, nobody knows who this guy is. 0.61

00:45:03.420 And it shows just how out of touch they are, that they view most Americans are as the dirty, unwashed masses. 0.85

00:45:12.560 I agree. 0.60

00:45:13.400 It does sound like an editor move.

00:45:14.800 This has always been one of the issues at these legacy establishment news places is often they'll have decent reporters.

00:45:22.100 But but the editors are shaping public opinion.

00:45:24.620 They're keeping the story in their own narrative.

00:45:27.540 But 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.

00:45:39.100 Ultimately, reality is going to reassert itself in the end.

00:45:42.940 And the fabulists are going to have a hard time dealing with that.

00:45:45.440 We've got to leave it there, Senator.

00:45:46.760 So we're not going to do mailbag on this episode.

00:45:48.880 We'll do it on the next episode.

00:45:50.780 But we're also going to do some more mailbag on Verdict Plus.

00:45:54.240 So head on over there and you can see mailbag there.

00:45:56.780 So I think that's it, Michael, at least until next time.

00:45:59.620 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:46:00.740 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:46:01.900 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.

00:46:23.120 In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:46:32.960 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:46:35.260 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 18, 2021

Cruz Uncaged

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