Cruzing on Air Force One
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Summary
Ted Cruz joins President Donald Trump on Air Force One for a trip to Texas to highlight energy production, energy independence, and other energy issues. Cruz talks about his experience on board the presidential jet, and what it was like to be on board with the president.
Transcript
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Not a lot of people traveling these days, especially by air.
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And when you do travel by air, it's not particularly comfortable.
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That is unless you are on a private 747 with the president of the United States.
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We will get into what the senator spoke about with the president.
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Senator, you know I often express envy and hurt that I'm not invited to your Senate Republican lunches.
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And I got to tell you, the ride aboard Air Force One sounds like, well, I don't know, someday.
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Please, it sounds like you had a crazy day yesterday.
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You and I were supposed to film Verdict yesterday together in D.C.
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And I'm embarrassed to admit that I canceled on you.
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And so he asked if I wanted to come along as he was heading to Midland and was highlighting
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energy production and America's energy independence.
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And I'll pretty much always come along if someone's going to Texas.
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So the way it started, I had to be at the White House about 7 a.m. yesterday.
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And for anyone that comes in contact with the president, they do a COVID test.
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So I went into the White House, got tested yesterday morning.
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The folks here in the studio will be glad to know.
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As of yesterday morning, I confirmed negative, went and got in the van to head to Andrews
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And there were a couple of Texas members of Congress that were flying with us.
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And suddenly we're sitting there and we hear, well, Louie Gomer's not coming.
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Like anytime you spend time with Louie, you will be holding your ribs laughing.
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So, so we're all like, well, why isn't Louie coming?
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Well, he was at the White House and he tested positive.
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So that's how the morning started with Louie had to turn around and leave and was not allowed
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So we take the van, we go jump on Air Force One, the president joins us, we take off.
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While we're in the air, so we're headed to Midland, Texas, a whole bunch of Republican
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candidates for Congress who are running in various seats.
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They're running against Democrats or in open seats.
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And the plan was that those Republican candidates, they were going to invite on the plane and
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meet the president and do a photo op and they're all excited.
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Well, we find out midair that one of those Republican candidates, a guy named Wesley Hunt,
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who's running here in Houston in my home district, great guy.
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So he was literally heading to meet Air Force One and he tests positive for COVID.
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And as a result, they said, well, okay, all of you candidates, none of you can go in and
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So it was a fairly surreal beginning to the day.
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And listen, it's an underscoring that this remains a dangerous disease and we need to continue
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If, if for no other reason, then you might miss your chance to go on Air Force One.
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So you got to make sure you behave responsibly and don't catch it.
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Well, it's one of the biggest reasons actually that you join the president on a trip.
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And I've done at this point, a number of trips on Air Force One with the president is that
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And so if there are issues going on, it is some of the most concentrated, intense time.
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So first four years I was in the Senate, Barack Obama was president.
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If you remember when, when five Dallas police officers were murdered and there was a funeral
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for those police officers, Obama came down to speak at it.
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And, and, and he invited me to, to, to come along.
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Actually, I sat next to Nancy Pelosi on Air Force One.
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We had, it may have been the first time I had, I had met Nancy.
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We had a very pleasant conversation, mostly about her grandkids, not about anything remotely
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And the interesting thing about Obama is he wouldn't hang out with us.
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He briefly came back and talked with, there were several folks that were coming down and
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and that had been invited a guest and he came back briefly and kind of said, hi, how you
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And then went off, went off to his office and we didn't see him the rest of the flight.
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And it's a, so there were the, the Texas house members and, and look, I, or they're Texas
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members of the U S house who were there, who were pretty excited.
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So I was the designated photographer, the photographer, but it's, it's actually really
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valuable because you're sitting down with the president for significant time talking.
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So we had probably seven hours of, of, of he and I discussing in particular, uh, the
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economic challenges in the country and the legislation moving through, moving through
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And so it was, it was a propitious time to, to, to, to be there with him.
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Well, without, you know, asking you to violate any confidences or tell any tales at a school,
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I would like to know something about perhaps what you spoke about or what you're thinking
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about this economic relief bill that seems to be coming down the pike in the midst of,
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And I'll tell you what, what I think I'm not going to share what the president said.
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And that's usually the, the line I try to follow is what I said.
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I'll leave it to others to share what they said.
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The Nancy Pelosi, $3 trillion bill that they passed a couple of months ago is an absolute
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Um, it, it is $3 trillion, even in government speak is a crap ton of money and, and it's
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a bill, look, Pelosi wasn't intending to pass that in the law.
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It's, it's a bill that is just a, a democratic wishlist.
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They passed it so the Democrats could campaign on it in November.
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Unfortunately in the Senate this week, uh, the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell rolled
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Uh, and, and the so-called Republican leadership plan is it's cheaper than the Democrats plans.
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Instead of 3 trillion, it's, it's only 1 trillion.
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And, and so I have been very outspoken against it.
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Uh, very outspoken at our lunches that we do every day in the Republican conference that
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we, you and I have talked about before, but I've been very outspoken publicly.
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Um, and I was very clear with the president, what I thought yesterday when we were together.
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Um, I seem to recall if, if some people haven't been following your, your takes on this, you
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said that as the legislation currently stands, you're not just a no, you're a hell no.
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First of all, let's talk the amount like the 1 trillion, which is a ton of money, um, is
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clearly just an opening bid and, and nobody's hiding the fact, okay, we'll start at a trillion,
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but the plan is to get a negotiate up to one and a half or two or two and a half.
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It's not like, like there's some secret vault hidden in the Capitol.
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Nobody knows about this is all money that we're either printing or borrowing from China.
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And so the amount is a problem, but actually my concern, Michael is much bigger than the
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And this is that, this was the center of, of what I was arguing to the president yesterday.
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The focus of the bill, the objective of the bill is wrong.
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The objective of the bill is just shoveling cash.
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It's just spending trillions of dollars, shoveling it into the economy, but none of it creates
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And so what I've been arguing to the other Republicans, what I've been arguing to the
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president, our focus on this bill should be one thing in particular.
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We've got now 51 million Americans who've lost their jobs because of this catastrophe that's
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That is overwhelmingly the priorities, get people back to work.
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And, you know, you look at these first bills, the bills that we passed several months ago in
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Those were overwhelmingly bipartisan, uh, the big one, the cares act 96 to nothing, every
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The press calls it a stimulus bill, but that's not what it was.
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It was designed to give emergency loans, short term loans to people at the very height of
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Our entire focus, I think should be cutting taxes and reducing regulations that are killing
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jobs, making it easier for small businesses to open.
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And by the way, the entire election in November turns on it.
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She wants all 51 million people who've lost their jobs to stay unemployed, to stay at home,
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to not be working, to not have their kids in school because she is gambling on that 51
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million people who are broken, unemployed and out of a job and pissed off are going to go
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And she's most interested in defeating Donald Trump.
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Well, the case I made to the president and to the other Republicans is we shouldn't be
00:11:04.760
If the president wants to win in November, we need people going back to work.
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We need people providing for their families again.
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And simply spending trillions for Nancy Pelosi's buddies ain't going to get the job done.
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You know, I remember early on when when there were those debates over the initial relief bill,
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you in particular pointed out that this this language that the Democrats added in on the
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question of unemployment insurance was going to disincentivize people going back to work.
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And it now seems that your prediction turned out to be true.
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It showed that two thirds of people who went on unemployment for the covid lockdowns are making
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more money than they would have made had they remained at their jobs.
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And one third of people actually made two times or, you know, two to two X their salary,
00:12:02.740
But that is a recipe to keep people out of work that would seem to have a political objective
00:12:11.120
Well, in incentives matter and and and the dumbest part of of what Congress did already
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in this crisis was creating massive disincentives to work.
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And in particular, what Congress did is added six hundred dollars a week to the already existing
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If you lost your job, you could file fire for file for unemployment.
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That's designed to be to help you meet basic necessities.
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But it's designed to be substantially less than your job was because you want people
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who've lost their job to have strong incentives to go back to work.
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The best thing if someone's out of work is help them get back to work.
00:13:00.680
So it used to be the maximum weekly unemployment check in Texas was five hundred and twenty
00:13:08.880
When Congress added six hundred dollars to that, that took it to eleven hundred and twenty
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To about fifty eight thousand dollars a year or about twenty eight dollars an hour.
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If you're if you're working waiting tables, if you're working at an hourly job, you ain't
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And if suddenly the government pays you more to stay home than to go back to work, well,
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naturally, you're not going to go back to work.
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I mean, if you're paid more to do something else, you're going to follow the incentives.
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And it's why Nancy Pelosi wants to keep doing it.
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And and the Republicans are falling in this trap that.
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Sixty eight percent of people nationally right now, because of what Congress did, are receiving
00:14:08.960
more on unemployment than their previous salary.
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If you're getting paid twice as much not to work as to work, what are you going to do?
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And it's why Nancy Pelosi is all in on wanting to keep that going right until November 3rd,
00:14:33.320
But Republicans shouldn't be complicit in that.
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And I I talk to small business owners every single day that they're trying to reopen their
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businesses and they can't rehire their employees.
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They're calling their employees, saying, come back.
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And they're saying, understandably, why would we come back?
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That is disastrous for getting the economy moving again and getting people back on their
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It's it's a pretty deceitful tactic, it would seem.
00:15:01.080
I understand the political objectives the Democrats have.
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But, you know, you're not you're not getting what they seem to be proposing.
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And I think that ties in pretty well with another underhanded display we saw from Democrats
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on Capitol Hill this week, which was the the Bill Barr testimony.
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And let me actually stop you there and go back to the prior topic for a second, which is
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let me tell you right now what is pretty good in the in the Republican bill.
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OK, and what could be good in the Republican bill.
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So there are two elements that are mildly good in the Republican bill.
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Number one, it includes actually legislation that I've introduced that is for school choice
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that creates federal tax credits for contributions to scholarship granting organizations for K through
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That's really good and it's really important and it's really substantive and it's transformational.
00:16:00.760
And as you know, I'm passionate about school choice.
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Now, the problem is the Democrats are passionately opposed because the teachers unions oppose choice.
00:16:13.360
And my concern is the Republican negotiators will give that up at the table, that it's in
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there, but it's not going to stay in there, that it's in there to be a bargaining chip to
00:16:23.900
Now, the second good element right now is some liability protection.
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And there's no doubt it's a real problem right now for any small business, for any school,
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Because if any customer gets sick, if any employee gets sick, immediately they're getting sued.
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So I very much agree with the objective of providing some reasonable liability protection
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It's not like the small businesses, it's not like the movie theater created this coronavirus
00:17:03.960
And it doesn't make sense for billions of dollars of damage judgments to make a bunch of plaintiff's
00:17:12.000
But the problem is those same plaintiff's lawyers are, along with the teachers' unions, the biggest
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So they're going to fight to water that provision down.
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So those two provisions are right now pretty good.
00:17:37.720
So, for example, instead of just shoveling cash out the door, one thing we could do is
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between now and the end of the year, suspend the payroll tax.
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That results in, for you and for everyone, basically an immediate pay raise in your job.
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Because the payroll tax, you pay out of your pocket.
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Suddenly, your employer, a portion of your payroll tax your employer pays, suddenly the cost of
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employees, of bringing back an employee, has gone down for your employer.
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That is all about helping encourage people to go back to work and work more.
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Another example of a very good thing to do, I've got legislation on health savings accounts.
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So, health savings accounts are accounts where you can save in a tax-advantaged way for health
00:18:40.180
The problem is current law prohibits most people from having a health savings account.
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The only instance in which you're allowed to have a health savings account is if you have
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a high-deductible health insurance plan, which most people don't have.
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I have legislation that says everyone can have a health savings plan, that just lets everyone
00:19:01.220
That is really important health care reform right now in terms of changing the system,
00:19:07.560
driving down the cost of health care, making health care more affordable.
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People are understandably concerned with health care costs.
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Because this would be really meaningful reform.
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So, I, this is something I urged the president.
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And I said, by the way, for the Republicans that want to shovel cash, look, we've got the
00:19:41.240
I said, listen, if you are really intent on, on throwing money out of a helicopter, how
00:19:48.740
about taking the $1,200 and populating it in a health savings account for everyone so
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that everyone can suddenly have a health savings account to meet health care costs?
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If you must spend the money, actually spend it in a way that does some positive good.
00:20:06.180
Next week, I'm going to introduce a bill that I'm calling the Recovery Act that is going
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to be a whole series of pro-jobs, pro-growth steps that if we're going to take, our focus
00:20:20.640
And right now, the current so-called Republican bill that is going to lose a lot of Republican
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votes if and when we vote on it is not focused on jobs.
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And right now, basically, the Republican bill took the Nancy Pelosi bill, divided all the
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numbers by three and proposed the same damn thing.
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We should have different ideas, ideas that work.
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There are some Republicans who are really scared.
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Look, in the battle to be Santa Claus, Republicans will always lose.
00:21:02.600
If suddenly we pony up $3 trillion, they'll go to four.
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And frankly, show me the voter out there that's really looking for a bunch of cash that's actually
00:21:19.820
If you want someone to bankrupt the country and bankrupt your kids and grandkids in order
00:21:25.200
to get more cash right now, you're going to vote Democrat.
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We should be the party of jobs and growth and prosperity and higher wages.
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Look, another proposal I told the president, all right, fine, you want to spend money?
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Waive the federal income tax for the next six months up to a certain amount.
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That, again, puts real money in people's pockets now.
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And unlike what's being proposed, it doesn't kill jobs.
00:22:04.400
You know, you're never going to out Democrat the Democrats.
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You're never going to out liberal the liberals.
00:22:08.960
There's a famous conservative book from many decades ago called A Choice, Not an Echo.
00:22:13.780
You want to actually have a choice in your politicians when you go to the ballot box.
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And I got to tell you, as somebody who has an HSA, who uses an HSA, I love HSAs.
00:22:25.080
It's shocking to me that they have not been more popular.
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The reason they're not more popular is Congress.
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Unless you have a high-deductible health insurance plan, it is illegal for you to have an HSA.
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The point I'm trying to make to the other Republicans, like, is there anything we want to accomplish that actually would be good and fix the problem?
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We shouldn't rush out like Chicken Little and say, we must do something to do something.
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Let's do something that would work and help people get back to work.
00:23:04.620
There are a lot of perverse incentives, I notice, going on on the left side of the aisle on Capitol Hill.
00:23:09.700
And I think nowhere was this clearer than when our former verdict guest, the Attorney General, William Barr, was invited to testify on Capitol Hill.
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He was actually, he accepted the invitation on the very day that you and I sat down with him at the Department of Justice.
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And so he finally goes to sit down for this hearing.
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And then it turned out that the Democrats in the House of Representatives didn't really want to hear a single word he had to say.
00:23:38.120
When you and I were interviewing Bill Barr, you recall, we nicknamed him Honey Badger, which wasn't planned.
00:23:46.740
But if anyone didn't believe that nickname, you just had to watch the, you know, the Lilliputians trying to tie him down.
00:23:59.840
I mean, it was small and petty Democrats relentlessly attacking him.
00:24:05.580
And I love that Barr is completely not concerned.
00:24:12.720
I don't know that I've ever seen anyone drink coffee in a more dismissive way.
00:24:16.620
There's something about the coffee cup that just said, you are an utter buffoon.
00:24:22.420
And the part that was really ridiculous is you'd have a Democrat go give a histrionic speech.
00:24:44.480
And they did it over and over again, reclaiming their time, reclaiming their time.
00:24:51.740
And I'll tell you, Michael, I actually had a conversation about House Democrats reclaiming their time.
00:25:03.800
So next week, I'm chairing a hearing in the Senate on riots, on violence, on Antifa, on the organized terrorists who are burning and attacking our cities.
00:25:16.260
And first witness we're going to have is Ken Cuccinelli.
00:25:21.720
Ken is the deputy secretary of Homeland Security.
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Ken is the former attorney general of Virginia.
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And right now, Ken is leading the efforts to secure the border.
00:25:36.680
But he's also fighting for the federal law enforcement officers who the Democrats are.
00:25:43.120
You know, Nancy Pelosi is calling them Nazi stormtroopers, which is grotesque.
00:25:47.300
So when Ken and I are talking on the phone and I'm telling him, hey, Ken, I really want you to come to this hearing we're chairing.
00:25:55.020
He said, listen, one thing that he said I really don't like when I testify at the House is they'll attack you.
00:26:04.860
And then the Democrats will say, I reclaim my time.
00:26:07.300
So they attack you and they don't give you a chance to respond.
00:26:10.000
And this is before the bar hearing, by the way.
00:26:13.740
And I laughed and I said, I said, well, Ken, let me tell you this.
00:26:17.960
In any hearing I chair, the Democrats are going to attack you.
00:26:24.800
They're going to come after you hard because they've decided to demagogue every police officer in America.
00:26:30.520
But I can promise you, if I'm chairing the hearing, you're damn well going to get a full chance to respond to each and every attack.
00:26:40.660
We have that conversation, Ken, is coming to the hearing.
00:26:43.720
And then like a day or two later, Bill Barr goes through this this ridiculous charade where they are terrified of his answers and, quote, reclaim their time.
00:26:52.680
If the words I reclaim my time ever come out of my mouth other than quoting them, throw something at me, Michael.
00:27:05.980
Senator, you've been spending too much time with the Democrats.
00:27:10.760
You know, I don't think I had read anywhere that Ken Cuccinelli is going to be testifying.
00:27:16.180
Is that this is that is that is breaking news where we were going to announce that next week.
00:27:24.060
I very much look forward to to hearing that, because obviously I think this this issue of the mobs, the organized violence, Antifa has been at the top of a lot of people's minds.
00:27:34.940
And I I look forward also to not having just echoes of reclaim my time take up all the time that we could actually be hearing from someone who has so much to say on this.
00:27:44.200
One last question before we let you go, Senator.
00:27:48.380
I think a lot of people are wondering this these days if they're living in urban centers in America.
00:27:52.460
Is there any hope for sane people in New York City or should we flee?
00:28:01.960
Not just maybe of New York, but of all the cities.
00:28:23.920
And I'll point I often point to history as foreshadowing of the future.
00:28:31.080
I think things are going to get worse in New York in the short term.
00:28:33.680
I think the malignant politics there, I think radicals like de Blasio, when they're proposing
00:28:41.100
cutting a billion dollars from the NYPD and AOC saying not enough, basically burn it to the ground.
00:28:49.020
That's not quite what she said, but she said defund it and abolish it, which is the same thing.
00:28:54.860
In the short term, New York is going to head to some dark, dark days.
00:28:59.440
But New York went through this in the 60s and 70s, and we saw rampant crime in New York.
00:29:11.320
I mean, the policies of the far left, they don't work.
00:29:15.540
And every time they're implemented, particularly in the extreme, they are a disaster.
00:29:22.600
Is that when people see the disaster, they often open up their eyes and say, hey,
00:29:37.020
When he was elected and not Rudy, Rudy today is a very different person than Mayor Rudy was
00:29:50.620
They were sick and tired of the shambles the city had gone through.
00:29:54.680
And Rudy got elected on, remember the broken windows theory, which is let's, when you go
00:30:00.980
into a neighborhood and you see shattered windows, you see graffiti and you see rot, that makes
00:30:11.660
Go stop the squeegee guys who used to just dump crap on your car in the streets.
00:30:16.260
And it actually stops the rest of violent crime too.
00:30:20.740
So de Blasio and the radicals have forgotten those lessons.
00:30:23.480
I think they will go through a dark period and many of our cities may go through a dark period.
00:30:31.700
But when the failures of radical left policies become evident, I think people will turn back
00:30:36.660
to them and say, hey, we want a New York City where you can walk in Central Park again and be safe.
00:30:41.560
We want a New York City where you can open a business and survive.
00:30:45.440
There are many things about New York that are extraordinary, that are wonderful,
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that it has been a, the Statue of Liberty invites the whole world.
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We've seen immigrants from across the globe come to New York to make it.
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But the policies of the socialists can destroy all of that, but we'll come out of it.
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That's why I think a lot of the moving trucks are heading down to your state, Senator.
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And, you know, I'm a New Yorker and I live in Los Angeles.
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Both my cities have me wanting to fly straight down to where you are.
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I haven't gotten that invitation yet, but maybe I'll fly commercial and see you there.
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We will have to pause it there until next time.
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This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security
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Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations,
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In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running
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for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.