Verdict with Ted Cruz - Debate Night In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.400 Welcome.

00:00:06.200 It is a special debate verdict with Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:00:11.480 We get to do these on big nights jointly like this.

00:00:14.860 Depending on where you're listening to us right now, you get us both.

00:00:18.240 Senator, your initial reaction.

00:00:20.480 You watch the debate.

00:00:21.640 I watch the debate.

00:00:22.840 What were your big takeaways?

00:00:24.680 Well, tonight was a big and consequential debate.

00:00:26.800 But I have to say it, before we get into it and this entire podcast, we're going to analyze the debate in depth and say what it showed about where the race is, where President Trump is, where Kamala Harris is.

00:00:41.040 But I do want to point out it is exactly midnight as you and I are recording, which means it has just become September 11th.

00:00:49.300 And for our listeners who are downloading this, you'll be downloading this today during September 11th.

00:00:55.800 And so I just want to start by acknowledging that 23 years ago, the worst terrorist attack in our nation's history happened.

00:01:04.000 And you and I both lived through 9-11.

00:01:08.840 We had friends who lost their lives in 9-11.

00:01:11.860 We saw the agony.

00:01:13.800 And we have talked on this podcast many times about my view that today we have a greater risk of a major terrorist attack than we have had any time since September 11th, 2001, because of the disastrous policies of the last four years.

00:01:31.080 And so I want to acknowledge that at the front end.

00:01:33.740 And then we're going to walk through right now what the biggest takeaways are from the debate tonight.

00:01:40.860 Senator, this was a obviously important debate for Kamala Harris. 0.98

00:01:47.560 It was really a rollout in a sense where she could be challenged.

00:01:52.700 What we quickly saw, though, was a three-on-one debate against Donald Trump.

00:01:58.560 And ABC News, what an in-kind donation they gave.

00:02:02.240 Yeah, the ABC moderators did not do a good job.

00:02:05.800 They clearly were biased towards Kamala Harris.

00:02:09.040 We saw that from their live, quote, fact-checking, where repeatedly they'd follow up what Trump said by contradicting him, by disputing him.

00:02:16.980 Many instances their fact-checks were wrong, and they never could be bothered to fact-check a word that came out of Kamala Harris' mouth.

00:02:24.040 It was very one-sided on that front.

00:02:26.200 But, look, ABC News was the least consequential part of tonight.

00:02:30.940 What tonight illustrated is that Kamala Harris is utterly incapable of defending her own record. 1.00

00:02:40.420 And what we saw tonight, this was her stump speech, and this was her DNC convention speech, cut into sound bites and repeated.

00:02:51.420 She memorized a series of vignettes, a series of little segments, and just repeated those talking points ad nauseum.

00:03:00.320 And it really became clear with the very first question of the night.

00:03:05.460 And the first question of the night that David Muir asked her is the question that you and I in Monday's podcast said is the single most important question of the debate and really of every election,

00:03:15.700 which is, are you better off than you were four years ago?

00:03:19.920 And to Muir's credit, he started with that question.

00:03:23.960 Are people off today than they were four years ago under Trump?

00:03:27.300 Now, interestingly enough, Kamala refused to answer it at all.

00:03:30.780 She didn't say yes.

00:03:32.160 She didn't say people's lives are better.

00:03:33.700 She said nothing at all.

00:03:35.000 Instead, she had a little memorized set piece about how I was raised in a middle-class family.

00:03:41.400 I was raised with a mom who loved me and struggled.

00:03:43.880 And she just talked about her bio and gave just empty platitudes.

00:03:51.060 That continued for the entire night.

00:03:54.200 And so, look, we saw this evening why it is that Kamala's campaign team keeps her hidden in Joe Biden's basement.

00:04:05.120 Why they just bring her out, have her read from a teleprompter, and then they tackle her and throw her back in the basement.

00:04:11.540 Because, all right, let's take the very simple question.

00:04:13.640 And she didn't say, yes, you're better off than you were four years ago.

00:04:16.440 Why?

00:04:16.760 Well, you really can't.

00:04:18.000 Like, it's impossible to defend on every front inflation.

00:04:21.740 All right, let's just take inflation and the economy. 0.85

00:04:24.540 Her policies and Joe Biden's policies have been disastrous.

00:04:29.420 America, the working people of America have seen the price of just about everything go up, from food, to electricity, to rent, to lumber, to health care, to gasoline, to mortgages.

00:04:42.160 Everything go up.

00:04:43.380 And critically, this is where her record matters.

00:04:47.820 Kamala Harris was the tie-breaking vote multiple times on the floor of the Senate on trillions of dollars of the out-of-control spending from this administration that has caused this inflation.

00:05:01.460 She was literally, without her vote, the trillions of dollars that we borrowed and the trillions of dollars that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ran the printing presses on that drove this inflation. 0.95

00:05:13.400 That doesn't happen, and she can't defend that.

00:05:16.400 She doesn't have a good answer.

00:05:17.900 When it comes to energy and gas prices, people are hurting because of gas prices.

00:05:23.180 Well, it is her policies and Joe Biden's policies that has waged war systematically on oil and gas production and American energy, and she can't defend that either.

00:05:34.360 And so instead, she simply says, well, we're going to lower energy prices, we're going to lower gas prices, with no acknowledgment that, wait a second, she is in fact the sitting vice president, and who knows where the heck the actual president is, besides passed out asleep on a beach.

00:05:51.640 When you see, I think, the strategy, and now it actually, I think, makes more sense, right?

00:05:58.040 Like, just hide her, buy ads, get the media to cover for you and protect you at all costs, and maybe that is a winning strategy, which comes to, obviously, the next big question.

00:06:10.960 Should there be another debate?

00:06:12.760 Do you believe there will be another debate?

00:06:15.180 They were obviously in the Harris camp implying that there was a big victory tonight, saying, that was fun.

00:06:20.700 Let's do it again, let's do it again, and threw out another date, signaling from her campaign. 0.59

00:06:25.860 They want to tee it up again and go toe-to-toe with Donald Trump again.

00:06:30.740 Is that the right move for her?

00:06:32.980 Well, listen, I think Trump should absolutely accept that offer for another debate.

00:06:36.860 He should jump on it and say, let's go.

00:06:39.260 I think the debate is a valuable opportunity to calmly litigate her actual record.

00:06:46.880 And let me say this, though, even if Trump does follow that advice and does accept the debate, I think there's very little chance it happens.

00:06:57.760 I think Kamala's team will back out on it.

00:06:59.560 I think they're mostly just puffing out their chest and boasting right now with the offer of another debate.

00:07:05.040 I think there is no world in which they let her do a second debate.

00:07:09.200 I think it's back to the basement, and if I were to predict, we're not going to see Kamala emerge from the basement until Election Day. 0.77

00:07:16.660 It's like the groundhog.

00:07:18.880 Until she sees her shadow on Election Day, she doesn't get to come out of the basement.

00:07:22.360 Other than to show up at a rally here and there and read from the teleprompter the same speech, but they want to keep her absolutely controlled and repeating.

00:07:34.080 And listen, I will say, the Democrat Party has very good message masters.

00:07:39.280 They have very good.

00:07:40.100 This is the party of Hollywood.

00:07:41.280 This is the party of storytellers.

00:07:43.240 Her memorized set pieces, some of them are pretty effective.

00:07:46.960 They're disconnected from reality.

00:07:48.840 They don't acknowledge any facts on Earth, but if you just listen to them, they are calmly reassuring.

00:07:57.300 They sound nice.

00:07:59.060 And it's why, look, this is the same reaction I had with her convention speech.

00:08:03.060 It's dangerous as hell, because if you're not paying close attention, what she says sounds nice unless she is forced to confront her actual own record.

00:08:14.260 And in the entire debate, the ABC moderators never once pointed out that her record is exactly the opposite of what she what she said on the debate stage over and over again.

00:08:24.320 So when I watch the debate, the question I always ask myself is, OK, if I was going in tonight voting for Donald Trump, was I convinced by Kamala Harris that I should switch my vote?

00:08:34.900 The answer honestly is no.

00:08:36.180 And if I'm a Kamala Harris voter and was going into the night watching Kamala Harris saying I'm going to vote for her, am I going to switch my vote to Donald Trump tonight?

00:08:45.840 Honestly, probably not.

00:08:47.740 Does that mean that this is a draw in essence where, hey, Donald Trump's team, they walk out of this going, OK, maybe we could have done a little better on this, that or the other.

00:08:58.380 Maybe we'll work on that for the next debate.

00:09:00.000 But we didn't do any harm and we got out some good points.

00:09:03.500 Kamala's team probably says, hey, we had it.

00:09:05.880 We survived the night.

00:09:06.780 We've had you in hiding in the basement.

00:09:08.820 Is this one of those debates that we both said was one of the most important ever, but could in theory be a draw?

00:09:14.100 Because really, you're if the if the barometer is I'm trying to change hearts and minds.

00:09:20.740 Did anyone's mind change tonight?

00:09:22.820 Well, Kamala's team and all of her cheerleaders in the corporate media are going to relentlessly hype that she won, that she won, that she won. 1.00

00:09:30.380 And by the way, they were going to say that whatever happened, she could literally fall to the ground and start screaming and wailing and kicking her feet in the air and they would say she won.

00:09:37.380 So that that was going to be the narrative regardless.

00:09:40.640 I will say what we learned is she doesn't have a good answer to her own record.

00:09:46.420 The Trump campaign needs to continue to prosecute the case.

00:09:49.960 So let's take, for example, there was a whole back and forth on abortion.

00:09:54.200 And Trump said accurately that she supports late term abortions into the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy.

00:10:02.700 And she just said over and over again, no, I don't.

00:10:04.860 No, I don't.

00:10:05.300 That's false.

00:10:05.800 That's false.

00:10:06.780 And the moderators sat there like potted plants.

00:10:10.780 Well, it so happens that Kamala actually has a record.

00:10:13.760 And in particular, she has voted for legislation on the floor of the Senate to strike down every single restriction on abortion in the country and to legalize abortion in the eighth and ninth months up to the moment of birth.

00:10:29.580 That is her actual voting record, what she has voted for.

00:10:32.580 There was another exchange where Trump points out that the governor of Virginia, the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, had advocated for post-birth abortion.

00:10:43.420 And she flat out lied and said, no, no, he didn't.

00:10:45.860 No, he didn't.

00:10:47.060 And let's play that because we have that clip.

00:10:49.360 And this is why I love doing this show is we get to play it.

00:10:53.040 This is Northam on the radio on WTOP saying what what she said and the media said never happened.

00:11:00.820 If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. 0.88

00:11:06.360 The infant would be delivered.

00:11:08.460 The infant would be kept comfortable.

00:11:11.140 The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired.

00:11:16.300 And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mothers. 0.74

00:11:20.580 I mean, where's the fact check from ABC News on that, Senator?

00:11:24.600 Yeah.

00:11:25.080 And understand Ralph Northam.

00:11:26.660 He was a Democrat.

00:11:28.540 Governor of Virginia.

00:11:29.460 He was also someone whose medical school yearbook featured a picture of a Klansman.

00:11:36.100 That's another part of Ralph Northam's background.

00:11:39.240 But he was also an OBGYN.

00:11:41.300 So he was actually talking about as a doctor who presumably has done that.

00:11:45.120 He was describing the approach.

00:11:47.220 And that is delivering a baby.

00:11:49.140 The baby is alive, is breathing, is outside the mother's womb. 0.99

00:11:52.300 And he's talking about just letting the baby die.

00:11:55.040 And again, this is where records matter.

00:11:57.440 Kamala has a record on this.

00:11:59.860 So when she says, that's ridiculous, that's no, no, no, no, no, that's not true.

00:12:03.680 Well, Kamala Harris voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. 0.69

00:12:08.600 And that was a bill that we voted on on the floor of the Senate that said if during the course of an attempted abortion, the child is delivered, the child is born.

00:12:18.440 And this happens, and the child is alive and breathing and outside the womb, that the doctor cannot just let the baby die.

00:12:27.480 And she voted no.

00:12:30.680 Now, as you noted, ABC didn't fact check her on that.

00:12:34.040 Her voting record is very clear.

00:12:36.620 And this was a pattern over and over and over again on energy.

00:12:42.020 So her big trick now on energy is she's run away from her long-held position opposing fracking. 0.97

00:12:49.420 Okay, fine.

00:12:50.160 So she's like, yeah, I just flip-flopped on that.

00:12:53.080 What ABC didn't point out is, well, wait a second.

00:12:56.380 Your repeated statements about banning fracking, that's not the only thing you've done on energy.

00:13:00.960 First week in office, you and Joe Biden shut down the Keystone Pipeline.

00:13:04.180 Joe Biden, when he was campaigning for president, promised to shut down drilling onshore on federal lands and offshore.

00:13:11.820 You put in over 90 different regulations and executive orders attacking oil and gas production in the United States.

00:13:19.200 That has had a very direct effect, driving up cost.

00:13:23.320 Your administration banned new permits exporting liquid natural gas.

00:13:28.940 Like, her record on energy is terrible.

00:13:32.100 And she has no answer to that.

00:13:34.820 And by the way, Trump did a good job on this point of saying, listen, you banned the Keystone Pipeline

00:13:40.100 and gave a giant gift of Vladimir Putin by allowing him to complete the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline,

00:13:47.680 which caused the war in Ukraine.

00:13:49.320 And that's something you and I have talked about in this podcast a lot.

00:13:52.200 It was my legislation in the Senate that sanctioned Nord Stream 2 and shut it down.

00:13:57.100 Trump signed my legislation and Putin literally stopped building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline the day that Trump signed my sanctions legislation in the law.

00:14:07.580 Nord Stream 2 was a dead hunk of metal at the bottom of the ocean until Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office.

00:14:12.900 And they demonstrated weakness and they waived the sanctions on Nord Stream 2.

00:14:19.000 And it was a multi-billion dollar gift to Russia and it caused the war in Ukraine.

00:14:25.840 None of that does she have an answer for.

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00:14:39.380 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

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00:15:00.300 We just got in the official number.

00:15:03.040 ABC News fact-checked Donald Trump seven times.

00:15:07.600 Not one time in the debate did they fact-check Kamala Harris. 0.57

00:15:12.300 Not once.

00:15:13.640 So that's the official tally now is seven times on Trump.

00:15:18.240 That's three on one.

00:15:19.760 And I do think that's going to have a turnoff, I would hope, to some of those voters, maybe in the middle, the undecideds, which very much can be the deciding factor in this election.

00:15:32.160 Will that play with undecideds, do you think?

00:15:34.320 Did they see the bias that you and I saw?

00:15:36.860 They saw that some.

00:15:38.440 But I think they also go in expecting the media to be biased.

00:15:41.760 So I don't think anyone is surprised that ABC is a left-wing mouthpiece for the Democrats.

00:15:48.220 That's been the case, sadly, for a long time.

00:15:50.580 For ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, all of them have been mouthpieces for the Democrats.

00:15:55.840 So, yes, they saw it.

00:15:57.580 But, again, they're not surprised.

00:16:00.100 Look, the critical thing that we saw tonight is she doesn't have a good answer on the chaos at our southern border.

00:16:07.700 Kamala Harris was the border czar.

00:16:10.140 She is directly responsible for the worst level of illegal immigration in our nation's history. 1.00

00:16:17.260 She is directly responsible for the people who have died.

00:16:23.340 853 migrants died last year crossing illegally into this country.

00:16:26.660 She is responsible for the people, the women who have been brutally raped.

00:16:32.620 She's responsible for the children who have been brutalized.

00:16:35.860 She's responsible for the little boys and little girls who have been horribly assaulted by human traffickers.

00:16:41.020 She's responsible for the 110,000 Americans who died last year of drug overdoses. 0.53

00:16:46.200 She is responsible for the murderers that she and Joe Biden had in their custody. 0.94

00:16:53.380 Murderers like the illegal alien murderer of Lake and Riley that she and Joe Biden had in custody and they released.

00:16:58.860 Murderers like the illegal alien murderer of Rachel Morin, that illegal alien was in her custody. 0.93

00:17:05.800 She released him.

00:17:07.820 Murderers like the illegal alien murderers of Jocelyn Nungary. 0.99

00:17:12.520 Both of them were in her custody and she and Joe Biden released them.

00:17:15.900 And so that record, she was not forced tonight to answer for any of that record.

00:17:22.260 And that, but it demonstrated that she does not have a good response. 0.80

00:17:30.440 And that's what I think the next two months, the Trump campaign has to prosecute systematically based on the facts.

00:17:39.240 Here is her record.

00:17:41.000 Here is what she has done.

00:17:42.640 And it hasn't worked.

00:17:43.920 It has failed and the American people are worse off as a result of the failures of her extreme policy.

00:17:51.240 You mentioned Donald Trump's got to bring up some more of this stuff.

00:17:55.040 And I think you and I have talked about this, but let's just remind people.

00:17:59.300 Since Kamala Harris took office, total prices are up over 20 percent.

00:18:02.780 Car insurance up 54 percent.

00:18:04.420 Hotels are up, say, when you rent a hotel, 51.2 percent.

00:18:08.740 Gas is up 50.50 percent.

00:18:11.220 Fuel oil is up 49.1.

00:18:13.240 Transportation up 32.9.

00:18:16.560 Electricity is up 31.7 percent.

00:18:19.040 Baby food's up over 30 percent.

00:18:21.380 Eating out up 25 percent.

00:18:23.600 Airfare up 23 percent.

00:18:25.180 Rent up 22 percent.

00:18:26.820 And groceries are up about 22 percent as well.

00:18:31.360 That's what they've got to focus on every single one of the surrogates. 0.99

00:18:35.360 Not all this other in the weed stuff.

00:18:38.040 I really do believe they've got to keep it simple for the American voter, especially if you're trying to go after undecideds.

00:18:46.780 Sure.

00:18:47.100 And that's what we talked about in Monday's pod, that the focus needs to be on harms, harms, harms.

00:18:53.420 How are people's lives worse off because of the horrible policies that Kamala Harris is directly responsible for? 1.00

00:19:03.280 And that's true on inflation.

00:19:04.880 She was literally the tie-breaking vote behind the trillions of spending that unleashed this inflation.

00:19:11.520 It's true on energy.

00:19:13.260 She and Joe Biden, it has been their executive orders and their regulations that have driven up energy prices.

00:19:20.000 And it's true on the border.

00:19:21.980 And let me play.

00:19:23.240 There was one of the best exchanges was something Trump said on the border where he made the point that, listen, she could secure the border today.

00:19:32.280 And listen to this, what he said to her right now.

00:19:35.520 I would say we would both leave this debate right now.

00:19:39.540 I'd like to see her go down to Washington, D.C. during this debate because we're wasting a lot of time. 0.74

00:19:45.940 Go down to because she's been so bad. 0.99

00:19:47.840 It's so ridiculous. 0.92

00:19:48.960 Go down to Washington, D.C. and let her sign a bill to close up the border because they have the right to do it. 1.00

00:19:55.360 They don't need bills.

00:19:56.440 They have the right to do the president of the United States.

00:19:59.200 You'll get them out of bed.

00:20:00.280 You'll wake them up at four o'clock in the afternoon.

00:20:02.400 You'll say, come on, come on down to the office.

00:20:04.440 Let's sign a bill.

00:20:05.520 It was a great moment in the debate.

00:20:08.420 Yeah, look, that point is very powerful.

00:20:11.180 And understand this invasion at our southern border.

00:20:14.160 It is happening right now.

00:20:16.660 Today, there are hundreds, if not thousands of illegal immigrants crossing the border right now today.

00:20:24.220 Today, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are apprehending hundreds, if not thousands of illegal aliens, and they're going to release them tomorrow.

00:20:32.200 There are criminals they're going to release tomorrow.

00:20:35.400 There are murderers they're going to release going forward. 0.97

00:20:38.380 There are rapists. 0.94

00:20:39.160 There are child molesters, and they keep on doing it.

00:20:41.520 And the point Trump is making, and listen, his campaign needs to follow this up by really explaining, look, when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris came into office, they inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.

00:20:57.700 Donald Trump, I worked hand in hand with President Trump to secure the border.

00:21:02.460 And we had incredible success.

00:21:04.460 When Trump was president, the border was secure.

00:21:08.020 And it was unilateral executive actions that caused this crisis.

00:21:13.780 Three decisions that Biden and Harris did in the very first week.

00:21:18.200 Number one, they immediately halted construction of the border wall.

00:21:21.740 Number two, they reinstated the disastrous policy of catch and release.

00:21:25.420 And number three, they pulled out of the incredibly successful Remain in Mexico agreement.

00:21:30.240 All three of those, they could reverse tomorrow.

00:21:34.980 And so the point, like literally go down to the White House right now and do it.

00:21:38.700 That is absolutely right.

00:21:41.180 It is also right that if, and I pray when, Trump is reelected, that he will reverse all three of those decisions on January 20th of next year.

00:21:52.120 And we will see the border crisis end, and it will end quickly.

00:21:55.300 And so that point was very effective.

00:21:58.160 Let me say also, Ben, I thought the foreign policy portion of the debate was particularly strong for Trump.

00:22:05.260 And it was very weak for Kamala Harris.

00:22:07.300 At one point, she looks over at Trump and says, well, you know, everyone knows that he was weak and ineffective on foreign policy.

00:22:14.620 And I got to say to me, that was a laugh line.

00:22:18.260 And listen, if you look across the globe, we had peace and prosperity when Trump was president.

00:22:25.000 We had no foreign wars.

00:22:26.560 And in fact, we saw peace breaking out in the Middle East.

00:22:29.920 We saw the Abraham Accords being signed. 0.69

00:22:31.960 We saw Arabs and Israelis coming together.

00:22:34.740 And I think it is absolutely the case that if Trump were still in the White House today, the war in Ukraine would not have happened and the war in Israel would not have happened.

00:22:44.420 That it was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris's weakness that caused those wars.

00:22:50.540 And critically, and Trump did a good job of this, too, laying out that, listen, Kamala Harris has flowed over $100 billion to Iran.

00:23:00.420 Iran provides 90 percent of the funding for Hamas, 90 percent of the funding for Hezbollah.

00:23:06.080 Kamala Harris, in a very real sense, paid for the death squads that carried out the atrocities on October 7th.

00:23:14.180 And Kamala has no answer to that. 0.99

00:23:18.600 And tonight showed that powerfully.

00:23:21.200 You know, I also think, and you go to the end of the debate, that one of the best parts was actually Donald Trump and his closing argument.

00:23:28.520 And it goes back to the campaign strategy that I think he needs to have moving forward.

00:23:34.440 And that is to make sure he makes this about what she has done in comparison to what she claims she wants to do while she's in charge.

00:23:46.220 Like, you're in charge.

00:23:47.680 You're in charge.

00:23:48.780 You're in charge.

00:23:49.980 Is it in Trump?

00:23:50.580 So she just started by saying she's going to do this.

00:23:53.720 She's going to do that.

00:23:54.640 She's going to do all these wonderful things.

00:23:56.820 Why hasn't she done it?

00:23:58.920 She's been there for three and a half years.

00:24:01.500 They've had three and a half years to fix the border.

00:24:04.600 They've had three and a half years to create jobs and all the things we talked about.

00:24:09.780 Why hasn't she done it?

00:24:11.720 She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful White House, go to the Capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do. 0.89

00:24:19.400 But you haven't done it and you won't do it because you believe in things that the American people don't believe in.

00:24:25.880 It's a great line.

00:24:27.560 And I wish it would have been used even more.

00:24:30.300 Yeah, that that was the closing was Trump's best, best part of the entire debate.

00:24:34.340 And that was exactly the right message.

00:24:36.860 It's a message that the Trump campaign should amplify every day between now and Election Day.

00:24:42.220 Listen, you and I have talked about how Kamala is trying to engage in this divorced from reality campaign where she pretends. 1.00

00:24:49.400 She's not in office, that she's not the incumbent.

00:24:52.000 She disavows all responsibility for the mess that is happening.

00:24:56.920 And in fact, she's behaving as if Donald Trump is the incumbent president and she's the change candidate.

00:25:03.580 She is in office right now.

00:25:06.080 Joe Biden is in office right now.

00:25:08.280 And on every single level on inflation, on crime, on illegal immigration, on foreign policy, on safety and security, the world was much, much better when Trump was president than it is today.

00:25:24.220 And that that needs to be emphasized every day between now and Election Day.

00:25:28.740 Senator, final question, I think, for you and really for for me when I was watching this tonight.

00:25:33.660 And it say, OK, where do we go from here?

00:25:37.340 I'm in favor of another debate.

00:25:39.360 I think you you cover that earlier, right?

00:25:41.320 You agree Trump should do another one.

00:25:43.700 Number one.

00:25:44.160 Yes, but I don't think she will.

00:25:46.240 I think she'll back out. 0.78

00:25:47.340 So your prediction is she's done.

00:25:49.580 Yep.

00:25:49.740 Number two, if you're Donald Trump, what do you learn for tonight and what do you take into your big campaign rallies from this?

00:25:58.500 And what is your messaging to your surrogates tomorrow on the surrogate call?

00:26:03.420 I think the message is she cannot defend her record and her record is a failure.

00:26:08.660 The American people are worse off.

00:26:11.240 But but listen, I think it's important to remember also this is not about Donald Trump and it's not about Kamala Harris.

00:26:17.400 It is about the American people.

00:26:19.500 It is about it is about young, young couples are going out and buying their first home and they're discovering that a seven and a half percent mortgage rate is much, much worse than a two and a half percent mortgage rate that you get about half the house.

00:26:34.060 That's happening right now today.

00:26:35.840 People are hurting.

00:26:36.600 It's about a single mom who's trying to make ends meet and she can't afford to buy groceries anymore because the prices have gone so high.

00:26:44.260 And when she tries to fill up her tank to go to work, it just about breaks her.

00:26:48.160 It's about the people who are suffering.

00:26:53.520 Look, today on September 10th, there was a ceremony in the Capitol where the Congressional Gold Medal was awarded to the 13 servicemen and women who were murdered in Afghanistan from the absolutely disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Abbey Gate.

00:27:13.940 And I'll tell you, the families were there and it was a beautiful ceremony.

00:27:18.080 And the families, I spoke to many of the families.

00:27:21.220 I thanked every one of them that I could to say thank you for your service and sacrifice.

00:27:26.840 I'm sorry.

00:27:27.780 But I also, to many of them, had a follow-up conversation where I said there needs to be accountability.

00:27:35.640 There has been zero accountability.

00:27:37.400 The focus for the campaign every day from now to Election Day needs to be the difference between Trump's record and Kamala's record and critically bringing it home to the voters how their lives were much better when Trump was president than they have been under Kamala.

00:27:58.900 And that her policies are failures and they're hurting the American people.

00:28:04.360 That's got to be the central message.

00:28:05.720 Yeah, as you mentioned a second ago, on this anniversary of 9-11, I think it's important that we also take a step back.

00:28:15.340 Remember how important it is that you have competent leaders that understand how important it is to protect and defend the homeland, to protect and defend freedom.

00:28:24.020 And also, just a moment to say thank you to all of those that serve this country, to all of those that wear the uniform, to all of those that have given the ultimate sacrifices and their families.

00:28:36.440 There were so many people that died on 9-11, but there was also the second part.

00:28:41.500 And that was so many that died because they wanted to protect and defend us after 9-11 that gave the ultimate sacrifice.

00:28:49.580 And I said to everybody listening, say thank you to a veteran, text them, everybody knows a veteran, tell them thank you.

00:28:56.840 I had the privilege of playing golf today with some of those that actually took out some of the worst terrorists in the world, some special operators, and they were amazing guys.

00:29:10.760 And I say to them, thank you, because without you giving up years of your life and risking your life and losing your brothers in uniform, we wouldn't have the freedoms we have today.

00:29:22.100 And that's what we need to remember, I think, during this election season as well.

00:29:25.940 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday on Verdict.

00:29:29.160 I do my show, Ben Ferguson Podcasts, every single day.

00:29:32.400 So grab our podcast, hit that subscribe or auto-download button wherever you listen to these podcasts.

00:29:38.360 It's always fun when we get to do a joint podcast.

00:29:40.740 The Senator and I will see you back here in a couple days, and I'll see you back here tomorrow on the Ben Ferguson Podcast as well.

00:29:47.100 And again, God bless America, and thanks to all of our veterans that are listening.

00:29:50.860 You guys are the heroes.

00:29:53.240 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:29:56.140 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 14, 2024

Debate Night In Review

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