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00:00:36.740Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. It's so nice to have you with
00:00:41.060us if you're listening on the radio around the country. Senator, we've got a lot to chat about
00:00:44.660on today's show, including something we haven't seen in a long time. We are celebrating at the
00:00:49.800White House and in Washington, D.C., law enforcement not trying to defund them.
00:00:54.680Well, that's exactly right. This past week was police week. We had police officers from
00:00:59.480all across the country come to Washington, D.C., come to the Capitol, and we celebrated,
00:01:05.880celebrated the heroism. We celebrated and remembered the officers who gave their lives,
00:01:11.540gave their lives in duty defending us. And it really, after all of the vilification,
00:01:18.780after all of the attacks that are directed at police officers, it was nice to have a time
00:01:22.840just to say thank you. And it was also a time that was recognized the Senate Judiciary Committee
00:01:27.860this week. We passed a series of bills out of the Judiciary Committee, including two different bills
00:01:34.040that I authored, one directed specifically to police officers and a second protecting child
00:01:41.760victims of sexual assault. And both of those victories are significant. Both of them are now
00:01:47.020going to the floor of the Senate. I think we'll get both passed into law. It's going to be really
00:01:50.800awesome we're going to break that down for you in a moment i also want to tell you about a
00:01:54.660organization that you may not even know exists and it's one that is so important americans united
00:02:01.380for life and the amazing work that they're doing right now if you are proud to be pro-life just
00:02:07.940like i am then you need to know about the americans united for life over the past 50 years
00:02:15.640They have filed more than 200 legal briefs and helped create at least 400 pro-life bills in over 40 states by writing model legislation, consulting with state legislators and defending their own laws and other pro-life statutes in court.
00:02:33.780AUL is a non-profit law firm and advocacy group that was founded in 1971,
00:02:39.940two years before Roe established the constitutional right to an abortion before fetal viability.
00:02:46.600AUL's dual-front approach of writing and defending legislation
00:02:50.640has proved an effective one that could become even more impactful
00:02:54.900as pro-life state legislatures move to enact protections for pre-born babies and their mothers
00:03:02.060Now that the legality of abortion has returned to the states, you have the opportunity to overturn pro-abortion laws and advance pro-life legislation that attacks the most vulnerable in our society from the womb to the tomb.
00:03:18.240And together we can shape the future of our nation through life affirming legislation in every state.
00:03:24.060A gift of just $25 helps hold abortion providers accountable
00:03:30.540and helps protect women and unborn children across this country.
00:03:35.980And now, through a match, your gift is doubled.
00:03:40.180So donate securely at aul.org slash verdict.
00:04:47.640Officer John Barnes was the police officer at Santa Fe High School, where you'll recall, Ben, the horrific school shooting that happened.
00:04:57.340Santa Fe is just outside of Houston, and it's the morning of that shooting.
00:05:02.640I was actually at home when that shooting happened, and so I jumped in a truck and headed down to the school.
00:05:08.160I was on campus about an hour after the shooting happened, and I will tell you the horror of what transpired there.
00:05:17.640as that deranged gunman shot and and murdered multiple students and and officer john barnes
00:05:24.680was on duty and when the shooter began his rampage uh officer barnes rushed the shooter he put himself
00:05:34.200between the shooter and the students he saved multiple students lives yeah and and the shooter
00:05:40.200had one of the weapons he was armed with was a shotgun and he fired the shotgun and it hit
00:05:45.720hit Officer Barnes in the arm and did permanent damage to his elbow, to his arm.
00:05:52.080He had massive blood loss, and he ended up actually flatlining twice and being resuscitated
00:05:59.840twice. And I've got to know Officer Barnes, and he's, the man is a hero. He risked his life and
00:06:06.640almost gave his life to protect the students that he had been charged with protecting. And so
00:06:12.600So this bill honors him, and it also honors Chief Michael Ansbrough, who was a hero on 9-11.
00:06:21.920And he was one of the first responders in 9-11 who rushed into the building, rescued people, risked his life.
00:06:28.960He survived 9-11 and the collapse of the towers, but in the course of that, he inhaled so much toxic material that ultimately Chief Ansbrough died from cancer from all of the poison he inhaled on 9-11.
00:06:47.800With both of them, they submitted applications to the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program.
00:06:56.020Now, the Public Safety Officers Benefit Program is created within the Department of Justice, and in particular, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and it does several things.
00:07:07.720Number one, it provides death benefits to survivors of officers who've died in the line of duty, and that's something I think we owe their families to say thank you for that.
00:07:18.500And then secondly, it provides assistance to people who are permanently disabled as a result of in the light of the duty injury.
00:07:29.380And the problem is that the program has historically been very, very slow and very, very delayed.
00:08:10.660She and I have actually done quite a bit together.
00:08:12.540And so she, this was originally the Officer John Barnes bill,
00:08:17.440because he's a Texan and someone I know, and we teamed up,
00:08:21.020and she brought in Michael Ansbrough to honor a 9-11 hero as well.
00:08:26.860And what this bill does is speed up the determination of benefits.
00:08:30.560And so it puts a shot clock of 270 days.
00:08:34.860It says the Department of Justice must make a determination within 270 days.
00:08:39.580You can't have it drag on for eight years.
00:08:41.680And it also expedites the processing, and it also expands the coverage.
00:08:48.460So it extends partial eligibility to officers who are permanently but not totally disabled.
00:08:55.860So if you have a permanent disability, you qualify.
00:08:59.260It expands the number of officers, the number of officers' families who qualify, and it speeds it up.
00:09:04.840We got this through the Senate Judiciary Committee.
00:09:07.240The next step is to move it on the floor of the Senate.
00:09:09.220it, then we'll move it through the House, and I'm confident President Trump will sign it into law.
00:09:13.900Before we get to Trey's Law Center, I want to ask you a couple questions. Just, I think,
00:09:18.740when Americans see this type of bipartisan leadership, and you see that this is about
00:09:25.220benefits of those that have risked their lives or given the ultimate sacrifice of their life,
00:09:30.480and to see how many loopholes there are to jump through to clearly get the benefits the family
00:09:37.000needs there if you've ever sat with an officer and i have and it's a miserable moment um or let
00:09:43.920me rephrase that a family of a fallen officer in that miserable moment even after all of all the
00:09:51.300the people go back home and life gets back to normal that is when the real turmoil they say
00:09:56.520sets in because you're waiting for so many things that you've been promised to come through and then
00:10:02.940you compare that center to the waste fraud and abuse that we're finding where there's just
00:10:07.380billions here another billion here another million here another 20 million here another 30 million
00:10:11.820here these daycare centers hospice centers it would make you go insane if you are a family
00:10:18.160that's just waiting on the benefit because your loved one gave their life to protect and serve
00:10:23.480how frustrating is that for you when you see that this is how we treat our heroes and yet the
00:10:29.240villains, these con artists, they can get their hands on billions and billions of dollars.
00:10:33.820Yeah, it's deeply frustrating. Listen, if an officer tragically loses his or her life in the
00:10:40.000line of duty, there's nothing we can do to bring them back. There's nothing we can do to bring that
00:10:45.200officer back to their loved ones. But we do owe honoring our commitments to them. We do owe being
00:10:51.580there for their family. The men and women in blue who put themselves on the line, like John Barnes,
00:10:58.800They literally stand in harm's way. They stand between someone who would harm or kill us and ourselves or our loved ones.
00:11:08.660And unfortunately, bureaucracy is one of the few constants in the world, and dealing with the federal government is frequently maddening and infuriating.
00:11:20.040That being said, the PSOB process, this benefit process, is notoriously slow.
00:11:29.100And so this is a common sense bill just to speed up the process to ensure that whether it's an officer who's lost his life, like Chief Ansborough,
00:11:38.600or whether it's an officer who is permanently disabled, like John Barnes,
00:11:44.340that we make the determinations quickly and we provide them the benefits they've been promised.
00:13:30.400And litigation and nondisclosure agreements are commonplace features that the people who are assaulting kids will put in place to silence the victims.
00:13:42.020And nobody should have a right to do that.
00:13:44.560You know, Trey's law was championed by Trey's sister, Elizabeth.
00:13:52.980She went in Texas. The state legislature in Texas has already passed Trey's law.
00:13:57.880The legislature in Alabama has passed Trey's law. Missouri has passed Trey's law.
00:14:01.680A number of different states have passed Trey's law.
00:14:04.160And I introduced it in the U.S. Congress so that we could pass it nationally.
00:14:11.040And again, I joined with Kirsten Gillibrand. She and I did both of these bills together.
00:14:15.740And it is designed to ensure that any child victim has the right to speak out,
00:14:25.120and the court system will not be used as a tool of a second round of abuse.
00:14:31.280Because when you're silencing a child victim, that is once again abusive.
00:14:37.240And in Trey's case in particular, he described at great length to his therapist how he felt silenced and agonized that he wasn't able to speak about it.
00:14:47.800His sister Elizabeth told us on this podcast how much of what happened to her brother, she didn't even find out about until after he was dead.
00:14:57.640Until after he'd taken his own life because of the gag order, he didn't share it with his sister.
00:17:17.540Just add Rough Greens and watch the health benefits come alive.
00:17:21.760All right, Senator, I want to talk about the president's big trip to China.
00:17:25.940And specifically, you had some notes, some requests, some advocacy for some Americans that are being held.
00:17:34.120And this was a really big moment that people should be talking about.
00:17:38.040Yeah, so this was a meaningful legislative week.
00:17:41.320We've already talked about the two victories we had in the Senate Judiciary Committee passing two bills I authored.
00:17:46.640We had a third victory on the Senate floor, which is the entire Senate passed a resolution that I authored along with Dick Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, concerning the president's China trip and in particular urging the president to prioritize the release of political prisoners, the release of people who are wrongfully imprisoned in China, including Jimmy Lai, who's the great democracy activist in Hong Kong.
00:18:12.280I met Jimmy Lai when I traveled to Hong Kong.
00:18:53.600How much political, I think, pressure in a positive way does that create for the conversation that happened?
00:19:01.220Because when you meet with an adversary like China, and if you've ever been around these meetings, I was around a couple of them in the Bush second term.
00:19:12.940You have State Department that gets with their equivalent, the State Department, they decide what will and will not be talked about at the table in these meetings.
00:19:19.080But when you have a 100-0 vote, you have Dick Durbin, you have you, and is that giving the ammo extra to the president saying, hey, you've got all of the United States Congress behind you.
00:19:29.600It gives you a reason, even if you need to, in essence, to break protocol on what's been agreed to in the meetings and say, hey, this just happened and we got to talk about it.
00:19:38.580Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And this is something when I put this resolution on the floor, I'm working in coordination with the White House, with the administration.
00:19:48.260And the president had already indicated an openness to raising these political prisoners.
00:19:54.800And what this does is give him additional ammunition. It lets him say to Xi, look, the Senate, 100 to nothing.
00:20:03.500We may have political disagreements in our country and other topics, but not on this.
00:20:07.280Every single senator, from the most conservative to the most liberal, they're all on the same page.
00:20:12.980And I'll use an example that's actually a very similar circumstance, which is Mark Swidan.
00:20:17.420So Mark Swidan is a Texan who was wrongfully imprisoned in China for over 10 years.
00:20:29.380And I led the fight in the Senate for years to free Mark Swidan, including sitting down with a Chinese ambassador in a one-on-one, leaning in very hard, urging China to release him, that civilized countries don't keep political prisoners.
00:20:46.960Joe Biden was president during much of this time.
00:20:50.000And so I repeatedly pressured President Biden and and and the State Department to raise Mark Swidane.
00:20:58.260Mark Swidane's mom is it lives in Texas.
00:21:00.920I talked to her multiple times and I did the same thing.
00:21:04.480I introduced a resolution calling for the release of Mark Swidane.
00:21:08.900And it passed the Senate just like this one did 100 to nothing.
00:21:11.820that gives real force and and it ended up uh joe biden followed through and and pressed it uh the
00:21:19.040state department followed through and finally the pressure was enough that china released mark
00:21:23.420swadan so he is no longer in a chinese prison he has been released he came back in fact he came to
00:21:28.780my office i i had the opportunity to meet him and embrace him and this is someone who for years
00:21:34.220i was speaking his name and demanding his release and and and it's you know often when you're dealing
00:21:41.040with with with a government like like the chinese communist government it's a question of ratcheting
00:21:46.480up pressure and and any one step typically is not enough but the more pressure you put on the more
00:21:54.080leverage you put on the more likely they are to to to comply so you know here's what the resolution
00:22:01.220said expressing the sense of the senate that the president should prioritize securing the release
00:22:06.340of Pastor Jin Mingri, Pastor Guo Guanfu, and his wife Pangju, Jimmy Lai, Dr. Gulshan Abbas,
00:22:16.040and Ek Parasat detained by the People's Republic of China during future engagements with Chinese
00:22:21.500President Xi Jinping. Whereas the government of the People's Republic of China has arrested
00:22:27.260Chinese, American, and British citizens for the peaceful expression of free speech or religion
00:22:32.960or such acts by family members, whereas such arrests have been widely condemned by the
00:22:39.380international community and human rights organizations with repeated calls for the
00:22:43.720release of the detainees, whereas on May 17, 2025, Pastor Gao Kuanfu of the Light of Zion Church
00:22:53.580in Xi'an City was detained and is being held on charges of, quote,
00:22:58.820using superstitious activities to undermine the implementation of law.
00:23:04.360In other words, being a Christian is what they're holding them for,
00:23:44.080Whereas Pastor Jen continues to be detained without access to critical medications to treat diabetes
00:23:49.560or contact with family members in the People's Republic of China and the United States.
00:23:54.880Whereas on November 7th, 2025, the Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 463, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all detained members of Zion Church, including Pastor Jen.
00:24:09.200And by the way, that was my resolution as well that I introduced and passed last year.
00:24:14.160And for the government of the People's Republic of China to end harassment and intimidations of the relatives of Zion Church members and their relatives.
00:24:23.940Whereas in 1995, Jimmy Lai founded the Apple Daily newspaper in Hong Kong and subsequently faced repeated harassment and arrest, including a 69-month sentence in 2022 on dubious fraud charges that were later overturned and a subsequent 20-year sentence in February 2026 on dubious national security charges.
00:24:47.640Whereas, in December 2025, President Donald Trump said he had asked Chinese President Xi Jinping to consider releasing Jimmy Lai.
00:24:56.160Whereas, on December 4th, 2025, House Resolution 930 was introduced commemorating Jimmy Lai and calling on authorities of the People's Republic of China to immediately and unconditionally release Jimmy Lai and all other Hong Kong pro-democracy advocates in prisons.
00:25:13.380There are a whole series more of whereas provisions.
00:25:15.860But then it says resolved that the Senate calls upon the president to prioritize securing the humanitarian release of Pastor Jin Mingri, Pastor Gao Quanfu and his wife, Pang Yu, Jimmy Lai, Dr. Gulshom Abbas and Ek Parasat and other wrongfully detained individuals on the agenda for engagements with President Xi Jinping, including the anticipated May 2026 summit.
00:25:43.940and urges the president to seek verifiable proof of life
00:25:49.080and access to independent legal counsel, family communication,
00:26:12.820With great success. President Trump is very effective at this.
00:26:16.360And that's the reason why I think it's going to be very interesting to see what comes out of this.
00:26:20.020Quickly, what is your definition of success of overall this big meeting with China?
00:26:25.560Look, it depends. There are a number of things that President Trump is trying to accomplish.
00:26:30.340One of the things he's trying to do is to get China to assist with Iran.
00:26:35.520And China is the main purchaser of Iranian oil.
00:26:38.820And so China could exert a lot of leverage over Iran.
00:26:41.860And the president is urging Xi to lean on Iran in particular, to hand over their enriched uranium, to stop enriching, to stop funding terrorism, and to open the Strait of Hormuz.
00:26:54.900Secondly, I think the president is also working to open the Chinese market.
00:26:59.980So, for example, it's been reported now that China agreed to buy 200 Boeing planes.
00:27:59.780turn someday into right now with body by jake radio non-stop workout music and expert tips 24 7
00:28:07.720hey head over to iheart.com search body by jake radio and stream it for free right now awesome
00:28:13.640health and wellness tips 24 hours a day seven days a week remember stick to the fight when
00:28:18.160your heart is hit it's when things seem worse that you must not quit don't quit body by jake
00:28:22.860radio where hope meets momentum search body by jake radio and stream it for free have a great day
00:28:28.840All right, Senator, this is a very interesting story.
00:28:35.700It deals with the New York Times, not saying you say every day, being sued by a foreign country and a lawsuit that I think many are going to be very excited when they hear exactly who's suing the New York Times and what it's all about.
00:28:50.220Well, let's start with the proposition that the New York Times is a garbage newspaper, that they are not, in fact.
00:28:56.540You need a second for that? I second that. Amen.
00:28:58.840Look, they are not journalists. They are not objectively reporting on facts. They are not trying to tell the truth. They are dishonest. They are propagandists. They are hard left. They are frequently pushing anti-American propaganda, left-wing propaganda. And in particular, the New York Times hates the state of Israel.
00:29:16.980So they are routinely, any way they can slander Israel, they're eager to do so.
00:29:22.340And that has been the case for many decades.
00:29:25.140That being said, they reached a new low with a column by Nicholas Kristof that was truly repulsive.
00:29:34.200And let me read to you how National Review reported on this issue.
00:29:37.760The Israeli government is suing the New York Times over columnist Nicholas Kristof's thinly sourced report accusing Israeli soldiers and prison guards of using rape and other forms of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners as part of an organized state policy.
00:29:54.820Christoph's column, which goes so far as to accuse Israeli soldiers of using trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners, cites a number of obviously conflicted organizations and individuals whose accounts are not backed by documentation or supporting eyewitnesses accounts.
00:30:17.620Now, understand this for a minute. Christoph wrote that the Israeli government uses dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners' men. Let's just start with a fairly obvious proposition. Dogs don't rape people. That's not something dogs do.
00:30:34.320That's not, like, even in the world of anti-Semitic Israel hate, making up stories that they've trained dogs to rape human beings, there is zero evidence of that.
00:30:49.180That is not something, and by the way, Christoph had no evidence of it.
00:30:52.940He just cites, well, here I'll read a little more.
00:30:55.800quote following the publication by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times of one of the
00:31:00.400most hideous and distorted lies ever published against the state of Israel in the modern press
00:31:04.860which also received the backing of the newspaper Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign
00:31:09.600Minister Gideon Sire have instructed the initiation of a defamation lawsuit against
00:31:15.320the New York Times so Israel is suing the New York Times for defamation the column cites 14
00:31:22.920individuals who claim to have been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted by Israeli settlers
00:31:28.480or members of the security forces, only a few of whom agree to be named. Of the name sources,
00:31:34.120several have changed their accounts over time, and at least one has a history of promoting Hamas
00:31:38.700terror. The column also relies heavily on claims made by human rights watchdogs such as Euromed
00:31:44.540Human Rights Monitor, a group with close ties to Hamas, and a history of gross and unsubstantiated
00:31:51.380claims against israel the times is standing by christoph saying in a wednesday evening statement
00:31:57.680that the column is based on quote on the record accounts and cites several analyses this is look
00:32:04.580the the slander and just the bias of the new york times that they don't report facts and i'll tell
00:32:11.520you christoph's column came out right before a detailed report came it came out of the sexual
00:32:19.900abuse by Hamas on October 7th and afterwards of the hostages they took. And I guarantee you,
00:32:27.620Kristoff and the New York Times, they knew this report was coming. And so this is exactly out of
00:32:33.880the Saul Alinsky playbook. This is exactly how leftists operate. What it is, what they are doing,
00:32:41.100they accuse others of doing. In this instance, Hamas used rape at a massive level. Now, mind you,
00:32:48.360And it was pre-planned and well-organized, to be clear.
00:33:47.240And that would, of course, be wrong and stop calling me Shirley.
00:33:52.080Let me give you an amazing fact about Nicholas Kristof.
00:33:55.740Okay, this is from a story in the Free Beacon.
00:33:57.720Headline, Times columnist Kristof's father fought on Nazi side in World War II.
00:34:06.040Hamas prison rape dog propagandist dad also defended Vichy war criminal,
00:34:11.040then committed suicide after decades of nightmares.
00:34:14.720Now, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, whose article accusing Israel of using dogs and carrots to rape Palestinian prisoners, is being denounced by the Israeli foreign minister as a Hamas propaganda fabricated in a baseless blood libel, had a father who served on the Nazi side during World War II.
00:34:33.780In Kristof's 2024 memoir, Chasing Hope, he writes,
00:34:37.920When I was growing up and other kids talked about their dads heroically battling the Nazis, I kept quiet.
00:34:44.760I didn't want to admit that my father had actually fought for a year on the same side of the Nazis.
00:34:51.560Christophe's father also wrote a letter to the editor of the Times in 1989 defending Paul Toubier,
00:34:57.860the intelligence chief of a pro-Nazi militia in Vichy, France, who was convicted of killing seven Jewish hostages.
00:35:06.700Now, look, I got to say, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,
00:35:11.700but it is still a little amazing to have someone who fought alongside the Nazis
00:35:17.260have his son now spreading Hamas propaganda, attacking Israel.
00:35:23.800And I guess the question you would ask is, is there anyone responsible at the New York Times?
00:35:30.300The fact that you have the state of Israel suing them for defamation.
00:35:34.380So one of the things Israel is going to get in this litigation is they're going to get the emails and discussions of, hey, is there any fact checking?
00:35:42.920Is there any basis for these extraordinary and ridiculous and absurd claims?
00:35:49.940And I think it is likely that you're going to see that the editors didn't care if there was any basis.
00:35:56.200This is the political story they wanted to tell because they knew that the damning report of Hamas's use of rape was coming out.
00:36:06.480And so they decided, let's put it all on Israel and blame Israel.
00:36:10.500It is it's disgraceful. But but sadly, it is not very uncommon for The New York Times.
00:36:16.640No, it's not. And by the way, go grab that free briefing article. You can read all about it.
00:36:20.200It's Hamas propaganda. New York Times writer Christoph's sexual violence column caps a career of corrections.
00:36:26.200retractions and apologies going back 25 years it's a great read don't forget we do this show
00:36:32.020monday wednesday friday hit that subscriber auto download button download verdict with ted cruz
00:36:36.520wherever you get your podcast and the senator and i will see you back here next week on this
00:36:41.040radio station and on the podcast all week long turn someday into right now with buddy by jake
00:36:47.720radio non-stop workout music and expert tips 24 7 hey head over to iheart.com search body by jake
00:36:53.920radio and stream it for free right now awesome health and wellness tips 24 hours a day seven
00:36:59.440days a week remember stick to the fight when your heart is hit it's when things seem worse
00:37:03.140that you must not quit don't quit body by jake radio where hope meets momentum search body by
00:37:09.360jake radio and stream it for free have a great day