Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 27, 2022


Defining A Recession


Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

170.74763

Word count

6,534

Sentence count

484

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Toxicity

16

sentences flagged

Hate speech

8

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The White House refuses to admit that the economy is in a recession because they don't even know what a recession is. Is it a recession, or is it not a recession? What is a recession and what does it mean?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.500 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.380 We seem to be redefining everything these days.
00:00:07.260 People just don't know what words mean.
00:00:10.300 We don't know what a baby is.
00:00:12.600 We certainly don't know what a woman is. 1.00
00:00:15.720 And now we don't even know what a recession is.
00:00:19.820 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:21.140 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is sponsored by American Hartford Gold.
00:00:32.240 If you're like me, then you are growing more and more concerned about the state of our country and about your own future.
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00:02:04.180 Welcome back to Verdicts with Ted Cruz.
00:02:05.880 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:02:07.640 I was watching the White House today.
00:02:09.960 The director of the National Economic Council made the claim in anticipation of Thursday's economic numbers, which will show a recession, two consecutive quarters of economic falling down, GDP going down, that we are not in a recession because that is not the definition of a recession.
00:02:34.100 Senator, I am no economist.
00:02:37.240 I have not studied these things in a very long time.
00:02:39.940 But last time I checked, that is literally the definition of a recession.
00:02:45.380 Am I wrong?
00:02:46.200 You're not wrong.
00:02:47.300 That is the textbook definition of a recession.
00:02:50.040 And this White House believes that if they redefine words, so instead of a recession, instead of the economy going to crap, if they define it as Joe Biden's happy-go-lucky time with things going great, that their compliant lapdogs in the corporate media will echo that message and say,
00:03:08.500 the economy is booming, the economy is booming, a recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of GDP growth going down.
00:03:16.980 That's what it means.
00:03:18.580 They really don't want the headline that we're in a recession going into the election because they recognize the voters are going to pound the heck out of Democrats and throw them out of office for putting us into a recession.
00:03:29.900 So the level of, I mean, this is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
00:03:35.120 These are not the droids we're looking for. 0.68
00:03:37.380 This is George Orwell, two plus two equals five.
00:03:40.400 They just say, this is not a recession.
00:03:42.740 Why?
00:03:43.060 Because we say it's not a recession.
00:03:44.460 Never mind.
00:03:45.360 Words have no meaning.
00:03:46.920 Ignore them.
00:03:48.180 Everything's great.
00:03:49.720 It wasn't just the director of the National Economic Council.
00:03:52.800 It was also then Corinne Jean-Pierre, the president's spokesman, the press secretary at the White House, who simply refused to answer the question.
00:04:00.640 She was asked by a reporter, if you're not going to use the traditional definition of a recession because you don't want to admit that you've brought us into one, then how do you all define recession?
00:04:12.580 She wouldn't even give an alternative explanation.
00:04:15.080 Well, their answer is they define recession as anything that happens under a Republican president, and they define great economic success as anything that happens under a Democrat.
00:04:26.060 And it's just, it's propaganda, like substance, truth, facts have nothing to do with it.
00:04:32.560 And so actually this week I'm introducing a resolution in the Senate, and the resolution is very simple.
00:04:38.160 I'm going to read you the entirety of it because it's only just over a page.
00:04:41.660 Resolution, expressing the sense of the Senate that the historic definition of a recession is two negative quarters of gross domestic product growth, whereas globally the most commonly used and widely accepted definition of recession is two negative quarters of gross domestic product growth, whereas most of the recessions in the United States identified by the National Bureau of Economic Research have consisted of two negative quarters of gross domestic product growth.
00:05:09.640 And in each of the last 10 instances in which there have been two or more such quarters, a recession was officially declared 10 times in a row.
00:05:19.160 Whereas the use of the historic definition of a recession by the federal government has been important for purposes of economic study and analysis, historical comparisons, and policymaking.
00:05:32.220 Now, therefore, be it resolved that it is the sense of the Senate that the federal government should continue to use the historic definition of a recession.
00:05:43.720 These guys are trying to define us out of a recession.
00:05:48.240 We are, I think, it's extremely likely we're about to enter a recession, and they're trying to play word games to get out of that problem.
00:05:56.340 So, what is the motivation here for them, other than they don't want to admit that their economic policies are no good?
00:06:02.980 But presumably that's been true of other administrations in the past, and yet this is the first administration we've seen that actually is denying the definition of the word recession.
00:06:13.940 And it's not as though this is the first time we've seen the left use the redefinition of words to try to change the culture.
00:06:19.920 Just last week, we were all arguing over the definition of marriage.
00:06:24.060 Before that, we were arguing over the definition of what a woman is. 1.00
00:06:27.940 Before that, we've been arguing over these politically correct changes to language for a very long time.
00:06:34.340 So, does this tactic from seemingly everybody at the White House speak to a larger, deeper problem that's particular to our moment in time?
00:06:45.840 Well, there's a cynicism.
00:06:47.640 So, Democrats believe that they can, it's propaganda.
00:06:51.620 You ask what's their motivation, it's propaganda.
00:06:54.380 But the propaganda only works because the corporate media is compliant.
00:06:57.920 So, the corporate media will echo whatever absurd lies they say.
00:07:03.440 And it is designed to obscure the truth from the American people.
00:07:07.440 Look, I'll show you a couple of charts that are pretty compelling.
00:07:09.780 This chart, this is the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index.
00:07:17.340 And so, it goes back all the way to 1978.
00:07:20.520 You can see it's been down and up.
00:07:22.400 It went up, up, up, up.
00:07:24.480 You look that it went up here.
00:07:27.260 All right.
00:07:28.720 Here's 2020.
00:07:31.240 It is up around 100.
00:07:33.520 And here's what the Consumer Sentiment Index does.
00:07:35.780 It plummets.
00:07:36.520 It goes straight down with, like, the vertical descent of a cliff down to, what is this, 50?
00:07:45.980 So, it went from 100 to 50.
00:07:48.440 That is an ominous chart in terms of recession, consumer sentiment.
00:07:53.080 I'll give you another chart that is really quite similar.
00:07:55.840 So, this is the NFIB, National Federation of Small Business Outlook for General Business Conditions.
00:08:02.360 So, they ask small businesses, what do you think business conditions are?
00:08:07.240 And you can see going back to 74, it's gone up, down, up, down.
00:08:10.900 It's been all over the place.
00:08:12.460 But here, in 2020, it was up here.
00:08:15.960 What was it at?
00:08:17.180 It was up at 40.
00:08:18.360 And then, at the same exact, like, precipitous plummet, it is down now at negative 60.
00:08:28.020 That ain't good.
00:08:29.880 That means small businesses think the economy's in the crapper.
00:08:34.320 That means consumers think the economy's in the crapper.
00:08:38.440 And so, the Biden politicos are saying, well, let's just define it.
00:08:43.080 We don't want every headline in every newspaper in America to say the economy's in a recession.
00:08:49.260 Because people think that's bad.
00:08:51.720 So, let's just magically claim recession no longer means what you think it means.
00:08:57.300 It means, well, we don't know what it means.
00:08:58.860 But it means anything other than what's happening right now.
00:09:01.320 Because we really don't want the headline that this is a recession.
00:09:05.060 Do you think this is fooling anybody?
00:09:07.500 Because I'm still trying to wrap my head around how the Biden administration thinks that this is a workable solution in the long term.
00:09:15.880 If we could all just deny our failures by changing the meaning of words, I'm sure we would all be tempted to do it. 0.69
00:09:21.620 But the problem with that is people aren't stupid. 0.91
00:09:25.180 Most people aren't stupid most of the time. 0.99
00:09:27.600 And so, you point out that the establishment media are carrying water for the White House. 0.98
00:09:32.120 Of course, they are.
00:09:33.400 But is that fooling anybody?
00:09:35.320 You've got cynicism from the Biden administration, cynicism and loyalty to the Democrats from the media.
00:09:42.660 But your small business owner, your regular old employee, your person on the street who realizes that his dollar is not going as far as it used to,
00:09:52.580 we're headed into a midterm election in November.
00:09:56.460 Are any of these people going to buy it no matter what definition the White House uses?
00:10:00.300 So, unfortunately, I think they will succeed in fooling some people because there are some people who are not necessarily paying all that close attention and who literally, given two worlds, one world in which every newspaper in America has the banner headline, America in a recession, and one world in which they don't have the headline, America in a recession.
00:10:21.040 There's going to be a chunk, there's going to be a chunk, and it's millions of people who won't realize America's in a recession.
00:10:27.140 Like, that actually, I think, will be somewhat successful political propaganda.
00:10:33.040 Why?
00:10:33.400 Because the media, the corporate media, is dishonest.
00:10:35.880 If you didn't have a dishonest corporate media, it wouldn't work.
00:10:38.600 They'd laugh at them and call them out. 0.98
00:10:40.120 But there are enough just absolute prostitutes in the media who will lie and lie eagerly and happily and lay back and think of England. 0.99
00:10:52.420 That is who they are. 0.99
00:10:54.660 That is what they do.
00:10:56.860 And so, I do think it will have some effect.
00:10:59.360 But at the same time, I think what is consequential for economic data is people feel in their lives.
00:11:08.300 So, inflation, you can have all the inflation numbers you want.
00:11:13.360 But when you go and fill up your truck and it's 150 bucks, you don't need a chart to know that.
00:11:20.520 When it's 100 bucks to fill up a minivan, you don't need a chart to know that.
00:11:24.240 When you go to the grocery store and the cost of everything has gone up 10, 20, 30, 40 percent, you don't need a chart to know that.
00:11:31.280 You're looking at the numbers going, wait a second, I can't afford the stuff I could afford last week.
00:11:36.720 They're people that are making hard choices between what am I going to spend?
00:11:40.660 If you're on a fixed income and the prices of everything have gone up, you're seeing it firsthand.
00:11:46.940 The two charts I showed, small businesses, the fact that their confidence has plummeted, they're seeing it.
00:11:53.440 Consumers, their confidence has plummeted.
00:11:55.720 So, even though they won't have the headlines, they're seeing it every day in the economy.
00:12:00.800 And I'm reminded of one of the classic things Reagan said.
00:12:03.460 He said, a recession is when your neighbor loses his job.
00:12:09.240 A depression is when you lose your job.
00:12:13.420 And a recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job.
00:12:18.940 I think that was a beautiful and brilliant point.
00:12:22.460 And I think that is playing out right here today.
00:12:25.020 If you're losing your job, if you're paying more at the gas pump, if you're paying more at the grocery store, if you're feeling the pain of the economic disaster that is the Biden administration, whether or not you read a headline that says we're in a recession, you know it ain't good.
00:12:41.540 And it's even more insidious than all of those inflation numbers that we're seeing because of something that we mentioned on this show several episodes back, but you're now seeing the fruit of it because of shrinkflation, which is the other side of it.
00:12:55.820 So, prices are going up.
00:12:57.060 Isn't that what George Costanza talked about when he got in a cold pool?
00:13:00.700 You think?
00:13:01.760 A related concept, but a little bit different.
00:13:04.840 So, the other night, sweet little Lisa and I were going to have fondue with our friends.
00:13:10.840 I don't know.
00:13:11.500 We felt like we were living in the 1970s or something.
00:13:13.820 I went out to go buy cheese.
00:13:15.500 I had to buy 24 ounces of cheese.
00:13:17.420 I pick up the various blocks of cheese, and I noticed something a little weird.
00:13:21.720 The amount of cheese in the block had gone down.
00:13:26.000 I looked at the one block of cheese I bought.
00:13:27.740 It was 5.9 ounces.
00:13:30.500 Why was it 5?
00:13:31.140 No recipe ever in the history of cheese has called for 5.9 ounces of cheese.
00:13:37.500 Clearly, what the companies had done is shrunken the amount that they were giving you, and they were either maintaining the price or the price was going up.
00:13:44.920 There's a new report out of the Daily Mail analyzing a number of major brands to show that major cereal companies are reducing the amount of cereal in the box only by two and a half, three ounces.
00:13:56.060 But that can be a 17% reduction in the amount of cereal in the box because there just isn't that much cereal in a box to begin with.
00:14:03.240 Gatorade reducing to an unnoticeable until you really start to look for it degree the amount of Gatorade in the bottle.
00:14:12.020 You're seeing this with toilet tissue.
00:14:13.560 You're seeing this with paper towels.
00:14:15.040 You're seeing this with canned coffee.
00:14:16.760 You're seeing this across the economy.
00:14:18.720 So the actual inflation that we are all experiencing is even worse just than the number going up a little bit at the checkout line when you're in the grocery store.
00:14:29.140 So I think you're beginning to see this reality reflected in Joe Biden's polls.
00:14:34.440 Biden now, the majority of Democrats, don't want him to run again for re-election.
00:14:38.440 There was a poll out of New Hampshire where Pete Buttigieg actually did better among prospective Democrat voters than Joe Biden did.
00:14:46.640 And by the way, speaking of insidious problems, you've got this problem now of mass migration, which is even starting to bother the Democrats in New York.
00:14:55.220 New York Democrat Mayor Eric Adams just claimed that the illegal immigrants were being bused from your state, Senator, up to New York,
00:15:03.440 are creating a huge burden on New Yorkers, which is kind of ironic because the New York Democrats always tout how wonderful illegal immigration is and how it's our great strength.
00:15:13.480 Well, if it's a great strength for Texas and Arizona, why is it all of a sudden a burden when you Democrats have to deal with the problem in your state?
00:15:21.800 I know you were just down there touring the border yourself, seeing it firsthand.
00:15:25.180 So I was, let me say, the point you just made a minute ago I think is important, which is the last week we saw the mayor of New York City and the mayor of Washington, D.C., Eric Adams and Muriel Bowser,
00:15:37.600 both publicly complained about the enormous burden illegal immigration is putting on D.C. and New York City.
00:15:43.580 Now, for blue state, blue city Democrats to be whining about illegal immigration is rich with hypocrisy at a level that is, if they think it's bad, what do you think South Texas is experiencing?
00:15:56.920 What do you think Laredo and McAllen and Eagle Pass and Del Rio are experiencing?
00:16:01.060 And by the way, if they want to solve it, you know, both of them are enthusiastic supporters of Joe Biden and all the Democrats.
00:16:08.740 It's the Democrats who have caused this.
00:16:10.680 So you mentioned I just got back from the border.
00:16:13.200 So two weeks ago, I took a trip to the southern border.
00:16:16.100 I brought seven senators with me.
00:16:18.600 I've been to the border a lot.
00:16:20.560 In the 10 years I've been in the Senate, I've gone dozens of times down to the border.
00:16:25.580 It is the worst right now that I have ever seen.
00:16:28.640 We got down there Thursday night.
00:16:30.740 First thing we did is we went out on midnight patrol with the border patrol.
00:16:34.400 Now, you go out on a midnight patrol, you might think, okay, you're going to go hunt for illegal aliens and see if you can find them.
00:16:39.160 You don't hunt for them.
00:16:40.680 But within minutes, you encounter them.
00:16:42.960 You just go down to the border and you find them.
00:16:45.180 And we were there three, four minutes.
00:16:47.740 First group we saw was three teenagers, two girls and a boy.
00:16:52.480 They all said they were 16 or 17 years old.
00:16:55.080 And I don't know if they're 16 or 17, because if they're if they say they're under 18, they definitely stay.
00:17:00.240 If they're 18, there's a chance the law might be enforced against them.
00:17:03.760 So every one of them claims to be under 18.
00:17:07.080 The second group was a group of women and children. 0.67
00:17:10.120 It was about a dozen people.
00:17:13.040 In that group were two seven-year-old girls.
00:17:16.960 We talked to them.
00:17:17.580 Both of the seven-year-old girls were unaccompanied minors.
00:17:22.200 So they didn't have a parent with them.
00:17:23.740 They didn't have a family member with them.
00:17:25.920 They weren't sisters.
00:17:26.960 They weren't related to each other.
00:17:28.140 So both of them were seven-year-old girls that their families had handed over to criminal drug cartels.
00:17:33.800 They were with strangers in this group.
00:17:37.800 I got to say, as the father of daughters, I cannot imagine handing us your seven-year-old daughter over to drug cartels.
00:17:45.080 The Border Patrol, we were down on the border.
00:17:48.140 They pointed us to a patch of grass that was a couple hundred yards away from where we were.
00:17:53.520 They said a couple of weeks earlier, they had found two little girls, age five and six.
00:17:59.500 Both of whom had been violently raped by the Coyotes.
00:18:05.840 And the Border Patrol had to perform emergency medical care on these little girls that had been badly violated. 0.79
00:18:12.480 The thing that is infuriating is this is happening literally every hour of every day.
00:18:19.580 This was within five or ten minutes of being down on the border.
00:18:22.820 And then we encountered another group and another group and another group.
00:18:25.000 It's a constant stream of humanity, of people being brutalized, people being abused, people being assaulted, people being sexually assaulted.
00:18:35.160 The Democrats pitched their open border policies as humane and compassionate.
00:18:40.760 It's not humane.
00:18:42.220 It's not compassionate.
00:18:44.000 It is horrific and indefensible.
00:18:47.720 Do you think there is any hope of anything being done about it before we get a Republican in the White House?
00:18:53.960 Ordinarily, I would say, no, there's no hope the Democrats want this to keep going because they think it gives them a political benefit.
00:19:01.140 But when you see New York, when you see D.C., when you see liberal mayors complaining about this because red states, finally, Greg Abbott down in Texas, are shipping some of the illegal aliens up to those blue places so they can deal with it.
00:19:17.300 Do you think there is any chance that that pressure from the Dems will encourage the Biden administration to, in any way, start enforcing the law?
00:19:27.320 So I do think there's hope.
00:19:29.260 And let me flesh out because it's important to understand how completely indefensible it is what's going on down in the southern border.
00:19:37.980 Nobody who's there is defending it.
00:19:39.500 Like if you see it, we met with landowners, with ranchers and farmers.
00:19:44.200 They showed us photograph after photograph of dead bodies they find on the ranches.
00:19:48.660 They find pregnant women that the coyotes had abandoned in the hot desert. 0.84
00:19:52.300 They find elderly people, they find children just over and over again who die because these human traffickers, they are vicious, inhumane criminals.
00:20:05.700 They do not care about the people they're trafficking in.
00:20:09.200 As you know, a few weeks ago, we had a tractor trailer just outside of San Antonio.
00:20:13.520 Fifty-three people died in that tractor trailer.
00:20:16.520 They died of heat exposure.
00:20:17.780 They were basically cooked in an oven.
00:20:20.700 That included children as young as 13 years old.
00:20:23.480 You want to talk about mass murders?
00:20:25.060 Fifty-three people killed.
00:20:28.340 Last year, we had over 100,000 drug overdoses from fentanyl.
00:20:34.460 The Biden body bags keep piling up because these are the human cost and tragedy.
00:20:42.160 And, you know, there's a reason Joe Biden has not been to the border once.
00:20:44.920 There's a reason Kamala Harris, who's ostensibly the border czar for Biden, has not been to the Rio Grande Valley once.
00:20:52.440 Because if they came, the TV cameras would follow.
00:20:56.640 And you cannot defend what's happening.
00:21:00.460 Their only hope, and it actually goes back to the recession.
00:21:03.580 It's the point we were making before about redefining recession.
00:21:06.840 They're counting on the corrupt corporate media lying and just ignoring it.
00:21:11.660 So if you watch CNN, if you're one of the six people on planet Earth who watches CNN,
00:21:17.960 you have no idea there's a border crisis because they don't cover it.
00:21:22.700 CNN had, you know, I watched the other day, I got a haircut in the barbershop.
00:21:26.240 They were playing CNN, which I was kind of irritated about.
00:21:29.580 But I watched for 30 minutes.
00:21:31.100 They talked about how it's really hot.
00:21:32.880 It's hot in New York City.
00:21:34.060 And people are going out and they're dancing in fountains because it's really hot.
00:21:37.080 And I'm like, OK, fine.
00:21:38.400 I get it.
00:21:38.840 It's summertime.
00:21:39.420 It's hot.
00:21:40.880 But could you possibly cover the humanitarian crisis that is unfolding on our southern border?
00:21:50.080 So, Michael, I stood at midnight on the northern bank of the Rio Grande.
00:21:55.980 And on the ground, you saw hundreds of colored wristbands.
00:22:01.660 The wristbands are worn by the illegal immigrants. 0.97
00:22:04.580 So every illegal immigrant who comes to America must pay the Mexican drug cartels. 0.99
00:22:10.820 They pay them anywhere, typically from $3,000 to $12,000.
00:22:15.700 Some of the immigrants from China in particular pay as much as $50,000 to $70,000.
00:22:21.680 The only way you cross is to pay a cartel.
00:22:24.680 If you try to cross on your own, if you get on a raft and swim, the cartels will kill you.
00:22:29.460 Like, there is 100% operational control on the southern border, on the south, from the cartels.
00:22:37.280 So when people cross the armbands they're wearing, the color corresponds to how many thousands of dollars they owe the cartels.
00:22:45.400 So depending on how many thousands of dollars they owe, because many of these people don't have $3,000, $4,000, $5,000, $10,000, $12,000.
00:22:51.400 So they come in and they're in hock, $5,000, $6,000, $7,000.
00:22:57.140 So what happens when they get here?
00:22:59.680 The Border Patrol doesn't catch them.
00:23:02.560 It's not a chase.
00:23:03.920 It's not an apprehension.
00:23:05.240 They come and affirmatively look for the Border Patrol.
00:23:08.260 They come and turn themselves in.
00:23:09.900 The Biden administration has actually put arrows, like, from the riverbank up to where the Border Patrol is to guide the people.
00:23:17.640 It's just a steady stream of people.
00:23:19.300 They come carrying a plastic baggie.
00:23:22.880 Within the baggie, they have typically a card with a name of somebody in the United States, a phone number, and an address.
00:23:30.220 And Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the last mile of the human trafficking network. 0.93
00:23:34.700 Now, you might think, if you don't live in Texas or Arizona, you don't live in a border state, you might think, well, this is bad, but it's not my problem.
00:23:44.440 Well, you know what?
00:23:45.020 You do live in a border state.
00:23:47.080 Michael, you live in Nashville.
00:23:48.360 You live in Nashville.
00:23:49.300 Nashville is not on our southern border.
00:23:52.460 Every city in America, Joe Biden is flying illegal immigrants to those cities.
00:23:57.520 So you have them in Nashville.
00:23:59.380 And the teenage boys arrive, and most of them owe the cartel still thousands of dollars.
00:24:04.600 They have to pay it back because if they don't pay it back, the cartels will murder their families.
00:24:09.500 And so in Nashville, Tennessee, you have teenage boys who are illegal immigrants who are paying back the thousands of dollars they owe the cartels by working for Mexican drug cartels. 0.86
00:24:21.520 So you have criminals who are being – and these are involuntary criminals.
00:24:25.740 They came seeking freedom, but now they're in hock to a drug cartel, so they got to work off their debt.
00:24:30.600 And I got to tell you, as bad as it is for the boys, the girls have it much, much worse.
00:24:38.180 The girls – there are thousands upon thousands of teenage girls who end up getting trapped in sex slavery where they owe thousands of dollars to the cartels. 1.00
00:24:49.300 Cartels said, great, we'll help you pay it off. 0.97
00:24:52.380 We'll put you in a brothel. 1.00
00:24:53.720 And the brothels are run like modern-day plantations. 0.99
00:24:57.820 So they keep a ledger, and they charge the girls in the brothels for everything. 0.96
00:25:02.420 They charge them for food, for room, for board.
00:25:04.540 They charge them for air conditioning.
00:25:06.060 They charge them for their sheets.
00:25:07.540 They charge them – I'm told the going rate to cut off an ankle bracelet, if you had an ankle monitoring bracelet, is $30.
00:25:13.800 So they keep a ledger, and it's like the old plantations where the debt keeps piling up.
00:25:18.160 And then they work in the brothel to try to pay the debt off, and they're trapped.
00:25:22.960 And if you think for a minute, let's say you're a Honduran 15-year-old girl, and you look north, and you dream of freedom.
00:25:31.120 You want to be in America.
00:25:32.360 You want to be free. 0.99
00:25:34.140 And six months later, you're trapped in sex slavery, in hell.
00:25:41.140 That's why Biden and the Democrats don't want to defend this.
00:25:44.260 Because when you talk about those facts, look, those colored wristbands are like the leg irons of modern-day slavery. 0.87
00:25:54.020 This is the slave trade. 0.92
00:25:56.160 These cartels are slave traders, and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are facilitating today's narco slavery.
00:26:05.500 It is horrific.
00:26:06.880 It is evil.
00:26:07.840 It is wrong.
00:26:09.580 And your question is, can we do anything about it?
00:26:13.800 Here's one thing we can do about it.
00:26:15.880 Win in November.
00:26:16.920 Win a huge margin in November.
00:26:18.440 I think we're going to turn South Texas red because the people in South Texas are seeing this, and they're horrified.
00:26:23.500 And then I think one of the very first priorities of the new Republican Congress should be to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, who is the Secretary of Homeland Security.
00:26:35.400 He is responsible for this debacle.
00:26:38.300 I recently saw a video of him at the Aspen Security Conference where he was asked, is the border secure?
00:26:45.580 And like the whole crowd of leftists sipping Chardonnay, they all laughed.
00:26:50.200 Oh, that's so funny.
00:26:51.320 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:26:52.600 You know, I'm sorry. 1.00
00:26:53.600 I don't think little girls being raped on our southern border is funny, you jackasses. 1.00
00:26:59.340 Like, it is infuriating to watch these liberals laugh. 1.00
00:27:03.380 And he says the border is secure.
00:27:05.180 It's a flat-out lie.
00:27:06.520 The reason I believe the House should impeach Mayorkas early next year is the Senate should conduct an impeachment trial.
00:27:17.280 And it should be a detailed, extensive impeachment trial.
00:27:21.880 We need to put the evidence of the horrors of the southern border before the American people because the corporate media doesn't want people to know.
00:27:29.820 And I think we have a responsibility.
00:27:31.860 Now, look, do I think Senate Democrats are going to vote to convict? 0.98
00:27:34.360 No, I think they're political cowards.
00:27:39.100 But I think laying out the facts before the American people in a trial early next year is incredibly important.
00:27:48.160 Do you think that the House can do it?
00:27:50.980 Politically, I suppose they can do it if they get the numbers.
00:27:54.640 But does what Mayorkas has done or failed to do meet the legal threshold to impeach him?
00:28:01.540 Well, I think not only can they do it, I think they will do it.
00:28:06.280 And it's – listen, I've been – when I was on this border trip, I publicly called in the House to impeach Mayorkas. 1.00
00:28:12.880 I think the momentum is growing for that.
00:28:15.040 I think the pressure will be there.
00:28:16.700 I will be surprised if they don't impeach Mayorkas. 1.00
00:28:19.480 They may well impeach Biden as well, and we've talked about that before on the podcast.
00:28:23.120 But Mayorkas is as close to a no-brainer. 0.56
00:28:27.260 He'll be the first, and he'll be the first because it is such an abject dereliction of duty.
00:28:34.740 It is a refusal to follow the law.
00:28:37.440 It is a refusal – it is an open scoffing at the national security of the United States.
00:28:43.120 It is endangering Americans.
00:28:44.720 I think the House will impeach him, and I think the trial, I hope, will be an incredibly important – even as corrupt as the media is, I think that the impeachment trial will be very difficult for the media to ignore.
00:28:59.560 I know a great impeachment trial podcast that can just relocate to D.C. for it.
00:29:03.880 I think it will be a lot of fun.
00:29:04.960 And speaking of this red wave that a lot of people are anticipating, Senator, I have to confess I've had a little bit of FOMO the past week because I was very excited.
00:29:17.000 I was invited to go to the Young America's Foundation conference, their big annual conference, and I was invited to go to the TPUSA annual conference.
00:29:24.840 And these are two really big, really exciting gatherings of young conservatives, and I go pretty much every year.
00:29:31.040 Certainly every year I can go.
00:29:32.440 And this year I've been waiting on another young American, my own second son, young American, who has not – as of recording this, has not yet come out of Mama Noel's.
00:29:43.220 So we're just waiting here.
00:29:44.940 You, however, got to go to both of those conferences and a whole bunch of other places as well.
00:29:51.280 Well, that's right.
00:29:52.300 And let me say, first of all, I'm really excited to welcome the youngest American, and the instant he is born, he will be the youngest American alive.
00:30:00.900 Now, someone will pass him very shortly thereafter, but there will be a brief instant where your son is the youngest American on the entire planet.
00:30:08.360 So that's really cool.
00:30:11.680 And I am praying that he gets his mother's good looks.
00:30:17.040 Yes.
00:30:17.660 Luckily, our first child did.
00:30:20.580 So we're hoping number two lucks out as well.
00:30:24.120 Otherwise, he's going to have to, I don't know, become a conservative podcast host someday.
00:30:28.040 Hey, that's a booming career.
00:30:31.660 So, you know, he can aspire to be a conservative podcaster.
00:30:35.940 I will say it's interesting.
00:30:37.800 So you and I are in a very, very small and select group that go each year to both Turning Point USA and the Young Americans Foundation.
00:30:48.580 Now, they're both fantastic groups.
00:30:50.220 I think the world of both of them.
00:30:52.180 They both focus on young people and college kids, but they get a different crowd.
00:30:57.080 The Turning Point crew is rowdier.
00:31:00.220 They're a little raunchier.
00:31:01.900 They're a fun crowd.
00:31:03.880 The YAF crowd is probably a more cerebral and academic crowd.
00:31:11.280 They're a little more buttoned up.
00:31:13.140 More bow ties.
00:31:14.100 You get more bow ties at YAF.
00:31:15.400 But they're both awesome.
00:31:17.040 And I got to say, almost nobody goes to both.
00:31:20.340 They tend to have, like, if you look at the speaker list, YAF has one group, Turning Point has another, and there's almost zero overlap.
00:31:27.420 And you and I are in the incredibly small intersection of the Venn diagram that is at both.
00:31:34.020 And I've done both of them in the last few days.
00:31:36.460 And I got to say, the energy and enthusiasm, I think there are a bunch of young people.
00:31:43.140 By the way, thousands of the people at both conferences are subscribers to Verdict, and a bunch of them are new subscribers.
00:31:50.760 So let me say welcome to the Turning Point, new subscribers.
00:31:53.680 Welcome to the YAF, new subscribers.
00:31:55.460 But it is encouraging to see young people who love liberty and are fed up with the insanity we're seeing.
00:32:05.520 And I think that is a really, really good sign.
00:32:08.580 It is.
00:32:08.980 And you've been traveling to other places as well.
00:32:11.440 Last I checked, every time, you know, we text or we do a podcast, you seem to be in a new place.
00:32:17.260 Because obviously, the midterm elections are coming up.
00:32:20.380 You're going around.
00:32:21.180 You're helping some other conservative candidates, rallying the troops.
00:32:25.360 And I think what's especially helpful, at least from my understanding of things, is getting a sense of where the American people are at right now heading into November.
00:32:34.780 So to give you a sense, the last week or so, I've been in Texas, D.C., Georgia, Florida, Missouri, Texas, D.C.
00:32:48.080 And that's in, I guess, nine days.
00:32:50.140 It has been a lot of time and a lot of airplanes.
00:32:56.400 But between now and Election Day, I'm going to be on the road nonstop.
00:33:00.040 I'm going to spend most of August, most of October on the road campaigning for Senate candidates, for House candidates.
00:33:06.820 We have an historic opportunity.
00:33:08.860 And, you know, I'm not on the ballot this year, which is a nice thing about a six-year Senate term.
00:33:14.280 So I don't have to worry about my reelection this year.
00:33:16.960 So I'm devoting all my time to helping other people, to going and doing rallies for other candidates.
00:33:22.060 And so in Georgia, I spoke at a gathering of Alliance Defending Freedom, which does incredible work, defending religious liberty.
00:33:30.680 It's a group I've long supported in Florida.
00:33:32.820 I was a turning point.
00:33:33.820 I was supposed to go to the ADF conference as well.
00:33:37.640 You're just giving me even more FOMO.
00:33:39.620 I forgot I was supposed to go to that one and baby shut that one down too. 1.00
00:33:43.060 Senator, you're having all the fun this summer.
00:33:44.940 It was phenomenal.
00:33:47.600 And, but, you know, every one of the gatherings was the worst off because we were Knolls-free, which is a terrible condition to be in.
00:33:57.480 Naturally, naturally.
00:33:58.760 But then all of these other places, Missouri, all around the country.
00:34:01.920 And so I hope and I take it that these visits are making you feel more encouraged about November.
00:34:09.460 So Missouri, I was campaigning for Eric Schmidt.
00:34:11.960 Eric Schmidt is running for senator in Missouri.
00:34:15.500 He is the sitting attorney general.
00:34:17.220 Eric is a friend.
00:34:18.040 He's a strong conservative.
00:34:19.340 I think he's by far the best candidate in the race.
00:34:22.040 So I did three rallies.
00:34:23.280 Started off in the St. Louis area, then went to Kansas City, then ended in Springfield.
00:34:27.340 So did a morning rally, an afternoon rally, an evening rally.
00:34:30.400 And by the way, Eric decided to work me.
00:34:32.860 So I did three fundraisers in addition to three rallies.
00:34:35.480 So raised him a bunch of money and did big rallies, had huge crowds.
00:34:39.940 And I got to say, I think Eric's going to win.
00:34:41.960 The election is next week.
00:34:44.560 He is leading the primary.
00:34:46.760 I think we're seeing conservatives uniting behind his campaign.
00:34:49.300 And I think if and when Eric wins, I think he will basically take Missouri off the game board that I don't even think the Democrats will contest Missouri because he's a strong enough candidate, but that they don't think they can beat him.
00:35:03.440 And so it was in Springfield.
00:35:07.100 I also campaigned for Eric Burleson, who's running for the House, who's a strong conservative, was a great guy.
00:35:12.360 He was at the rally as well.
00:35:14.620 So I will say it was a little complicated to do a rally for Eric Schmidt and Eric Burleson.
00:35:18.860 And you had to be like Eric one and Eric two.
00:35:20.660 That was mildly complicated, but I was encouraged.
00:35:26.160 The energy, every single rally we did was standing room only, like packed houses and people energized.
00:35:33.440 And I think I've said more than once, I want to nominate Joseph Robinette Biden to be Republican of the year because he will have elected more Republicans than any human being who's ever lived.
00:35:47.540 Will someone get him a trophy?
00:35:50.500 You're actually, I can't believe this is, every time you mention one of these things, I'm reminded I also was supposed to go out to Eric Burleson's event, who is, he's a great guy.
00:35:58.940 But, you know, it's going to be okay, even though I missed all of the fun, extremely enthusiastic conservative events this summer.
00:36:06.980 We will have some very fun live events coming up this fall.
00:36:11.500 You mentioned YAF.
00:36:13.080 We have gone on the road with YAF, the Verdict Live Tour before.
00:36:16.960 We're planning to do it again this fall.
00:36:19.540 We're going to have some more information about that coming up.
00:36:22.240 But that's always fun because we love talking to the conservative students.
00:36:26.880 In some ways, you get even more of a kick out of talking to the wild left-wing students.
00:36:32.340 And we plan to be doing all of that come the fall, especially as we look ahead to the midterm elections.
00:36:38.140 But that's for them.
00:36:40.260 This right now, we've got to take a break.
00:36:43.080 I've got to take a break.
00:36:44.160 I think you, Senator, are going to stay on and talk with our friend Liz Wheeler.
00:36:47.520 Isn't that right, Liz?
00:36:48.580 Hi, Michael.
00:36:49.100 Hi, Senator.
00:36:49.920 Actually, before we talk about the topic, I just want to announce this is the first episode of The Cloak Room that we're doing in person.
00:36:55.660 In fact, you can see I'm sitting right here in the verdict chair.
00:36:58.500 So please join us.
00:37:00.020 We're going to have a great time.
00:37:01.440 Our topic tonight is what Republicans can do once we retake the House and retake the Senate and retake the presidency, what Republicans can do to actually combat the deep state, which is, of course, another name for the administrative state.
00:37:15.340 The deep state is waging an open war on Republicans, particularly Republican presidents.
00:37:20.060 So what are the legal remedies to this?
00:37:22.180 Join us at verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus.
00:37:26.340 If you use my promo code, which is Cloak Room, you can get your first month free on an annual subscription.
00:37:31.780 Verdictwithtedcruise.com slash plus.
00:37:34.400 I very much look forward to that Cloak Room episode.
00:37:37.260 But in the meantime, that's enough for me.
00:37:39.000 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:37:40.060 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:37:41.440 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs Freedom and Security Pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.
00:38:02.500 In 2022, Jobs Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.
00:38:12.700 This is an iHeart Podcast.
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