Verdict with Ted Cruz - Dem Presidential Candidates Crash & Burn on Foreign Policy, plus Obama goes on the Attack

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.240 Welcome.

00:00:05.900 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.220 Senator, we've got one heck of a show.

00:00:11.100 We're dealing with, well, some Democrats that just fell flat on their face on the international stage.

00:00:17.080 We have that for you.

00:00:18.180 Also, Barack Obama decided to go after law enforcement again.

00:00:21.900 And we even got you a little update on the sewage problem on the Potomac.

00:00:25.440 The Democrats are mishandling yet again.

00:00:27.820 Yeah, look, all of that is happening.

00:00:29.740 We had three likely Democrat presidential candidates in Munich at the Munich Security Conference.

00:00:36.740 They tried to engage in foreign policy.

00:00:39.080 And let me just say it did not go well.

00:00:41.020 You had AOC, you had Gretchen Whitmer, and you had Gavin Newsom.

00:00:44.900 And it was a mess.

00:00:46.560 We're going to come with the details.

00:00:48.460 You're going to listen to exactly what they said.

00:00:51.260 You're being kind.

00:00:52.400 And boy, all three of them wish they could do a take two and reset.

00:00:56.000 As you noted, Barack Obama also, I guess he was feeling lonely, you know, laying back at his mansion, collecting the millions of dollars Hollywood has paid him.

00:01:06.000 And so he decided to get back in the political fray by unleashing a flamethrower, attacking ICE, attacking Trump, just viciously engaging in the partisan battle.

00:01:18.280 We're going to break that down for you as well.

00:01:20.280 And finally, as you noted, we're going to give an update on the billion gallons of sewage that Democrats have dumped into the Potomac River.

00:01:28.840 And the latest update on that, as bad as that story is, the latest update's even worse.

00:01:34.240 Yeah, it really is.

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00:02:46.220 All right, so let's start with this security, you know, event in Munich that they have.

00:02:52.000 And can you explain to people why this event is kind of like a resume thing?

00:02:57.200 If you're looking to run for office, if you're trying to raise your stature, you show up there in Munich.

00:03:02.700 It's a kumbaya event is how I describe it.

00:03:06.340 But give people the background and why everyone that's trying to be somebody wants to be there in the political world.

00:03:11.080 Yeah, look, the Munich Security Conference is held every year, and it's in Munich, obviously.

00:03:16.220 And you get quite a few leaders from the United States who go over.

00:03:20.680 You get both Republicans and Democrats.

00:03:22.700 I've been to it numerous times.

00:03:25.100 You get foreign heads of state.

00:03:26.700 You get secretaries of state.

00:03:28.040 You get foreign ministers.

00:03:29.440 And they're from all over.

00:03:31.060 A lot of Europeans go and people more broadly go.

00:03:34.880 And it can be a very productive time because when you go, there are these panel discussions and conferences.

00:03:40.460 But you also do a whole series of one-on-one meetings.

00:03:43.680 And so you can go to one place and meet with a half dozen different heads of state.

00:03:47.940 So it can be very efficient in terms of having productive national security and foreign policy conversations.

00:03:54.160 Now, two people who went, I believe, for the first time were AOC and Gretchen Whitmer.

00:04:00.740 Now, it is no secret that both of them are looking quite seriously at running for president as a Democrat, only because the Communist Party is not having a contested primary.

00:04:11.460 But they're thinking of running in 2028.

00:04:13.960 And if you run for president, you presumably should know something about foreign policy.

00:04:18.900 You should be able to, say, spin a globe and have some clue about some country that is further out than Brooklyn.

00:04:26.800 Well, AOC took a hand at it.

00:04:30.660 And by the way, she's, you know, a young, vocal socialist in America.

00:04:38.360 She was going and expecting just to be embraced in Europe.

00:04:42.420 I mean, look, young, pretty socialist.

00:04:44.160 That's kind of like European crack. 0.98

00:04:46.460 That's where you eat, right?

00:04:47.460 Yeah.

00:04:48.680 She was singing Easy Street.

00:04:50.420 No prep time needed, right?

00:04:52.040 Yeah, but, you know, in terms of being ready for prime time, listen to this exchange she had when asked about one of the most pressing foreign policy questions across the globe right now.

00:05:04.540 Would and should the U.S. actually commit U.S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?

00:05:11.340 You know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that this is a, this is, of course, a very longstanding policy of the United States.

00:05:32.340 And I think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we never get to that point.

00:05:39.400 And we want to make sure that we are moving in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation and for that question to even arise.

00:05:51.160 All right, Senator, look, I've had the privilege of working on quite a few campaigns and some presidential campaigns.

00:05:59.700 This would be one of the first questions.

00:06:01.900 And you when you do prep, whether it's a debate prep or a major get on stage event, we call it, you know, rolling out the agenda of a candidate.

00:06:11.040 How was she not prepared to answer that question?

00:06:13.720 And the scary part was the whole room was like she has no idea what she's saying right now.

00:06:17.900 Yeah. Yeah. Look, everyone knew that, you know, several things come to mind.

00:06:21.620 Number one, you know, the popular gif online of Carrie Elwes kind of kind of fluttering his eyelashes.

00:06:28.100 That's what I immediately think of, like looking at that, like, well, that's that's something.

00:06:33.280 That's something. Yeah.

00:06:34.440 I also am hearing in my head Kamala Harris going, wow, that's a word salad. 1.00

00:06:40.700 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's not it's not even I mean, it was a it was a blunder that I would argue would probably come up in a campaign.

00:06:48.840 Right. Like, even if you try to fix this now, it's out there how unprepared she is for national security issues.

00:06:55.440 And this would have been if you and I were doing debate prep or or this prep for her in a meeting, like, hey, what do you think you're going to ask?

00:07:02.200 Immediately, I would have said Iran. I would have said Ukraine and Russia. 0.97

00:07:04.840 And you would have said Taiwan and China. Like, those are the top of the list without even having to make a list.

00:07:08.900 Yeah. Look, it's one of the things Democrats and particularly those on the far left, they're used to being in environments where everyone agrees with them, where they're just kissing their behind. 0.98

00:07:19.780 Oh, you're so wonderful. You're so cool. You're so awesome. You're so hip. 0.96

00:07:24.200 Most Democrats, they don't do hostile media interviews. They won't go on Fox News.

00:07:28.960 They go on MSNBC or CNN or even the networks and they just just get slap slabbering praise and never get challenged.

00:07:38.740 So so that was clearly a problem. And I got to say, OK, so Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, considered a serious presidential contender by by many observers.

00:07:51.080 She had a similar problem. Listen to Gretchen Whitmer getting asked a question on Ukraine. 1.00

00:07:56.020 And what does victory look like? Ambassador?

00:08:00.660 Oh, please. I'd love to hear your answer.

00:08:05.800 Yeah, it is. I the two the two that I am on the panel with are much more steeped in foreign policy than as than a governor is.

00:08:14.080 But, you know, I do think that Ukraine's independence, keeping their their landmass and having the support of of all the allies, I think, is is the goal for my vantage point.

00:08:29.420 Go ahead, ambassador. Do a better job.

00:08:31.020 You and I, by the way, know who the ambassador is that she's looking at asking to bail him out or like begging for a conservative to bail her out.

00:08:41.840 I laugh because his his response center was exactly what I would have done.

00:08:45.800 I think what you would have been. You're like, no, no, please. I want to hear your answer.

00:08:48.300 Like, by all means, ladies, first, you go ahead. Tell us what you think here.

00:08:51.840 And the ambassador, Matt Whitaker, who's the U.S. ambassador to NATO, was Donald Trump's acting attorney general in the first term.

00:09:02.640 So so he is close to the president. He is a conservative.

00:09:06.260 And the idea that she looks to him and is like, ah, can I call a friend?

00:09:11.440 Do I get a lifeline? Yeah.

00:09:13.280 Yeah. Do I get a lifeline to the hardcore conservative that works for Trump across me?

00:09:16.680 And then she even comes like, well, they know more about this than a governor would know.

00:09:20.160 And by the way, the they she's also talking about AOC, that that after AOC is like, what is this Taiwan thing of which you speak?

00:09:28.720 Yeah. Yeah. Where is Taiwan? Yeah.

00:09:30.200 And then Gretchen Whitmer is asked, OK, Ukraine, Ukraine, what is I know?

00:09:34.200 No, Ukraine. I'm sorry. Who Ukraine? What? What? What's that?

00:09:37.660 It's a Bill Clinton joke, right? I've never met her. I don't know her. I know nothing about her.

00:09:41.400 Right. Ukraine. I don't have no idea. Yeah.

00:09:43.440 Yeah. You know, I'm waiting for them. You know, I did not have relations with that country like like that.

00:09:47.660 Yes, exactly.

00:09:48.200 You know, it's interesting that there was an article written on Fox News Digital by David Marcus, who writes for them,

00:09:56.300 that I actually thought was a very interesting article. I retweeted it this week.

00:09:59.820 I read it and I just thought it was interesting.

00:10:02.280 It was Democrats Munich meltdown exposes less intellectual void.

00:10:07.260 AOC is cringe inducing word salad on world stage should embarrass old school liberals.

00:10:12.300 I want to read a little bit of it because I thought he made very good points.

00:10:15.040 When I was growing up in the 1980s, there was a galaxy of left wing, even socialist intellectual stars such as Noam Chomsky, Michael Foucault and Gore Vidal,

00:10:26.600 whose works were like an inkwell that politicians and commentators could draw from.

00:10:33.660 Judging from the Munich Security Conference this weekend, that inkwell has run dry.

00:10:38.560 Take this gem of a comment on global order from AOC, queen of the democratic socialists.

00:10:47.520 Quote, what we are seeking is a return to a rules based order that eliminates the hypocrisies around when too often in the West,

00:10:54.800 we look the other way for inconvenient populations to act out these paradoxes.

00:10:58.560 Huh?

00:11:02.100 Allow me to translate this into English.

00:11:04.960 I'm returning to Marcus's column.

00:11:07.120 Quote, the West is bad and mistreats the marginalized rest of the world.

00:11:12.380 The use of 25 cent words and highfalutin sentence structure cannot hide the banality of what AOC is saying.

00:11:19.620 Not even the assuring allure of assonance would help, given the asinine simplicity of her word salad.

00:11:28.940 Not to be outdone, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, after apologizing for being less well-versed in foreign policy than AOC,

00:11:37.600 offered this take on the war in Ukraine.

00:11:39.500 Ukraine's independence, keeping their landmass, I mean, the support of all allies, I think is the goal from my vantage point.

00:11:45.180 There is just nothing here but empty words that paint a picture of the facile, progressive worldview,

00:11:54.460 completely divorced not only from reality on the ground, but from any sound intellectual framework whatsoever.

00:12:01.760 The American right has a core of intellectuals, from Christopher Rufo, who we've had on this show on Verdict,

00:12:08.760 to Victor Davis Hanson, who's a good friend, to Mark Dubovitz, who's another good friend, and on and on,

00:12:13.500 who can be referred to or drawn on in policy debates, both foreign and domestic.

00:12:19.340 In fact, about a decade ago, we had intellectual dark web phenomenon with figures like Jordan Peterson and Barry Weiss,

00:12:28.720 who are broadly seen, if not as conservative, as right-leaning.

00:12:33.880 Who are their counterparts on the far left?

00:12:36.060 Who is the contemporary socialist intellectual who AOC could have referenced to support or claim that what is needed is massive global redistribution of wealth?

00:12:47.960 I would posit that outside of the very narrow corridors of race and gender,

00:12:52.800 such far left public intellectuals no longer exist, and for two very important reasons.

00:12:57.720 The most obvious cause for the current dearth of popular far left socialist intellectuals

00:13:03.720 is the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s.

00:13:07.620 At least for the next two decades, the game was up.

00:13:10.300 The experiment had failed, and nobody wanted to be called a socialist.

00:13:13.980 The second reason is that what took the place of outright socialism

00:13:18.140 was the cultural Marxism specifically in the form of critical race theory,

00:13:24.900 and essentially they've replaced their foreign policy with just it's all about race and gender

00:13:30.480 and identity politics.

00:13:34.220 And I've got to say, this is a dangerous world.

00:13:38.440 By the way, neither of those questions are easy.

00:13:42.620 Let's take Taiwan.

00:13:43.540 Taiwan is, China-Taiwan is the single most likely place for a major powers conflict on the face of the earth.

00:13:53.000 The biggest surprise I have from Joe Biden's presidency is that China did not invade Taiwan in the final year of Biden's presidency,

00:14:01.320 because Biden would have done nothing.

00:14:02.800 Biden would have been utterly impotent.

00:14:05.040 And I can only assume that Xi was concerned about the prospects of success.

00:14:09.500 He didn't want to fail, and so he didn't make the move.

00:14:12.680 I do not believe China will make a move on Taiwan while Trump is president,

00:14:17.480 for the very simple reason that I think Xi is afraid of Trump.

00:14:21.920 And Trump's been clear.

00:14:22.920 He is a response president.

00:14:25.340 Like, don't push me, watch.

00:14:26.660 And there's multiple examples of that.

00:14:28.600 That's why his foreign policy is so effective.

00:14:30.960 And listen, in terms of what the U.S. military response would be to an invasion of Taiwan,

00:14:36.860 it has been U.S. policy for a long time to have some degree of measured ambiguity.

00:14:42.820 We will defend Taiwan, but we haven't specified precisely how.

00:14:48.320 Yep.

00:14:48.920 Back in 2019, I traveled to Asia and I went first to Pearl Harbor,

00:14:53.660 and then I went to Japan and Taiwan and Hong Kong and India.

00:14:59.140 And that was designed to be a friends and ally tour all surrounding China

00:15:03.180 and discussing with heads of state and cabinet members a question I posed.

00:15:10.620 I posed at the time the Japanese prime minister, Abe, who sadly is no longer with us.

00:15:16.660 But I posed to him, I said, what would Japan do if China moved militarily on Taiwan

00:15:23.260 and made an amphibious landing?

00:15:25.260 And I got to say, the blood drained from his face.

00:15:27.720 He did not like that question.

00:15:30.020 He did a lot better than AOC.

00:15:31.880 It wasn't that he had nothing to say.

00:15:33.680 It's just that their ability to repel that militarily, I think, is less than is ideal.

00:15:41.860 Well, the single best way to deal with it is to deter it in the first place,

00:15:48.060 which AOC kind of stumbled to at the end.

00:15:51.180 But look, in national security parlance, the doctrine is called making Taiwan a porcupine,

00:15:58.260 making it so difficult to capture that you prevent China from engaging because,

00:16:05.340 and I've been through and studied the war games where China moves on Taiwan,

00:16:09.480 the U.S. responds militarily.

00:16:11.640 There are lots of scenarios where that escalates into a really, really ugly shooting war.

00:16:17.120 And so no one in their right mind wants to see that happen,

00:16:20.800 which is part of why the U.S. makes clear, look, if you move on Taiwan,

00:16:25.400 you could very well see a serious U.S. military response.

00:16:29.740 That's part of deterrence.

00:16:31.000 Another part of deterrence is providing Taiwan the weapons, the missiles and landmines 1.00

00:16:37.480 and everything that makes it difficult for an amphibious landing to be quick and successful.

00:16:44.340 Everything I just said, I promise you AOC has no idea about any of that.

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00:18:02.200 Before we get, by the way, to Obama, and I want to move to that,

00:18:04.600 but I do want to play something that AOC had to say in Germany,

00:18:08.940 and I want to get your reaction to this.

00:18:10.920 Now, this was in Germany.

00:18:12.880 Everybody take a listen.

00:18:14.140 My name is Hagar.

00:18:15.640 I'm from Israel.

00:18:17.020 I'm a journalist for Haaretz,

00:18:18.620 and my question is for Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez.

00:18:22.660 I wanted to know if you think that the Democratic presidential candidate

00:18:28.240 in the 2028 elections should reevaluate military aid to Israel.

00:18:35.500 I mean, to me, this isn't just about a presidential election.

00:18:40.700 Personally, I think that the United States has an obligation to uphold its own laws,

00:18:47.640 particularly the Leahy laws.

00:18:48.980 And I think that, personally, that the idea of completely unconditional aid,

00:18:57.400 no matter what one does, does not make sense.

00:19:00.380 I think it enabled a genocide in Gaza, 0.96

00:19:02.360 and I think that we have thousands of women and children dead

00:19:09.540 that was completely avoidable.

00:19:13.560 And so I believe that enforcement of our own laws through the Leahy laws,

00:19:21.220 which requires conditioning aid in any circumstance,

00:19:25.280 when you see gross human rights violations, is appropriate. 0.99

00:19:29.520 Senator, I'll let you take it from there,

00:19:31.120 because that one, honestly, when I saw it, I was like, wow.

00:19:33.620 So look, AOC is a founding member of the squad.

00:19:38.060 She is a hardcore leftist.

00:19:41.180 And if you really want to translate what she's saying,

00:19:44.040 she's saying, listen, I'm a Marxist, and I hate Israel.

00:19:47.940 Because on the left, we hate Israel. 0.85

00:19:50.560 Because Israel, we think, is a colonialist oppressor.

00:19:53.660 The Marxists divide the world into two groups, oppressors and victims.

00:20:00.340 And in AOC's world, Israel is an oppressor, and the Palestinians are the victims. 0.71

00:20:04.940 And once you fall into that framework, for today's leftists,

00:20:11.260 you support the violent revolutionary overthrow by the so-called victims of the so-called oppressors.

00:20:17.780 Now, she threw out the claim that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza.

00:20:24.700 That is a total lie.

00:20:26.460 But I will say there's a particular irony.

00:20:29.960 For an American to go to Germany, where an actual genocide occurred,

00:20:34.600 where the Nazis exterminated six million Jews in concentration camps,

00:20:39.660 where they committed human experiments and torture,

00:20:42.080 that remains the most concentrated evil humanity has ever seen.

00:20:48.680 And for her to say it blithely, with no acknowledgement of that,

00:20:53.440 it is ideology over truth.

00:20:57.640 That answer is grotesque, what AOC just said there.

00:21:01.860 And I will point out, on the claim of genocide, you know, it's interesting.

00:21:05.280 Do you know who just recently contradicted that?

00:21:07.820 Who's that?

00:21:08.820 Hamas. 0.73

00:21:09.860 Yeah.

00:21:10.080 Hamas just publicly said that they are providing aid to over 50,000 widows of Hamas terrorists.

00:21:22.020 Now, mind you, the narrative is that Israel was killing innocent women and children.

00:21:26.640 The death toll varies, but it is somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000.

00:21:31.420 So Hamas is admitting 80% of the people killed were Hamas terrorists,

00:21:36.200 because they're giving money to the widows. 1.00

00:21:38.320 Sorry, you killed our terrorists.

00:21:40.380 We're going to give you money.

00:21:41.940 AOC, of course, doesn't acknowledge that at all, because ideology, Israel will always be bad. 0.94

00:21:48.400 America will always be bad.

00:21:51.140 Capitalists will always be bad. 1.00

00:21:53.260 Anglos will always be bad. 1.00

00:21:54.940 And if you have clear, queer, Islamists, transgender witches, that may be the, like, height of virtue in the world. 1.00

00:22:12.220 You know, that, and you know, the amazing thing is, I actually think AOC is one of two frontrunners for the Democrat nomination in 2028.

00:22:20.940 I think it is Gavin Newsom and AOC.

00:22:24.860 Newsom probably is marginally ahead right now, but AOC, she is the id of the Democrat Party. 0.99

00:22:32.500 And id is not short for idiot, but it is, she is the, like, raw anger passion. 0.99

00:22:40.780 She's the Madani nationally right now. 0.99

00:22:43.100 And by the way, let's, since this podcast, we make lots of predictions.

00:22:47.620 I have said before.

00:22:48.360 This is my favorite part of the show, by the way.

00:22:50.000 When you say you're about to make a prediction, because if we're keeping records, you've been pretty, you've been, you've been getting on the All-Star team every season.

00:22:57.200 So keep going.

00:22:57.860 I'm ready.

00:22:58.580 Yeah, we tend to do at the end of the year, we go through the predictions that we made on this podcast.

00:23:02.280 And we have an incredibly high, I think we're north of 80% of being accurate.

00:23:08.660 I've said before that the inaugural member of the AOC for President Committee will be Chuck Schumer.

00:23:15.940 Because Schumer is terrified of AOC primarying him from the left.

00:23:22.060 That I said before, so that's not a new prediction.

00:23:24.160 Here's my second prediction.

00:23:25.000 Here's the prediction, though.

00:23:25.900 If Schumer succeeds and gets AOC to run for president, he says, Alexander, you're much too important to be a measly little senator.

00:23:36.600 You need to be in the Oval Office with every oligenious ooze he can tell her.

00:23:44.700 Here's my prediction.

00:23:45.860 If AOC runs for president, Mondami is going to run for Senate against Chuck Schumer.

00:23:50.780 I think that's a brilliant prediction.

00:23:52.780 And by the way, if that happens, I think the odds are greater than 50%.

00:23:59.180 Schumer decides not to run.

00:24:01.280 That Mondami announced Schumer may look at it for a little while and then he's like, and he is a political animal.

00:24:07.960 But I don't think Schumer can win.

00:24:09.960 I don't think Schumer can beat AOC in a primary.

00:24:12.440 And I don't think Schumer can beat Mondami in a primary.

00:24:14.880 And Schumer, by the way, doesn't want his legacy to be Cuomo, right?

00:24:17.480 Where all of a sudden you go from this big grand job you had for a long time to all of a sudden you just flame out.

00:24:22.540 And people look at you as kind of like a disgrace.

00:24:24.840 Oh, yeah, that guy didn't know when to leave.

00:24:26.200 I think Schumer is somewhat like Nancy Pelosi, where they want to feel like they go out on top.

00:24:32.640 Sure, you want to go out on top.

00:24:34.120 By the way, speaking of flaming, it is interesting that Barack Obama decided to flame Donald Trump and ICE and everyone else.

00:24:42.100 I don't know.

00:24:42.460 So I guess he's sitting there resting on his hundreds of millions of dollars and just getting angry and decided he wanted to take some swings.

00:24:50.260 So this is interesting.

00:24:51.860 And this is where I've been saying this a lot over and over again, especially in TV.

00:24:56.820 The Democratic Party as a whole is anti-law enforcement.

00:25:01.420 It's not just the AOCs of the party.

00:25:04.300 A perfect example of this being part of their platform center is Barack Obama doing a podcast this week.

00:25:11.520 And he is, I would argue, blessing the Democratic movement, right?

00:25:15.920 The Marxist, Socialist and Communist.

00:25:17.840 You've got my blessing.

00:25:18.880 I'm probably one of the biggest names in the Democratic Party, if not the biggest name of the elder statesman now that people listen to.

00:25:26.000 I'm giving my blessing that you can attack ICE agents now.

00:25:29.280 And this is a platform of the DNC.

00:25:31.380 Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:32.800 Here, let's give a listen to what he had to say.

00:25:34.920 The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous.

00:25:45.840 The sort of behavior that, you know, in the past we've seen in authoritarian countries and we've seen in dictatorships, but we have not seen in America.

00:25:57.120 I mean, you're calling ICE agents who are just enforcing the law rogue agents.

00:26:03.060 That is from a former eight-year president and the leader of the Democratic Party still.

00:26:07.360 Yeah, no, that is exactly right.

00:26:09.220 By the way, that same message was conveyed by Gavin Newsom in Munich.

00:26:14.300 Give a listen to Gavin Newsom.

00:26:15.320 And we'll talk about these two together.

00:26:16.480 But I want to remember all those images of masked men, the secret police, something familiar in Germany.

00:26:23.780 Those first images came out of my state, the second largest city in the United States of America.

00:26:29.440 We saw 4,000 National Guard federalized.

00:26:32.480 First time.

00:26:33.020 We're never sitting there like this.

00:26:34.340 And 700 active duty Marines sent not overseas, but to the second largest city in the United States of America, militarizing the streets of my city.

00:26:42.680 Masked men, masked men showing up, unaccountable.

00:26:45.900 Let's be very clear, Senator.

00:26:47.700 That is Gavin Newsom comparing American law enforcement to Nazis.

00:26:51.840 Yep.

00:26:52.380 Yep.

00:26:52.680 Which, by the way, is what Obama was doing, too.

00:26:56.720 By the way, just like AOC and Whitmer, Newsom is apparently thoroughly historically illiterate.

00:27:02.520 He said, we've never seen National Guards federalized in the states.

00:27:06.160 I guess his history book does not discuss the civil rights movement.

00:27:10.140 He's never heard of a president named Dwight D. Eisenhower.

00:27:12.680 He's never heard of sending the National Guard into southern states when Democrats who refused to desegregate schools resisted.

00:27:21.860 Eisenhower sent the National Guard in.

00:27:24.020 The pattern is the same.

00:27:25.560 In this instance, you have Democrats who are saying we refuse to comply with federal immigration law.

00:27:30.920 Then you had in the 50s and 60s, you had Democrats saying we refuse to comply with civil rights law.

00:27:37.260 In both instances, it is lawless Democrats attacking law enforcement.

00:27:44.080 You know, Gavin Newsom is proudly following the tradition of Bull Connor, another Democrat politician.

00:27:49.620 The demonizing of law enforcement is central to who they are, central to who the party is.

00:27:55.960 And now I want you to listen to Barack Obama in this podcast because he does a judo move that is classic Barack Obama.

00:28:08.020 Give a listen.

00:28:08.480 The other side does the mean, angry, demagoguery, you know, exclusive, us, them, you know, divisive politics.

00:28:22.740 That's their that's that's their home court.

00:28:27.360 Yeah.

00:28:28.240 Our court is coming together.

00:28:32.400 Our court is, look, you know, a great example wasn't political.

00:28:38.340 Bad Bunny's halftime show.

00:28:39.640 I knew you were going to say that.

00:28:40.540 Well, it was it resonated.

00:28:44.200 It was smart because it wasn't preaching.

00:28:49.880 It was showing.

00:28:51.100 It was demonstrating and displaying.

00:28:53.220 This is what a community is.

00:28:55.160 By the way, I love that he's just admitting there.

00:28:56.920 Yes, this is a smart political move to have a political statement at the Super Bowl during halftime.

00:29:02.780 He's admitting what we were saying, that it was a political decision.

00:29:06.300 And he's like, it's a brilliant political operative move for the NFL to do this.

00:29:11.260 Well, look, I mentioned that what Obama was doing there is judo and judo is is is flipping and using your opponent's weight against you against them.

00:29:21.200 But but but it is also it is classic Orwellian.

00:29:25.060 And it is accusing the other side of doing what you are doing.

00:29:28.500 Barack Obama, I think, in any fair history, he will not go down in history as this because most historians are leftists.

00:29:34.600 So they will they will carve him into Mount Rushmore.

00:29:37.800 But but but if you were fairly assessing his legacy, he is one of the most bitterly partisan leaders our country has ever had.

00:29:45.280 And I think much of the the rage, the anger we have of the two sides screaming at each other finds its origins in the Obama presidency.

00:29:56.300 And I got to say, I my principal reaction to that is is is one of of regret of the lost opportunity.

00:30:03.540 Listen, Barack Obama was elected as the first African-American president ever for a country that that that that that for us for for a century plus had slavery. 0.98

00:30:16.060 To elect a black president was a big damn deal. 0.89

00:30:19.500 And Obama was given by history the opportunity to be what he claimed to be, to be coming together, to be a healing president. 0.99

00:30:28.560 And he chose just the opposite.

00:30:30.880 He chose he chose to just rub salt in the racial wounds to divide.

00:30:36.360 If you remember early on the beer summit he had where he demonized law enforcement right at the beginning of his presidency, you remember he described people in small towns in America as, quote, bitter and angry and clinging to their God and their guns.

00:30:51.280 You remember Michelle Obama saying that when Barack Obama was elected president, it was the first time she'd ever been proud of a country.

00:30:59.580 Yeah, like it is.

00:31:01.140 And if you look at the fruit, listen, I believe that Barack Obama fundamentally is a Marxist.

00:31:09.260 He was just a few years ahead of me at Harvard Law School.

00:31:11.460 We did not overlap.

00:31:12.540 But I think he is steeped in cultural Marxism.

00:31:17.640 Now, when he was president, he was not vocal about all of that because the country at the time was not ready for it.

00:31:24.740 But but I think AOC is the spiritual grandchild of Barack Obama.

00:31:30.540 I think Mondami is the spiritual grandchild of Barack Obama.

00:31:35.080 And as you and I have talked about on the pod before during the Biden presidency, maybe the most frequent question I got asked is who is running things?

00:31:44.620 And the really terrifying answer, I don't, in fact, know.

00:31:50.560 I know it wasn't Joe Biden.

00:31:52.320 He did not have the capacity to make decisions.

00:31:54.560 Everyone knew that.

00:31:55.400 The Democrats all knew that.

00:31:56.680 Everyone knew that.

00:31:57.500 The press knew that.

00:31:58.320 They just didn't report on it.

00:31:59.400 I don't know.

00:32:01.340 But my theory is the person who was running things is the guy who we just played.

00:32:06.720 I think Barack Obama was the grand puppet master.

00:32:09.960 He had a bunch of young apparatchiks who are little Marxists that were his former staffers in the White House.

00:32:16.280 And the open borders we saw, that was Barack Obama's intention.

00:32:21.740 The radical DEI, the demonization of law enforcement.

00:32:27.340 All of that is the fruits of Obama.

00:32:29.560 By the way, the disastrous foreign policy, the embrace of Iran. 1.00

00:32:34.440 Iran sending cash on pallets, literally.

00:32:36.680 And listen, Obama sent $1.7 billion of cash on pallets and planes in the middle of the night.

00:32:44.060 Joe Biden said, hold my beer, and flowed $100 billion to Iran.

00:32:49.320 Now, when I say Joe Biden said it, really, the person who said, hold my beer, was Barack Obama.

00:32:53.940 He said, now I'm just really going to do it using the puppet Biden.

00:32:58.380 But for him to accuse Republicans, the bitterness Obama has shown over and over and over again as he's using rhetoric, you know, he's just demonized ICE and called them, called federal law enforcement agents, totalitarian agents.

00:33:17.060 And then he says, gosh, it's the other side that's mean, not like us.

00:33:21.700 And actually, the word that I love that he says in that little clip is exclusionary.

00:33:27.580 The right is exclusionary.

00:33:29.260 And that's such a total lie.

00:33:30.940 It is the left that is vicious.

00:33:33.840 You must believe in exactly their orthodoxy or you are excommunicated.

00:33:41.560 Look at J.K. Rowling.

00:33:43.420 J.K. Rowling, who by any measure is politically on the left, but she has this crazy view that women exist. 1.00

00:33:52.700 And that, to the intolerant leftist, is unacceptable and she must be canceled. 0.62

00:34:00.380 And you look at all of these Hollywood ninnies who were in the Harry Potter movies who won't associate with her. 0.98

00:34:07.560 She literally made all of their careers. 1.00

00:34:09.440 And she made them.

00:34:10.100 Yeah, she literally made them. 0.94

00:34:11.120 Millions of dollars from when they were children and they are too – their virtue is too great to be seen in the same room.

00:34:19.280 And by the way, Barack Obama, in addition to being a hardcore leftist – and I think much of his worldview is actually anti-colonialist.

00:34:30.060 If you look at – it's why he hates Israel because he views Israel as a colonial power.

00:34:36.920 And it's why fundamentally he doesn't believe American power is legitimate.

00:34:42.380 You know, he was asked as president, do you believe in American exceptionalism?

00:34:46.320 And he says, sure, I do.

00:34:47.560 Just like the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism and the British believe in British exceptionalism. 0.65

00:34:52.800 Which is to say, no, he does not.

00:34:55.440 Because American exceptionalism is recognizing there's something unique and extraordinary in the United States of America.

00:35:02.440 There's never been a nation in the history of mankind that has been a greater force for good on planet Earth than the United States of America.

00:35:09.620 And lightning would strike Barack Obama before he could utter that sentence.

00:35:13.960 Yeah, you're absolutely right there.

00:35:15.660 All right, lastly, before we wrap, Senator, I just think it's time for us to just say we told the left so.

00:35:21.400 We told everybody this was going to be government work, no doubt about it.

00:35:24.880 The sewage problem pouring into the Potomac.

00:35:28.060 Don't worry, it's going to be around for, what, another nine months is what they're saying now?

00:35:32.160 Yeah, we covered on the last pod how over a billion gallons of sewage,

00:35:36.900 the largest spill of wastewater in American history, is happening in D.C. and Maryland into the Potomac River.

00:35:43.800 Democrats are really bad at government.

00:35:46.240 They want government to be the answer of everything, but they can't run a hot dog stand.

00:35:50.320 Well, D.C. water says it will now take another nine months, nine months to fix the sewer pipe.

00:36:01.580 That's just staggering.

00:36:04.120 If anyone were remotely competent, you would fix it in days, not in nine months.

00:36:09.320 But you've got Democrats in charge.

00:36:10.940 So nine months, they will continue spewing human refuse into the water.

00:36:17.620 And the amazing thing is the Potomac is going right by the mansions in Georgetown where you have all the liberal lobbyists.

00:36:24.680 And so they will they will get a reminder every day of just how ineffective Democrats are at running stuff.

00:36:30.800 No doubt about it.

00:36:31.700 Don't forget, we do this podcast Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

00:36:34.380 Hit that subscribe or auto download button.

00:36:36.560 You can also tell Siri or Alexa play verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:36:39.500 And if you want to watch the show, you can do it on YouTube or Facebook as well.

00:36:42.720 And the Senate, I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.

00:36:46.480 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:36:49.120 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - February 16, 2026

Dem Presidential Candidates Crash & Burn on Foreign Policy, plus Obama goes on the Attack

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