Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 14, 2026


Democrats Target The Filibuster, Republican House Stands for Hegseth & China Influences House mom to go against Data Centers Week In Review

We Will Take America Back, and China is Waging an Influence War against us

Episode Stats


Length

38 minutes

Words per minute

180.55

Word count

7,000

Sentence count

286

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

19

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


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 .
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00:00:19 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
00:00:21 We've been trying to figure out how to describe
00:00:23 what is Armstrong and Getty on demand for many years.
00:00:25 I'm going to give it a shot.
00:00:26 So most media is either agenda-driven
00:00:28 or they're so shallow and boring you don't learn anything anyway we try to get to the bottom of
00:00:34 the stories that are shaping our worlds and help you understand what's actually happening so give
00:00:39 it a try sometime entertaining and you learn something where do i tune in listen to armstrong
00:00:43 and getty on demand on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
00:00:48 welcome it is verdict with center ted cruz week in review and here are some of the big stories
00:00:54 that you may have missed that we talked about this week.
00:00:57 First up, so we now have a 100-day plan
00:01:00 coming from the Democrats outside of impeachment.
00:01:03 What are they planning?
00:01:04 We break it down for you.
00:01:05 Up next, you've heard a lot about the name Pete Hedgeseth.
00:01:08 You know him as the man in charge of the Pentagon.
00:01:11 Well, Democrats have made it clear
00:01:13 that is one of the very first people they want to impeach.
00:01:16 In fact, they've already started it in the House.
00:01:19 So how do we get to this point?
00:01:20 We break that down as well.
00:01:22 And finally, AI data centers are incredibly important
00:01:26 Not only to, well, just technology in general
00:01:28 But national security
00:01:30 And we've learned now just how much money China is spending in America
00:01:34 To make you say no to AI data centers
00:01:36 The propaganda has gotten to the point now
00:01:39 Where the left is even saying that AI data centers
00:01:42 Are going to cause your kids to have problems with asthma
00:01:45 It's not true, but it's a lie that moms and dads are believing
00:01:50 So how do they pull it off?
00:01:51 We break that down as well.
00:01:53 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.
00:01:56 We're also getting some of the plans of what they want to do outside of the impeachment and the law fair.
00:02:03 Hakeem Jeffries went on ABC this week, Senator, and this was something that wasn't talked about very much during the campaign.
00:02:11 That's the reason why I think it's significant now.
00:02:14 And Hakeem Jeffries is now calling for a new push for amnesty.
00:02:19 Here is what he had to say in the ABC This Week interview.
00:02:23 We're committed to moving aggressively during the first 100 days of the new Congress and beyond to keep our word,
00:02:32 to fight for an affordable America, to bring about accountability,
00:02:35 because we've seen unprecedented corruption that has been visited upon the American people.
00:02:41 And we are committed to holding the crooks accountable and making sure that Congress functions
00:02:46 like a separate and co-equal branch of government and a check and balance on an out of control
00:02:51 executive branch. And we also have to restore American values like liberty and justice for all
00:02:57 equal protection under the law, our commitment to the unfettered right to vote and to lift up
00:03:03 our glorious history as a nation of immigrants. By the way, I love how this is unfettered when
00:03:11 it comes to voting, but they were against the SAVE Act, which was going to protect the right
00:03:14 of every American to vote. Well, that's right. And I do think one thing, there's a very real
00:03:21 possibility that we see in January of next year, which is I think it is very possible and maybe
00:03:28 even likely that the Democrats will nuke the filibuster and end the filibuster in the Senate.
00:03:33 I don't know if they will or not. So what does that mean? It's been a while since we've talked
00:03:37 about that. So for people that are listening, nuking the filibuster was something that some
00:03:41 conservatives were advocating for, hoping was going to happen, that you guys would just hurry
00:03:44 up and do it to get certain things done. How does that fundamentally change things?
00:03:49 So the filibuster refers to the rule in the Senate that it takes 60 votes under the rules
00:03:56 of the Senate to proceed to legislation. And so as a functional matter, if you can't get 60 votes,
00:04:01 virtually all legislation you can't move to. And it produces compromise in the Senate. If you got
00:04:07 to get 60 votes, you got to find something bipartisan that people of both parties can
00:04:11 come together and agree on. And it is one of, if not the biggest difference between the Senate and
00:04:16 the House. In the House, there is no filibuster, which means a majority can do anything it wants.
00:04:21 And so in the House, being the majority, you can ram through your priorities willy-nilly.
00:04:28 And by the way, being in the minority in the House really sucks because you have no leverage. You have
00:04:33 no ability to stop anything. You can just give speeches and say this is terrible, but you don't
00:04:38 have the ability to stop it. If the filibuster is ended in the Senate, it will make it very much
00:04:43 like the House, that whatever the majority wants, it can do. And the mechanics of how you nuke the
00:04:50 filibuster, so the filibuster is written in the Senate rules that it takes two-thirds, or not
00:04:56 two-thirds, it takes 60 votes to proceed to legislation. However, the way you do it is any
00:05:02 ruling of the chair the presiding officer can be appealed and overturned by the by the body
00:05:10 and so the way you nuke the filibuster is is is that that the chair rules that it takes 60 votes
00:05:16 to proceed to legislation and chuck schumer would stand up and say i appeal the ruling of the chair
00:05:22 and and and if if 51 votes are cast to overturn the ruling of the chair then the ruling of the
00:05:32 chair is reversed and that becomes a precedent and you essentially break the rules of the senate
00:05:37 to change the rules of the senate i used to think a week or two ago if you'd asked me i would have
00:05:43 said look if the democrats take the majority i i doubt they will will nuke the filibuster why
00:05:49 because they don't have a democrat president and it's really valuable when you have a house and a
00:05:54 senate and a president all of the same party then you can pass the legislation you really want
00:05:58 for Republicans like the Save America Act, because Trump will be in the White House.
00:06:03 I had thought a week ago that the Democrats, in all likelihood, would not nuke the filibuster.
00:06:11 I may have changed my mind on that.
00:06:13 I think the odds are probably 60-40 or even 70-30 that they nuke the filibuster early next year
00:06:21 because they're going to have 55-56 Senate Democrats,
00:06:26 And they've got some radicals. They've got some radicals who campaigned for a long time saying the filibuster is Jim Crow. It is oppressive. They've been out there campaigning. And I think Schumer is going to have a hard time holding down his radicals. And so I think they might nuke it, even though they don't have a president who will sign their legislation.
00:06:47 And so that – and my guess is you heard Akeem Jeffries saying we need to fight for unfettered access to the ballot box.
00:06:56 Ironically, this is the same Democrats who oppose democracy over and over again.
00:07:01 Mind you, these are the same Democrats that put fake Dan Sullivan on the ballot in Alaska in order to steal votes and confuse the voters and rig the election.
00:07:10 These are the same Democrats who supported state Supreme Courts ordering Donald Trump being removed from the ballot in 2024 because they didn't want the voters to be able to reelect him.
00:07:20 So these are not people who actually care about democracy.
00:07:24 But in every Senate for the last several Congresses, the first bill that is filed is S-1.
00:07:31 That will be the first bill Chuck Schumer will file in the new Congress.
00:07:34 S-1 is a federal takeover of all elections.
00:07:37 It strikes down virtually every election integrity law all across the country.
00:07:42 It strikes down restrictions on mail-in voting, so every state would have universal mail-in voting.
00:07:48 It strikes down photo ID laws, so every state it would be legal to vote without a photo ID.
00:07:54 It strikes down prohibitions on ballot harvesting, so in every state you could have political operatives handling the ballots of others, which really facilitates and encourages voter fraud.
00:08:04 That's the first bill Schumer always introduces.
00:08:07 My prediction is early next year, Schumer will schedule a vote on S-1.
00:08:13 And under the filibuster rules, Republicans would defeat it.
00:08:16 We would vote it down.
00:08:18 I think if they're going to nuke the filibuster, my guess is it would be on S-1 that Schumer would appeal the ruling of this chair, end the filibuster, and then pass it with just 51 votes in the Senate.
00:08:31 And then it would go to Trump and Trump would veto it.
00:08:33 But I think one of the things we're going to see in the next two years is the Democrats trying to put bill after bill after bill on Trump's desk and force him to veto one after the other after the other.
00:08:44 I think we're going to see a lot of that.
00:08:45 Final question for you on this.
00:08:47 And that also comes down to there is a lot of people that are saying, hey, you still have the majority.
00:08:53 Why aren't you guys going back to Washington this week and doing some of the things that Democrats are going to do when they get the majority?
00:09:00 Why wouldn't you guys nuke it right now, pass the SAVE Act, do things like that?
00:09:04 Explain why that's probably not going to happen.
00:09:07 Well, look, I hope we do.
00:09:09 And when we return this week to the Senate, there are a couple of things we need to do.
00:09:13 Number one, on nominations, we need to clear the deck.
00:09:16 So there are a number of nominations pending executive branch nominations, and we need to confirm every one we can.
00:09:24 And the way it worked, we changed the rules earlier this year so we can now do confirmations in block so we can group together a bunch of nominations together.
00:09:33 We did that because the Democrats started this Trump term with unprecedented obstruction, delaying and obstructing every single confirmation.
00:09:42 And so we changed the rules so that you can block them together.
00:09:45 Now, the way we did that, any individual Republican senator can object to a nominee and throw them out of the block.
00:09:54 So you would have to have Trump nominees that you've got all 53 Republicans behind.
00:10:00 If there's an individual senator who doesn't like a nominee, they'd be thrown out of the block.
00:10:04 If they're thrown out of the block, the only way they can get confirmed is to have them separately scheduled for floor time, which burns a lot of floor time.
00:10:11 I think we will clear the deck of most of the pending nominees, except for those to whom there are individual objections by Republican senators.
00:10:22 Secondly, I think we're going to clear the decks of all or virtually all of the judicial nominees.
00:10:28 And I think that's very good. I'm pressing for that.
00:10:30 The reason is, I think starting next year, there are no more confirmations.
00:10:35 If they're cabinet vacancies, those will not be confirmed.
00:10:37 I think they won't confirm sub-cabinet vacancies, and I think they will stop judicial confirmation.
00:10:42 So my hope is we can confirm every judge humanly possible between now and the end of the year.
00:10:48 I think we'll probably do that as well.
00:10:51 I've also advised the White House, I've said, look, after this election, you all need to sit down with your cabinet
00:10:59 and tell every one of the cabinet members you need to decide right now.
00:11:03 Are you going to stay or are you going to leave?
00:11:05 Often after a midterm election, sub cabinet members decide to step down.
00:11:09 And what I encourage the White House, you ought to tell everyone,
00:11:12 either you decide I'm staying for the next two years, I'm here for the duration.
00:11:16 Or if not, if you plan to step down, step down now.
00:11:19 Because let's take Hegseth.
00:11:21 If Hegseth is going to resign, if he resigns now and the president nominates a new defense secretary,
00:11:28 we can nominate, we can confirm the new defense secretary.
00:11:31 If he resigns or is fired next year, we can't confirm a replacement.
00:11:37 I don't think the Democrats will agree to confirm anybody at the Pentagon or anywhere else.
00:11:43 And so I would expect the next two months to be filled with a lot of confirmations, judicial confirmations, cabinet confirmations.
00:11:51 If conceivably there were a Supreme Court vacancy, we would do that,
00:11:55 although there have been public reports that Alito and Thomas have said that they're not going to step down.
00:12:00 So, I mean, we would not have a Supreme Court vacancy.
00:12:04 And then what I'm also urging is that we do a reconciliation.
00:12:08 Reconciliation is the major exception to the filibuster.
00:12:12 I would like to see us accomplish some major vehicles, including significant portions of the Save America Act that we could pass on reconciliation.
00:12:21 You asked, Ben, why we wouldn't do that.
00:12:24 Listen, the impediment is, can we get 50 votes in the Senate?
00:12:28 Prior to Election Day, we couldn't.
00:12:30 We only have 53 Republicans. There were more than three Republicans who were objecting to do that.
00:12:35 And so if we can only get to 49 or 48 or 47, we can't get it done.
00:12:39 I'm going to press let's win legislative victories in November and December because we're about to go through two years of time in the wilderness where we're not going to pass meaningful legislation for two years and instead go through the Democrat circus.
00:12:56 I hope we have a very productive lame duck for the next two months.
00:13:00 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
00:13:03 you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
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00:13:22 Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty.
00:13:24 We're Armstrong and Getty.
00:13:25 We've been trying to figure out how to describe what is Armstrong and Getty on demand for many years.
00:13:30 I'm going to give it a shot.
00:13:31 So most media is either agenda-driven.
00:13:33 So they intentionally leave parts out or they lie to you.
00:13:35 Or they're so shallow.
00:13:37 And boring.
00:13:38 You don't learn anything anyway.
00:13:39 We try to get to the bottom of the stories that are shaping our worlds and help you understand what's actually happening.
00:13:45 The Armstrong and Getty Show, practically perfect in every way.
00:13:48 Yeah, I really like you guys' show. I've been listening for over 10 years.
00:13:52 And I'll always be an avid listener and better informed for it. 0.63
00:13:55 The show is a collection of silly, serious, and irreverent musings of the day.
00:13:59 Hilariously balanced with more than just a pinch of sarcasm. 0.99
00:14:04 Whether it's on the left or the right, if somebody does something or says something stupid, 0.99
00:14:08 they're going to call it out, and I love that. 0.98
00:14:10 I love it.
00:14:11 Keep up the great work.
00:14:12 I'm rocking with A&G.
00:14:13 So give it a try sometime.
00:14:14 Entertaining and you learn something?
00:14:15 Where do I tune in?
00:14:16 Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
00:14:20 or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:22 football's back hey it's drew franklin from nfl cover zero enjoy the nfl season while listening
00:14:29 to nfl cover zero we have storylines predictions and lots of silliness here's what you can expect
00:14:35 from the podcast in our second season when you meet people and you say your job's a sports
00:14:40 announcer it's always interesting to see what the first thing they say is i did have one of the more
00:14:47 difficult questions though he sits next to me and he sees i'm i'm um i'm on my computer and he goes
00:14:53 big sports fan and i was like yeah actually uh and he goes what do you think about my jaguars this
00:14:59 year i realized like no one's ever asked me that question ever about anything and i was like
00:15:06 listen to nfl cover zero on the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast
00:15:17 now on to story number two yeah it's going to be very fun and interesting i say to watch so
00:15:25 tell me what we can expect for the next few weeks what does y'all's work week look like obviously
00:15:30 it's a countdown clock 54 53 days right it's going to be moving quickly so what does this look like
00:15:36 for you guys the days and weeks ahead going into the holidays as well yeah look the the initial
00:15:41 plan by the way the senate was going to be gone today we're all going to get a plan and go because
00:15:45 tomorrow's veterans day and so we're all going to go home and this was going to be a two-day work
00:15:49 week and we said you know what no we're staying here so we're all here tomorrow we're going to
00:15:53 be voting on judges now the reason i didn't want the resolution that just says we're going to be
00:15:58 here every day no matter what on weekends because bah humbug we hate ourselves is because that's
00:16:05 actually a dumb strategy because the way the senate works look democrats want to get out of
00:16:10 town and an awful lot of decisions get made by consent by agreement and so the way you get 23 0.89
00:16:19 judges confirmed is you tell democrats on thursday who really want to go home on friday and and be
00:16:26 home for the weekend and do fundraisers and do events and do different things hey you can do
00:16:31 that we'll let you fly home if you agree to shorten the time frames and we can vote on a
00:16:39 bunch of them on, say, Thursday afternoon. And by the way, if you don't agree, we'll stay and
00:16:44 we'll vote on one Thursday, one Friday, one Saturday, one Sunday. So we'll get the same
00:16:48 people confirmed, but it can either be really painful and you get stuck here the whole time,
00:16:54 or it can be less painful and we do the same thing. And the phrase in Washington,
00:17:03 and particularly the Senate, is jet fumes get in the air, that come Thursday morning. So a typical
00:17:08 Senate calendar is you fly in Monday mornings, you fly home Thursday nights. And by the way,
00:17:14 I will say to folks who say, gosh, you work three days, that is not in fact accurate. If you're
00:17:20 doing your job as a senator, you're working, look, a really good and effective senator is working 70,
00:17:27 80, 90 hours a week. But you're in D.C. in session typically Monday through Thursday. So for my
00:17:35 my example, I typically fly from Texas to D.C. Monday mornings. We have our opening vote typically
00:17:42 at 5.30 p.m. on Mondays. That's set at 5.30, so even from the West Coast, you can fly in and get
00:17:47 in that day. You have hearings and votes all day Tuesday, hearings and votes all day Wednesday,
00:17:54 hearings and votes Thursday, and then you fly home typically Thursday night. And then my typical
00:17:59 schedule is on Fridays, I fly around Texas. Look, you've got to represent the whole state. I've got
00:18:04 32 million people that I need to go listen to and talk to, so I fly around the state.
00:18:10 And I often will fly around also the state or nationally on Saturdays as well.
00:18:16 And then what I try to do is keep Sundays as a down day at home with the family. So I try to be
00:18:21 like a dad and a husband and have one day a week or a day of rest and honor the Sabbath,
00:18:25 and then I go back to doing the same thing. So the point is senators, and it's a weird
00:18:34 dynamic because you often don't know your schedule and so you get to thursday and there are a bunch
00:18:40 of democrats that want to get out of town they've got things they want to go to maybe it's a kid's
00:18:44 soccer game maybe it's a fundraiser maybe it's like a parade i you know it's all sorts of things 0.93
00:18:48 they want to get to and so on wednesday they're like damn it we're going to fight everything
00:18:54 and then on thursday they're like well if they could confirm everyone they want to do anyway
00:19:00 and the only choice is do we have to be here the whole time or not why don't we compress the time
00:19:07 and just do the same thing and so that's part of the reason why and and my colleagues all agreed
00:19:12 with me i mean we we adopted this the the resolution that i wrote is what we adopted
00:19:16 and my point was let's not focus on if we're sitting here sunday with no votes
00:19:23 because we're burning 30 hours under the senate rules and literally doing nothing but but just
00:19:29 sitting here twirling in the air that's dumb yeah that makes sense let's focus on the objective
00:19:36 the objective is confirm every judicial nominee and clear the decks of executive nominees that
00:19:42 we agree on and then beyond that and we actually had a rigorous debate are we going to do a
00:19:48 reconciliation or not i don't know if we can but i'm going to try everything humanly possible for
00:19:53 us to get that done because it is our single best opportunity of winning real legislative victories
00:20:00 before the Democrats take over in January. Yeah. Well, we're going to keep you updated. We're
00:20:05 going to have a lot to talk about in the days and weeks ahead on this one. Before we wrap up,
00:20:09 Senator, I want to talk about the impeachment of Pete Hedseth. It is clear that the Democrats
00:20:15 were lying to the American people when they said, hey, you elect us, we're going to go to Washington
00:20:19 and fight for affordability that was their their favorite word online they use and in interviews
00:20:24 it should have really been the word impeachment and they have wasted no time getting what i would 0.92
00:20:30 refer to as a useful idiot of the republican party thomas massey to come along and help them try to 0.92
00:20:35 move this forward with impeaching uh the man in charge of the department of war well look the 0.99
00:20:41 democrats they spent six months campaigning say all we care about is affordability and and cost
00:20:47 and then you're right their priority when they actually get in power is impeachments
00:20:54 investigations subpoenas attacks we're going to see two years of that non-stop
00:20:58 they started off with the Hegseth impeachment now I'm going to say something look regular
00:21:06 podcast listeners you know that I often make predictions and and by the way over the course
00:21:13 a verdict the predictions i haven't done the numbers but they're 80 to 90 accurate i make
00:21:19 some bold predictions um you know including that i predicted that joe biden would not be the nominee
00:21:25 that they'd pull him from the ballot that happened we we've gone through we typically each year go
00:21:30 through the predictions that we've made and and and have some accountability now i will say on
00:21:36 monday's podcast i said something that proved not to be accurate i'm very happy to be wrong on this
00:21:40 by the way. I said on Monday, I said that I believe Pete Hegseth would be impeached,
00:21:47 that all the Democrats would vote for him, there would be enough Republican votes to
00:21:50 impeach him as well. That didn't happen. The Republicans defeated impeachment. And let me
00:21:56 say, bravo, I'm very happy with that. I like Pete personally. I've been a strong advocate of Pete's.
00:22:03 and it is one of the very few predictions on verdict that i've made that that proved wrong
00:22:11 now i'll tell you the basis why i made that prediction is i had multiple conversations
00:22:17 with house leadership in september and october and they told me categorically and repeatedly
00:22:23 if we come back in september and october we don't have the votes to stop a hegseth impeachment
00:22:30 They just said, look, the reason that the House was gone for two months before the election and the reason they were gone is House leadership said, if we're back, Thomas Massey can force a vote on Hegseth impeachment.
00:22:45 They said we'd lose. And so you recall, look, I passed the Protect College Sports Act bill in the Senate, which I'm hoping the House will pass in the next two months.
00:22:54 i think it will i wanted the house to come back and pass it i was arguing vociferously for the
00:23:00 house should come back and pass it in one day uh it would be really important and the argument that
00:23:05 leadership house leadership gave is no we can't do that because if we come back we can't stop a
00:23:11 hegseth impeachment we don't want hegseth to be impeached right before the election
00:23:15 and to be honest ben i didn't have a really good response to that like i'm like okay yeah that
00:23:21 would be bad i don't really want two weeks before the election for the house to impeach the secretary
00:23:27 of war that that strikes me as not a great political move um that's why they didn't come
00:23:34 back well look i i don't know if it was that democrats overreached and by the way you had
00:23:40 democrats saying let's not just impeach hegseth let's go after and persecute and prosecute the
00:23:46 soldiers who who in wage the war against iran let's go after them that may have backfired i
00:23:53 don't know if the if the the crazies and the democrats were so extreme that they went too far
00:23:59 all i know is it failed and let me say congrats to pete and now by the way i think the democrats
00:24:05 will try again in january when they have majorities and they may be able to succeed in january
00:24:10 uh but i was very pleasantly surprised that hegseth impeachment was defeated
00:24:16 and and and i will say actually i want to play for a moment so right before the election i was
00:24:22 on bill maher and and i was on bill maher with with the guy who is the the editor of axios who
00:24:29 is a very prominent journalist in in dc and and and he said every republican senator hates pete
00:24:37 Hegseth. And I've got to say, I disagreed with that here. I want to play the exchange. Give a
00:24:42 listen. I think the case against Hegseth that is a fair one, and senators should weigh in, is
00:24:49 there's a lot of really, really, really highly competent people who are serving in the military
00:24:54 at the highest level, who he ran out of town. And at a moment where we're at war, and it's not like
00:25:01 we have a surplus of super talented people ready to fill in that void. And I think the reason that
00:25:06 a lot of Republican senators privately dislike the man profoundly.
00:25:09 The senator probably won't say it, but I can't think of a single Republican senator I talk
00:25:13 to who does not profoundly dislike him.
00:25:15 No, I like Pete Hanks.
00:25:16 I'll say that definitely.
00:25:17 And you think he's been an awesome defense secretary?
00:25:20 Look, I think he... 1.00
00:25:21 You like the way he's prosecuted the Iranians?
00:25:23 Seriously, I'm not...
00:25:24 Yeah, but look, I think one of the most important things he did was try to get the Defense
00:25:28 Department back to a warfighting culture.
00:25:31 You look at the enlistment rates that are skyrocketing.
00:25:34 I think young men and women are eager to come serve this country again.
00:25:37 And he's someone that was on the front lines fighting.
00:25:41 And you look at it as he goes out and works out with servicemen and women.
00:25:45 I'll tell you, they love him and believe in him.
00:25:49 And will the House impeach him?
00:25:51 They probably will.
00:25:52 But it has very little to do with him and has everything to do with the Iran war.
00:25:56 And if the Democrats take control, they'll want to do months of impeachment hearing to just attack the Trump administration all day long.
00:26:03 that's senator by the way you're absolutely right uh and and what you said there well look and i
00:26:09 think that's one of the the best legacies of of hegseth's tenure is is that he brought he's brought
00:26:15 a war fighting culture back uh to the pentagon to the military we were seeing enlistment rates
00:26:22 plummet because people didn't want to be part of woke social justice warriors uh instead what what
00:26:30 Hagseth has been really, and it's why I was such an enthusiastic supporter of his,
00:26:36 is he said, look, the job of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines is to fight to
00:26:41 defend America, to keep Americans safe, to defeat our enemies. And that is really refocusing,
00:26:48 get out of the politics, get back to the core mission. I think that's something Pete has done
00:26:53 well. And that being said, as I noted on Bill Maher, I thought they would impeach him. And
00:26:59 I thought they would impeach him because that's what House leadership told me was going to happen.
00:27:03 But at least this week that failed.
00:27:07 I'm very glad of that.
00:27:09 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from earlier this week to hear the entire thing.
00:27:17 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:27:22 All right, Senator.
00:27:23 So let's talk about this foreign influence.
00:27:25 It's really interesting to see and just take a step back so people understand it was a lot harder back in the day to have influence over America if you were a foreign country, because you would have had in essence like buy ads in a newspaper.
00:27:40 You'd have to run TV ads or radio ads to have real like real penetration into the hearts and minds of Americans.
00:27:49 That was a lot harder to do than what we've now seen.
00:27:53 And there's the good and bad of social media and the World Wide Web.
00:27:57 It's great for freedom of speech in general.
00:27:59 But we also are now learning just how much money is coming in to influence us in America.
00:28:07 We've seen a lot of this with data centers.
00:28:09 We found out not that long ago that there was hundreds of thousands of bots that were
00:28:15 basically putting misinformation, scared tactics in the marketplace to turn people away from
00:28:21 data centers.
00:28:21 That was all, by the way, being paid for by China.
00:28:24 They were in charge of putting these accounts out there, putting this propaganda up there,
00:28:29 using AI to give really good graphics and statistics and things that people would share in the fear-mongering.
00:28:35 And now we're finding out just how effective it actually was.
00:28:38 Well, I mean, let's take all of our listeners.
00:28:41 And we have an incredibly smart, educated, savvy group of listeners that are loyal to Verdict.
00:28:47 the odds are you probably think data centers are a bad thing you probably think data centers are
00:28:55 stealing your water you probably think data centers are driving your electricity bills up
00:28:59 and and the reason i say you probably think that is because across the country that's what almost
00:29:05 everybody thinks and and it's an amazing i have never seen an issue on which public opinion has
00:29:11 moved faster than on data center so six months ago if you did a poll and i've done polls on this
00:29:18 what do you think of a new data center coming in uh in your neighborhood typically nationwide you
00:29:25 would get about 55 45 support so more than half of americans say oh yeah that's great more jobs
00:29:30 construction okay good i'm good with that today it's not 55 45 in favor it is 80 20 against the
00:29:38 speed in just four or five months is staggering and and the thing to understand that just didn't
00:29:45 happen no data center blew up like a mile island like a nuclear reactor nuclear power like yeah
00:29:50 there was no catastrophic event that made all these people just run from these things saying
00:29:56 oh my gosh they're unsafe but but if you're sitting there and i actually don't think our
00:30:01 listeners are 80 20 against data centers because i think verdict listeners skew more educated more
00:30:07 savvy and so more sophisticated. Our listeners are harder to manipulate because you're taking
00:30:12 the time to educate yourselves. I don't want you to listen to me and trust whatever I say. I want
00:30:16 you to listen to all the evidence you can and make your own determination. But what I can tell you
00:30:22 is the Chinese communists, look, China and America are in a race for AI. 0.89
00:30:27 If you're Xi in China, the single best way to win this race is convince America, 0.94
00:30:32 handcuff themselves tie their hands stop developing ai surrender and let china win 0.89
00:30:38 and understand the consequences of that are trillions of dollars of investment in china 0.87
00:30:44 and millions of jobs they want to take jobs away from us and it's much cheaper oh and they want to 0.65
00:30:51 use ai to propagandize to push espionage and propaganda and control they want the values of
00:30:57 the Chinese Communist government.
00:30:59 And so, look, the number one and number two argument against data centers,
00:31:03 number one, water, you need to understand,
00:31:05 if you're worried data centers are stealing your water,
00:31:07 you're being lied to.
00:31:08 That is a false argument.
00:31:11 It is what China puts most of his money into.
00:31:14 Why is it a false argument?
00:31:15 Because almost every data center going in
00:31:18 uses either what's called closed-loop cooling,
00:31:21 which means the same water gets circulated round and round and round,
00:31:24 so it uses almost no water,
00:31:26 Or actually, more and more of them are using air cooling, doesn't even use water at all.
00:31:30 So almost every data center uses less water than a golf course. 0.83
00:31:34 But China is paying money to convince you you should be scared. 0.94
00:31:38 We're going to break down more of that coming up. 0.56
00:31:41 The average data center uses far less water, and you mentioned this a moment ago, than a golf course does in a year.
00:31:49 Now, Americans are in favor of golf courses.
00:31:51 And by the way, your boys are some of the top young golfers in the country.
00:31:56 Yeah, I appreciate the water for these golf courses.
00:31:59 I want to be very, very clear about that.
00:32:00 And let me just ask everyone listening,
00:32:02 is there any person listening to this podcast
00:32:05 who thinks golf courses are destroying America?
00:32:09 Correct.
00:32:09 And if you don't, and by the way, if you do, 0.98
00:32:12 you're a lunatic nutcase, so nobody thinks that 0.99
00:32:14 because we don't have lunatic nutcases who listen to this. 1.00
00:32:16 Other than we have reporters, to all the reporters, 0.94
00:32:18 to all of MSNBC who is listening, 1.00
00:32:20 you guys are the lunatic nutcases. 1.00
00:32:22 You probably do think golf courses are destroying America, 0.99
00:32:24 but every rational person listening to this does not if you don't think golf courses are destroying
00:32:31 america then at least on the waterfront understand data centers use less water why is it that you
00:32:40 have been told oh data centers are stealing our water and by the way i hear that i hear that in
00:32:45 rural texas i hear that in south texas data centers are stealing our water because the 0.71
00:32:49 Communist Chinese are putting real money to convincing you of that. 0.66
00:32:53 They're lying to you. 0.95
00:32:55 Now, the other argument they use is data centers drive up your power rates.
00:32:58 Now, that is not a crazy argument.
00:33:00 The average American's power rate, electricity rate, has risen over 30% in the last four years.
00:33:08 So you are right to be worried.
00:33:10 I don't want my electricity rates to go up.
00:33:12 What I have been urging policymakers, what I've been urging Governor Abbott, what I've
00:33:16 been urging tech centers to say every data center that goes in, you need to make sure it is not
00:33:22 increasing electricity bills. And ideally, it should be lowering electricity bills. You ought
00:33:28 to generate more power than you use. And the vast majority of data centers are doing exactly that.
00:33:34 So, Senator, if you know the facts about this, it's not actually that scary, but that's where
00:33:38 the propaganda comes in and the money. And now we have even more information and evidence of just
00:33:45 how deep china has gone to influence americans especially ahead the midterms where candidates
00:33:51 were running on saying no to ai centers local and state elections they were involved in as well
00:33:57 if you think china isn't looking at your city council your county commissioners or your board
00:34:00 of aldermen or your mayors you're wrong they're involved in all of it well and and let me give
00:34:06 an example of a story that broke this week is from the free beacon it's entitled quote grassroots
00:34:12 single mom activist behind maryland data center moratorium had a helping hand from marxist leninist
00:34:18 group tied to china taylor frazier mccullum supposedly grassroots campaign against the
00:34:23 data center community got extensive support from an experienced china-linked activist group
00:34:30 taylor frazier mccullum the quote grassroots activist who has been credited with securing
00:34:34 a moratorium on data center development in prince's george's county maryland had extensive
00:34:40 support from a China-linked group that widely promoted her campaign and even provided signs
00:34:47 with its logo for the on-site demonstrations. The group that collaborated with McCollum,
00:34:54 a struggling single mom with no history of activism, is the Party for Socialism and
00:35:00 Liberation, a Marxist-Leninist group tied to notorious Beijing-based tech mogul Neville Roy
00:35:07 Singham, who has been accused of bankrolling an extensive Chinese propaganda network.
00:35:13 The revelation is the latest evidence that the increasingly effective anti-data center
00:35:17 movement can be traced, at least in part, to Chinese tied funders.
00:35:22 An investigation published earlier this year by the Bitcoin Policy Institute linked several
00:35:28 anti-data center campaigns to Chinese government tied organizations, while the social media
00:35:34 platform xai reported in august that its safety team had identified a network of chinese quote
00:35:41 inauthentic accounts that reportedly spread anti-data center content according to the
00:35:48 washdog site influence watch and a recent report from the anti-defamation league the psl which is
00:35:55 based in san francisco is funded by and shares staff with singham's hundred million dollars
00:36:03 pro-China Marxist network of activist groups.
00:36:07 Specifically, Influence Watch reports that the PSL
00:36:11 boasts funding and personnel overlaps with the group
00:36:14 Answer Coalition, the group Breakthrough News,
00:36:19 and the People's Forum, which are key cogs in Singham's
00:36:23 influence network, which the Connecticut-born expatriate controls
00:36:26 from China. City Journal reported in June that the PSL
00:36:31 is central to that network citing a prominent communist funder that singham's organizations
00:36:37 quote redirect insurgent organizing into tightly controlled institutions and that each of the
00:36:45 network's initiatives is designed to build up the psl for her part mccullum portrayed in a credulous
00:36:53 NFL NPR profile as a struggling single mom and a waxing parlor employee whose quote political 1.00
00:37:02 awakening was triggered by data center development started a public petition in June of 2025 calling
00:37:09 on Prince George's County leaders to block plans for a five billion dollar data center on the site
00:37:16 of the mall in the town of Landover that had been abandoned for more than two decades so this is
00:37:21 an abandoned mall site nothing was happening and suddenly five billion dollars was going to be
00:37:27 invested thousands of jobs were going to be created and yet she led an effort funded by
00:37:32 china to stop it now i want you to listen to her talking about what she wants done with this this
00:37:38 land and this space instead give a listen we did just lose six flags so i think that this would be
00:37:42 a great site to bring some like urban air park or american dream type facility um you know just
00:37:48 something that's bigger and broader and can serve all the residents of French or this county and not
00:37:52 just benefit the ones that can get a job at a data center. Five billion dollars center, Senator.
00:37:57 She wants it to turn into a trampoline park and forget all the people that may get a great paying 1.00
00:38:02 job. If you're a construction worker, if you're an electrician, if you are the thousands of people
00:38:07 that would get five billion dollars of investment, you ought to be pissed because this, you know, 1.00
00:38:13 there's a phrase useful idiot she wants a trampoline park which produces almost no jobs 1.00
00:38:19 does not provide significant benefit to the community but she's being paid by china she 0.99
00:38:24 doesn't even know it but she's being paid by china to say this as always thank you for listening to
00:38:30 verdict with senator ted cruz ben ferguson with you don't forget to download my podcast and you
00:38:35 can listen to my podcast every other day you're not listening to verdict or each day when you
00:38:38 listen to verdict afterwards i'd love to have you as a listener to again the ben ferguson podcast
00:38:43 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.