Verdict with Ted Cruz - Dems Double Down on Illegal Alien Gang Members & Shocking Supreme Court Decision Halting Deportations

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.620 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.560 Welcome.

00:00:06.220 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.300 And I want to give a very special welcome to so many of you that are joining this podcast

00:00:13.440 for the very first time.

00:00:15.080 As many of you that are listening to this podcast may have heard, we are now a syndicated

00:00:20.160 radio show on the weekends nationwide.

00:00:23.080 So you can listen to the show wherever you have a lot of local news talk stations.

00:00:27.860 So we're really excited to bring in new listeners with this first show since we went live this

00:00:33.100 weekend with that syndicated show center.

00:00:35.340 It was really fun, by the way.

00:00:36.780 We even had some friends that sent you some warm wishes, which included Sean Hannity.

00:00:42.480 That was really cool as well.

00:00:43.740 Welcoming you as the first sitting senator and actually national politician to ever have

00:00:49.280 a syndicated radio show while also in office.

00:00:52.180 It's pretty awesome.

00:00:53.340 Well, we launched the podcast as a syndicated radio show this weekend.

00:00:56.920 We started on 84 stations nationwide, 84, and we're anticipating a lot more stations

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00:01:03.620 We're going to be every weekend all across the country, and it'll be our Friday podcast

00:01:07.600 that will air on Saturdays and Sundays throughout the weekend.

00:01:10.980 And it's a great opportunity just to take listeners behind the scenes, behind the curtain,

00:01:16.400 what's going on.

00:01:17.700 Today, what we're talking about is we're talking about two battles.

00:01:20.560 One, a battle in the United States Senate.

00:01:24.080 The second, a battle in the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:01:26.760 All of these battles.

00:01:28.160 Number one in the Senate, the Democrat senators have decided they have found their issue to

00:01:33.620 campaign on in 2026.

00:01:35.800 Their issue is illegals. 0.99

00:01:38.100 They want more of them.

00:01:39.220 And especially MS-13 gang members.

00:01:42.240 They're all in.

00:01:43.460 It's an amazing decision.

00:01:45.500 Chris Van Hollen, Democrat from Maryland, flew down to El Salvador to play footsie with

00:01:51.180 a gang member.

00:01:52.100 We're going to talk about that.

00:01:53.220 We're also going to talk about a big decision at the Supreme Court halting, I hope, temporarily

00:01:58.780 deportations of Venezuelans.

00:02:01.620 You had a vigorous dissent from Justice Alito and Justice Thomas.

00:02:05.680 All of that on today's pod.

00:02:07.400 Before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you about how Israel is still under attack.

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00:02:18.840 destruction.

00:02:20.200 Here in America, we can't imagine what it's like to live in constant fear like this.

00:02:25.460 And that is the reality for many in Israel.

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00:02:31.400 You can join me and show the people of Israel that not only do you want to help protect them

00:02:36.480 in this time of attack and uncertainty, but that you stand with them as well.

00:02:41.720 And one of the best ways to do this is by giving to the International Fellowship of Christians

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00:03:40.920 All right, Senator, so let's start with this big first issue.

00:03:44.320 I still can't get my head around the fact that this is clearly the political issue,

00:03:50.260 as you mentioned a moment ago.

00:03:51.840 Democrats believe is like a big moment for them and an issue to run on in less than two

00:03:59.860 years in the midterms.

00:04:01.320 And that's not to defend Americans, but to defend a terrorist organization and their members.

00:04:08.140 Well, it really is astonishing, this individual that they're focusing on who's been deported

00:04:12.880 to El Salvador.

00:04:13.940 He is an illegal alien. 0.81

00:04:15.240 No one disputes that. 0.97

00:04:16.260 He came illegally. 0.99

00:04:17.160 He had an order of deportation against him.

00:04:19.560 The court ordered him deported.

00:04:21.740 Nobody disputes that either.

00:04:23.680 And twice he's been adjudicated to be a member of MS-13.

00:04:27.780 As President Trump tweeted out, he has tattoos on his fist, on his fingers,

00:04:32.820 that correspond with MS-13 gang tattoos.

00:04:36.080 It is really a remarkable thing that the Democrats look at this situation and say,

00:04:43.160 this is the issue that is going to move the American people to our side.

00:04:47.600 I don't know anybody who thinks, at least I don't know anyone normal and rational,

00:04:55.120 who thinks what we need is more gang members and illegal aliens.

00:05:00.740 And in fact, look, I'm going to read to you a text.

00:05:06.200 I'm not going to identify who it is, but it's a buddy of mine who's a Democrat, who's a Democrat.

00:05:12.340 He's on the left.

00:05:13.300 And he just texted me and said, your colleague, Maryland Senator Van Hollen, flew to El Salvador to see Garcia.

00:05:23.860 My wife's friends are very upset the senator cares more about one non-citizen than many innocent American hostages.

00:05:33.220 Your thoughts?

00:05:33.840 And to be clear, this is a friend of mine who is a Democrat who is solidly left of center,

00:05:40.420 and his wife is looking at this going, what the hell are these people doing?

00:05:45.300 That says something.

00:05:47.140 And I'll tell you something else that's interesting.

00:05:49.780 This is not just a one-off.

00:05:51.580 The Democrats have decided this is our issue.

00:05:54.020 So Sunday, Chris Van Hollen, senator from Maryland who flew down to El Salvador, he did the full Ginsburg. 0.80

00:06:03.400 Now, what is the full Ginsburg?

00:06:05.040 Let's see, Ben, how good is your recollection?

00:06:07.040 Do you remember what the full Ginsburg is?

00:06:08.980 See, these are the moments for people that are just listening for the first time that make me laugh,

00:06:14.160 because these are the I got you co-host questions.

00:06:17.420 Get used to them.

00:06:18.240 They happen about once per episode.

00:06:19.960 And this is where I say, no, Senator, please tell me what the Ginsburg is.

00:06:25.920 Okay, the full Ginsburg, it's a thing.

00:06:29.340 It was named for William Ginsburg, who was Monica Lewinsky's lawyer during the scandal against Bill Clinton.

00:06:36.580 And he went on all major Sunday morning talk shows.

00:06:40.540 He went on this week on ABC, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and State of the Union on CNN.

00:06:45.660 So doing all five is called the full Ginsburg, because he's the first one anyone remembers doing it.

00:06:52.000 And it's actually interesting. I went and Googled it just a minute ago, and Wikipedia oddly has a list of everyone who's done the full Ginsburg.

00:07:00.240 And it turns out quite a lot of people have done it.

00:07:02.540 So it started off with William Ginsburg, then it was Congressman Rick Lazio when he was running for Senate, then it was Dick Cheney, then it was John Edwards when he was running for president, then it was Michael Chertoff when he was Secretary of Homeland Security, then it was Hillary Clinton, then it was Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, then it was Secretary Janet Napolitano, then it was Dr. Richard Besser of the CDC, then it was Bill Clinton,

00:07:23.420 then it was George W. Bush, then it was Rajiv Shah, then it was Lieutenant General Ken Keene, then it was Michelle Bachman, then it was Jack Lew, then it was Susan Rice, then it was Timothy Geithner, then it was Jeb Bush, then it was Marco Rubio, then it was Daniel Pfeiffer, then it was John Kerry, then it was Dennis McDonough, then it was Jack Lew, then it was John Kerry, then it was Dennis McDonough, again, he was White House Chief of Staff, then it was Robert Sunwalt, a board member of the National Transportation Safety Board, then it was Paul Ryan, then it was Marco Rubio.

00:07:51.640 And you know what I discovered? And the next person to make the list actually was me, which I didn't remember, but I'm looking at this Wikipedia article, and when I ran for president in 2016, apparently I did it February 28th of 2016, which I didn't remember, but I'm one of the ones who's done the full Ginsburg.

00:08:14.460 So just to be clear, I got asked if I knew what the Ginsburg was, I didn't know the answer, but you were one of the people on the Ginsburg list, and you forgot it, so we're just full circling that, right?

00:08:26.200 Well, and then the last two who've done it have been John Kirby, who was a White House spokesman for Joe Biden, and then on Sunday, Chris Van Hollen, and so I make this point, look, someone does the full Ginsburg, they go on every Sunday show,

00:08:44.060 when they really, really want to draw attention to something, when they want to highlight it, when they want to say, hey, this matters, and listen, the Democrat Party as a whole, they're all in on this strategy, the media as a whole, they're all in on this strategy,

00:08:58.780 and I got to say, that's just, I think that has a real danger of backfiring on them.

00:09:07.620 So let's play part of what he had to say on this visit with a guy that's not only a, not because I say so, multiple courts have said so, government agencies have confirmed it as well, is an MS-13 gang member, which has been declared a terrorist organization,

00:09:25.780 and this is part of what he had to say on ABC this week, take a listen.

00:09:31.480 As you know, the president himself has been attacking you by pointing out some of the aspects of Abrego Garcia's record, including the fact that his wife had an order of protection against him in 2021,

00:09:44.260 and alleged some pretty serious allegations of abuse, and even that he had detained her.

00:09:50.280 Are you concerned about your defense of somebody?

00:09:54.880 Obviously, everybody in this country, even those undocumented immigrants have rights, but are you concerned about standing so forcefully with somebody that has, you know, at least a questionable record? 0.70

00:10:07.520 I am not defending the man, I'm defending the rights of this man to due process, and the Trump administration has admitted in court that he was wrongfully detained and wrongfully deported.

00:10:25.700 My mission and my purpose is to make sure that we uphold the rule of law, because if we take it away from him, we do jeopardize it for everybody else.

00:10:34.200 And I do want to point out, Carl, yes, the Trump administration is trying to change the story, they're trying to detract attention.

00:10:40.600 Here's where they should put their facts.

00:10:42.680 They should put it before the court.

00:10:44.360 They should put up or shut up in court.

00:10:46.820 I mean, it's amazing that he tries to spin it this way.

00:10:49.940 It's also amazing that ABC tries to kind of downplay the fact that this is a guy that attacked his wife.

00:10:56.480 She had a protective order.

00:10:57.580 Oh, and by the way, on top of that, he's an MS-13 gang member, and you're trying to act like this is a guy we need to go protect and save.

00:11:04.000 Well, and let me point out what Van Hollen says there is just wrong.

00:11:09.240 So there was an order of deportation against this guy.

00:11:12.480 Court had ruled he should be deported.

00:11:14.820 It is true the Trump administration has admitted they made a mistake.

00:11:18.020 And the mistake they made is that there was a court order prohibiting his deportation to El Salvador.

00:11:23.840 It was an older order.

00:11:25.240 They didn't see it, and so they missed it.

00:11:27.160 And so the state of the law was the federal government could deport him to literally any country on planet Earth except El Salvador.

00:11:36.180 But because of that order, you had a court order saying don't send him to El Salvador, and they did so because they didn't see that order until after the fact.

00:11:44.820 Now, that also means if he came back, they could literally deport him 10 seconds later to another country.

00:11:50.640 Because, listen, if you are here illegally, and in particular if you are a member of a terrorist organization, you don't have a right to remain.

00:12:02.800 You know, Jonathan Karl calls him an undocumented alien.

00:12:05.780 No, the term under the statute is illegal alien, and they are an illegal alien.

00:12:09.680 It's not that they're just, you know, missing some piece of paper.

00:12:13.120 It's that they came here illegally, and the administration has the power to remove him.

00:12:18.180 I want you to listen to this clip on another part of the Full Ginsburg when he's on CNN and Dana Bash question him.

00:12:25.940 Give a listen to this.

00:12:27.900 Now, President Trump says that some of Abrego Garcia's tattoos signify that he's a member of MS-13.

00:12:35.960 In 2019, police alleged a confidential informant claimed that Abrego Garcia was an active MS-13 member.

00:12:45.620 His wife and his attorney deny that, of course.

00:12:48.620 Can you say with absolute certainty that he is not, nor has he ever been a member of the MS-13 gang?

00:12:54.440 And did you ask him point blank?

00:12:56.240 Well, Dana, what Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject.

00:13:00.480 The subject at hand is that he and his administration are defying a court order to give Abrego Garcia his due process rights.

00:13:12.460 They are trying to litigate on social media what they should be doing in the courts.

00:13:17.560 They need to put up or shut up in the courts. 0.99

00:13:19.800 Let me tell you, and I decided to write this down so I could be absolutely accurate,

00:13:23.780 as to what Federal District Court Judge Zinnis said about these allegations by the Trump administration.

00:13:30.380 Quote, no evidence linking Abrego Garcia to MS-13 or any terrorist activity has been presented to the court.

00:13:38.940 That's where to litigate this.

00:13:40.660 That's been it's been litigated in many other places.

00:13:42.720 So I'm not going to get into the details because the whole purpose of our court system is for them to adjudicate these things,

00:13:50.180 not for Donald Trump to go off on social media.

00:13:53.060 Yeah, you're right.

00:13:54.380 They have not there hasn't been a court hearing for them to put forward evidence in the first place, which is your whole point.

00:14:00.920 But since you were the one person to have met with him and since this is a thing you say on social media,

00:14:07.340 it's what we hear from Donald Trump and Republicans every day, all day long.

00:14:11.800 You didn't ask him.

00:14:13.180 I didn't ask him that because I know what his answer is.

00:14:16.020 What he told me was he was sad and traumatized that he was being in prison because he has committed no crimes.

00:14:25.000 And that goes to the heart of this issue because he's being denied his due process rights.

00:14:30.060 And Donald Trump is trying to change the subject.

00:14:34.180 And, you know, when people start asking about asking that question, in my view, they're falling into the president's trap because what the president wants to do is talk about that as if we can't all fight gang violence,

00:14:46.160 which I've been doing for much longer than Donald Trump.

00:14:49.300 Right.

00:14:49.820 His argument is you can't fight that and at the same time uphold people's constitutional rights.

00:14:55.620 That's a very dangerous view.

00:14:57.800 And if we deny the constitutional rights of this one man, it threatens the constitutional rights of everybody in America.

00:15:05.560 So there's several things that are remarkable in what Van Hollen is doing.

00:15:09.360 Number one, it keeps saying Trump is trying to change the subject.

00:15:12.380 Now, mind you, that's exactly what Van Hollen is doing.

00:15:15.280 I mean, it really is Freudian projection.

00:15:17.580 Um, he gets asked about, uh, the restraining order and, and, and, and the evidence that, that, that this illegal alien committed domestic violence and was a wife beater.

00:15:29.300 He said, nope, nope, nevermind, nevermind.

00:15:30.760 And he gets asked, okay, well, is the guy in MS-13 gang member?

00:15:35.620 Yes.

00:15:36.020 No.

00:15:36.380 Did you ask him?

00:15:37.720 And he says, no, no, no.

00:15:39.360 Trump, Trump, Trump, orange man, bad Trump, Trump, Trump.

00:15:41.640 And, and, and remarkably, Dan Abash goes back again and says, well, well, yeah, but you sat down with him.

00:15:48.860 Did you ask him?

00:15:50.900 And, and, and Van Hollen says, no, because it turns out.

00:15:54.140 So, so in his view, it is, quote, changing the subject to discuss the facts of who it is that was deported.

00:16:03.580 I, I, I think that is the subject, who it was that was deported.

00:16:07.200 And by the way, one of the things Van Hollen says is he has committed no crimes.

00:16:12.060 That would be factually incorrect.

00:16:14.280 Crossing illegally into the United States is a crime.

00:16:17.340 The Democrats want everyone to do that.

00:16:19.880 And, and, and even if you're a gang member at, look at, at the very same time that, that the Democrats are embracing, uh, this admitted illegal alien and, and person who's been found by two courts to, to be affiliated with MS-13.

00:16:37.200 While they're defending him as a, quote, Maryland man, we had simultaneously the mom of Rachel Morin, who is also a Maryland resident.

00:16:46.340 And yet, the senator from Maryland cannot bother to be worried about Rachel Morin, a woman who was raped and murdered, a mom of five kids, raped and murdered by an illegal immigrant that the Democrats released.

00:17:01.200 Their priorities are, are, I think, abundantly clear.

00:17:05.540 And, and by the way, this PR stunt by Van Hollen, if you want to know who had to pay for it, well, here's his answer on that.

00:17:12.260 Who did pay for this trip?

00:17:14.380 Uh, this was an officially cleared, you know, congressional trip, cleared on a bipartisan basis.

00:17:20.540 Yes, like every other trip.

00:17:22.360 Yes, like every other trip.

00:17:23.860 So that's just, you know, yeah, we waste your money all the time.

00:17:26.620 We waste your money on this trip, too.

00:17:28.000 Why would that be out of the ordinary?

00:17:30.180 It is standard practice for members of both parties to travel abroad, and it's, it's part of doing the job responsibility.

00:17:37.480 So I, I don't fault him, uh, for, for traveling to El Salvador.

00:17:41.740 I, I fault him for deciding that, that he wants to stake everything he stands for on the proposition that we need more illegal aliens in this country, that the federal government cannot deport illegal aliens, and that we need more gang members in this country.

00:17:57.360 And as he lays out, he doesn't care, and he didn't ask if this guy's a gang member, and apparently he didn't care if he also is committing domestic violence and beating up his wife.

00:18:07.120 Those are not his concerns either.

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00:18:40.560 I want to move also to the second big, big story.

00:18:43.920 And there's some people that are confused.

00:18:45.940 I also think very frustrated by the Supreme Court halting the deportations of illegal immigrants in some cases.

00:18:53.940 Can you break down what this ruling is?

00:18:56.480 Alito was in the dissent here.

00:18:58.720 And the headlines over Easter weekend, people are like, wait, what?

00:19:03.060 How?

00:19:03.620 Why is this happening?

00:19:04.780 I don't understand how we're protecting people that are illegal immigrants yet again at the level of the Supreme Court. 0.74

00:19:10.420 Break this down so it makes sense.

00:19:12.300 Well, the Supreme Court, early Saturday morning, issued an order blocking the deportation of Venezuelan illegal immigrants under an 18th century law.

00:19:26.400 And what it said is that they had to halt the deportations until, quote, further order of this court.

00:19:32.920 And I got to say, Justice Alito, joined by Justice Thomas, wrote a very fiery dissent, really disagreeing with it.

00:19:41.900 I'm going to read you part of the dissent.

00:19:44.560 Here's what Justice Alito and Justice Thomas wrote, quote,

00:19:47.340 Although the order does not define the, quote, putative class,

00:20:11.140 It appears that the court means all members of the class that the habeas petitioners sought to have certified, namely, quote,

00:20:18.140 all noncitizens in custody in the Northern District of Texas who were, are, and will be subject to the March 2025 presidential proclamation

00:20:27.440 entitled Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Trender-Aragua and or its implementation.

00:20:36.800 It also appears that applicants have recently moved to amend their class petition for habeas corpus and their motion for class certification.

00:20:44.820 So it is not clear if the applicants will continue to defend this specific definition or will argue for a new one.

00:20:50.820 And although the court does not specify what it means by, quote, the government,

00:20:55.560 it appears that term is intended to embrace all the named defendants, including the president.

00:21:01.720 The court did all of this, even though it is not clear that the court had jurisdiction.

00:21:08.620 The All Rits Act does not provide an independent grant of jurisdiction.

00:21:12.880 Therefore, the court had jurisdiction only if the court of appeals had jurisdictions of the applicant's appeal.

00:21:19.400 And the court of appeals had jurisdiction only if the supposed order that the applicants appealed amounted to a denial of a preliminary injunction.

00:21:26.900 But here, the order that applicants appealed was what they viewed as the district court's constructive denial of their request for a temporary restraining order.

00:21:37.680 That is, the district court did not actually deny their most recent request for a TRO.

00:21:43.060 But they inferred that it was constructively denied because the district court failed to rule on that request

00:21:49.120 before the expiration of a truncated, counsel-imposed deadline.

00:21:55.080 The denial of a true TRO is not appealable, and here it is not clear that the applicant's TRO request was actually denied.

00:22:03.140 Indeed, in an order issued last night, the Fifth Circuit held that it lacked jurisdiction for this reason.

00:22:09.920 It is questionable whether the applicant complied with the general obligation to seek emergency injunctive relief in the district court

00:22:16.660 before asking for such relief from an appellate court.

00:22:19.440 When applicants requested such relief in the district court, they insisted on a ruling within 45 minutes on Good Friday afternoon.

00:22:32.060 And when the district court did not act within 133 minutes, they filed a notice of appeal,

00:22:37.360 which the district court held deprived it of its jurisdiction.

00:22:40.200 Now, a lot of that jurisdictional language seems confusing, but understand what happened.

00:22:46.620 They went to the district court and they said,

00:22:48.480 we want an answer within 45 minutes.

00:22:52.060 And the court did not respond one way or another in 45 minutes.

00:22:55.800 And they immediately appealed and said, oh, they haven't answered.

00:22:58.180 That means you've denied it.

00:22:59.220 And the court of appeals ruled that, well, we're not going to act on this.

00:23:06.760 And unfortunately, 7-2, the Supreme Court jumped in.

00:23:12.780 And in fact, here's how Justice Alito and Justice Thomas end their dissent.

00:23:17.140 Quote, in sum, literally in the middle of the night, the court issued unprecedented and legally questionable relief

00:23:25.420 without giving the lower courts a chance to rule, without hearing from the opposing party,

00:23:31.360 within eight hours of receiving the application, with dubious factual support for its order,

00:23:37.100 and without providing any explanation for its order.

00:23:40.140 I refused to join the court's order because we had no good reason to think that under the circumstances,

00:23:45.620 issuing the order at midnight was necessary or appropriate.

00:23:49.500 Both the executive and the judiciary have an obligation to follow the law.

00:23:53.860 The executive must proceed under the terms of our order.

00:23:58.260 And this court should follow established procedures.

00:24:01.600 So you look at this, and what is this going to mean moving forward?

00:24:05.220 And how big of a roadblock is this going to be for the Trump administration to do what they've said

00:24:10.060 and promised the American people?

00:24:11.460 And by the way, the American people voted for, which was, we want to secure the border

00:24:14.920 and we want to get rid of all the illegal immigrants that came into this country, 1.00

00:24:18.960 especially those that are violent.

00:24:20.980 Well, look, it's not clear how big a challenge it's going to be.

00:24:24.660 The most distressing thing about this order was that it was 7-2.

00:24:29.520 7-2 is not good.

00:24:32.520 It means everybody, but Alito and Thomas, voted to stay, to halt the deportations of Venezuelans.

00:24:41.260 It's not clear.

00:24:41.960 Presumably they're going to write a more extended opinion at some point,

00:24:46.140 and so we'll find out more of their reasoning.

00:24:48.540 But I've got to say, look, these two stories, this story and the first one are connected,

00:24:52.940 because I will say the Democrats' strategy in doing the full Ginsburg,

00:24:57.620 in some ways I think their audience is not the American people.

00:25:01.700 They've got to know.

00:25:02.740 Somebody on the Democrat side of the aisle has got to know, hey, this is not earning us votes 0.97

00:25:07.880 when we say we're the party of illegal aliens and criminals and gang members and wife beaters. 0.97

00:25:15.620 That's us. 0.75

00:25:17.300 You don't have to be a rocket scientist when it comes to reading public opinion

00:25:24.500 to know that's not the most popular of issues to stake your entire party platform on.

00:25:31.420 But in many ways, they're aiming at a much smaller audience.

00:25:35.160 They're aiming at five.

00:25:36.500 They're hoping to get five justices pissed off.

00:25:41.660 And to get them pissed off enough that we see a series of Supreme Court orders

00:25:48.100 against the Trump administration trying to halt these deportations.

00:25:52.520 Now, I don't think that's going to happen, but this ruling is troubling, that it was 7-2.

00:25:59.520 Alito's dissent, look, Alito was very concerned about this.

00:26:04.320 And the procedural minutiae that he recounts is very unusual.

00:26:11.700 And so that dynamic, it is a dangerous process.

00:26:18.600 It is right now.

00:26:20.500 There's a little bit of a game of chicken.

00:26:21.920 And I think what the Democrats are trying to do is piss off a couple of Supreme Court justices

00:26:28.840 and get them to rule decisively against the president.

00:26:32.060 That would be very unfortunate if that starts to happen.

00:26:35.100 Simply another question real quick before we move on.

00:26:38.080 Is part of this, could it just be the quickness that they were asking for the ruling from the court?

00:26:43.400 Is that something that you could change moving forward?

00:26:45.840 Could that be part of that issue?

00:26:47.960 Yeah, look, it was done as an emergency appeal.

00:26:52.380 And there are times, you know, there's another context where this happens a lot, which is dealing with death penalty appeals.

00:26:58.360 And when you have death penalty appeals, you have someone who's been convicted of a capital offense and they're set to be executed.

00:27:04.740 And very frequently you have last minute appeals that are filed.

00:27:09.080 And I'll tell you, when I was a law clerk, I was a law clerk for Chief Justice Rehnquist in 1996 and 1997.

00:27:15.900 And at the time, so this gives you a sense, you can now make a crack about how old I am.

00:27:21.060 At the time, the way we would get these emergency appeals is they would be faxed in.

00:27:25.280 So they weren't emailed at the time, they'd be faxed in.

00:27:29.180 And you'd get it off the fax and you would get, say, if the midnight was, if the execution was scheduled to happen at midnight.

00:27:37.680 And by the way, if it was midnight on the West Coast, that meant it was 3 a.m. in D.C.

00:27:45.960 But if the execution was scheduled at midnight, you would get sometimes a 100-page appeal faxed in at 10.30 p.m.

00:27:55.760 And what would happen, so what plays out when that gets faxed in is the justice who is the lead justice for that circuit.

00:28:03.520 So each circuit, each region of the country has a lead justice who is the justice to whom emergency appeals go initially.

00:28:10.140 Chief Justice Rehnquist was the lead justice for the Fourth Circuit as concerned death penalty appeals.

00:28:17.940 And so that was Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, West Virginia.

00:28:24.000 And Virginia in particular, there were a fair number of capital cases.

00:28:27.920 So you would get it faxed to you.

00:28:30.940 You as the law clerk would read through it.

00:28:33.020 You'd have to read through it very quickly.

00:28:35.020 You'd have to prepare a memo, write a memo.

00:28:37.680 You'd then send it to your justice.

00:28:40.440 And a lot of times, if this was at midnight or 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning, you'd have to call home and wake your justice up.

00:28:46.880 Your justice would be asleep.

00:28:47.940 You'd call home.

00:28:48.600 You'd say, Chief, we had an emergency appeal.

00:28:51.060 Now, the justice would know there was an execution set that night and so would know that there is likely to be a call.

00:28:58.300 But you'd call wake your justice up and ask, OK, here's the arguments.

00:29:02.860 Here's what I think about it.

00:29:04.180 And you would write a memo from your justice saying, summarizing the arguments in the appeal and making the recommendation.

00:29:14.520 So for Chief Justice Rehnquist, in virtually every circumstance, if someone was seeking to halt an execution at the last minute, he would recommend that that be denied.

00:29:24.600 You would then forward it to the other eight chambers, to the other eight chambers.

00:29:28.920 And there was a law clerk.

00:29:29.940 So on the night of execution, at least nine of us were there till midnight or 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning.

00:29:36.200 And so when you would forward your memo, and a memo in a case like this would be anywhere from two to maybe eight pages, depending on how complicated the issues were.

00:29:47.000 They would then get your memo, and they've gotten the appeal as well, so they're reading the appeal at the same time.

00:29:52.760 They would then call their justice, wake him or her up at home, and they would cast votes at midnight or 1 or 2 or 3 in the morning.

00:30:00.160 And a strategy that is still quite frequent when it comes to death penalty appeals is just throw so much crap at the wall that they're hoping the justices say, I don't know, I can't figure this out this quickly.

00:30:14.320 All right, just stay the execution, halt the execution so we can figure this all out.

00:30:19.180 And unfortunately, that strategy can work.

00:30:24.840 There may have been some of that, that this was being done over Easter weekend very quickly, and it may be that the justices wanted to say, hold on a second, we want to understand what's going on here.

00:30:36.060 That's possible.

00:30:38.040 But I do think the Democrats' entire strategy is try to see if they can get a majority of the Supreme Court ticked off.

00:30:47.440 And I don't think that's happened, but I do think that would be very dangerous and harmful if it did happen.

00:30:56.280 Yeah, that's a really great point.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 21, 2025

Dems Double Down on Illegal Alien Gang Members & Shocking Supreme Court Decision Halting Deportations

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