Verdict with Ted Cruz - Dems & Media Urge Biden to Issue Far-Reaching Pardons of EVERYBODY-Entire Biden Family & Senior Biden Officials

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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00:00:05.280 Welcome.

00:00:06.120 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.700 And Senator, this might be one of the craziest stories that I've seen in a while.

00:00:14.480 The media and Democrats are now urging the White House to pardon a list that they're putting together.

00:00:24.200 They're claiming that it's Trump's alleged enemies list, but it's not.

00:00:29.080 It's their list of people they're afraid might get in trouble with the law.

00:00:33.560 This is shocking.

00:00:35.200 Well, the fallout from Joe Biden's pardon of Hunter Biden continues.

00:00:38.840 One of the things we saw this week is the federal judge overseeing the criminal tax case against Hunter Biden slammed President Joe Biden for his incredibly dishonest press statement that accompanied the pardon and laid out that it is completely false and dishonest.

00:00:57.220 We're going to talk about that, and then we're going to talk about what you just mentioned, that we are seeing a full-on lobbying effort by Democrats and by the corporate media.

00:01:06.960 They want Joe Biden to pardon everyone.

00:01:10.960 They want him to issue blanket pardons across the board.

00:01:14.180 It is an incredibly open, brazen invitation for Joe Biden to abuse his power, for him to continue the weaponization of law enforcement.

00:01:26.080 You know, there are two components to weaponization.

00:01:27.660 One is targeting your enemies, but the other is protecting your friends.

00:01:32.860 And the corporate media is being quite open that they want Joe Biden on his way out to protect all of his friends in a way that would be not only utterly corrupt, but without precedent in our nation's history.

00:01:45.260 We're going to break that down in detail.

00:01:46.780 Yeah, it's truly incredible.

00:01:48.720 And the list is one with some very, very interesting names on it.

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00:03:53.560 All right, Senator, so this all manifested out of the Hunter Biden pardon.

00:04:00.460 It was such a broad pardon over a decade for a multitude of sins.

00:04:06.920 It started right when he started working for Burisma in Ukraine, if you want to time stamp this, all the way up until basically now.

00:04:16.460 And Democrats and the media are saying, okay, that's not enough.

00:04:21.680 They also seem to be wanting to give cover to Joe Biden to pardon everyone with the last name Biden and also give himself a pardon, which there's some issues with the law there.

00:04:35.280 I want you to dive into that, obviously.

00:04:37.080 But are you shocked by how quick they're throwing out names of who they're worried about?

00:04:41.320 Look, I think they are panicking.

00:04:44.800 I think they are terrified about the incoming Department of Justice, about the incoming leadership of the FBI.

00:04:50.920 They're terrified about Pam Bondi as attorney general.

00:04:54.020 They're terrified about Kash Patel as the director of the FBI.

00:04:57.580 And they're scrambling to seek cover.

00:05:01.020 You know, I will say the Hunter Biden pardon is something that on this podcast we predicted a year ago.

00:05:09.780 In January of this year, we predicted that Joe Biden would pardon Hunter Biden.

00:05:15.060 And in fact, we predicted that it was going to be in December of 2024.

00:05:19.700 Well, as it so happened, it was December 1st that Joe Biden issued the pardon.

00:05:24.520 He did it after spending an entire year lying about it over and over and over again, saying he would not pardon Hunter.

00:05:31.420 He would not pardon Hunter.

00:05:32.760 Corrine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, repeatedly just flat out lied.

00:05:38.120 Multiple Democrats went on TV and flat out lied.

00:05:41.120 The media flat out lied.

00:05:42.740 And Ben, we analyze this in depth in Monday's podcast.

00:05:46.440 And by the way, if you didn't listen to Monday's podcast, I'd encourage you to go back and listen to it.

00:05:50.120 It was it was one of our most downloaded podcasts we've ever done because it really it breaks down how this was an absolute abuse of power.

00:06:00.660 And it was also completely predictable.

00:06:03.620 When Joe Biden was saying, I'm not going to pardon Hunter, he was lying.

00:06:08.840 Everybody knew he was lying.

00:06:10.780 He knew he was lying.

00:06:11.840 The people listening to him knew he was lying.

00:06:13.540 The reporters knew he was lying.

00:06:15.260 Corrine Jean-Pierre knew he was lying.

00:06:17.120 The Democrat senators who echoed those claims knew he was lying.

00:06:20.860 And yet they were perfectly willing to lie as a political matter.

00:06:24.280 I got to say.

00:06:25.380 And by the way, it even came out since we did the last show reporting now from NBC News.

00:06:31.040 And it was also reported by The New York Times that they were lying and planning for this pardon all the way back in June.

00:06:41.660 And of course they were sources.

00:06:42.860 But I mean, they were going on TV, including the media, which is state sponsored media when they're doing this, lying deliberately to the American people, knowing that they were already planning for this.

00:06:55.140 Well, and it was in June of this year that I said on this podcast, the odds that Joe Biden will pardon Hunter Biden are 100 percent.

00:07:05.660 It is absolutely certain he is lying and everyone knows he's lying.

00:07:09.600 Now they're quite open about it.

00:07:10.600 Oh, yeah, we lied about it. Of course we did.

00:07:12.240 And they're just trying to say, well, he's just being a dad.

00:07:15.100 Every dad loves his son.

00:07:16.360 Wouldn't you do this?

00:07:17.740 And let's be clear.

00:07:19.820 Number one, every dad would not lie to the American people for a year about it.

00:07:23.740 If you were going to do it, then you shouldn't lie about it.

00:07:27.400 But number two, this is about protecting Joe.

00:07:31.460 This is about protecting his own corruption.

00:07:33.280 And I got to say, all right, so the federal judge who's overseeing the criminal tax case, Judge Mark Scarcy in California, slammed Joe Biden for his statement on the pardon.

00:07:45.200 And I got to say, the judge's comments.

00:07:48.140 I've never seen anything like this in my 20 plus years of practicing law.

00:07:54.160 I've never seen anything remotely like this.

00:07:56.680 Let me read to you from the judge's opinion that was issued.

00:08:01.040 For example, the president asserts Mr. Biden, quote, was treated differently from others, quote, who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, implying that Mr. Biden was among those individuals who untimely paid taxes due to addiction.

00:08:19.540 But he is not.

00:08:21.800 In his pretrial filings, Mr. Biden represented that he, quote, was severely addicted to alcohol and drugs through May of 2019.

00:08:30.100 Upon pleading guilty to the charges in this case, Mr. Biden admitted that he engaged in tax evasion after this period of addiction by wrongfully deducting his business expenses, items he knew were personal expenses, including luxury clothing, escort services and his daughter's law school tuition.

00:08:54.880 And Mr. Biden admitted that he, quote, had sufficient funds available to pay some or all of his outstanding taxes when they were due, but that he did not make payments towards his tax liabilities even, quote, well after he had regained his sobriety.

00:09:12.800 Instead, instead, electing to, quote, spend large sums to maintain his lifestyle in 2020, by the way, in 2020, that would be when his father, Joe Biden, was running for president.

00:09:25.820 According to the president, this is going back to Joe Biden's press release that accompanied the pardon, quote, no reasonable person who looks at the facts of Mr. Biden's case can reach any other conclusion than Mr. Biden was singled out only because he is the president's son, end quote.

00:09:47.040 But two federal judges expressly rejected Mr. Biden's arguments that the government prosecuted Mr. Biden because of his familial relation to the president and the president's own attorney general and Department of Justice personnel oversaw the investigation leading to the charges.

00:10:10.760 In the president's case, in the president's case, in the president's case, this legion of civil servants, the undersigned included, are unreasonable people.

00:10:23.340 In short, a press release is not a pardon.

00:10:27.540 The Constitution provides the president with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States.

00:10:33.660 But nowhere does the Constitution give the president the authority to rewrite history.

00:10:41.360 I got to say, Ben, I've never seen a federal judge take the bark off the sitting president of the United States the way that judge did.

00:10:49.220 He just said Joe Biden is flat out lying and he is dishonest.

00:10:53.720 And I got to say, the judge is exactly right.

00:10:55.500 Every word of that opinion is absolutely right.

00:10:58.600 And Joe Biden, again, understand for a year when he said he wasn't going to pardon his son, he was lying.

00:11:04.960 And understand today when he issued the pardon, Joe Biden is still lying.

00:11:10.760 And that's what the federal judge just said unequivocally.

00:11:13.240 And they seem to just be laughing in the face of justice and laughing in the face of Americans, by the way, that have been held accountable.

00:11:21.980 There's been a lot of whistleblowers that have come forward saying how angry they are over this.

00:11:26.600 There's people that have gone to jail for less than what Hunter Biden did on the tax issues.

00:11:32.200 They're talking about how, why is it that they had to go to jail for years and this guy gets to walk.

00:11:38.960 There seems to be a lot of, not just nepotism here, but anger from Americans that have had to face the music when they've committed many of the same crimes that he was accused of committing and had been convicted of.

00:11:54.080 Yeah, and not only is the federal judge angry, but the IRS whistleblower reacted to Biden's claim.

00:12:01.280 And Town Hall reported said, IRS whistleblower reacts to Biden's ludicrous claim justifying Hunter's pardon.

00:12:08.600 On Sunday night, President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his son, Hunter Biden.

00:12:12.020 It covers all potential crimes committed between 2014 and 2024.

00:12:17.320 And the, the, it, and that goes through the quotes, but IRS investigator and whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, who testified in 2023 about the special treatment being handed to Hunter by the Department of Justice, blasted Biden's claims as ludicrous.

00:12:37.200 And here, here's the quote that Ziegler said, quote, I honestly think that's completely ludicrous.

00:12:45.240 I'm a Democrat and I'm a person that believes in the rule of law.

00:12:49.620 When you look at what he was charged with, criminal tax evasion and what he pled guilty to, there are thousands of taxpayers who honestly file their taxes.

00:12:59.040 They pay their taxes on time.

00:13:00.520 And I think they should be disappointed by this because they're held to a standard that's different from the political elite.

00:13:08.220 This was felony conduct after he was sober.

00:13:11.460 It was clever that the president's letter didn't bring up any of that conduct.

00:13:16.540 I got to say that's exactly right.

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00:13:48.420 So you look at this, and yes, they're getting, I think the White House is pretty clear, is getting slapped around on the facts.

00:13:57.160 I'm not sure they care.

00:13:59.180 They don't.

00:13:59.380 And what is also happening.

00:14:00.240 They don't care at all.

00:14:01.500 Yeah.

00:14:01.780 I mean, they're just kind of like, we got away with it.

00:14:03.600 We planned to get away with it.

00:14:04.820 We had an alibi.

00:14:05.640 The alibi was that, well, my son was a drug addict, so therefore he shouldn't be held accountable for his actions while we were making money, while we were exploiting his addiction, which I also think is sick on so many different levels.

00:14:18.460 That there was that many Biden family members taking these amounts of money in the tens of millions of dollars, knowing that they were putting Hunter Biden out there and enabling his addiction with the massive payments coming to him while they knew he was a drug addict.

00:14:34.920 Yeah, and I got to say, it is reminiscent, what Joe Biden did with his son Hunter, is reminiscent of how criminals will sometimes use juveniles to commit crimes, because they know that juveniles, as a general matter, can't be held very accountable.

00:14:50.880 They'll serve minimal prison sentences, so, you know, drug cartels will use teenagers as drug mules, because they know the juvenile can get off with a very light punishment.

00:15:01.800 In this case, Joe Biden was willing to use his drug addict son as the bag man, as the one collecting all the cash.

00:15:10.640 And to be clear, it wasn't just cash that went to Hunter.

00:15:13.560 Hunter made millions of dollars. 0.81

00:15:15.020 I mean, he was paying for prostitutes out of this. 0.76

00:15:18.000 He was paying for drugs out of this.

00:15:19.500 And to be clear, Hunter was not working for our allies.

00:15:23.540 He wasn't working for France or Canada or the United Kingdom.

00:15:27.140 He was working for oligarchs, corrupt oligarchs in Russia, in Ukraine, in communist China.

00:15:34.100 He sought out those who were enemies of America, and he sold favors from his dad.

00:15:42.180 And it was incredibly lucrative.

00:15:43.900 And there's a cynicism to using someone.

00:15:49.160 And listen, the strategy was always, well, if we get caught, you know, blame Hunter. 0.53

00:15:54.360 Well, he's he's an addict.

00:15:55.820 And so that's the problem there. 0.64

00:15:57.440 It's all about covering up Joe's misconduct.

00:16:00.940 That's why this is an issue of public concern.

00:16:03.660 If this were just some, you know, poor sad sack who was struggling with addiction, we wouldn't be talking about it.

00:16:09.700 But it is because this is public corruption by the president of the United States and by previously the vice president of the United States, because much of this corruption happened while Joe Biden was a vice president.

00:16:21.160 And I got to say, what's happening now, I've never seen anything like it, Democrats and the corporate media, they are openly urging Joe Biden issue more pardons.

00:16:32.060 And we talked about in Monday's podcast how right now Hunter has essentially a carte blanche for all any and every crime he has committed, every federal crime he's committed for 11 years.

00:16:44.220 It's just wiped away.

00:16:45.280 And the pardon power is that broad that it can do exactly that.

00:16:49.560 But we pointed out that Joe Biden's brother faces real exposure.

00:16:54.600 Well, I guess this should have been predictable, although I will say I'm maybe I wasn't cynical enough because I didn't predict it on Monday's pod.

00:17:03.760 Suddenly, the media is saying pardon Joe Biden's brother, pardon Joe Biden himself, pardon everyone involved in the corruption, pardon everyone involved in the FBI,

00:17:14.700 pardon everyone who abused their power, pardon everyone who committed any criminal offense whatsoever.

00:17:20.260 And I want you to listen to let's start with this is an excerpt from MSNBC this week, urging pardons across the board.

00:17:30.980 I hope that President Biden will also issue preemptive pardons to all of those people threatened by the injustice of what will become the Department of Justice in the Trump administration.

00:17:44.700 That, of course, includes Jack Smith and all of his staff, many Department of Justice lawyers.

00:17:49.860 It includes President Biden himself, although we don't know that anyone can legally pardon themselves.

00:17:56.840 He will need a pardon because he is going to be harassed and charged for no crimes whatsoever.

00:18:03.320 Donald Trump has promised that.

00:18:05.080 If I'm reading this correctly, she just called for Joe Biden to pardon his entire administration because they believe that they the entire administration needs these pardons because of the activities they were involved in.

00:18:22.640 They're literally admitting to criminal activity.

00:18:25.500 Well, and unfortunately, this was the most lawless administration we have ever seen.

00:18:31.640 And I talked about at the beginning of this podcast, there are at least two components of weaponizing law enforcement.

00:18:40.080 One component and the most visible component is using law enforcement, using the DOJ, using the FBI, using the CIA, using the alphabet soup of the federal government to go after your political opponents.

00:18:52.460 Most notably, to indict and prosecute Donald Trump four separate times, which which is what the Democrats have done both federally and at the state level.

00:19:02.080 But but but but also using it to go after pro-life protesters, using it to go after people who engage in peaceful protest on January 6th, using it as an excuse, using it to refuse to prosecute people who were violating federal law, committing felonies by threatening and protesting outside of Supreme Court justices home.

00:19:25.240 Merrick Garland refused to enforce the law and just said, no, we don't enforce that law.

00:19:29.080 Why? Because he disagreed with the Supreme Court and he wanted those judges threatened.

00:19:34.160 He wanted their families threatened. That's one component.

00:19:36.880 But a second component is protecting the political allies of the president.

00:19:43.720 And that weaponization has happened at great level.

00:19:46.360 Look, the IRS whistleblower testified, for example, that that the special counsel, David Weiss, that was investigating Hunter Biden was repeatedly told there were boundaries.

00:19:58.080 He could not look into the big guy.

00:20:00.920 He could not look into Joe Biden, that they were going to protect Joe Biden.

00:20:04.940 There would be no investigation.

00:20:05.860 So, for example, the WhatsApp message that Hunter Biden texted to the Chinese businessman, the Chinese communist, saying, I'm sitting next to my father and you pay us millions of dollars right now or my father is going to retaliate against you. 0.51

00:20:20.380 Well, the investigators said, listen, we would like to subpoena the GPS data for Hunter Biden's phone and Joe Biden's phone.

00:20:29.320 You could determine were they in fact sitting next to each other or not.

00:20:33.200 There's an answer.

00:20:34.200 That answer can be found.

00:20:37.120 It can be found through a subpoena.

00:20:38.800 And yet the Biden Justice Department said, no, we don't want to know if Joe Biden was sitting next to Hunter while he was shaking down Chinese communists, threatening retribution from his father.

00:20:53.000 We don't want to know if Joe Biden knew that.

00:20:54.860 You're not allowed to ask.

00:20:56.000 That's an example of protecting your political allies.

00:21:00.620 Well, now the press is being even more brazen.

00:21:03.100 The Democrats are being more brazen and saying, look, there are a whole bunch of people who committed lawless conduct.

00:21:08.660 And we're about to have a Department of Justice and FBI who is willing to investigate and criminal conduct and willing to enforce the law, regardless of party.

00:21:19.380 I don't want them to target these guys because they're Democrats.

00:21:21.580 I want them to enforce the law.

00:21:24.100 If people committed criminal offenses, did so deliberately and willingly, they should face consequences.

00:21:30.460 And the Democrats are terrified out of their mind.

00:21:33.480 And they are openly urging Biden, pardon everybody.

00:21:38.040 By the way, it's not just the lady that we played earlier.

00:21:41.300 This was clearly an orchestrated effort in the last 24 hours.

00:21:45.760 Yes.

00:21:46.300 To normalize this idea.

00:21:48.740 And I want to go through the list and some of the tweets out there and another piece of audio I want to play for you.

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00:24:01.060 All right, so let's go back to this list.

00:24:04.000 And it was a list that Democrats put out.

00:24:06.880 They started adding names to the list and saying this is somehow Trump's list, even though they're the ones creating it out of thin air.

00:24:14.240 So early in the day, yesterday, it started with, well, it needs to, the president needs to pardon himself.

00:24:21.200 That also means he would need to pardon his brother.

00:24:23.860 And then they added Joe Biden to the list.

00:24:26.540 And then the list just started expanding to, like, everyone that worked for him that may have done something wrong or illegal.

00:24:32.500 So, Alex Mayorkas, for example, was on the list.

00:24:35.880 James Comey on the list.

00:24:37.580 Andrew McCabe on the list.

00:24:39.500 Peter Strzok, you may remember that guy, who said, we're going to stop back in 16.

00:24:43.700 We're going to stop Donald Trump from becoming president.

00:24:46.720 Bruce Orr, Nellie Orr, Rod Rosenstein.

00:24:49.040 And then it expanded from there to the point where the Atlantic has an article saying there needs to be mass pardons.

00:24:58.860 And this conversation took place on MSNBC.

00:25:02.500 You argued, we defend norms by defending norms, not preaching them.

00:25:08.120 A lot has happened between now and then.

00:25:11.360 And I wonder how you're thinking about the president's pardon power today and how he should wield it.

00:25:18.160 Well, back in 2017, I thought that Trump was an aberration and unusual and black swan, if you will.

00:25:29.180 And my thought was that you had to defend the norms of the rule of law, good governance.

00:25:36.720 And the only way to do that was to maintain them, even in the face of his aberrational behavior.

00:25:41.780 Today, I think we know that Trump is not an aberration.

00:25:47.960 He's a phenomenon.

00:25:49.160 He's a movement.

00:25:50.800 And as such, what we have to do is recalibrate how we respond to that.

00:25:56.220 And it now strikes me as essential to at least begin to play to the edge of the field, right?

00:26:05.540 To go as far as the law permits in combating the authoritarian excesses of Trump.

00:26:12.880 And the way I wrote about in The Atlantic is the pardon power.

00:26:17.480 A pardon for Hunter Biden, a pardon for Trump's critics would be completely normative breaking.

00:26:25.960 And it would be out of character, out of historical tradition.

00:26:32.500 But at this point, I was listening to your earlier broadcast.

00:26:38.280 You were talking about Kash Patel.

00:26:39.820 He's got a list of 60 people he wants to prosecute.

00:26:43.980 That's a real list.

00:26:45.200 Will he do all of them?

00:26:46.080 I don't know.

00:26:47.160 Will there be resistance at the FBI?

00:26:49.120 Probably.

00:26:49.600 But one of the realities of being investigated is that investigation has a cost, even if you're not prosecuted in the end.

00:27:00.520 You have to hire a lawyer, the mental cost, the time, the resources.

00:27:04.640 And so it strikes me as perfectly reasonable to ask, what can President Biden do within the bounds of law,

00:27:11.980 even if it would not be normatively traditional, to save his allies from that?

00:27:18.480 And the answer is obviously pardon them.

00:27:21.020 Let's just stop there.

00:27:22.640 And he said more, but let's just let's break that down.

00:27:26.380 Senator, he's saying it's personally perfectly reasonable for Biden to pardon any Trump critic and says, well, it's a cost issue because you'll have to get a lawyer. 0.96

00:27:38.920 Well, no crap. 0.85

00:27:39.780 Like everybody around Trump knows that they tried to financially break so many people around Donald Trump to work to the White House. 0.98

00:27:48.060 Tried to financially ruin them.

00:27:49.920 I have friends.

00:27:50.780 I'm not going to say their names who worked at the White House who were strapped with legal bills over a half a million dollars just having to answer questions in and around what happened on January the 6th, even though they weren't involved in it.

00:28:03.980 Look, that's absolutely right.

00:28:05.600 But I got to say the hypocrisy is even more rich than that.

00:28:08.520 So the person, the man whose voice you're hearing is a guy named Paul Rosenweig.

00:28:13.180 Now, who is Paul Rosenweig?

00:28:14.780 Well, he was a deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush.

00:28:20.140 And listen, I know Paul a little bit.

00:28:22.400 I don't know him well, but I know him socially around D.C. lawyer circles.

00:28:26.500 He wears a bow tie every day, and he was one of the like – he would run around Federalist Society events, and he was part of the sort of Republican lawyer cadre during the George W. Bush campaign.

00:28:42.240 He is also someone who Donald Trump has broken his brain, and Trump derangement syndrome is a very real phenomenon, and he is now advocating that Biden pardon everybody, pardon every critic of Trump, pardon every member of the cabinet, pardon his entire family,

00:29:06.200 pardon anyone who may have committed any crime, because he doesn't want anybody to be held account for breaking the law.

00:29:14.660 Now, I'm going to tell you what the particular irony is.

00:29:18.560 Paul Rosenweig is also one of the leaders of a group called the 65 Project.

00:29:25.100 Now, what is the 65 Project?

00:29:27.100 It is this left-wing group, and it's Paul Rosenweig, and it's also David Brock, who was Hillary Clinton's attack dog,

00:29:34.000 who went around filing complaints trying to get Republican lawyers disbarred for supporting Donald Trump.

00:29:40.840 And Paul Rosenweig, his group, filed a complaint with the Texas bar asking that I be disbarred.

00:29:47.520 Understand, this guy went before the Texas bar.

00:29:49.640 I remember that story, but this is the guy that was actually doing it.

00:29:53.900 Yes, yes, he was doing it, and so I'm going to read to you from the New York Times story when they filed this complaint.

00:30:00.180 And it says, this is a quote from the complaint, quote,

00:30:02.880 quote, Mr. Cruz played a leading role in the effort to overturn the 2020 elections.

00:30:06.780 And while the same can be said about several other elected officials, Mr. Cruz's involvement was manifestly different.

00:30:12.180 This is what the complaint says.

00:30:14.420 He chose to take on the role of lawyer and agreed to represent Mr. Trump and Pennsylvania Republicans in litigation before the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:30:24.060 In doing so, Mr. Cruz moved beyond his position as United States senator and sought to use more than his Twitter account and media appearances to support Mr. Trump's anti-democratic mission.

00:30:36.540 So understand, their complaint is that when I was asked, when the appeal in 2020 challenging Pennsylvania's violating the Pennsylvania Constitution and changing the law in Pennsylvania, when that was appealed to the Supreme Court, I was asked, if the court takes it, would you be willing to argue the case?

00:30:57.940 And Donald Trump asked me that. And I said, yes, if the court takes it, if four justices decide they want to hear this case, and I believe they should have heard the Pennsylvania case, that I'll do the oral argument.

00:31:10.660 But their argument, Paul Rosenweig's argument is, because I said, yes, I would represent a client before the Supreme Court, I should be disbarred.

00:31:21.220 So he's talking about the cost of frivolous complaints and attacking people.

00:31:26.040 Well, he was one of the point people doing it. 0.97

00:31:28.240 And by the way, thankfully, the Texas bar is not an insane, woke nest of lunatics.

00:31:35.480 And so what did the Texas bar do? 0.65

00:31:37.040 They threw their complaint out as frivolous and baseless.

00:31:39.560 So it got thrown out. It was absurd.

00:31:42.140 But this is someone who was asking that that I be barred from practicing law.

00:31:47.980 And by the way, this group has gone after over and over and over again lawyers who dared to represent Donald Trump.

00:31:55.360 So so they're willing when we talk about weaponization, weaponization of law enforcement and weaponization of law.

00:32:02.900 I got to say, Paul Rosenweig is a great example of that.

00:32:05.640 He's happy to go and attack and try to bankrupt people.

00:32:08.760 You mentioned the look at the end of the day, if they come after me, I am a sitting senator.

00:32:17.500 I have the ability to raise money. I can defend myself.

00:32:20.180 I am not a particularly faint flower.

00:32:24.380 I am not a vulnerable person who if they want to come after me, let's go.

00:32:29.600 And they're going to regret picking that fight.

00:32:31.640 But there are a bunch of people in the Trump administration who were 20 somethings or 30 somethings.

00:32:37.600 They were young people. 0.99

00:32:39.380 And and these bastards went after them, tried to bankrupt them. 0.99

00:32:43.960 They had hundreds of thousands or or more in in legal expenses. 1.00

00:32:48.700 And they tried to make it.

00:32:50.720 And by the way, these are the same people that publicly said, if you work for Trump, we're going to do everything we can to make you unemployable, to pressure law firms.

00:32:59.580 They shouldn't hire you to pressure companies.

00:33:01.500 They shouldn't hire you.

00:33:02.940 They wanted to destroy anyone who was willing to work with Donald Trump.

00:33:08.760 That's the viciousness.

00:33:10.360 And at the same time, they're urging Joe Biden, pardon everybody, because people who actually committed felonies, we don't want them investigated.

00:33:19.820 And we certainly don't want them prosecuted.

00:33:22.180 It's amazing, the lawfare here.

00:33:23.860 And I want you to hear the second part of what he had to say as well, because this goes back to, I think, the broader theme here, which is everyone that we believe that may have done something wrong.

00:33:33.880 We need to protect them now so that Republicans cannot look at the crimes that we committed and prosecute us.

00:33:42.160 Keep listening.

00:33:43.860 Yeah, I mean, it seems to you and I think to other folks as well, that the argument about institutional preservation in this moment is best relegated to academics and that in reality, it's time to play political hardball.

00:33:59.400 And it sounds like you're extending that not just to the pardon power, but to other levers that the Democrats might be able to pull.

00:34:05.520 I'll read an excerpt from your Atlantic piece.

00:34:07.360 It has become painfully self-evident that Democratic self-restraint is a form of unilateral disarmament that neither persuades Trump to refrain from bad behavior nor wins points among the undecided.

00:34:18.320 It is time, well past time, for responsible Democrats to use every tool in their toolkit.

00:34:24.260 Does any part of that, I guess, worry you?

00:34:26.200 You know, I mean, one could have said that the Democrats, when they were in control of the Senate, should have gotten rid of the filibuster and done stuff.

00:34:32.720 Well, now it seems like the filibuster is the only thing that's actually going to stop Trump from enacting probably the broadest, most pernicious parts of his agenda.

00:34:40.620 So how do you I mean, how do you think about the cost benefit analysis here?

00:34:43.740 Well, of course, it worries me.

00:34:47.300 It has to.

00:34:48.060 It has to worry any sensible thinking person to argue for breaching norms that have guided our country for 250 years.

00:34:57.820 On the other hand, I don't think the Democratic self-restraint is what is going to stop Trump from acting.

00:35:04.200 If in the end, Trump and the Republican majority think that the filibuster is a barrier to whatever it is that they want, for example, they're going to get rid of it anyway, whether or not the Democrats had done so in the in the prior Congress.

00:35:19.280 And so it strikes me as essential to begin trying to take steps that can't be reversed or irreversible steps in defense of, say, voting rights, for example, expanding the franchise, guaranteeing federally against state interference.

00:35:38.100 You know, we would still have to contend, obviously, with the Supreme Court.

00:35:41.660 But for two years, the Democrats had a majority in both houses, and instead of doing transgressive normative things like changing the electoral rules to prevent Trump's cheating, they did normal Democratic things.

00:36:00.320 They passed the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act and all good things, I'm sure, from their perspective.

00:36:07.540 But they thought that that would be how to reclaim America, and it turned out they were wrong.

00:36:15.460 I mean, Senator, as you just listened to this, you want to talk about the threats to democracy. Holy crap. 0.99

00:36:21.980 So, look, I got to admit, I don't know this bowtied clown. 0.99

00:36:28.140 I've met him once or twice over the last 20 years, but I don't know him at any personal level. 1.00

00:36:33.560 But he is either deliberately dishonest or profoundly ignorant. 0.98

00:36:37.780 Because, like, one statement he made there that is just laughing, laughably false. 0.98

00:36:42.460 He's like, well, if Trump wants to get rid of the filibuster, he just will.

00:36:46.000 I'm going to quantify to you, so I said six months ago, the odds that Joe Biden will grant a pardon to Hunter Biden were 100%.

00:36:53.480 I'm going to give you the odds that the filibuster will be ended in the next two years with a Republican majority in the Senate.

00:37:00.440 And they are the obverse of 100%.

00:37:03.380 They are 0.000000%.

00:37:07.320 There is literally not a 0.0000001% chance.

00:37:12.840 It is, it will not happen.

00:37:15.100 There are not 10 votes to end the filibuster.

00:37:18.940 And he's just, there's something about Trump derangement syndrome that it's bizarre and pathological, that all people afflicted with it can say, is orange man bad, orange man bad?

00:37:34.500 And there's also, look, I got to say, Sigmund Freud has got to be spinning in his grave.

00:37:41.660 Because the left and the never Trump, and unfortunately the never Trump Republicans is a really tiny sliver of kind of D.C. folks who've lost their minds.

00:37:51.860 But they engage in a degree of Freudian projection that is amazing.

00:37:57.860 So, for example, all of these people beat their chest and say we love democracy.

00:38:02.180 But they also are saying, well, there are aspects of Trump's agenda that are horrific.

00:38:08.040 Well, there was an election in November and the voters voted for Trump.

00:38:14.360 And he laid out what his agenda was.

00:38:16.320 And the voters said, yeah, that's what we want.

00:38:20.100 There were seven battleground states.

00:38:22.640 Donald Trump won all seven.

00:38:26.080 It wasn't close.

00:38:27.500 It wasn't ambiguous.

00:38:28.460 It was a clear and overwhelming result.

00:38:31.460 And they also gave Republicans a majority in the Senate and the House.

00:38:34.520 And you know what?

00:38:35.980 MSNBC, they don't care about democracy.

00:38:38.560 These never Trump loons, they don't care about democracy. 0.90

00:38:41.420 They don't care about the mandate from the people that the voters have decided.

00:38:44.020 They're not saying, you know what?

00:38:45.160 The voters decided they agree with this agenda.

00:38:47.520 They want the border secured.

00:38:48.980 They want integrity restored to the Department of Justice and the FBI.

00:38:52.340 They don't care about that.

00:38:54.620 And I've got to say, you know, I'm reminded.

00:38:57.760 So do you remember at the end of the Trump first term, there were lots of stories.

00:39:02.080 And by the way, MSNBC breathlessly reported it about Republicans who were coming to Trump

00:39:08.320 and saying, please give me a pardon.

00:39:10.200 Please give me a pardon.

00:39:11.120 And all these different Republicans were allegedly, mostly House Republicans, were alleged to have

00:39:15.660 asked for a pardon.

00:39:16.460 And by the way, it was 24-7.

00:39:19.940 And they were losing their minds.

00:39:21.540 And there were reporters who claimed that I wanted a pardon.

00:39:25.400 And let me be clear, that was always utter BS.

00:39:28.640 Not only did I not want a pardon, not only did I not ask for a pardon, but if Trump had asked me,

00:39:32.600 hey, should I pardon you, I would say, hell no, I haven't committed any crimes.

00:39:35.500 I don't want a pardon.

00:39:37.040 People who want pardons are people who have likely committed crimes.

00:39:41.780 And no, absolutely not.

00:39:43.520 But it was all made up.

00:39:45.320 It was an entirely fanciful fantasy.

00:39:49.940 Um, but, and look, I don't know.

00:39:53.260 There may have been some individual House members who asked for it.

00:39:55.780 I don't know about that.

00:39:57.060 But I can tell you the press was breathlessly reporting all these Republicans that were seeking

00:40:02.380 pardons.

00:40:03.700 And the irony is, what is happening right now?

00:40:08.460 You said at the outset of this pod, and this is important.

00:40:11.320 This is orchestrated.

00:40:12.600 This is concerted.

00:40:13.940 This is not spontaneous.

00:40:15.380 There has been a decision made by Democrats and by the corporate media.

00:40:20.860 We are going to try to, number one, pressure Joe Biden to give pardons to everybody.

00:40:25.020 But number two, we're going to try to normalize it by talking about, hey, isn't this a great

00:40:29.220 idea?

00:40:29.540 Let's just pardon everyone.

00:40:30.600 And why, and their reason is, pardon everybody, because Orange Man bad.

00:40:36.520 That is their only reasoning.

00:40:39.500 And it is, Sigmund Freud would be amazed at the level of projection.

00:40:46.160 They are literally doing exactly what they claim Republicans, falsely claim Republicans

00:40:51.960 were doing.

00:40:52.340 I will say this, what worries me the most about this, Senator, and we'll end with this,

00:40:57.300 but I do want to get your reaction, is that if they do this, does it not signal to Democrats

00:41:05.580 in the future when they get control of the White House, just abuse your power, do whatever

00:41:11.260 the hell you want to do, go after your political enemies, and you can expect a pardon for any crimes

00:41:16.880 you commit?

00:41:17.880 Well, listen, that's been signaled already.

00:41:19.840 As you know, I wrote an entire book entitled Justice Corrupted, How the Left Has Weaponized

00:41:25.040 the Legal System.

00:41:25.800 And it talked about how Barack Obama, that what Richard Nixon attempted to do, Barack Obama

00:41:32.360 succeeded in doing.

00:41:33.540 He weaponized the federal government.

00:41:35.540 And then when Trump became president, these hardcore partisans burrowed in to the career

00:41:41.620 positions and they waged war on Donald Trump.

00:41:44.840 They tried to destroy the president.

00:41:46.200 They hated the fact that the voters had elected him and they wanted to stop him from implementing

00:41:51.020 the policies the voters had elected him to implement.

00:41:54.420 And now under Joe Biden, they're open and brazen.

00:41:57.080 Alejandro Mayorkas may be the single most lawless cabinet member who has ever served in our nation's

00:42:02.680 history.

00:42:03.000 And that is a remarkable statement.

00:42:05.400 And so, of course, these radicals want Mayorkas to get a pardon because if he's committed criminal

00:42:11.620 activities, they don't want him held to account.

00:42:13.720 They want no accountability whatsoever.

00:42:19.020 And listen, this is the same.

00:42:21.160 You think about it in four years of the Biden administration.

00:42:24.220 How many people is he fired?

00:42:26.040 None that I'm aware of.

00:42:28.140 I don't know of a single one, including everyone in charge of the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal.

00:42:33.660 That was an absolute debacle.

00:42:35.520 It was it did enormous damage to U.S.

00:42:37.960 national security and nobody was fired.

00:42:41.060 Nobody lost their job.

00:42:42.320 You look at the disasters.

00:42:44.180 You look at the people in charge of the border.

00:42:45.960 The people in charge of the border presided over the largest invasion at our southern border,

00:42:51.060 our nation's history, the worst illegal immigration in our nation's history.

00:42:55.020 And nobody lost their job.

00:42:56.940 You literally wonder what the hell does someone have to do in this administration to lose their job?

00:43:02.540 Well, now it turns out not only do they want nobody to ever lose their job,

00:43:08.020 they want Biden to issue pardons so that nobody who committed federal crimes is ever, ever, ever held accountable.

00:43:15.700 This is chapter two of the politicization and weaponization of law enforcement.

00:43:21.300 It really is.

00:43:22.560 We're going to keep covering it.

00:43:24.100 We're going to keep talking about this and make sure you share this podcast wherever you can on social media.

00:43:29.160 That's why we do this show so others can hear it as well.

00:43:31.840 Thank you for supporting us.

00:43:33.020 As always, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

00:43:35.440 Hit that subscribe or auto download button.

00:43:38.300 And the center and I will be back with you on Friday morning.

00:43:42.360 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:43:45.240 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - December 04, 2024

Dems & Media Urge Biden to Issue Far-Reaching Pardons of EVERYBODY-Entire Biden Family & Senior Biden Officials

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