Verdict with Ted Cruz - October 04, 2025


Dems Ratcheting Up the Rhetoric, an Opportunity to clean out Bureaucrats & Liberals Demonize their Opponents Week In Review


Episode Stats


Length

31 minutes

Words per minute

158.69565

Word count

5,037

Sentence count

393

Harmful content

Misogyny

7

sentences flagged

Toxicity

20

sentences flagged

Hate speech

12

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Fergusons discuss the Democratic Party's refusal to back down on their extreme anti-Donald Trump rhetoric. They also discuss how much money is being funneled into the protests you're witnessing across the country, and why it's a terrible idea.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.320 Welcome.
00:00:04.920 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you on the Weekend Review.
00:00:08.600 We've got three big stories for you that you may have missed this week.
00:00:11.580 First up, rhetoric from the Democrats.
00:00:13.720 Well, they're not cooling it off at all.
00:00:15.620 In fact, they're ratcheting it up, increasing the violence.
00:00:19.260 We'll explain exactly what they're doing and what they're saying in just a moment.
00:00:22.940 Also, how many woke bureaucrats can we get rid of that are entrenched in our government 1.00
00:00:29.560 because of the government shutdown?
00:00:31.940 The numbers, they look good if you're ready to get rid of waste, fraud, and abuse.
00:00:35.840 We'll explain that.
00:00:37.140 And finally, Democrats are funneling money into the protests you're witnessing.
00:00:42.180 And now we're getting to see exactly who they are.
00:00:46.000 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.
00:00:48.660 You know, you talk about the extremism of the Democratic Party.
00:00:52.820 You're witnessing it now on this issue on Capitol Hill.
00:00:55.520 But we're also witnessing it with their rhetoric that has not been toned down even since the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
00:01:03.580 And Democrats act like they're being moderates, that they're not being radical or extreme.
00:01:07.780 Well, we've got the tapes now to prove that's just absurd.
00:01:12.420 That's exactly right.
00:01:14.020 It is no matter how much violence we see, the Democrats keep leaning in on their extreme rhetoric. 0.96
00:01:20.160 Just this weekend, Gavin Newsom tweeted out, in all caps, Stephen Miller is a fascist. 0.74
00:01:28.400 That's the entirety of the tweet. 0.64
00:01:30.220 It's in all caps.
00:01:31.560 Stephen Miller is the Deputy White House Chief of Staff.
00:01:34.780 And it is, by the way, as of the time that we are recording this, it has 27 million views.
00:01:41.100 So people are seeing Gavin Newsom saying Stephen Miller is a fascist.
00:01:44.520 And just to remind you, the bullet casings from the rounds that were fired and murdered Charlie Kirk, among the things etched on the bullet casings were, hey, fascist, catch.
00:01:58.500 Gavin Newsom knows that.
00:02:00.060 His staff knows that.
00:02:01.420 And labeling Republicans they disagree with as fascist is, tragically, it is inviting more and more violence.
00:02:10.000 And I wish I could tell you that Gavin Newsom was an outlier.
00:02:14.740 He's not.
00:02:15.620 Democrats across the board are doing this.
00:02:18.920 I want you to listen to Hakeem Jeffries on CNN and listen to just how he's ratcheting the rhetoric up and up and up.
00:02:26.920 Give a listen.
00:02:27.360 When he was greeted formally by former President Joe Biden and then, of course, at the Capitol during the inauguration, which, by the way, was like a supervillain convention that the American people had to witness.
00:02:40.360 And it's been a national nightmare ever since.
00:02:42.580 One question.
00:02:43.640 By the way, supervillain convention.
00:02:46.500 So Charlie Kirk's assassinated.
00:02:49.060 Democrats say they need to down, you know, tone down the rhetoric.
00:02:51.780 And then we're, what, 14 days later, and he's saying that this was a supervillain convention.
00:02:58.300 That's not that.
00:02:58.920 That was Friday night, by the way, where he says that the inauguration is supervillain convention.
00:03:05.540 Tim Waltz, governor of Minnesota, obviously was Kamala Harris's vice presidential nominee, has described ICE as, quote, the modern day Gestapo.
00:03:13.780 J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, claimed the country is becoming, quote, Nazi Germany because ICE is, quote, grabbing people off the street and disappearing them. 0.93
00:03:26.920 Now, Jasmine Crockett, who manages to never find a level too idiotic, too inflammatory, too over-the-top that she's willing to go, she compared ICE to, quote, slave patrols. 0.94
00:03:45.540 And, look, this is so extreme. 0.97
00:03:49.060 You know, there was something remarkable that happened in the last couple of days.
00:03:51.960 I don't know if you saw this.
00:03:53.020 Ice Cube, the rapper.
00:03:57.880 Yeah, his bus was attacked. 0.99
00:03:59.980 His bus was in Portland, Oregon, and it was firebombed because these idiots saw the word ICE and thought that Ice Cube was ICE, the Immigration Enforcement Agency. 0.98
00:04:12.120 But, like, these Antifa leftist knuckleheads, you know, by the way, like Ice-T and Ice Ice Baby better, like, you know, cover up their name tags because the folks that are angry are not terribly bright. 0.98
00:04:28.640 But it is a consequence of this demonizing, of treating them.
00:04:35.500 Look, it's fine for one side or the other to say, I disagree with my opponents.
00:04:40.760 They're wrong.
00:04:41.420 Their policy positions are harmful.
00:04:44.060 They're a mistake.
00:04:45.160 That's the normal give and take of political discourse.
00:04:49.620 And there's something fundamentally different when you scream fascist, Nazi, Gestapo, and you direct it not only to your political opponents who keep being the victims of violence, but you direct it to law enforcement and to ICE.
00:05:03.240 You know, I was just in Dallas at the ICE facility where another deranged shooter unloaded on an ICE facility, and it seems no matter how bad it gets, the Democrats keep it up.
00:05:18.220 We put together a montage.
00:05:19.840 I want you to listen.
00:05:20.660 I'm going to apologize to this.
00:05:22.080 I apologize for this.
00:05:22.960 I'm going to subject you to several minutes of Democrats gone wild just to show just how elevated their rhetoric is and how harmful it is.
00:05:35.780 So give a listen to this montage.
00:05:39.060 Donald Trump's modern-day Gestapo is scooping folks up off the streets.
00:05:44.360 They're in unmarked vans wearing masks, being shipped off to foreign torture dungeons.
00:05:49.100 No chance to mount a defense.
00:05:50.980 Not even a chance to kiss a loved one goodbye.
00:05:52.960 Just grabbed up by masked agents, shoved into those vans, and disappeared.
00:05:57.140 When you compare the old films of the Gestapo grabbing people off the streets of Poland, and you compare them to those nondescript thugs who grabbed that student, that graduate student, it does look like a Gestapo operation. 0.76
00:06:15.600 You know, my dad served in the Second World War.
00:06:18.760 He fought the Nazis, and I think he's looking down right now, and he's happy that I'm fighting today's Nazis. 0.83
00:06:24.900 Because if we just roll this clock on the wall back 75 years, we'd be looking at a time in Nazi Germany where people ran around with signs like this new ICE sign that says, report all foreign invaders to ICE.
00:06:42.360 With Uncle Sam there holding up the sign.
00:06:45.320 This could have been a Gestapo member 75 years ago.
00:06:48.380 Report all Jews. 1.00
00:06:49.320 As somebody who understands history, when I see ICE, I see slave patrols.
00:06:54.660 The dangers that we saw in, you know, Nazi Germany are the dangers that we need to react to now.
00:07:02.740 And another $30 billion to hire and train ICE agents who have functionally become a secret federal police force with expanding domain.
00:07:13.080 An authoritarian government in Washington, D.C. is dispatching masked agents to abduct immigrants from our streets.
00:07:20.600 To be coming out of our country. 1.00
00:07:24.020 I mean, I grew up in a dictatorship.
00:07:28.240 And I don't even remember ever witnessing anything like that.
00:07:31.720 To have a democracy, a pecan of hope for the world to now be turned into one of the, you know, one of the worst countries where the military are in our streets without any regard for people's constitutional rights.
00:07:51.140 While our president is spending millions of dollars prompting himself up like a failed dictator.
00:07:58.220 Every single ICE agent who's engaged in this aggressive overreach and are trying to hide their identities from the American people will be unsuccessful in doing that.
00:08:10.080 This is America.
00:08:11.480 This is not the Soviet Union.
00:08:12.760 We're not behind the Iron Curtain.
00:08:14.480 This is not the 1930s.
00:08:15.980 And every single one of them, no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, will, of course, be identified.
00:08:22.020 This is not Germany. 0.88
00:08:24.000 That's the SS and the Gestapo.
00:08:27.000 This is the United States of America.
00:08:30.000 Unmask yourselves.
00:08:31.880 It's just been overwhelming.
00:08:32.620 I mean, just watching everything online now, the ICE, you know, thugs and people do not want to continue to watch people fund this kind of extraction.
00:08:45.980 It's kind of violence.
00:08:46.960 Yeah, it's violence.
00:08:48.400 The other things and all the other cuts pays for a massive increase in the masked secret police that are terrorizing our communities.
00:09:00.840 ICE.
00:09:01.840 This is despicable.
00:09:03.300 It's un-American. 0.82
00:09:03.960 I called ICE the modern-day Gestapo a few months ago, and some people thought that was going too far, thought that was too extreme, got angry at me for saying that.
00:09:13.920 Well, come on.
00:09:15.140 Like, that's literally what's going on.
00:09:16.480 You have called to abolish ICE.
00:09:19.360 How do we achieve a future that's post-ICE?
00:09:23.280 How do we achieve a future free of terrorism by abolishing ICE?
00:09:31.040 ICE is a terrorist organization.
00:09:33.000 It needs to be defunded. 0.62
00:09:34.260 It needs to be abolished.
00:09:35.140 We're seeing aggressive Gestapo-type tactics in people being approached on the street, in their home, at the clinic, at church, at all kinds of locations.
00:09:49.320 That's why this morning on the House of the Floor, I warned the American people that this is looking like the American Gestapo in the making.
00:09:59.440 I think we need to be really active at, like, challenging what ICE is doing on every front we can, and obviously being ready in the case of Trump trying to call in the National Guard or whatever, the Federalized National Guard.
00:10:12.300 I can't see how anybody can say they're a Christian and treat someone from another land, in their own land, this way.
00:10:18.540 It's mean, is what it is.
00:10:20.560 It's mean-spirited.
00:10:22.300 A lot of these folks are being picked up by, you know, hooded thugs in the street in the most un-American way.
00:10:29.440 ICE agents without visible ideas, without any official markings on them, with masks, they're acting more like vigilantes than agents of our government.
00:10:43.920 Because we don't live in a country, an authoritarian country, where we have secret police who are masked, who are intimidating, who are scaring people.
00:10:56.260 That's the stuff of authoritarian states.
00:10:59.380 That is not the stuff of the—that's not how the United States operate.
00:11:03.360 He sent out ICE and Border Patrol to intimidate folks from walking in to our event.
00:11:11.160 He ended up arresting this poor soul that was just trying to sell strawberries as collateral damage to intimidate us.
00:11:16.900 That is a preview, Stephen, of things to come in voting booths and polling places across this country.
00:11:22.240 And the ICE issue is alarming beyond words.
00:11:26.860 It is the private—largest private domestic army of its type, police force, anywhere in the world.
00:11:32.960 He'll have 30,000 people that increasingly appear to be swearing an oath of office to him, not the Constitution of the United States.
00:11:40.660 Again, wake up to what's going on in this country.
00:11:44.500 That's happening in the United States of America.
00:11:46.700 Masked men jumping out of unmarked cars, people disappearing, no due process, no oversight, zero accountability.
00:11:54.500 Happening in the United States of America today.
00:11:56.540 People ask, well, is authoritarianism you're being hyperbolic? 1.00
00:11:59.620 Bullshit, we're being hyperbolic. 1.00
00:12:01.440 If you're a black and brown community, it's here in this country. 1.00
00:12:04.620 I have heard enough in the last couple weeks about ICE agents and wearing masks that I think when we win the majority in the House,
00:12:17.080 you're going to see enough Democrats make it a priority for ICE enforcement, that they are no longer faceless.
00:12:25.140 It looks too much like some 1800s bank robber or, you know, some KGB officer in Russia, you know, pulling protesters off the streets.
00:12:35.860 Senator, you listen to that, and it's very clear that Democrats get talking points and they stick with them.
00:12:43.260 And when they do this, they're doing it on purpose to undermine the rule of law, to undermine law enforcement.
00:12:49.160 We've seen them do this to the Supreme Court as well.
00:12:51.220 There's quite a few examples recently of them really just using their words to turn people to hate someone, to hate law enforcement, to hate police, to hate the Supreme Court, to hate law and order.
00:13:05.840 And yet they say they want to ratchet down, but they're not.
00:13:08.460 They're doing the complete opposite of that.
00:13:10.520 So, and Ben, let me ask you.
00:13:12.240 So one of the key Democrat talking points that they keep repeating is they say that ICE or fascists or Nazis or Gestapo because they're wearing masks.
00:13:20.700 Let me ask you, why is ICE wearing masks?
00:13:24.380 So they're not doxed.
00:13:26.060 That's what it boils down to, so that they're not outed by the same people that have maps of where ICE agents are so that you can go after them if you want to.
00:13:35.300 I mean, that's what this is about.
00:13:36.260 So Democrats, including Hakeem Jeffries, have called for unmasking ICE, identifying them and going after them.
00:13:42.120 And look, that's putting ICE law enforcement officers at risk.
00:13:46.800 That's putting their spouses at risk. 0.98
00:13:48.680 That's putting their children at risk.
00:13:50.600 This lunatic in Dallas used an app, the ICE Finder, to go find the facility to get up on the roof with a bolt-action rifle and fire multiple rounds, murdering two people.
00:14:03.260 And look, I understand.
00:14:06.780 I think it's perfectly reasonable if you're an ICE agent not to want a bunch of angry radicals who want to harm you and your family to be able to dox you.
00:14:16.180 This is a direct result.
00:14:17.620 And it's not fringe people.
00:14:20.020 Hakeem Jeffries stood at the podium and said, unmask these guys and go after them. 0.89
00:14:24.360 And that, tragically, lunatics are listening to them.
00:14:28.000 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation, you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:14:35.200 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00
00:14:37.300 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:14:41.460 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:14:45.220 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:14:46.400 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:14:47.620 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:14:51.380 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:14:56.800 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:15:00.340 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:15:06.200 Now, on to story number two.
00:15:08.200 So, how quickly can these firings take place?
00:15:11.340 How massive could they be?
00:15:13.480 Today.
00:15:13.700 And how much research has been done behind the scenes to get rid of a lot of these woke bureaucrats that we've been wanting to get rid of,
00:15:23.260 that the presidents want to get rid of, that cabinet secretaries have wanted to get rid of?
00:15:26.400 Like, I mean, I'm assuming they're burning the midnight oil kind of like Doge did.
00:15:31.040 Let's find the people we want to get rid of.
00:15:32.740 And this is our chance to do it.
00:15:34.220 And by the way, once it's done, like, it's not like you got to offer them jobs back.
00:15:38.420 Like, it's done.
00:15:39.620 So, I think that starts happening today.
00:15:41.940 I think October 1, you start seeing pink slips.
00:15:46.860 I think we will see left-wing bureaucrats fired today. 1.00
00:15:51.860 I think we'll see them fired tomorrow.
00:15:54.380 You know, this evening I had dinner with the deputy secretary of HHS, who's a longtime friend of mine.
00:15:59.980 He was actually a groomsman at my wedding.
00:16:01.620 Great guy.
00:16:02.920 I asked him, I said, okay, the White House asked every cabinet agency prepare a list of people for the RIF.
00:16:11.240 And he said, yeah, we're doing that.
00:16:12.460 He said, every agency, when the White House directs us to do that, we do that.
00:16:16.020 We're going to see, I think, hundreds if not thousands of left-wing bureaucrats fired in the next several days. 0.99
00:16:22.960 I think that's going to put the Democrat Party in crisis.
00:16:26.420 And by the way, we're not going to fire people that are critical for the priorities you and I care about.
00:16:33.460 So we're not going to see Border Patrol agents who are securing the border fired.
00:16:37.460 We're not going to see ICE agents who are deporting gangbangers fired.
00:16:41.820 We're not going to see FBI agents who are catching pedophiles.
00:16:45.920 We're not going to see them fired.
00:16:47.380 We're not going to see soldiers and sailors and airmen and Marines who are keeping this nation safe.
00:16:52.560 We're not going to see them fired.
00:16:54.000 We're going to see bureaucrats who are shutting down factories, who are destroying jobs, who are pursuing radical left-wing agendas.
00:17:05.460 They're going to be the ones fired.
00:17:07.440 And ultimately, the Democrats are going to cave.
00:17:10.260 The only question is how long Schumer wants to go through this charade before he gives in.
00:17:17.220 Which brings me to my final question.
00:17:19.160 And that is, the media does seem to be covering this a little bit more with honesty than I've ever seen them before.
00:17:25.620 Today, there was a viral clip that is, the tables have been turned.
00:17:29.780 Democrats are now literally under fire for a clip that shows them slamming government shutdown tactics.
00:17:36.120 The same ones they're accused of using right now.
00:17:39.020 And here's what it sounded like back in 2018.
00:17:41.140 In December of 2018, Donald Trump was president.
00:17:43.700 Chuck Schumer named Pelosi in the Oval Office.
00:17:46.840 Listen.
00:17:47.040 We do not want to shut down the government.
00:17:49.120 Because you can't get your way.
00:17:50.260 The last time you shut it down, you're going to kill.
00:17:51.700 Yeah, let me say something, Mr. President.
00:17:53.360 North Dakota.
00:17:54.180 This is the most unfortunate thing.
00:17:55.820 We came in here in good faith.
00:17:58.020 And we're entering into this kind of a discussion in the public view.
00:18:03.660 But it's not bad, Nancy.
00:18:05.060 No, no.
00:18:05.700 It's called transparency.
00:18:07.000 I know.
00:18:07.380 It's not transparency when we're not stipulating to a set of facts.
00:18:11.240 I mean, you listen to that one.
00:18:12.880 They're like, we're not in favor of it.
00:18:14.240 And then the speaker also put out a very interesting video montage reminding people the same thing.
00:18:23.580 Like, hey, you guys think that it's the Democrats.
00:18:26.520 Mike Johnson putting this out.
00:18:28.080 And here he is.
00:18:28.980 And what he said to remind the people about Democrats in their own words.
00:18:31.940 It is not normal to shut down the government when we don't get what we want.
00:18:39.880 If the government shuts down, it will be average Americans who suffer most.
00:18:44.480 A government shutdown means seniors who rely on Social Security could be thrown into chaos.
00:18:49.740 Families will be hurt.
00:18:51.780 Farmers will be hurt.
00:18:53.140 It's the service members who will work without a paycheck.
00:18:56.900 It's the firefighters who will be furloughed.
00:19:00.080 This shutdown, you know who's going to feel the pain?
00:19:02.760 You know who it hurts?
00:19:03.940 You.
00:19:04.620 Everyday people.
00:19:05.800 And the most vulnerable.
00:19:07.140 Seniors.
00:19:08.100 Veterans.
00:19:08.780 Working families.
00:19:09.800 Hungry kids, y'all.
00:19:15.740 Democrats are signaling they're ready for a fight.
00:19:18.520 This time, Schumer tells the Associated Press, quote, things have changed.
00:19:22.280 It is not normal to shut down the government when we don't get what we want.
00:19:27.160 I mean, I love them using AOC's words.
00:19:30.360 I feel like the media has changed a little bit here.
00:19:32.920 Your thoughts on that?
00:19:34.900 Well, I'm impressed that you recognize AOC's voice.
00:19:38.080 I didn't know.
00:19:38.700 I knew that was a shrill Democrat. 0.97
00:19:40.300 I didn't know who that was.
00:19:41.800 So I appreciate that clarity.
00:19:44.580 Listen, every single Democrat, I think without exception, has gone on record being against shutdowns. 0.98
00:19:51.320 The fact that they shut it all down today demonstrates what utter hypocrites they are. 0.92
00:19:57.020 And I got to say, as I was walking off the Senate floor, so I voted to fund the government this afternoon. 0.97
00:20:03.500 The Democrats voted against it and caused a shutdown.
00:20:07.240 All the reporters were circling, and their talking point that they really wanted to press is they said,
00:20:13.180 OK, Cruz, in 2013, in the fight over Obamacare, you, Ted Cruz, forced a shutdown.
00:20:22.400 Isn't that what the Democrats are doing now?
00:20:24.800 And I just started laughing at them.
00:20:26.740 And I said, look, number one in 2013, when I did a 21-hour filibuster on the floor,
00:20:33.460 I was fighting for Americans.
00:20:36.060 I was fighting for American citizens whose health care premiums had skyrocketed.
00:20:41.060 And they had skyrocketed because Obamacare was a train wreck.
00:20:44.760 It was a disaster.
00:20:45.840 It caused a massive increase in health insurance premiums.
00:20:49.680 It made the health insurance companies rich, and it made millions of ordinary Americans unable to afford health insurance.
00:20:57.420 And, by the way, I was also fighting for it at a time when the House of Representatives that was Republican had voted to fund the federal government,
00:21:07.320 fund the entirety of the federal government, but not fund Obamacare, so not fund the law that was causing damage to American citizens.
00:21:15.960 And I said, here what's happening is Chuck Schumer is shutting down the federal government, not to help American citizens who are getting hurt,
00:21:23.540 but he's shutting down the federal government in order to help millions of illegal aliens and give them free health care.
00:21:31.580 And he's willing to shut down your federal government to give free health care to illegals. 0.97
00:21:38.080 And that fundamentally, there's a hypocrisy to it.
00:21:41.360 And I also said, you know, the reporters were like, isn't it the same?
00:21:45.620 And I said, listen, let me be clear.
00:21:47.880 In 2013, it was Chuck Schumer who shut the government down then.
00:21:53.540 I was trying to fund the entirety of the federal government except for Obamacare,
00:21:57.440 and Chuck Schumer and Harry Reid decided, no, we'll shut it all down because we care so much about socialized medicine.
00:22:04.480 And I told the reporters, we had like 50 reporters standing outside the Senate floor,
00:22:08.380 and I said, look, none of you guys reported that.
00:22:11.220 You all blame the shutdown on me because you're all left-wing hacks.
00:22:15.120 Yeah.
00:22:15.900 Today, all of you are still left-wing hacks.
00:22:20.060 You agree with the Democrats, but the facts are so overwhelming.
00:22:24.740 It is Chuck Schumer and the Democrats who are shutting the government down that even you dishonest liars are reporting this is the Schumer shutdown.
00:22:33.060 Yeah.
00:22:33.320 Because the House has funded the government exactly the status quo.
00:22:39.040 The funding yesterday has continued to tomorrow.
00:22:41.900 It is the Democrats who said, let's shut it down.
00:22:45.920 And I think at the end of the day, they're going to lose that battle.
00:22:49.340 But this is what you got to ask yourself is how long do the Democrats have to perform for their crazy left-wing activists before they allow the government to reopen?
00:23:00.600 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.
00:23:10.780 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00
00:23:12.780 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:23:16.940 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:23:20.680 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:23:21.800 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:23:22.820 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:23:32.600 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:23:35.840 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:23:41.540 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:23:46.700 The left-wing crime statistics center are brutal.
00:23:50.000 BLM protests, for example, 2020. 0.99
00:23:54.200 There were over 10,000 demonstrations and caused $1 to $2 billion in insured property damage, according to Axios.
00:24:02.080 This is the most expensive civil disorder in U.S. history.
00:24:07.600 There were also 19 Americans in the conservative numbers who died directly caused by the demonstrations.
00:24:15.160 And that's another data point that the left and the media does not want to talk about.
00:24:19.420 But if you look at this and you see what the Democrats have done to our cities and the fact that this has all been, I think, bought and paid for, funneled money, going into these groups that are advocating for this type of organized violence, that's the other thing that scares the hell out of me.
00:24:37.620 Well, and I want to draw a linkage between each of the stories we're talking about today, which is that we see left-wing policies that undermine law enforcement, that seek to abolish or defund the police, that put Soros prosecutors in office, that release violent criminals.
00:24:57.240 And you see the result being more and more violent crime.
00:25:00.360 You then see Democrats engaging in rhetoric to obfuscate, to hide that, to pretend it's not happening.
00:25:08.040 Yeah.
00:25:08.100 But you also see the left engaging in increasingly angry rhetoric, demonizing their opponents.
00:25:14.920 And if you look at ideologically motivated crime, the vast majority of it, violence that is ideologically motivated, the overwhelming majority is on the left.
00:25:26.260 As you mentioned, the BLM riots all across the country. 0.89
00:25:29.760 American cities burned all across the country.
00:25:32.140 Not just that, you look at the anti-Semitic, anti-Israel campus protests.
00:25:35.740 Those were leftists, those were anarchists, those were jihadists, those were communists.
00:25:39.920 All across the country, over 2,300 anti-Semitic incidents reported on campuses, which is, by the way, the highest ever recorded.
00:25:48.280 That was in 2024 and 2025.
00:25:51.100 The LA riots this year, 2025.
00:25:53.660 17 people injured, a state of emergency in LA County.
00:25:57.280 The city reports 19.7 million cost as of mid-June.
00:26:01.140 Of course, President Trump, the target of two assassination attempts.
00:26:05.940 Tragically, our friend Charlie Kirk successfully murdered in a horrific assassination.
00:26:12.360 This pattern, the murderer who flew from California to Maryland to murder Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
00:26:19.000 Thankfully, he was arrested by the police before he could carry out that heinous act.
00:26:23.220 But, and by the way, you go back to 2017, when a gunman came to Washington, D.C., looking for elected Republicans to murder, went to the congressional baseball practice, and opened fire, hitting multiple elected Republicans, nearly killing Steve Scalise.
00:26:40.160 Had the bullet been an inch one side or the other, Steve, a good friend, would have been killed that day.
00:26:46.620 Instead, he was injured badly.
00:26:48.160 Thankfully, he survived.
00:26:49.960 This pattern is happening over and over and over again.
00:26:53.500 And there's a direct connection between the demonization.
00:26:56.160 Look, when Charlie Kirk was murdered, far too many on the left celebrated, cheered it on.
00:27:03.220 When Luigi the Nutcase murdered the CEO of a health insurance company, supposedly respected members of the media celebrated.
00:27:12.640 Leftists are getting his face tattooed on them.
00:27:15.260 They celebrate violence.
00:27:16.920 And this week, we saw two more instances happen.
00:27:22.060 We saw, number one, immigration and customs enforcement agents targeted in two separate car attacks during enforcement actions in Chicago this past week.
00:27:32.600 Two different car attacks.
00:27:33.660 It turns out that when Democrats demonize ICE, when they call them Nazis, as the Democrats have done over and over and over again, our last podcast, we played a whole clip of Democrats calling ICE and law enforcement Nazis and Gestapo. 0.72
00:27:48.140 It turned out when you use that kind of language, there are lunatics who listen to it and move to violence.
00:27:55.820 As you know, I was on the ground in Dallas and was on site within minutes of the sniper attack at the ICE facility in Dallas.
00:28:03.660 It's by a deranged leftist who wrote his left-wing agenda on the shell casings, emulating what Charlie Kirk's murder had done.
00:28:15.920 This pattern is happening over and over and over again.
00:28:20.100 And I've got to say, Ben, it's disturbing.
00:28:21.780 I don't see many Democrats modulating their rhetoric.
00:28:29.780 Gavin Newsom just this week called Steve Miller, the deputy White House chief of staff, a fascist, using the same language that motivated, among others, the murderers of Charlie Kirk.
00:28:41.960 They keep doubling down and doubling down and doubling down, and they know more ICE agents are going to be targeted.
00:28:47.340 They know more police are going to be targeted.
00:28:48.820 And I want to be clear about something, because some will say, well, gosh, there are crazies on the right who commit violence, and that's true.
00:28:57.760 Yeah. 0.83
00:28:58.580 But if you look at ideologically motivated violence, the crazies on the right who commit violence are usually just mentally deranged people.
00:29:06.480 So, or to put it a little different, liberals can be the victims of violence as well. 0.97
00:29:14.280 So Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked by a deranged, mentally ill person with a hammer.
00:29:20.360 Now, that was tragic, but I would not describe that as ideologically motivated violence.
00:29:27.100 He was simply a victim of a mentally ill person engaging in an act of violence. 0.77
00:29:32.600 And that's horrific, and there's a difference.
00:29:34.220 You and I didn't celebrate that.
00:29:36.740 Nobody, violence is never, never, never right.
00:29:39.680 And the difference is the left celebrates it far too often, encourages it on the front end, celebrates it on the back end, whereas any principled conservative I know of will condemn violence across the board, say do not engage in violence.
00:29:51.880 And compare the difference of the reaction.
00:29:54.520 When George Floyd died and you had violent riots and fires across the country, compared to when Charlie Kirk was murdered and you had candlelight vigils and prayer vigils.
00:30:02.840 And the violence was from the leftist attacking people, praying and holding up candles.
00:30:08.360 Yeah.
00:30:08.680 Well, and not only that, you even had Democrats this week attacking Jeffries, talking about those that went to the Republican convention as being like extremists.
00:30:17.620 I mean, they're not dialing this back.
00:30:19.380 Well, supervillains, supervillains is what he called the inauguration.
00:30:21.800 Yeah.
00:30:21.920 Yeah.
00:30:22.480 Yeah.
00:30:22.820 Excuse me.
00:30:23.340 The inauguration.
00:30:24.320 Yeah.
00:30:24.500 He talked about the inauguration.
00:30:25.720 He said that there was a supervillain convention.
00:30:28.320 And that is them not downplaying this.
00:30:31.520 That is him ratcheting it up, knowing that we just left Charlie Kirk's funeral from being assassinated.
00:30:37.560 And the hate on the left, it is directed at conservatives, it is directed at capitalism, it is directed at Americans, but it's also viciously anti-Semitic.
00:30:46.620 Again, on Yom Kippur in Manchester, a Syrian, a Syrian, ironically, with the name, wait, wait for it.
00:30:59.580 What was the name?
00:31:00.080 What was the name of this murder?
00:31:01.700 His name is Jihad. 0.95
00:31:03.180 Yom Kippur, Al-Shami, and he targeted worshipers at a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
00:31:16.060 This pattern is happening over and over and over again, and it's wrong, and we need to stand against it.
00:31:22.520 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:31:27.620 Don't forget to download my podcast, and you can listen to my podcast every other day.
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00:31:34.640 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson Podcast, and we will see you back here on Monday morning.
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