Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 06, 2024


Dems Want to Choose Your POTUS, Sharpton Defends Claudine Gay w⧸ Race & Big WIN for Commerce at the Border Week In Review


Episode Stats


Length

33 minutes

Words per minute

155.43634

Word count

5,138

Sentence count

315

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

9

sentences flagged

Hate speech

6

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson take a look at the latest in the Trump vs. McMullin case and what the Supreme Court should do about it. Also, Al Sharpton steps up to defend Harvard s president from a fake firing. And a big win for the country when it comes to securing the southern border.

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.
00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.560 Welcome to his verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:07.980 Week in Review.
00:00:08.940 Ben Ferguson here.
00:00:10.140 And these are the big stories that you may have missed that we talked about this past week.
00:00:15.580 Number one, it's a political issue.
00:00:18.120 And the question now is, how does it move forward as Democrats move to take Donald Trump off the ballot?
00:00:24.340 Taking away the rights of the citizens of Maine and Colorado from choosing who they want to be president.
00:00:31.220 So how do we move forward with this and what will the Supreme Court do?
00:00:34.740 We dive into that.
00:00:36.040 Also, Al Sharpton comes to protect and defend Harvard's president who is kind of stepped down but still making over a million dollars a year from the university.
00:00:49.420 How did that happen?
00:00:50.340 We'll give you the real details about this fake firing at Harvard.
00:00:55.340 And finally, a big win for the country when it comes to security at the southern border and commerce with a bipartisan piece of legislation that Senator Ted Cruz let on.
00:01:07.320 It is the Week in Review.
00:01:08.780 And it starts right now.
00:01:10.940 All right.
00:01:11.220 So let's move into the politics and the timing of this year.
00:01:15.300 We're very close now to getting into the primaries.
00:01:20.040 We're talking about Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina Center.
00:01:23.400 You know this map and this calendar and how important it is when you ran for president.
00:01:27.920 And this could linger on with this over Donald Trump's head with state after state trying to kick him off the ballot.
00:01:35.080 How long could we have to wait until the Supreme Court gets involved?
00:01:38.960 And then how long would we have to wait for the ruling for this to come down?
00:01:42.380 Are we weeks or months?
00:01:43.480 How long could this how does this play out at the Supreme Court?
00:01:46.540 Well, the appeal is already pending at the Supreme Court.
00:01:48.900 So last week, last Wednesday, the Colorado Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to overturn the Colorado Supreme Court's decision so that that the initial appeal papers have been filed in the interim.
00:02:02.200 Trump's name is on the ballot and and in Colorado.
00:02:05.960 And that was under the terms of the Colorado Supreme Court decision, which which is it.
00:02:11.380 They stayed their own decision pending appeal.
00:02:13.960 They recognized the massive consequences of it.
00:02:17.320 So the primary in Colorado is on March 5th.
00:02:20.960 And so right now, Trump's name is on the March 5th ballot with the appeal filed.
00:02:28.220 The court could act exceptionally quickly.
00:02:30.920 The court could act in a matter of days or weeks.
00:02:34.420 And there are times for emergency appeals that the court schedules a very expedited briefing schedule, schedules oral arguments and issued a decision.
00:02:42.040 I hope they do that.
00:02:43.800 Look, there's a chance they take their time and let it play out because the Colorado Supreme Court decision is stayed.
00:02:52.340 And so they could say, well, look, he's going to be on the ballot.
00:02:55.080 So there's no urgency or exigency.
00:02:57.940 And by the way, in Maine, there's a good chance the Maine courts overturn the Maine secretary of state's decision.
00:03:04.340 If that happens, then then there is no immediate threat to the voters being denied the ability to to elect the candidate of their choice.
00:03:13.580 I hope the court doesn't doesn't slow down or doesn't take their time doing it.
00:03:18.880 I hope they resolve this quickly.
00:03:20.440 I think it's important to have clarity nationally.
00:03:24.620 But the court has the ability.
00:03:27.740 There are times where it has briefed and heard argument and issues decisions within a matter of days.
00:03:33.620 So it has the ability to move very quickly during Bush versus Gore during those 36 days when we had multiple recounts in Florida,
00:03:42.640 as as you'll recall, I was part of the legal team that was litigating Bush versus Gore.
00:03:47.100 I was down in Tallahassee representing George W. Bush in those 36 days.
00:03:51.880 We went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice and and within that period, briefed out the case,
00:03:57.560 had oral argument and had decisions two different times from the U.S. Supreme Court within those 36 days.
00:04:03.100 So when the court wants to, it can move exceptionally fast.
00:04:07.100 I would note also that that between the two, look, in terms of the general election,
00:04:16.340 the odds are not great that Colorado is going to be a swing state.
00:04:21.780 Joe Biden won Colorado by about 14 points last time.
00:04:27.120 And and so it's it's Colorado is not anticipated to be a swing state in November.
00:04:31.600 Maine, interestingly enough, is so Maine has an unusual way of allocating its electoral votes.
00:04:39.900 Maine has a total of four electoral votes and two of them go to the winner of the state.
00:04:44.780 And then one goes to the winner of one congressional district and another goes to the winner of another congressional district.
00:04:50.060 So Maine has two congressional districts.
00:04:52.560 What's interesting about that is even though Maine has been a reliably Democrat state in presidential elections for some time,
00:05:00.440 one of the two congressional districts in Maine quite regularly will vote for Republicans.
00:05:06.000 And so Trump won one electoral vote out of Maine.
00:05:09.640 He had one of the districts he won, the other three he lost.
00:05:12.860 And that could easily happen again.
00:05:15.740 And listen, if this election was close, it could literally come down to that single electoral vote in Maine deciding the outcome.
00:05:24.800 And so the decision in Maine is quite consequential.
00:05:27.480 It's also consequential going forward.
00:05:30.740 Do other states, in particular swing states, make the same determination?
00:05:34.420 Do you see bigger states, a Pennsylvania, a Michigan, a Wisconsin?
00:05:39.520 Do you see states like that that are very much in play, that very much could go either way?
00:05:45.460 Do you see them engage and try to follow this pattern?
00:05:48.340 And if these left-wing partisans were to succeed in removing Trump from the ballot, I think the risk would be very high that you would see other bigger and more consequential swing states following that pattern.
00:06:03.180 Now, I don't think that's going to happen because they're not going to succeed.
00:06:05.800 And by the way, there's an obvious escalation at some point if the left weaponizes the legal system to such an extent that they try to remove the Republican nominee from the general election ballot.
00:06:18.440 That you're likely to see red states reciprocate and try to remove the Democrat nominee from the ballot.
00:06:26.740 That this can be a mutually assured destruction, which is one of the reasons I don't think there's any chance the Supreme Court allows this Colorado decision to go into effect.
00:06:38.740 Because it undermines the ability of the voters to choose who they want as president.
00:06:45.960 And that is as foundational to democracy in our country as anything there is.
00:06:51.060 Finally on this, there's the political ramifications of this.
00:06:54.960 There's a lot of conservative voters now that are very upset.
00:06:58.680 I've heard from more people that are not necessarily big fans of Donald Trump that are now like, the hell with this.
00:07:06.780 I'm going to stand behind Donald Trump because this is just so egregious.
00:07:10.200 Do you think the Democrats overplayed their hand here politically and the backfire could be catastrophic to them?
00:07:17.160 Or by the time we get to Election Day, will a lot of this just be forgotten?
00:07:22.160 Well, I think politically this benefits Trump in the primary.
00:07:27.540 You know, rewind.
00:07:28.340 Go back to our early podcasts last year when the first Trump indictment,
00:07:35.100 when the Alvin Bragg indictment came down, you and I went on air.
00:07:39.040 And right after that indictment, I went on this podcast and I told the podcast viewers,
00:07:43.580 I said, Donald Trump will go up 10 points in the polls as a result of this.
00:07:48.700 That was a prediction I made immediately after the indictment came down.
00:07:52.560 A week later, Donald Trump was up 10 points in the polls.
00:07:56.200 And by the way, he's never come down since.
00:07:58.340 If you look at a year ago, the poll numbers had a much more competitive race between Trump and DeSantis a year ago.
00:08:05.200 And then the first indictment came and then the second and then the third and then the fourth.
00:08:08.940 And Trump's numbers went up and up and up and everyone else's numbers went down.
00:08:12.800 And I think one of the effects is in a Republican primary, people rallied around Trump.
00:08:17.580 Look, when the Colorado Supreme Court decision came down,
00:08:20.340 all of Trump's opponents immediately denounced it, which you had to do it.
00:08:23.920 It was a lawless abuse of power.
00:08:27.720 I also think the Democrats are quite fond of that.
00:08:31.000 Every single Democrat in elected office wants Trump to be the nominee.
00:08:37.240 But at the same time, so they are happy with helping Trump in the primary because that's the outcome they want.
00:08:43.520 But in the general, assuming this Colorado decision is overturned, assuming the Maine decision is overturned,
00:08:50.440 it could backfire.
00:08:52.900 You could see some independent and swing voters get ticked off.
00:08:56.060 In a state like Maine that has independence, that might have some lasting legacy.
00:09:00.880 In a state like Colorado that has some independence, that might have some impact as well.
00:09:04.980 I have not seen any evidence that this abuse of power is hurting Democrats in a general election.
00:09:14.680 It may be the case, but one of the challenges is that the media is so utterly corrupt that they're by and large not reporting on it.
00:09:24.520 But I would tell listeners a verdict.
00:09:26.240 Anytime you're talking with leftists who are arguing and they're trotting out language like we must save democracy,
00:09:35.020 you know, it's a great opportunity to say, oh, save democracy.
00:09:38.260 You mean like Colorado, like Maine, like preventing the voters from actually voting for the candidate they want to vote for?
00:09:44.140 Explain to me how exactly it's saving democracy to stop the voters from voting for the candidate they want to vote for.
00:09:52.440 And I don't know of a leftist who could argue against that other than to just jabber, 0.97
00:09:57.580 you know, Trump is evil, Trump is evil, Trump is evil, rather than actually engage in reason and logic. 0.93
00:10:03.860 And so I'm not convinced this abuse of power will have a massive-ish impact on turnout in November, 0.97
00:10:12.600 but I do think it helps Trump in the primaries.
00:10:15.540 Now, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation,
00:10:18.420 you can go back and listen to the full podcast from earlier this week.
00:10:22.440 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, 1.00
00:10:26.580 their elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:10:28.760 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:10:32.460 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:10:33.660 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:10:34.880 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:10:38.640 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers,
00:10:42.200 all at different stages of their journey.
00:10:44.380 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:10:47.600 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:10:53.020 Now on to story number two.
00:10:55.360 And Al Sharpton coming out, as you know, Barack Obama, as you mentioned earlier,
00:10:58.540 behind the scenes, was working hard to protect her.
00:11:01.460 Sharpton condemned Gay's critics as racist for questioning the integrity of a black woman,
00:11:07.100 a woman that, no pun intended, in black and white.
00:11:10.780 Her words show that she lifted other people's words and used them as her own,
00:11:15.720 saying this, quote,
00:11:17.740 President Gay's resignation is about more than a person or a single incident.
00:11:22.880 This, and he's right, it wasn't a single incident.
00:11:25.040 Now we've been told more than 50 incidents of plagiarism.
00:11:29.440 He goes on to say,
00:11:30.180 this is an attack on every black woman in this country who puts a crack in the glass ceiling. 0.99
00:11:36.600 Is it really that, Senator? 0.95
00:11:38.220 Or is it just the fact that she cheated and even they at Harvard couldn't get over that?
00:11:44.160 Well, it was, ultimately, this was hurting Harvard.
00:11:47.660 Harvard was becoming a laughingstock.
00:11:49.160 And look, if you look at her academic record, she had published very little for a professor.
00:11:57.940 You expect the president of Harvard to be a serious scholar, to be a world-class scholar.
00:12:04.080 And Claudine Gay's entire career was built pushing the ideology of DEI.
00:12:13.020 She was an African-American studies professor.
00:12:16.320 She had published relatively little.
00:12:18.100 What she did publish, there are now serious questions about the academic integrity of it.
00:12:23.040 And there is no person on planet Earth that believes she would have...
00:12:27.300 And remind people of DEI, what it stands for, again,
00:12:28.360 just because there's maybe people that are new that don't exactly know what DEI stands for.
00:12:32.600 And this is something that the woke left is obsessed with.
00:12:35.540 Diversity, equity, and inclusion.
00:12:37.400 And it is the premise of their anti-racism.
00:12:41.520 It is the premise of critical race theory.
00:12:44.260 It is the premise of the cultural Marxist on the left.
00:12:48.100 Who advocate that we should affirmatively discriminate and discriminate against so-called oppressors and in favor of so-called victims.
00:12:58.480 It's why the radical left is just fine with Jewish people being demonized, being threatened, 0.99
00:13:04.340 because to the cultural Marxist, Jewish people are oppressors. 0.59
00:13:08.540 It's why cultural Marxists are okay with whatever Hamas terrorists do, because they are the victims.
00:13:16.260 And that same reasoning...
00:13:18.080 Look, I'll give you an example.
00:13:19.420 Ibram X. Kendi, who's one of the godfathers of critical race theory,
00:13:23.440 who has pushed this so-called anti-racism, which we've talked about at length in this podcast.
00:13:28.520 It has an Orwellian name, because what he means by anti-racism is aggressively discriminating against the so-called oppressors on behalf of the so-called victims.
00:13:38.640 Here's what he had to say about Claudine Gay resigning.
00:13:42.080 That is going to be their talking point, if you dare stand against their radical ideology,
00:14:12.080 you are, by definition, a racist, and that they still see nothing that she did or said that was wrong.
00:14:23.100 I want to play for everybody to remind them of exactly where all this started, 0.84
00:14:29.140 and to put it back into context of the demise of this Harvard president is not for what she said that was anti-Israel, anti-Semitic.
00:14:38.080 It was the plagiarism.
00:14:40.920 And do not be duped by the mainstream media acting like she's being held accountable for these words.
00:14:45.960 These words that she said before Congress to Representative Stefanik are words that Harvard was willing to stand by her no matter what.
00:14:53.920 Here is that flashback to December the 5th and what was said.
00:14:59.000 Harvard's student calling for the mass murder of African Americans is not protected free speech at Harvard, correct?
00:15:04.500 Our commitment to free speech...
00:15:08.340 It's a yes or no question.
00:15:09.180 Is that corrected?
00:15:10.040 Is that okay for students to call for the mass murder of African Americans at Harvard?
00:15:14.280 Is that protected free speech?
00:15:16.760 Our commitment to free speech extends...
00:15:18.460 It's a yes or no question.
00:15:20.840 Let me ask you this.
00:15:22.000 You are president of Harvard, so I assume you're familiar with the term intifada, correct?
00:15:25.840 I've heard that term, yes.
00:15:29.600 And you understand that the use of the term intifada in the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict is indeed a call for violent armed resistance against the state of Israel, including violence against civilians and the genocide of Jews.
00:15:42.280 Are you aware of that?
00:15:44.680 That type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.
00:15:48.340 And there have been multiple marches at Harvard with students chanting, quote, there is only one solution, intifada revolution, and, quote, globalize the intifada.
00:15:57.740 Is that correct?
00:16:00.160 I've heard that thoughtless, reckless, and hateful language on our campus, yes.
00:16:06.780 So based upon your testimony, you understand that this call for intifada is to commit genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally, correct?
00:16:16.020 I will say again, that type of hateful speech is personally abhorrent to me.
00:16:23.620 Do you believe that type of hateful speech is contrary to Harvard's code of conduct, or is it allowed at Harvard?
00:16:31.500 It is at odds with the values of Harvard.
00:16:34.620 Can you not say here that it is against the code of conduct at Harvard?
00:16:37.820 We embrace a commitment to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.
00:16:47.980 It's when that speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies against bullying, harassing, and intimidation.
00:16:54.740 Does that speech not cross that barrier?
00:16:57.220 Does that speech not call for the genocide of Jews and the elimination of Israel? 0.90
00:17:01.100 You testify that you understand that is the definition of intifada.
00:17:06.740 Is that speech according to the code of conduct or not?
00:17:10.160 We embrace a commitment to free expression and give a wide berth to free expression, even of views that are objectionable, outrageous, and defensive.
00:17:18.540 You and I both know that's not the case.
00:17:20.560 You are aware that Harvard ranked dead last when it came to free speech.
00:17:24.540 Are you not aware of that report?
00:17:27.280 As I observed earlier, I reject that characterization of our campus.
00:17:31.900 It's the data shows it's true.
00:17:33.800 And isn't it true that Harvard previously rescinded multiple offers of admissions for applicants and accepted freshmen for sharing offensive memes, racist statements, sometimes as young as 16 years old?
00:17:45.680 Did Harvard not rescind those offers of admission?
00:17:48.600 That long predates my time as president.
00:17:50.500 But you understand that Harvard made that decision to rescind those offers of admission?
00:17:54.540 I have no reason to contradict the facts as you present them.
00:17:57.640 Correct, because it's a fact.
00:17:58.940 You're also aware that a Winthrop House faculty dean was let go over who he chose to legally represent, correct?
00:18:07.060 That was while you were dean.
00:18:08.900 That is an incorrect characterization of what transpired.
00:18:11.340 What's the characterization?
00:18:13.420 I'm not going to get into details about a personnel matter.
00:18:16.340 Well, let me ask you this.
00:18:18.160 Will admissions offers be rescinded or any disciplinary action be taken against students or applicants who say, from the river to the sea or intifada, advocating for the murder of Jews?
00:18:30.340 As I've said, that type of hateful, reckless, offensive speech is personally abhorrent to me.
00:18:37.380 Are you planning today that no action will be taken?
00:18:40.400 What action will be taken?
00:18:41.560 When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment, or intimidation, we take action.
00:18:51.120 And we have robust disciplinary processes that allow us to hold individuals accountable.
00:18:57.320 What action has been taken against students who are harassing and calling for the genocide of Jews on Harvard's campus?
00:19:05.240 I can assure you we have robust disciplinary processes with actions underway.
00:19:12.100 I'm asking what actions have been taken against those students.
00:19:16.140 Given students' rights to privacy and our obligations under FERPA, I will not say more about any specific cases other than to reiterate that processes are ongoing.
00:19:29.060 Do you know what the number one hate crime in America is?
00:19:31.680 I know that over the last couple of months, there has been an alarming rise of anti-Semitism, which I understand is the critical topic that we are here to discuss.
00:19:44.360 That's correct.
00:19:45.300 It is anti-Jewish hate crimes.
00:19:48.100 And Harvard ranks the lowest when it comes to protecting Jewish students.
00:19:52.820 This is why I've called for your resignation.
00:19:55.360 And your testimony today, not being able to answer with moral clarity, speaks volumes.
00:20:00.580 I yield back.
00:20:01.940 Senator, you hear that.
00:20:04.180 And the part that I think galls me the most is the fact that she's still employed.
00:20:11.180 She's still going to be paid about a million dollars a year. 1.00
00:20:15.160 She's just had a title change.
00:20:17.780 That's it.
00:20:18.600 Well, and Harvard doesn't intend to change its conduct.
00:20:22.700 They certainly have made no expression that they intend to do differently.
00:20:26.840 They were forced after over a billion dollars in commitments to contributions were called out.
00:20:35.320 After academically, their president became a laughingstock.
00:20:39.400 After you began to have students who I would note had to anonymously call for her to resign because they were afraid of retaliation.
00:20:48.680 After you had editorials in The New York Times and The Washington Post, bastions of the left, both calling not from the papers, but from from people submitting op eds, calling for her resignation.
00:21:03.600 After all of that, it became intolerable.
00:21:07.260 And yet they dug in and they dug in and they dug in.
00:21:10.640 And it's really quite ironic.
00:21:12.820 You look at her testimony and she she is defending free speech.
00:21:17.380 And it would be one thing if she was saying, you know, Harvard's a place where anyone can say anything and we protect free speech for everyone.
00:21:22.900 That's laughably false.
00:21:25.940 They protect free speech for anti-Semites and leftists.
00:21:29.620 And at the same time.
00:21:30.960 So there's an organization called FIRE and FIRE is is actively involved in fighting to defend free speech and examining censorship and suppression of free speech on campus.
00:21:41.260 And they does they do an elaborate survey every year to analysis of universities across the country.
00:21:47.880 So Harvard is consistently ranked one of the worst in the country in 2020.
00:21:53.720 Harvard ranked number 46 out of 55 schools in terms of protecting free speech in 2021.
00:22:00.340 It ranked 130 out of 154 schools in 2022.
00:22:04.600 It ranked 170 out of 203 schools.
00:22:07.920 And this past year in 2003, Harvard was dead last.
00:22:14.100 And out of a possible score from zero to 100, Harvard score was actually a negative 10.69.
00:22:22.220 So it was dead last.
00:22:24.020 It was six standard deviations below the average and more than two standard deviations below the second to last school in the rankings.
00:22:31.900 And the second to last school was the University of Pennsylvania Penn.
00:22:35.580 And so when she is is saying, well, anti-Semites are allowed and and apparently encouraged because of free speech, that is a policy that is applied very selectively.
00:22:51.720 And Harvard's expressed no willingness, no desire to correct that.
00:22:56.600 And and I think it is imperative that this become a moment to try to address and try to fix the profound ideological corruption.
00:23:10.220 By the way, if you look at the Harvard Corporation board, every single one of its board members is a hardcore partisan ideological Democrat.
00:23:19.300 There is no one right of center allowed anywhere near that board.
00:23:24.920 And you see it in the policies why they universally circled the wagons around Claudine Gay.
00:23:32.200 And it was only when dragged kicking and screaming that they allowed her to resign.
00:23:37.620 As before, if you want to hear the rest of this conversation on this topic, you can go back and download the podcast from early this week to hear the entire thing.
00:23:46.040 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97
00:23:53.460 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:23:57.180 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:23:58.360 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:23:59.600 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:24:09.080 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:24:12.080 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:24:17.780 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.
00:24:22.640 I want to move to something else that is obviously important and significant.
00:24:27.260 We've talked about it.
00:24:28.440 And it's a big win on the border to secure the enactment of a streamlined permitting process for new and expanded bridges across the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas.
00:24:42.320 It is something that you were a part of and led on.
00:24:47.500 It's now actually become law.
00:24:49.780 You were down in Laredo.
00:24:50.940 And I want to play for people part of what you had to say at this very, very big moment.
00:24:56.820 We're here today to celebrate bipartisan legislation that was signed into law in December of last year that will expedite building new bridges and expanding bridges between Texas and Mexico.
00:25:14.120 We're here at the World Trade Bridge, the largest land port in the United States.
00:25:19.280 Every year, Texas and Mexico have roughly $800 billion in trade and commerce that comes across this border.
00:25:34.440 That's jobs in Texas. 0.87
00:25:37.160 That's jobs in Mexico. 0.99
00:25:39.320 That's the lifeblood of South Texas.
00:25:42.780 This is obviously significant, not just from the standpoint of security that you talked about and orderly commerce coming across the border in a safer manner.
00:25:53.180 But it's also a really big deal from the fact that, as you mentioned, it was bipartisan.
00:25:58.560 Talk about how significant this is going to be for this country and for Texas.
00:26:02.780 Well, the audio you just played was for a press conference that I did in Laredo yesterday morning, and it was right at the World Trade Bridge, right on the southern border.
00:26:12.000 And I did that alongside Henry Cuellar, the Democrat congressman who represents Laredo.
00:26:17.140 And Henry and I worked hand in hand in this, and it was a huge victory.
00:26:21.440 The Texas Business Association that was down there with us, and there was a large group of people celebrating this legislative victory that we had just two weeks ago,
00:26:34.380 described the legislation that I introduced and passed as the biggest positive step for jobs and commerce in Texas
00:26:46.820 since the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement was negotiated.
00:26:51.600 It is literally billions of dollars of additional trade and commerce and tens of thousands of jobs.
00:26:59.160 And real quickly, what happened?
00:27:01.100 So there are four bridge projects that have been proposed in South Texas, two in Laredo, one in Brownsville, one in Eagle Pass.
00:27:09.460 And the Biden administration had put bureaucratic barriers.
00:27:12.680 They were delaying every one of these bridge projects.
00:27:15.320 The World Trade Bridge that I was at yesterday morning, that bridge right now is eight lanes.
00:27:21.100 They have proposed to expand it to 18 lanes, to more than double the size of it, which enables commerce to move much more rapidly.
00:27:31.020 That benefits farmers.
00:27:32.160 That benefits ranchers.
00:27:33.200 That benefits manufacturers.
00:27:34.720 That benefits small businesses.
00:27:36.320 That benefits consumers by lowering prices at the grocery store.
00:27:39.860 It also benefits national security by making it easier to bring manufacturing back from China, 0.77
00:27:45.780 either back to the United States or nearshoring it, bringing it back to Mexico,
00:27:50.300 where we can have trade and commerce with Mexico rather than China.
00:27:54.980 So all of those are good outcomes.
00:27:57.240 And what happened, so in order to build a bridge ordinarily, you have to do what is called federal environmental NEPA review.
00:28:08.680 It's to go through a process of reviewing the environmental impact of a bridge.
00:28:12.020 That's true for any bridge.
00:28:13.180 If you're building a bridge across an international border, there's an additional legal requirement.
00:28:20.560 You need a permit from the president of the United States.
00:28:25.520 Now, the way this used to be done is the president would grant that permit contingent on the completion of the NEPA review.
00:28:34.840 And what that did is accelerated the process, enabled it to move through quickly.
00:28:39.560 When Joe Biden became president, he announced they were reversing that policy.
00:28:47.020 And Biden was going to grant zero presidential permits for cross-border bridges unless and until the NEPA environmental review was fully completed.
00:29:00.200 The effect of that was to add two, three, four, five years to these bridge projects to delay them all.
00:29:07.280 It also made it harder for them to get funding because the banks were reluctant to commit capital until the presidential permit had been granted.
00:29:17.880 So there was a chicken and egg problem.
00:29:19.880 And the Biden administration dug in.
00:29:22.380 And so what I did is, number one, unified the congressional delegation in South Texas.
00:29:28.020 And so I brought together a coalition of myself and John Cornyn, the other Texas senator, along with Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, Monica De La Cruz, a Republican, Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat, and Tony Gonzalez, a Republican. 0.95
00:29:42.360 All of the South Texas congressional delegation, we jointly pressed the Biden State Department reverse this idiotic policy. 0.98
00:29:52.620 This is hurting Texas and hurting America. 0.99
00:29:55.520 The Biden administration dug in.
00:29:57.560 They refused to change.
00:29:59.100 And so I authored legislation mandating that they expedite the process, got bipartisan support in the Senate, passed it out of the Senate, and then passed it out of the House.
00:30:11.340 And Joe Biden signed it into law on December 22nd.
00:30:15.620 And it was actually my birthday that he signed in the law.
00:30:19.140 And so it was a pretty great birthday gift because it's a huge victory for jobs in the state of Texas.
00:30:26.920 And it's an example of, you know, I got to say, it's also an example of the bizarre hypocrisy.
00:30:34.760 I mean, let me ask you seriously, Ben, explain to me the mind of a whack job liberal that you want totally open borders and 10 million people invading this country illegally, including human traffickers and drug traffickers on the one hand.
00:30:51.660 But on the other hand, you want to put bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of legal trade and commerce from farmers and businesses while you're allowing illegal immigrants to flow with no restraint. 0.54
00:31:05.180 Yeah, it makes no sense, especially when every year Texas and Mexico, as you mentioned, have roughly 800 billion in trade and commerce that come across this border.
00:31:13.180 And this does it in a more orderly fashion, but also with the issue of national security involved in it, keeping it orderly with safety and security, especially with all the drug trafficking, fentanyl and everything else coming across the border.
00:31:27.040 It makes no sense.
00:31:28.600 Look, that's exactly right.
00:31:30.560 And we ended up building the bipartisan coalition to pass this into law.
00:31:36.660 And so the way the law works is December 22nd is when Joe Biden signed it into law.
00:31:42.080 On that date, which was the date he signed it, the legislation starts a shot clock of 60 days and the State Department has a 60 day time limit to submit its recommendations to the White House as to whether he should grant the permit for these four bridges.
00:32:00.860 After that 60 day period, a second shot clock starts and the president has 60 days to make a determination on the permit.
00:32:11.180 If the president does nothing after that second 60 days, the permit is deemed automatically granted by operation of law.
00:32:21.820 What that means is because it was signed on December 22nd, that by April 20th, we will have these presidential permits, which will expedite these bridges going forward.
00:32:32.680 That is an enormous victory, despite the Biden administration putting roadblocks in the way every step of the way.
00:32:40.200 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:32:45.400 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.
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00:32:52.020 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.
00:32:56.180 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.
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