Verdict with Ted Cruz - Dunking on Newsom, Forbidden Words for Democrats & SCOTUS Victory for Trump Cancelling $783M in DEI Grants

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.420 Welcome.

00:00:06.040 It is Vertical Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.000 And Senator, I got to say, every once in a while, you get a little feisty on Twitter.

00:00:13.220 And one of your tweets has now gone to 14 million people that have seen it.

00:00:18.880 And a follow-up tweet is in the million-plus range.

00:00:22.380 And it dealt with electricity.

00:00:24.320 I did not see this one coming.

00:00:25.680 I'm not going to lie.

00:00:27.320 Well, Gavin Newsom, it seems, has gotten a new Twitterer. 0.98

00:00:30.920 He's hired some staff that I'm sure are blue-haired transgender freaks. 1.00

00:00:36.800 But they've decided the way they're going to make Gavin the hero of the left is to tweet in all caps and try to do everything they can to sound like Donald Trump. 0.84

00:00:45.480 And, by the way, it is working in that left-wing kooks across the country are sending money to Gavin Newsom.

00:00:51.900 It's raising him a whole lot of money.

00:00:53.140 And so he has gone crazy on Twitter, but he's getting dunked on badly.

00:00:59.360 And we're going to talk about one example where he's trying to blame high electricity prices on Donald Trump.

00:01:06.900 And, well, let's just say the facts are not backing him up.

00:01:09.780 We're going to break that down for you.

00:01:10.980 We're also going to talk to you about a remarkable story, which is a major Democrat think tank has put out a list of forbidden words, a list of words they concluded that when Democrats say them, they sound like out-of-touch freaks.

00:01:24.420 Now, I've got to say, I agree with this think tank, but I don't think Democrats are going to follow this advice.

00:01:31.060 It really is striking, though, to show just how out-of-touch they are, that they have to be told what sort of words make you sound like a scolding schoolmarm or a radical in a university faculty lounge.

00:01:44.640 And finally, we're going to talk about a Supreme Court decision that upheld the Trump administration's canceling of hundreds of millions of dollars of DEI grants.

00:01:54.240 It was a terrific victory for common sense.

00:01:56.760 It was 5-4.

00:01:57.480 It was closely divided.

00:01:58.460 We're going to break it down, explain what the court did, what the divide was, and how President Trump is now able to cancel massive amounts of money that were going to completely woke political ideological projects.

00:02:10.640 All of you know that I am a pro-Second Amendment guy.

00:02:15.020 I've shared on numerous occasions how carrying my firearms saved my life from a gang-related attack.

00:02:20.520 But for those of you out there with family members who may not be comfortable having a gun, by their side, you still want them to be able to protect themselves and others in times of danger.

00:02:29.700 And that's where the Berna launcher comes in.

00:02:32.420 Berna is a handheld pistol that fires both kinetic rounds and chemical irritants to separate you from an attacker.

00:02:38.560 And I'm here with Josh Sherrard from Berna to share the true story of how an avid hiker used his Berna to stop an attacking mountain lion.

00:02:46.860 Josh, tell us what happened.

00:02:48.300 Yeah, you know, Jason is an avid hiker, decided to take his family out on a hike that he's done several times.

00:02:54.680 Super easy hike, but super fun.

00:02:57.040 Armed with his Berna, you know, this is one of those things where he didn't expect to see anything.

00:03:00.880 And all of a sudden on this hike, this mountain lion appears out of nowhere.

00:03:04.420 Of course, he sends his family on down the trail, watches the lion for a few minutes, realizes it's not going away.

00:03:10.940 So uses his Berna, fires a few rounds to scare it off, continues down the trail.

00:03:15.120 But unfortunately, this mountain lion appears again, at which point he realized he was going to have to up his aggression with that Berna.

00:03:22.680 Fires four rounds, was able to strike the mountain lion all four times, the chest and torso, at which point that mountain lion tears off, never to be seen again.

00:03:30.680 And these guys make it down the trail, back to their car and back to home safely.

00:03:35.600 Fortunately, this is all it took to make sure and get this family back home safe off a hike that could have taken an obvious turn for the worst.

00:03:43.800 And I'm going to guess that Berna has been used to stop other types of animal attacks as well.

00:03:48.300 Absolutely.

00:03:48.740 We get stories all the time of users, whether it be dogs or other wildlife.

00:03:55.060 We even have an ecological park whose security carries Berna for bears out in the Smoky Mountains out there that's been effective there as well.

00:04:04.400 So, once again, not just a tool for people, but very effective against animals as well.

00:04:08.340 It's really incredible.

00:04:09.240 If you want to get more information on how you and your family member can protect themselves with Berna Launcher, go to Berna.com.

00:04:16.860 That's B-Y-R-N-A dot com. 1.00

00:04:20.140 Again, B-Y-R-N-A dot com. 1.00

00:04:22.760 Berna dot com.

00:04:24.500 All right, Senator.

00:04:25.180 So, let's talk about this interesting tweet.

00:04:28.140 And Democrats, anything that goes up price-wise right now, it's automatically Donald Trump's fault.

00:04:34.280 That is the simplistic liberal logic 101.

00:04:37.500 One, anything that they can blame Trump for, they're going to try it every time.

00:04:41.980 They put out this tweet.

00:04:43.360 Gavin Newsom clearly acting as if he's running against the whole MAGA world.

00:04:48.140 He's obviously launched his presidential campaign and is just trying to take these easy shots.

00:04:53.840 The problem is you hit him back hard with the facts.

00:04:56.960 So, let's talk about what he tweeted out first and then what you said in response.

00:05:01.540 Well, sure.

00:05:01.860 He sent out a tweet that said, electricity prices have gone up 10% since January.

00:05:07.620 Great work, Donald Trump.

00:05:09.660 And so, you know, look, as Gavin Newsom is wont to do, he is fact-free.

00:05:14.020 He is data-free.

00:05:14.980 He is evidence-free.

00:05:15.980 He is usually reality-free.

00:05:17.400 But he's pretty slick and drives a message.

00:05:20.780 And so, I responded, actually relying on AI.

00:05:24.660 And I'm kind of enjoying doing this online.

00:05:26.720 And so, I just asked Grok to chime in.

00:05:29.620 And so, I responded, hey, Grok, electricity prices have gone up 10% since January.

00:05:35.480 In what cities and states are they the highest?

00:05:39.540 So, I had no political content to it.

00:05:41.720 I just asked, where is this the worst?

00:05:44.180 And to date, we've got 14 million views on that.

00:05:48.000 Here's what Grok came back with.

00:05:50.080 Based on August 2025 data from EIA and other sources, highest state rates.

00:05:55.100 Number one, Hawaii.

00:05:58.200 Number two, California.

00:06:01.240 Number three, Connecticut.

00:06:04.000 Number four, Massachusetts.

00:06:06.740 Number five, Rhode Island.

00:06:09.460 And then, highest city rates.

00:06:10.720 Number one, Honolulu, Hawaii.

00:06:14.280 Number two, San Francisco, California.

00:06:17.800 Number three, New York, New York.

00:06:20.600 Number four, Boston, Massachusetts.

00:06:24.220 And number five, Hartford, Connecticut.

00:06:28.020 And so, I looked at that.

00:06:29.280 Just that Grok response has 1.2 million views.

00:06:32.160 My initial query has 14 million.

00:06:34.480 And so, I responded to that.

00:06:35.820 I said, hey, Grok, what do the five states with the highest electricity rates,

00:06:40.720 all have in common?

00:06:41.820 And it wasn't difficult to figure this out.

00:06:45.100 But here's what Grok responded.

00:06:48.800 Based on EIA data, the top five, Hawaii, California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,

00:06:54.920 all have Democratic governors, and strong renewable energy mandates.

00:07:00.380 Factors include high fuel import costs, e.g. Hawaii, urban demand, and infrastructure investments.

00:07:08.120 Rates vary by policy and geography.

00:07:11.300 So, it's an amazing example of how, look, I didn't even bother to argue with Gavin.

00:07:17.900 I just simply pointed to facts.

00:07:20.360 And the beauty of it is, I didn't need adjectives.

00:07:23.460 I didn't need to make any claims.

00:07:25.260 I just needed to ask the simple question.

00:07:26.860 Where is it the highest?

00:07:28.080 Now, I knew the answer.

00:07:29.700 And the thing about it is, Gavin knew the answer.

00:07:32.600 Electricity rates are incredibly high in California, the second highest of any state in the country.

00:07:36.580 Why? Because of the wacko left-wing policies Gavin Newsom and the legislature put in place. 1.00

00:07:41.460 That's true of Democrat legislatures.

00:07:44.080 And yet, here's what Gavin Newsom wants to do.

00:07:45.960 He wants to tell Californians, you know, your high electricity rates, it's because Donald Trump is there.

00:07:50.800 And it's fundamentally dishonest.

00:07:53.300 And, look, that's one of the reasons, Ben, you and I do this podcast, is it's designed to give information.

00:08:00.580 The left, you know, if you think about the difference between being a Democrat or a Republican today,

00:08:05.140 Democrats, their policies don't work.

00:08:08.480 Their policies are a train wreck, whether it's open borders, whether it is boys and girls sports,

00:08:13.900 whether it is massive spending and high taxes and job-killing regulations,

00:08:18.040 whether it is appeasement abroad, whether it is letting terrorists into this country.

00:08:23.180 All of their policies are a mess.

00:08:25.360 So what do they do?

00:08:26.460 They have to spin.

00:08:27.280 They have to obfuscate.

00:08:28.360 And there is a fundamental dynamic in politics, which is liberals win when they effectively obfuscate their views,

00:08:38.000 because their policy views don't work.

00:08:40.740 Conservatives win when we effectively articulate what it is we believe.

00:08:44.720 Why?

00:08:45.040 Because our policy views work.

00:08:46.980 They are common sense.

00:08:48.640 Most people with any sense, they want secure borders.

00:08:51.800 They want law enforcement protecting their family.

00:08:53.840 They want their constitutional rights protected.

00:08:56.560 They want low prices, low energy prices.

00:09:00.640 And so that tweet exchange, I think, really embodies much of what I'm trying to do,

00:09:08.820 speaking out in the public debate, but much of what we're trying to do with this podcast as well.

00:09:14.300 Well, let's dive into also so people understand.

00:09:17.380 And they may say to themselves, well, hold on a second.

00:09:19.360 Why is it that one state has higher prices than another state?

00:09:22.860 Why is it that, you know, California is higher?

00:09:25.700 Is it just because, quote, everything costs more in California?

00:09:28.660 Can you break down and explain to people how this is such a statewide issue?

00:09:32.820 This is where your actual state government matters and the policies of your state,

00:09:36.760 and it's going to dictate the pricing you see.

00:09:39.120 Well, it's a whole host of things.

00:09:41.160 One chunk of it is taxes.

00:09:42.900 And you have big blue states.

00:09:45.220 They tax everything they see.

00:09:46.580 And so one of the reasons when you fill up your tank in California, it costs so much as you've got massive state and local gasoline taxes.

00:09:55.340 But not only that, when it comes to electricity generation, when you put mandates, as blue states do,

00:10:00.700 when you put massive renewable energy mandates, that drives up the cost of generating electricity.

00:10:07.440 Consistently, the cheapest form of generating electricity is either coal or natural gas.

00:10:15.300 States like California don't want you to use coal or natural gas, so they mandate instead you use very, very expensive forms of electricity generation.

00:10:24.320 And that ends up driving costs.

00:10:26.200 But it's not just the generation.

00:10:27.560 It's also getting the fuel.

00:10:29.180 It's also building the transmission lines, the environmental permitting, the regulatory barriers, the lawsuits that are entailed in big blue states.

00:10:41.880 Every one of these drives up costs.

00:10:44.880 And those costs are paid by consumers.

00:10:47.060 On the other hand, when you have red states, red states make it easier to build power generation that is more cost effective.

00:10:56.840 And to build transmission lines.

00:10:59.960 And it's interesting.

00:11:00.780 If you look at the state of Texas, and I'm not saying renewable energy is necessarily bad.

00:11:06.260 The number one producer of wind energy in America is the state of Texas.

00:11:10.000 The number one producer of solar energy in the country is the state of Texas.

00:11:15.120 But if you look at how it happens in Texas, that's not subject to a mandate.

00:11:19.020 And so we also have quite a bit of energy that is generated via natural gas and some that is generated via coal as well.

00:11:26.840 In California, by driving it overwhelmingly to renewables, especially renewables that, if the weather is uncooperative, you know, sometimes the sun is shining and the wind is blowing and wind and solar works fine.

00:11:41.240 But other times, if it's overcast, you may not have any sunshine.

00:11:45.700 You have days when the wind doesn't blow.

00:11:47.860 And so if you're powering a power grid, you need electricity that can be generated day in, day out.

00:11:56.360 And that typically comes from either natural gas or coal.

00:12:00.960 Or the alternative is nuclear.

00:12:02.440 And we have nuclear energy in Texas.

00:12:05.340 But again, blue states make it incredibly difficult to build nuclear as well.

00:12:09.920 Every time you put an additional mandate...

00:12:11.760 I'll give you another example.

00:12:13.020 Let's take Massachusetts.

00:12:13.880 Massachusetts, the cost of natural gas to heat your home is massively high.

00:12:21.100 And one of the big reasons, there's enormous natural gas deposits in Pennsylvania, the Marcella Shale.

00:12:27.240 It would be very simple to bring that natural gas from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts.

00:12:33.720 Well, you know what?

00:12:34.560 The state of New York has decided New Yorkers don't want natural gas, so the costs are very high there.

00:12:39.700 And they've decided no one else in New England wants it, so New York will not let them build a pipe across New York to get the natural gas to New England.

00:12:47.860 And so as a result, what they've been doing is importing their energy from Russia instead.

00:12:52.380 By the way, it's worse for the environment.

00:12:54.180 It pollutes more.

00:12:55.140 It emits more carbon.

00:12:56.520 And it also does things like enrich Vladimir Putin.

00:12:58.980 But that is left-wing liberal logic, is no, no, no, no, we think oil and gas is bad, so therefore no pipelines whatsoever, and we'll just buy Russian gas and pollute even more.

00:13:11.160 That's where facts matter.

00:13:13.240 Final question on this.

00:13:14.560 Have you seen any fact checks yet come out on Gavin Newsom in this tweet?

00:13:18.200 Because I was scouring the Internet as you and I were chatting earlier.

00:13:21.400 I can't find a single fact checker that's come out saying, hey, you're not telling all the facts here.

00:13:25.640 This is a misleading tweet, misleading statement, misleading anything.

00:13:28.640 It's like no one's doing it but you.

00:13:31.200 Well, unfortunately, the so-called fact checkers are not, in fact, objective.

00:13:36.000 They are not checking facts.

00:13:38.720 Things like, outfits like PolitiFact are left-wing editorial outlets, and they mask their often deceptive editorial views as objective fact-checking.

00:13:51.180 It really is, it's amazing the things, number one, they inevitably fact-check conservatives many, many more times than liberals.

00:14:00.820 Sometimes they'll fact-check liberals on some innocuous statement just to conclude it's true.

00:14:05.460 And the bias with which they have it, you know, one of the funniest fact-checks, PolitiFact once,

00:14:10.120 I said years ago that in Iran they celebrate Death to America Day, and then that they have a holiday that they celebrate Death to America Day. 0.72

00:14:20.240 And PolitiFact fact-checked me.

00:14:22.740 And they concluded, well, yes, it is true that there is a holiday that's actually on the official calendar in Iran.

00:14:30.960 And the holiday is the date that the Iranian radicals and revolutionaries took over the American embassy and took Americans hostage. 0.68

00:14:40.300 That's on the calendar, and it is true they celebrate it every year.

00:14:43.180 And it's true as well that mobs go out in the streets and they chant Death to America on this day every year.

00:14:50.540 And those chants are frequently led by the Ayatollah.

00:14:53.040 All of that, PolitiFact concludes, true, true, true, true.

00:14:56.160 They say, but, you know, the holiday is not technically called Death to America Day on the calendar, so we rate this flat-out false.

00:15:06.020 And I literally doubled over laughing.

00:15:08.400 It was the most absurd.

00:15:09.920 I actually retweeted their fact-check and said, read this, because the facts that they lay out are exactly what I said.

00:15:16.740 They make my case for it, but ideologically, because they're leftists, when the Ayatollah chants Death to America,

00:15:23.140 apparently the PolitiFact editors are chatting right along with them, so they see nothing to complain about.

00:15:28.680 So, Gavin Newsom's not going to get fact-checked on this.

00:15:31.880 He is going to—I mentioned that liberals win when they obfuscate well.

00:15:37.480 To Gavin Newsom's credit, he is much like Bill Clinton.

00:15:42.040 If you remember years ago, a backhanded compliment of Bill Clinton that was said, 0.97

00:15:45.920 he's an unusually good liar. 0.95

00:15:48.200 Well, Gavin Newsom, like Bill Clinton, is an unusually good liar, and the fact-checkers are in the business of lying, 0.94

00:15:56.060 so they're not going to be fact-checking what Gavin Newsom says.

00:15:59.300 Yeah, great point there.

00:16:00.800 I want to move to something else that's happening, and this is very interesting.

00:16:04.440 Democrats are going back to their wokeness and adding new words and phrases that you shouldn't be able to say.

00:16:12.040 Apparently, this is part of their strategy to reach more voters because they're hemorrhaging voters all over the place.

00:16:18.960 Some of the things they want to bring back with a vengeance, Senator, is not breastfeeding of a child,

00:16:24.200 but it's chest-feeding of a child.

00:16:26.020 That's just one example of this lunacy.

00:16:28.260 And they're rolling it out like, hey, this is how we're going to get people to come back to us.

00:16:32.460 Well, it's very amusing.

00:16:34.980 This Democrat think tank, Third Way, has put out a list of 45 words and phrases that they're asking Democrats,

00:16:42.840 please stop saying this because you guys sound like kooks when you say this.

00:16:46.580 And Politico's playbook reported on it.

00:16:49.220 Here's what playbook said.

00:16:51.020 The blue blacklist in a new memo, the center-left think tank, Third Way,

00:16:56.160 is circulating a list of 45 words and phrases they want Democrats to avoid using,

00:17:00.460 alleging the terms, put, quote,

00:17:02.860 a wall between us and everyday people of all races, religions, and ethnicities. 0.97

00:17:08.000 It's a set of words that Third Way suggests, quote,

00:17:12.260 people simply do not say, yet they hear them from Democrats.

00:17:18.040 And these banned words, they span six categories,

00:17:21.400 from, quote, therapy speak to, quote, explaining away crime.

00:17:26.880 And they put, in sharp relief, a party that the authors say makes Democrats, quote,

00:17:34.280 sound like the extreme, divisive, elitist, and obfuscatory enforcers of wokeness.

00:17:42.260 And the Third Way argues that, quote,

00:17:46.340 to please the few, we have alienated the many,

00:17:50.000 especially on culture issues where our language sounds superior, haughty, and arrogant.

00:17:58.620 All right, so let's go through some of the words that Democrats now are supposed to not say.

00:18:04.040 Number one, privilege.

00:18:07.840 Number two.

00:18:08.820 Yeah, that's a bad one.

00:18:10.360 Violence, as in environmental violence, not actual violence like mugging or murder.

00:18:14.660 That violence, they don't say.

00:18:16.400 But environmental violence.

00:18:19.280 Dialoguing, whatever that is.

00:18:21.000 Triggering, which you and I believe in triggering,

00:18:23.300 but I think we have a very different meaning for that than leftist when we talk about triggering.

00:18:28.160 Othering.

00:18:29.560 Othering.

00:18:30.080 What on earth is othering, othering, othering.

00:18:34.400 Microaggression.

00:18:36.160 Holding space.

00:18:38.400 Body shaming.

00:18:41.040 Subverting norms.

00:18:42.520 Systems of oppression.

00:18:46.520 Cultural appropriation.

00:18:49.840 Overton window.

00:18:51.940 Existential threat to the climate, democracy, economy.

00:18:57.540 Radical transparency.

00:19:00.180 Stakeholders.

00:19:01.940 The unhoused.

00:19:04.460 Food insecurity.

00:19:07.220 Housing insecurity.

00:19:09.480 Person who immigrated.

00:19:11.540 Birthing person.

00:19:15.780 Cisgender. 0.99

00:19:17.320 Dead naming.

00:19:18.380 Can we go back to birthing person real quick? 0.88

00:19:20.660 That would be a mom. 0.96

00:19:21.500 That's the one that I think most...

00:19:23.540 Yeah, that would be a mom, but they don't want to say that.

00:19:25.220 They don't think it's a woman that can have a child, even though it's only women that can have children. 1.00

00:19:29.160 So they want to say it's a birthing person, and this is supposed to bring them more people?

00:19:33.340 It's incredible, isn't it?

00:19:34.460 All right, I've told this story on Verdict before, but we actually had a hearing in Judiciary where a Democrat senator made multiple references to birthing people.

00:19:47.060 And afterwards, I came up to him and I said, dude, is your party really that whack job crazy that you can't say mom?

00:19:54.120 And he just nodded and said, yeah.

00:19:57.020 Like, that's who they are.

00:19:58.640 All right, let me finish this list.

00:20:01.180 Heteronormative.

00:20:03.180 Patriarchy. 0.93

00:20:06.220 LGBTQIA plus LMNOP.

00:20:08.220 I added the LMNOP.

00:20:10.180 BIPOC.

00:20:12.640 Allyship.

00:20:13.860 Or allyship, or whatever the heck it is.

00:20:16.860 Incarcerated people.

00:20:18.860 And involuntary confinement.

00:20:22.040 So these are the naughty words.

00:20:23.500 Now, look, I'm old enough to remember George Carlin's list of the seven words you can't say on radio.

00:20:28.400 And since you are a radio host, you probably know those seven words.

00:20:31.560 Because this is a family show, I'm not going to repeat the seven words you can't say on radio.

00:20:35.760 But it is a classic bit of stand-up comedy.

00:20:39.020 And this is now, I guess, the inverse of that. 0.98

00:20:43.020 This is the words Democrats should stop saying because they make them sound like clowns. 0.94

00:20:49.000 Okay, you'll love this, Senator. 0.94

00:20:50.700 So, true story.

00:20:52.860 When I was, gosh, really young in radio, I want to say 16, 15, 16, somewhere in there,

00:20:59.660 every year you had to do your broadcasting license interview.

00:21:04.600 And at the radio station, HR is who you'd go meet with, and you'd have to write down those words you're not allowed to say on air, right?

00:21:10.920 Like the seven words that you're not allowed to do.

00:21:13.720 So, everyone in the radio station, they came to me when it happened.

00:21:17.260 They started laughing.

00:21:17.960 They're like, hey, Ben, make sure you, when you do it, tell them that you're dyslexic.

00:21:21.460 I have a learning disability.

00:21:23.400 Because then you do the test orally instead of writing it down.

00:21:27.360 So, everyone went into the HR department, and you said the words out loud to the HR lady who was like 75 years old, and she would just shake her head.

00:21:33.880 And then she finally looked at me.

00:21:34.620 She's like, you're not dyslexic.

00:21:36.120 I'm like, no, ma'am.

00:21:36.720 They all told me how to do this.

00:21:37.720 She's like, yeah, you're like the 17th person a day.

00:21:40.260 So, there's your little back of the day of radio.

00:21:44.680 Everybody at the station, no one knew how to write anything.

00:21:47.100 Everyone knew how to go in there and just mess with her. 1.00

00:21:49.100 I'm like, what are the words you're not allowed to say on the air?

00:21:50.980 And, of course, you would enunciate them, like, perfectly, and she would just be cringing.

00:21:55.160 And she's like, you don't have a learning disability.

00:21:56.860 I'm like, no, ma'am, I don't.

00:21:57.720 They put me up to it.

00:21:58.780 She's like, yeah, so did everyone else.

00:22:00.100 It was the best every year.

00:22:02.140 Well, I appreciate your refraining from going through the list right now.

00:22:06.760 But, look, here's what Third Way said as to the reason they put out their list.

00:22:12.040 Quote, we're doing our best to get Democrats to talk like normal people and stop talking like they're leading a seminar at Antioch.

00:22:22.280 Look, this is one of the few times when I'm going to say I agree with Democrats.

00:22:27.440 When they say words like that, they sound like freaks, but there's a reason for that. 0.91

00:22:31.880 Because they are.

00:22:33.460 It's not just the words.

00:22:35.160 Notice, the memo doesn't say to stop believing this stuff.

00:22:38.740 The memo doesn't say to stop, you know, destroying jobs.

00:22:42.120 The memo doesn't say, hey, let's actually secure the border.

00:22:44.280 The memo doesn't say, if we find a murderer, let's arrest the murderer and make him, what is it, an incarcerated person.

00:22:52.480 No, no, no, they're perfectly fine with letting murderers and rapists go.

00:22:55.740 They just don't want you to say it in a way that people realize what they're doing.

00:23:00.360 Canadian women are looking for more. 1.00

00:23:03.000 More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them.

00:23:07.480 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:23:11.120 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:23:12.380 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:23:13.620 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:23:17.260 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers.

00:23:20.660 I want to move to another big story as well.

00:23:34.440 And this is one that is not going to get a lot of media attention.

00:23:37.420 So I hope everyone listening will actually pay attention to this.

00:23:40.080 Because it was a big victory from the Supreme Court, allowing Donald Trump to tax millions of dollars, Senator, in funding for DEI-related grants.

00:23:49.620 This is huge.

00:23:52.700 It is.

00:23:53.680 So it was a 5-4 vote.

00:23:55.200 And it allowed the Trump administration to terminate $783 million worth of grants.

00:24:02.640 They're grants from the National Institute of Health.

00:24:04.440 And they were granted – they were canceled because of the administration's policy positions on diversity, equity, and inclusion in gender ideology.

00:24:15.320 And the Trump administration quite reasonably said, we're not going to give away $783 million for DEI.

00:24:23.500 And these were awards that were studying all sorts of ideological objectives.

00:24:29.660 And in many instances, these were awards that were granted because of the researchers' race.

00:24:35.940 They made that a criterion.

00:24:38.560 And listen, I've got to say, there is an important role for scientific and medical research.

00:24:44.420 NIH does good work.

00:24:46.600 And, you know, early in the Trump administration, I was flying from D.C. back to Houston, and a woman came up to me on the plane.

00:24:52.580 And she said she was a cancer researcher at MD Anderson.

00:24:56.220 And she said she was very worried about funding getting cut, and she wanted to express that to me.

00:25:02.240 And I said, listen, thank you for the work you do.

00:25:04.600 MD Anderson is incredible.

00:25:05.920 They do phenomenal work fighting cancer.

00:25:09.580 And I said, everyone, or at least everyone with any sense, agrees that we ought to be doing cancer research.

00:25:14.320 And part of the reason, a big part of the reason, you want to scrutinize and you want to cut out wasteful expenditures,

00:25:22.620 things like funding, you know, transgender education in Guatemala, which was one of the USAID grants that the administration canceled,

00:25:31.280 is so that you can spend the money where it actually should be spent.

00:25:35.480 And so $783 million in NIH grants that is not actually going to disease and curing disease and helping people who are suffering,

00:25:45.000 but instead are granted based on ideology, that is an absolute waste, and it is wrong.

00:25:51.100 But I've got to tell you, the ruling from the court was only 5-4.

00:25:55.740 It was very narrow, and it had a bit of a complicated lineup.

00:26:02.720 So four justices dissented.

00:26:06.260 The four who dissented were Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson.

00:26:14.180 So you had the chief justice plus the four liberals.

00:26:17.120 Now, you had four conservatives, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh,

00:26:24.960 who would have granted the Trump administration's request entirely.

00:26:29.820 And so what happened was plaintiffs had their grants canceled.

00:26:34.960 They went and filed a lawsuit in Massachusetts because, of course, in this lawfare,

00:26:39.780 they deliberately seek out left-wing judges at extreme left-wing jurisdictions.

00:26:44.600 And so Massachusetts and San Francisco have been incredibly popular places for left-wing attorneys general and radical groups to file lawsuits.

00:26:52.740 And the district judge, what the district judge did is two things.

00:26:57.040 Number one, vacated the guidance that the Trump administration had issued saying they were not going to give funding to DEI.

00:27:04.560 And then secondly, the district court ordered the Trump administration give the $783 million to these grant recipients.

00:27:14.560 That went up on appeal to the Court of Appeals, and the Court of Appeals agreed with the district court and, again, ordered the Trump administration give the money.

00:27:22.500 Now, it went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court 5-4 said, no, you do not have to give the money.

00:27:30.520 So the $783 million, the Trump administration is holding on to it.

00:27:35.320 And the deciding vote on this was Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who voted with the liberals on part of the case and the conservatives on part of the case.

00:27:45.940 So she voted with the conservatives on, you don't have to give the money.

00:27:51.360 And the basis for it, by the way, is what the five justices said, is the lawsuit was filed in the wrong place.

00:27:59.480 That the lawsuit should have been filed in the Court of Federal Claims, which is where if you have a breach of contract case against the federal government,

00:28:08.000 if you have a contract and they broke it, under federal law, the place to bring that case is the Court of Federal Claims.

00:28:14.720 It's a specialized court that exists to adjudicate breach of contract cases against the government.

00:28:20.900 They did not bring this in the Court of Federal Claims.

00:28:22.840 They brought it just in an ordinary federal district court.

00:28:25.640 So 5-4, the court said, wrong court, they don't have jurisdiction to decide this, so they don't have to give the money.

00:28:32.080 Now, Justice Barrett sided with the liberals in refusing to reverse the district courts vacating the guidance on DEI.

00:28:45.660 So the guidance on DEI is currently blocked, although that lawsuit will continue, so it's not necessarily permanently blocked.

00:28:54.520 And she declined to have the Supreme Court reverse that decision.

00:28:59.580 And so this was, at the end of the day, this really should have been 9-0.

00:29:05.940 But I'm glad it was at least 5-4 the right way, because that means that this money doesn't have to go out the door.

00:29:12.040 Yeah, it's certainly big that it didn't have to go out the door.

00:29:14.160 Moving forward, does this also have some sort of precedent that the president will be harassed maybe a little bit less?

00:29:20.900 Or do you think Democrats say, we'll harass no matter what, we'll argue wherever we can, a liberal court we can find, and that will at least slow him down?

00:29:28.820 Yeah, look, the Democrats are going to keep trying, and the left-wing activist groups are going to keep trying.

00:29:33.820 This is their next generation of lawfare.

00:29:36.120 Just like before, when they indicted him four times, that was an effort to use the courts, to use law enforcement to stop President Trump, but also to stop the voters from re-electing him.

00:29:47.260 They failed in that.

00:29:48.600 This is now their effort, and it is relentless.

00:29:51.120 Every day of the Trump presidency, he's going to be sued.

00:29:53.840 The administration is going to be sued.

00:29:55.700 I will say the Supreme Court, we talked about this in an earlier podcast,

00:29:58.940 it has made important steps to rein in the abuse of nationwide or so-called universal injunctions.

00:30:07.900 That was important.

00:30:09.260 And this decision is important.

00:30:11.060 And I will say Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, wrote a concurring opinion that was significant.

00:30:17.880 Here's what Justice Gorsuch said.

00:30:19.140 Quote,

00:30:19.880 In Department of Education v. California, this court granted a stay because it found the government likely to prevail in showing that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the government to pay grant obligations.

00:30:42.220 The California decision explained that, quote, suits based on any express or implied contract with the United States do not belong in district court under the Administrative Procedure Act,

00:30:56.060 but in the Court of Federal Claims under the Tucker Act.

00:30:59.520 Rather than follow that direction, the district court in this case permitted a suit involving materially identical grants to proceed to final judgment under the APA.

00:31:10.860 As support for its course, the district court invoked the, quote, persuasive authority of the dissents in California and an earlier Court of Appeals decision that California repudiated.

00:31:28.600 That was error.

00:31:31.060 In casting California aside, the district court stressed that the court there granted only interim relief pending appeal and a writ of certiorari and did not issue a final judgment on the merits.

00:31:44.340 True enough.

00:31:45.480 But this court often addresses requests for interim relief, sometimes pending a writ of certiorari, as in California.

00:31:50.940 And either way, when this court issues a decision, it constitutes a precedent that commands respect in lower courts.

00:32:02.260 He went on to say, quote,

00:32:04.480 If the district court's failure to abide by California were a one-off, perhaps it would not be worth writing to address it.

00:32:13.300 But two months ago, another district court tried to, quote,

00:32:17.180 compel compliance with a different order that this court had stayed.

00:32:22.320 Still another district court recently diverged from one of this court's decisions, even though the case at hand did not differ in any pertinent respect from the one this court had decided.

00:32:36.540 So now this is the third time in a matter of weeks this court has had to intercede in a case squarely controlled by one of its precedents.

00:32:50.020 All these interventions should have been unnecessary.

00:32:53.800 But together, they underscore a basic tenet of our judicial system.

00:32:58.400 Whatever their own views, judges are duty-bound to respect the hierarchy of the federal court system created by the Constitution and Congress.

00:33:10.400 Look, this highlights a pattern we're seeing of lawless district judges.

00:33:15.620 That is, Justice Gorsuch and Kavanaugh lay out.

00:33:18.660 Three in just three weeks that have defied the Supreme Court of the United States.

00:33:22.840 Said, we don't care what the court said. 0.68

00:33:25.560 And, you know, it was striking.

00:33:26.760 Look, I'm reading from a Supreme Court.

00:33:28.300 And some of that sounds like legalese.

00:33:30.720 But I'll tell you one of the most amazing things that Justice Gorsuch described, the district court did, is it said it found persuasive the dissents in the California decision.

00:33:44.020 Well, a dissent, by definition, means you lost.

00:33:47.340 You did not get the majority.

00:33:48.560 The majority issues the opinion.

00:33:51.340 A dissent is someone who disagrees with the opinion.

00:33:53.560 And the way precedent works, the way our judicial system works, is a decision that it issues from the Supreme Court is a precedent that all of the district courts and all of the courts of appeals are bound to follow.

00:34:06.460 So if you are citing a dissent, you are saying right on the front of it, I don't care what the majority held.

00:34:13.760 I agree with the dissenters.

00:34:15.660 No lower court judge has the authority to do that.

00:34:18.920 That is the definition of lawlessness.

00:34:21.280 And it is why these plaintiffs are seeking out radicals on the bench who they know will be lawless.

00:34:29.460 Yeah, great point there.

00:34:30.600 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

00:34:32.720 So hit that subscribe or auto-download button wherever you get your podcasts so you do not miss a single episode.

00:34:39.300 Make sure, again, put this up on social media wherever you can.

00:34:42.100 And the senator and I will see you back here on Wednesday morning.

00:34:46.500 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:34:49.020 Guaranteed Human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 25, 2025

Dunking on Newsom, Forbidden Words for Democrats & SCOTUS Victory for Trump Cancelling $783M in DEI Grants

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