Verdict with Ted Cruz - Elder Abuse or Executive Power, Take It Down Act Targeting Deepfakes Signed plus Tom Homan & the Battle for Border Accountability Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.700 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.300 Welcome to this verdict with Senator Ted Cruz.

00:00:07.340 Weekend Review, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.120 And here are the three stories that you may have missed that we talked about this week.

00:00:12.280 First up, the decline of Joe Biden now on tape with the Her Report coming out.

00:00:17.620 And you're going to be shocked what you hear.

00:00:19.240 We'll have the latest on that in just a moment.

00:00:21.380 Also, Donald Trump signs a historic take it down act that will protect so many people

00:00:26.900 from revenge pornography.

00:00:29.120 We'll give the details as well.

00:00:31.180 And finally, Tom Homan.

00:00:32.740 He is our guest on holding politicians accountable for helping illegal immigrants get away with 1.00

00:00:39.200 their crimes.

00:00:40.460 It's the Weekend Review, and it starts right now.

00:00:43.260 I actually feel bad for Joe Biden.

00:00:45.240 I think it's very clear that people are taking advantage of him.

00:00:47.900 I think this is a form of elder abuse.

00:00:50.120 No, that was sad.

00:00:51.060 It is.

00:00:51.460 It's just it is absolutely sad.

00:00:53.120 That is the president of the United States of America.

00:00:54.980 And the fact that there were so many people wanting to keep their power, whoever those

00:00:57.900 five people were, that they did this to him.

00:01:00.360 Look, and he do you remember remember the question that was in the front of that?

00:01:05.500 What was it?

00:01:06.400 It was where are you keeping classified documents?

00:01:08.320 And he went down a four-minute recollection of losing his son tragically, and there's nothing

00:01:16.960 sadder than a parent bearing a child. 0.57

00:01:19.660 And then that's certainly a personal tragedy that Joe Biden has had more than his fair share

00:01:23.820 of.

00:01:24.080 Well, all right, here's another segment of her tapes.

00:01:36.460 Listen to this next excerpt.

00:01:40.540 This memo, Mr. President, was this something that you consciously kept after your term as

00:01:47.740 vice president?

00:01:48.340 Is this something that you wanted to hold on to?

00:01:51.580 I don't recall.

00:01:52.920 Did I have this?

00:01:54.260 Was this in my possession, this memo?

00:01:56.280 Yes.

00:01:56.800 And to give you some context for this, Mr. President, it was found in the front of this notebook that's

00:02:02.980 on the first page.

00:02:04.480 And the notebook was found in the library at the lake house in one of the drawers.

00:02:10.500 Your answer is that you don't recall.

00:02:11.740 I don't recall how it got back, I mean, I don't recall how it got back in the book, because

00:02:17.820 I sent it to the president, I gave it to the president.

00:02:21.600 And this looks like the original.

00:02:23.120 I don't think it was, maybe the copy made it, but I don't think so.

00:02:26.040 It was faxed, just to get used to it.

00:02:28.420 Oh, okay, that's why.

00:02:29.700 Yeah.

00:02:30.560 All right, now I got it.

00:02:31.940 I wasn't sure how I got, how I, whether I handed it to the president.

00:02:36.180 It was faxed to the president, which I had the copy.

00:02:38.700 Right.

00:02:39.360 Okay.

00:02:39.740 You had the original.

00:02:40.420 Yeah, I had the original, and I just put it in the book, and that was it.

00:02:43.320 Okay.

00:02:44.540 Were you aware that you had kept it after your term as vice president?

00:02:50.100 Did you know that you had it?

00:02:52.540 I don't know that I knew, but it wouldn't have, it wouldn't sound something I would have

00:02:57.540 started to think about.

00:03:00.640 The reason I ask is, it's been written about, Bob Woodward wrote about it in one of his books.

00:03:06.480 You know, Jules Winkover wrote about it in his biography of you.

00:03:10.700 So that's, that's the reason I asked, is if it was something that you wanted to hang on

00:03:15.500 to because it was going to be the subject of reporting or history.

00:03:18.840 I don't know if it was going to be the subject of reporting, but I, I wanted to hang, I guess

00:03:22.920 I wanted to hang on to it just for posterity's sake.

00:03:25.960 I mean, this was my position on Afghanistan.

00:03:30.580 I, I've been of view from a historical standpoint that there are certain points in history,

00:03:39.480 world history, where fundamental things change using technology.

00:03:44.260 For example, without Gutenberg's printing press, Europe would be a very different place, literally

00:03:50.700 a different place, because countries would not have known what, what was happening in

00:03:55.880 other countries, other parts of the country. 1.00

00:03:58.420 You know, think about a stupid idea, a notion. 0.99

00:04:02.500 Nixon probably would have been on president where he used to television, but where he's sweating, 1.00

00:04:06.380 I mean sincerely, he was sweating so profusely in that debate.

00:04:09.820 A lot of people thought he won the debate, but he lost the debate because of his demeanor.

00:04:16.280 The, so there's a lot of things that I think are fundamentally changing how international societies

00:04:25.720 function, and they relate a lot to technology.

00:04:29.920 And one of the things that I was in the view that a lot has changed in terms of everything

00:04:39.240 from the internet to, to the way in which we communicate with one another, to, that has

00:04:49.280 fundamentally altered the ability, I've had this discussion with the press.

00:04:53.400 Mr. President, I'm sorry to interrupt you.

00:04:55.200 No, I'm sorry.

00:04:55.760 Anyway, that's, that's what I wanted to do.

00:04:57.120 I, I, I really.

00:04:58.700 Nothing to do with Afghanistan.

00:04:59.620 Okay, that answered my question.

00:05:01.000 And, and Mark, just really quickly, I promise it'll be brief.

00:05:04.620 I, I just really would like to avoid, for the purpose of a clean record, getting into speculative

00:05:08.420 areas.

00:05:08.880 When the president responded and said, I don't recall intending to keep this memo, you then

00:05:14.900 said, well, you know, might you have thought it was important to keep him, whatever, and

00:05:18.320 he said, well, I guess I, I could have.

00:05:21.100 His recollection, as I understand it, is he does not recall specifically intending to keep

00:05:26.160 this memo after he left the vice presidency, and I want that to be, I want these questions

00:05:30.060 to be as clearly answered and recorded on the transcript as possible.

00:05:33.380 I think we should take a break.

00:05:37.000 If there's one thing that's consistent, they wanted to take a break.

00:05:40.360 And, and you had the questions coming in, in such a kind way.

00:05:43.680 Like, this is not what I was expecting.

00:05:45.260 So, so let me say, legally, that exchange is very important.

00:05:50.340 So, this is a classified document on Afghanistan.

00:05:53.820 I don't actually know the precise details of the document.

00:05:56.160 But it's a classified document in Afghanistan that he had in a non-secure location, which

00:06:00.960 is a criminal violation, is the violation they were charging right then.

00:06:05.840 The Biden Justice Department was prosecuting Donald Trump for doing exactly that.

00:06:10.480 And, and the prosecutor asked him, so did, did, did you, did you intend to keep this document?

00:06:16.200 And he's like, I don't know.

00:06:18.000 I don't, and immediately his lawyer jumps in.

00:06:20.040 Your answer is, you don't know.

00:06:21.920 Now, his lawyer's being a good lawyer there.

00:06:23.220 Yeah.

00:06:23.460 Because this is all about establishing the mens rea, the, the, the mental status to be

00:06:29.460 guilty of the crime.

00:06:31.040 But then Biden goes on and says, you know, well, why, why did you keep it?

00:06:34.800 It's been reported.

00:06:35.560 It's been in this book.

00:06:36.300 It's that book.

00:06:36.900 And he says, well, I, I kept it for posterity.

00:06:39.800 I, it was important to have.

00:06:41.300 And his lawyer comes in at the end. 0.98

00:06:42.780 And he's like, oh crap, oh crap, you just admitted. 0.98

00:06:45.300 That you did this on purpose. 0.98

00:06:46.660 And you kept it because you wanted to be able to tell a really good story about Joe Biden.

00:06:52.120 And you wanted to leak classified information to reporters and you needed the memo to do it.

00:06:55.980 And he admits that.

00:06:56.820 And then his, then his reporter at the end, his lawyer at the end tries to clean that up.

00:07:01.500 That exchange has enormous legal significance.

00:07:06.800 Had DOJ not concluded that the sitting president of the United States was incompetent to stand trial.

00:07:13.240 Let me repeat that sentence because it's an astonishing one.

00:07:15.380 Had DOJ not concluded that the sitting president is incompetent to stand trial, that exchange would have featured prominently in the criminal trial, convicting him of violating that law.

00:07:30.540 You, you look at now what we're seeing with this her tape and I, and I, I go back to accountability.

00:07:37.260 There are clearly people that were helping cover this up.

00:07:40.360 They were taking advantage of Joe Biden.

00:07:41.960 Um, I think his family obviously was in on this as well.

00:07:45.680 They wanted the power, whoever the five people are.

00:07:48.900 The question I ask you is how the hell do we find out who the five people are and what is Congress's role play in this to make sure it never happens again?

00:07:56.780 There should absolutely be congressional hearings.

00:07:59.400 We need an answer.

00:08:00.380 The media ought to do its job and report.

00:08:02.320 I want to play one more excerpt from the her tapes.

00:08:04.320 Let's listen to this final excerpt.

00:08:06.740 Went to Mongolia and, uh, and, uh, great pictures.

00:08:11.320 I, unfortunately, embarrassed the hell out of a leader of Mongolia there.

00:08:16.600 Showed they were doing a, what they would do at the time of the invasion of the Mongols into Europe in the 14th, in the, uh, 800s.

00:08:27.880 And so we're out in the middle of nowhere and they're looking up on the hill and you see this tiny line.

00:08:33.540 You know, it's a 20-mile horse race with all these kids under the age of 16 on a bareback racing to come down.

00:08:40.640 And, you know, they're sumo wrestlers and doing everything they do.

00:08:44.240 And, uh, so they walked over and they had a target, big bales of hay, 100 yards away.

00:08:51.020 And these gorillas were, you know, taking shots. 1.00

00:08:55.140 And, uh, I think, I don't know if it's going to embarrass me or if it's going to make a point, but they're handed the bow and arrow.

00:09:01.180 Well, I'm not a bad archer, but, uh, all I found that work, I can pull it back, so I, uh, and pure luck, I hit the gun in target.

00:09:11.960 No, I really did.

00:09:13.400 Bales of hay, there were, like, 20 bales of hay with a, with a big target in the middle of a bale. 0.99

00:09:19.460 And so I didn't mean anything, but I turned to the primar's hand at the hand, the poor son of a bitch couldn't pull it back. 0.98

00:09:24.800 So, look, if, uh, Genghis Khan, if Genghis Khan comes, comes in, if, if we face the Mongol horde, know that, that Joe Biden is ready to, to, to fire his bow and arrow. 0.93

00:09:42.960 Look, there are a lot of things you can say about this interview, but it's very clear why Democrats did not want this released before the election.

00:09:52.980 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.

00:10:00.180 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.98

00:10:06.540 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:10:10.300 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:10:11.460 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:10:12.680 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:10:16.360 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:10:21.860 So, if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:10:25.400 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:10:31.340 Now, on to story number two.

00:10:33.840 Senator, let's talk about this other incredible moment that happened this week at the White House.

00:10:38.860 Donald Trump signed the Take It Down Act into law.

00:10:41.240 It's something that you championed.

00:10:43.060 And remind people what this law is intent and why it is such an important piece of legislation to protect not only young people and minors, but really anyone from just evil and hateful revenge from an ex.

00:10:56.860 Well, this is legislation that I authored, that President Trump signed into law this week.

00:11:02.680 Actually, he signed it into law in the Rose Garden at a big ceremony in the Rose Garden.

00:11:06.220 I've done a lot of bill signing ceremonies in the Oval Office.

00:11:09.940 This is the first time I've been in the Rose Garden because you had victim groups and victim advocates and people who have been victims of non-consensual explicit imagery.

00:11:19.080 Now, what is that?

00:11:20.320 That's really two different things.

00:11:22.280 Number one, so-called revenge porn.

00:11:24.540 So if you have a boyfriend and girlfriend and they're in a relationship and they take explicit pictures or videos and then they have a breakup and one or the other is mad and they say, okay, I'm going to stick it to you.

00:11:36.460 I'm going to put this out for the whole world to see.

00:11:39.120 And it is an utterly grotesque violation of privacy.

00:11:42.880 Nobody has the right to do that to somebody else.

00:11:45.220 And it's something we're seeing happening more and more often.

00:11:48.300 There's a second manifestation that is new and it has to deal with technology, which is more and more we are seeing people use AI, artificial intelligence, to create deep fakes.

00:11:59.820 And deep fakes where they appear to be either a picture or a video of a real person, but it's utterly fake.

00:12:07.380 And so they make a naked or explicit image of someone and put it out.

00:12:11.640 And the incidence of deep fakes last year increased 3,000 percent and over 90 percent of the victims of deep fake explicit imagery are women or teenage girls.

00:12:25.700 And so it is growing massively.

00:12:28.960 And so the Take It Down Act is legislation that I introduced that makes it a crime, a federal felony, to post non-consensual intimate images, either real pictures or deep fakes.

00:12:39.320 And secondly, it puts a federal statutory obligation on tech platforms to take the pictures down, to take the videos down, because the platforms have been horrible responding to victims.

00:12:52.460 They ignore victims.

00:12:53.940 They leave the images up.

00:12:55.360 And so the victim ends up being being victimized over and over and over again by the images staying out there.

00:13:01.580 And so the Take It Down Act puts a legal obligation that when the victim notifies them, hey, that's me, that's an explicit image of me, and you don't have my consent to put it up.

00:13:12.020 They have to take it down.

00:13:13.600 This legislation I introduced with Amy Klobuchar, Democrat from Minnesota, and we passed it through the Senate.

00:13:21.080 We passed it unanimously.

00:13:22.080 It was 100 to nothing.

00:13:22.780 And then the House took it up and passed it with an overwhelming bipartisan majority, and President Trump signed it into law.

00:13:30.820 And give a listen to what President Trump said this week in the Rose Garden as he signed the Take It Down Act into law.

00:13:36.720 Today it's my honor to officially sign the Take It Down Act into law.

00:13:41.000 It's a big thing, very important, so horrible what takes place.

00:13:44.840 This would be the first ever federal law to combat the distribution of explicit, imaginary, posted without subjects' consent, take horrible pictures, and I guess sometimes even make up the pictures, and they post it without consent or anything else.

00:14:02.620 And very importantly, this includes for forgeries generated by artificial intelligence known as deepfakes.

00:14:09.760 We've all heard about deepfakes. 0.68

00:14:10.960 I have them all the time, but nobody does anything.

00:14:13.240 I asked Pam, can you help me, Pam?

00:14:15.580 She says, no, I'm too busy, too busy doing other things.

00:14:18.400 Don't worry, you'll survive.

00:14:19.840 But a lot of people don't survive.

00:14:21.860 That's true, and so horrible.

00:14:24.040 With the rise of AI image generation, countless women have been harassed with deepfakes and other explicit images distributed against their will. 0.81

00:14:33.040 This is the wrong, and it's just so horribly wrong.

00:14:36.940 And it's a very abusive situation, like in some cases people have never seen before.

00:14:43.240 And today we're making it totally illegal.

00:14:46.400 Senator, one of the things I just I love about this legislation is the fact that not only is it bipartisan, but you had the first lady who really got involved in this as well.

00:14:54.900 It was important to her, and that made it, I think, even easier to bridge the gap.

00:14:59.720 Well, we did.

00:15:01.040 The first lady became very active in pushing this bill. 0.99

00:15:04.580 She reached out to me and said she wanted to help get it over the finish line.

00:15:09.960 So last year we passed it out of the Senate 100 to nothing, and the House failed to take it up last year.

00:15:15.900 So it did not pass last year.

00:15:17.600 And so we got to this year to the new Congress.

00:15:20.280 I passed it through the Senate again 100 to nothing, and the real battle was to get it to rise up the priority list of House leadership.

00:15:28.880 And so when the first lady called my office and said she wanted to help, what I did is I invited her to come to Capitol Hill for a roundtable where she could hear from the victims.

00:15:39.940 And also at that roundtable was the Speaker of the House and Steve Scalise, the majority leader, and Brett Guthrie, who's the committee chairman in the House.

00:15:51.320 And when the first lady asked them, will you please pass this into law, they committed to her they would.

00:15:59.000 And this was the day before the State of the Union address, and you may remember at the State of the Union address, Melania was sitting with a teenage girl from Texas, Elliston Berry.

00:16:08.660 And President Trump told her story in the State of the Union and called on Congress to pass this bill.

00:16:14.400 And I'll tell you, it's actually it's a fascinating story of how this bill came to pass, because it originates with one teenage girl in Texas, Elliston Berry.

00:16:26.520 She's from North Texas, from Aledo, Texas.

00:16:28.900 And a year ago, she was 14, and she was in ninth grade.

00:16:32.560 And she woke up one morning, and her phone was blowing up with texts from her friends, because a classmate of hers had taken a perfectly innocent picture of her from social media and had used an app online that he had found to create a deep fake and then sent what appeared to be naked pictures of Elliston to all of her ninth grade classmates.

00:16:56.760 And so she was in tears. Listen, it is hard to be a teenager.

00:17:00.620 I'm the father of two teenage girls. I know the pressure that is on teenage girls.

00:17:04.880 It's much harder to be a teenager today than when you and I were teenagers, Ben.

00:17:09.260 And this was just horrific.

00:17:12.320 Well, what happened is her mom, Anna, look, Elliston and Anna are constituents.

00:17:18.140 They're Texans.

00:17:18.720 So Anna picked up the phone and called my office and said, hey, look, you're my senator.

00:17:24.840 Can you help my daughter?

00:17:26.800 And my staff, to their credit, they elevated this to me, and they told me what had happened to Elliston.

00:17:32.380 And this is happening more and more all over the country.

00:17:35.520 And so I said, look, let's draft legislation to fix this, to address the problem.

00:17:40.740 And so we did.

00:17:41.940 And it was because of Elliston that we drafted it.

00:17:45.360 But as I said, it's happening all over the country.

00:17:48.360 Well, Elliston came to D.C. the day we announced the bill last year for the press conference.

00:17:55.100 And I sat down and met with Elliston.

00:17:56.800 I met with her mom in my office.

00:17:58.760 And in the course of the meeting, I asked, I said, hey, what happened to the pictures?

00:18:03.360 And her mom said, it's the most frustrating thing in the world.

00:18:06.000 She said, this happened nine months ago.

00:18:08.020 She said, I have been calling and emailing Snapchat over and over and over again.

00:18:13.260 They just stonewall us. 1.00

00:18:14.800 We get no response.

00:18:16.620 Ben, I turned to my staff.

00:18:17.760 I said, I want you to get the CEO of Snapchat on the phone today.

00:18:22.180 I want those pictures down today.

00:18:26.100 They pulled them down within two hours.

00:18:28.780 Now, it should not take a sitting senator making a phone call to get those pictures taken down.

00:18:34.260 And now, as a result of the legislation Trump has signed, every victim has a statutory right to insist that it be taken down as a matter of law automatically.

00:18:44.140 Yeah, in fact, Ellison Berry got to go on Fox News Channel with our good friend Kayleigh McEnany and talk about this moment.

00:18:51.680 And here's what she had to say.

00:18:52.780 Take a listen.

00:18:53.260 But you didn't stop.

00:18:55.000 You decided to go and talk to your local congressman.

00:18:58.500 And you get connected with a senator.

00:19:00.240 And then you manage.

00:19:01.040 There you are, standing behind the president of the United States, changing the laws for other young women like you. 0.95

00:19:05.760 Did you ever think this day would come?

00:19:08.200 I never would have thought that this could ever be my reality.

00:19:12.400 My mom, she's really an amazing person.

00:19:15.080 And she's the one that's been pushing for this.

00:19:17.060 And she's the one that's encouraged me.

00:19:18.600 So I wouldn't be able to do this without her help and her support.

00:19:22.020 And she really just has encouraged me to the point where I feel encouraged about this.

00:19:27.560 So having the opportunity to speak about this and to bring awareness really just means so much, especially it's so much growth seeing how scared I was at first and seeing how confident I am able in this situation.

00:19:40.960 Well, other young women now have recourse. 1.00

00:19:43.360 Thanks to you, Ellison Berry.

00:19:45.020 So impressive.

00:19:45.680 Thank you.

00:19:46.480 I love it.

00:19:47.200 It's just it's finally a happy ending to a really hard and sad subject.

00:19:52.640 Well, and Ben, at the signing ceremony, I was able to introduce Ellison to the president.

00:19:56.520 And I introduced also Francesca Mani, who is another 15-year-old girl who was in New Jersey.

00:20:02.780 And the exact same thing happened to her as happened to Ellison.

00:20:05.940 And I also introduced Brandon Guffey.

00:20:08.940 Brandon Guffey is a state rep from South Carolina.

00:20:11.740 And tragically, his oldest son got what we thought was a direct message from a cute girl.

00:20:18.700 And she convinced him to send naked pictures to her.

00:20:21.800 Well, it turned out it was not a cute girl. 0.69

00:20:25.120 It was a con man.

00:20:26.520 And the con man began extorting him and threatening, I'm going to send these naked pictures to your friends and family.

00:20:33.540 Well, Brandon's son, Gavin, killed himself.

00:20:36.200 And we are seeing suicides across the country.

00:20:39.160 So I introduced Brandon and his family to the president, too.

00:20:41.700 And this law is a victory for everyone that is a target of this kind of exploitation.

00:20:46.380 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.

00:20:55.240 Canadian women are looking for more, more of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.70

00:21:02.200 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk Podcast.

00:21:05.940 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:21:07.320 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:21:08.560 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.

00:21:12.300 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:21:17.740 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:21:21.260 Listen to the Honest Talk Podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:21:27.080 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:21:31.500 I want to go back to accountability for a second time.

00:21:33.960 I want to ask you, there are a lot of people that believe that there were laws that were broken deliberately in the last administration.

00:21:40.800 They knew they were breaking the law.

00:21:42.200 One of those would be former Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas that you mentioned a moment ago.

00:21:48.260 Should he be criminally prosecuted for his role in the border crisis if it was as deliberate as it now seems?

00:21:54.880 Look, I think what he did was borderline treasonous.

00:21:57.460 I'm not an attorney.

00:21:58.540 I'm not a prosecutor.

00:21:59.940 But what he did, he did more damage to this country, him and the Biden administration, what they did to this country.

00:22:05.600 I can tell you, when they opened that border up, sex trafficking, women, children, increased tenfold.

00:22:13.780 A record number of migrants died making that journey, over 4,000.

00:22:18.060 A record number of Americans died from fat and all that come across that open border.

00:22:22.640 And it's just what he calls this country.

00:22:25.740 And from a national security perspective, because here's what his orders were.

00:22:30.300 Process quick, release quick.

00:22:32.660 They didn't care about the crisis.

00:22:34.220 They cared about the optics of the crisis.

00:22:36.500 If there's no overcrowding, there's nothing to see here.

00:22:40.020 So border trades were processing as quick as they could and releasing as quick as they could.

00:22:44.540 And there's been several instances where they released so quickly, the FBI scan didn't come back.

00:22:50.560 And they came back hot.

00:22:52.020 After they'd already been released, they came back hot as a known inspector terrorist.

00:22:56.120 So, yeah, what he did was unconscionable.

00:22:59.120 What he did, in my opinion, borderline treasonous, he should be held accountable because a lot of deaths occurred under his watch.

00:23:07.580 And like Senator Cruz said a few minutes ago, right now, 96% decline in illegal immigration.

00:23:13.400 Listen, when 96% less people are coming, how many women aren't being raped? 0.99

00:23:17.800 How many children aren't dying crossing that border?

00:23:20.260 How many known inspector terrorists aren't getting in the country?

00:23:22.480 How many pounds of fentanyl is not getting in the country?

00:23:24.500 What are you going to see on the President Trump's administration?

00:23:26.940 Fentanyl deaths would decrease.

00:23:28.560 Sex trafficking would decrease.

00:23:30.260 Smuggling would decrease.

00:23:31.460 And no inspector terrorists, they've got no open net anymore.

00:23:35.180 Now that we've got the border secure, every single border agent is on the line, on patrol, doing his national security duty.

00:23:42.780 Under Joe Biden, it was an average, most days an average, 70%, 7-0, 70% of agents were no longer on patrol.

00:23:51.680 They were changing diapers, making baby formula, making hospital runs.

00:23:55.080 The last time I went down there, before the election, I talked to hundreds of border agents and told them,

00:23:59.200 Hang on, hang on, change is coming.

00:24:00.940 I really think President Trump's going to win.

00:24:02.900 But they told me, no, we're sick of being tourist agents.

00:24:05.280 We're sick of being Uber drivers.

00:24:07.420 We process and deliver these people to the very same people who pay for their smuggling.

00:24:13.160 They couldn't recruit.

00:24:14.540 People were quitting.

00:24:15.920 They were quitting before they even eligible for retirement.

00:24:18.460 They couldn't read their recruiting numbers.

00:24:19.700 You know, last month, ICE, excuse me, Border Patrol, had the highest recruiting numbers in the history of that agency just last month.

00:24:28.680 That's fantastic.

00:24:29.640 And look, I will say, Tom is not exaggerating at all.

00:24:34.740 Like when I would visit with Border Patrol agents, the frustration, look, the men and women who sign up for the Border Patrol, they do so because they're patriots.

00:24:42.720 They do so because they love America.

00:24:44.560 They do so because they want to keep our communities and our families and our kids safe.

00:24:48.920 And they want to be out on patrol.

00:24:50.720 Look, that's what you sign up in the job.

00:24:54.060 And they were sitting there just shuffling paperwork.

00:24:56.520 They were processing and just running a revolving door to try to release as many illegal immigrants as fast as possible.

00:25:05.080 That's what Mayorkas viewed his job is accelerate illegal immigration, not stop it, but make it go more quickly.

00:25:12.840 Let me ask you, Tom, you mentioned fentanyl.

00:25:14.460 What do we know about the numbers of fentanyl traffic over the first four months of the Trump administration?

00:25:22.480 There's been a decrease, and I've got from three or four different sources, the percentage of the decrease is different from every source.

00:25:28.980 The problem is the CDC doesn't have good metrics on fentanyl.

00:25:33.000 But look, across the country, you can see the decrease in fentanyl.

00:25:36.900 Fentanyl is being seized on the southern border, and the metrics, and that's maybe something you all can work on up there in the Senate.

00:25:46.660 CDC needs to track this more accurately.

00:25:51.760 Like I said, you've got a number of deaths reported by states.

00:25:54.820 You've got a number of deaths reported by CDC.

00:25:56.560 None of them match.

00:25:57.940 But we do know there's been a reduction.

00:26:00.100 You don't see, you know, 300 people dying every day from fentanyl like we did see, right?

00:26:06.840 We know we don't have two, you know, 9-11s a week happening from kids dying from fentanyl.

00:26:12.060 So I don't have the exact numbers, but we already see the effects of a secure border.

00:26:16.120 And, Tom, let me ask you also.

00:26:17.540 So one of the things we've talked about on this podcast, in 2018, the Mexican drug cartels made roughly $500 million from human trafficking.

00:26:27.700 Last year, the drug cartels made over $13 billion from human trafficking.

00:26:34.580 That's a 2,600 percent increase.

00:26:37.620 Do we have any data yet?

00:26:39.000 Do you have any visibility on what has happened to the drug cartels' revenue?

00:26:44.140 Because one of the worst consequences of what Biden's open border did is it turned these vicious, murderous, transnational criminal organizations into incredibly wealthy powerhouses, and it put huge resources in their pockets.

00:27:00.220 Do you have any data on what's happened to their revenues?

00:27:02.120 Well, one of the best things President Trump did was designate a terrorist organization because these cartels have killed more Americans than every terrorist organization in the world combined.

00:27:12.500 We knew that's why there's so much violence in Mexico over the last four years.

00:27:17.120 Cartels were fighting each other for control of the plazas.

00:27:19.720 Why?

00:27:20.440 Because they're making record amounts of money in smuggling people, record amount of money in trafficking women and children, and a record amount of money in moving dope across that border.

00:27:28.300 Now with the border secure, we're hitting them where it hurts.

00:27:31.720 Smuggling's down, both drugs and people, trafficking's down.

00:27:35.720 So we're hitting them where it hurts.

00:27:37.280 That's why the latest intelligence reports I see, they're trying to produce and push more fentanyl into Asian, European nations because their market here in the United States has been so brutally attacked.

00:27:48.620 But I wish what would happen is that Mexico would agree with President Trump to let us help them take the cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.

00:27:58.360 Because right now they're like the Jalisco cartel.

00:28:01.800 They're in 44 countries around the globe.

00:28:04.000 They're like a Fortune 500 company.

00:28:05.980 It's going to take the United States to take them out.

00:28:07.860 Mexico's failed for decades to do it. 0.88

00:28:09.940 And a lot of Mexico, you know, that military, police, and government forces are corrupt.

00:28:13.280 I'll say this, a lot of the corruption is forced corruption because you're a police officer in Mexico, you're making, you know, $400 a month. 0.74

00:28:21.440 But a Mexican cartel comes up and offers you $10,000, look the other way, and you're going to take it or they're going to kill you and your family.

00:28:27.340 I think Mexico will be a much safer, a much more prosperous country if you let President Trump help them wipe the cartels off the face of the earth.

00:28:34.820 Look, that is absolutely right.

00:28:36.620 And let me underscore that point.

00:28:38.600 A lot of people don't realize, particularly those on the left, that what Joe Biden and the Democrats did, it wasn't just horribly cruel to the American people.

00:28:47.340 It was horribly cruel to Mexican nationals in Mexico.

00:28:52.380 Turning these vicious criminals into the most powerful economic force in Mexico has increased the murder rate, the crime rate, the kidnapping rate.

00:29:05.360 I visited with a Mexican mayor of a town on the other side of the border, and I'm not going to say which mayor because he told me in confidence because he was afraid.

00:29:14.480 But he said in his town they had had over 3,000 disappearances, just people, Mexican nationals living in Mexico who just ran afoul of the cartel and they just disappear and they find mass graves.

00:29:29.400 And the suffering and murder and kidnapping that has happened in Mexico because of the Democrats' political decision I think was cruel and horrible.

00:29:41.600 And, Tom, you're exactly right that the U.S. military can take out the cartels.

00:29:47.900 And we've done it before in Colombia.

00:29:49.740 President Uribe asked the military to come in and take out the cartels in Colombia, and we came in and did that, and we could do it again.

00:29:57.580 And I do think it would be much better if the Mexican government invited us in.

00:30:02.500 It would have transformational impact within Mexico.

00:30:05.820 Yeah, it would have saved a lot of lives.

00:30:09.040 Like, say, the Mexican cartels have killed thousands of judges and prosecutors and journalists and citizens.

00:30:16.180 So, you know, I wish they'd join with President Trump because that would be a game changer for Mexico and the United States.

00:30:24.040 All right, final question.

00:30:26.300 We saw just this week that New Jersey Democrat Congresswoman LaMonica McIver was charged for assaulting law enforcement at an ICE facility.

00:30:37.360 Tell me, tell us how important that is, and what do you think about the fact that charges were brought for assault?

00:30:43.580 We saw during the Biden administration repeatedly law enforcement, Customs Border Patrol, ICE agents were subject to physical assault.

00:30:52.920 No charges were brought.

00:30:54.400 How important is it that these charges were brought?

00:30:57.560 The sons of strong, Mitch.

00:30:58.920 This is very important.

00:31:00.260 It also proves I don't bluff.

00:31:02.220 I'd said from the day of inauguration, if you want to not support ICE, well, shame on you, but you have that right.

00:31:07.680 If you want to protest against ICE and protest against Trump's policies, that's fine.

00:31:11.500 If you want to watch ICE come in and clean your city up because you're a sanctuary city, you don't want to help, you can do that, too.

00:31:17.500 But I said from day one, you can't cross that line.

00:31:20.200 You can't cross the line on impediment.

00:31:21.960 That's a felony.

00:31:22.980 You can't cross the line on noiling and harboring, concealing of illegal animals from ICE.

00:31:27.320 That's a felony.

00:31:28.260 You certainly can't commit criminal trespasses at our facilities.

00:31:31.820 And for God's sakes, you can't put hands on ICE officers.

00:31:36.060 And this happened during the same time frame, the same week.

00:31:38.580 I went to Blue Mass in Washington, D.C., in remembrance of the men and women of law enforcement, put their lives on the line for this country every day.

00:31:46.860 So we spent a week just praising these men and women, talking to their families who also paid the ultimate sacrifice.

00:31:53.960 They lost a loved one forever.

00:31:55.380 Children lost their fathers and mothers, and mothers and fathers lost their sons and daughters.

00:31:59.640 And the same week, we're supposed to be honoring law enforcement.

00:32:01.620 You got some of the members of Congress putting their hands and shoving an ICE officer, which makes that facility very unsafe.

00:32:08.140 And I'm sick and tired of hearing, well, we have congressional oversight responsibilities.

00:32:11.680 There is a right way and wrong way to do it.

00:32:14.000 You don't force your way in the facility.

00:32:15.840 You don't put hands on an officer.

00:32:18.220 We do oversight all the time.

00:32:20.340 And what are they finding out as people are getting tours of that facility?

00:32:23.800 That they have the highest detention standards in the industry.

00:32:27.480 And it puts every other detention center and jail in the state of New Jersey, whether it's a county or a state, it puts them to shame because our detention standards are so high.

00:32:39.720 So when you go and cause that kind of practice, we're trying to maintain a facility with very dangerous people inside.

00:32:47.060 We've got to protect not only the criminals.

00:32:49.040 We've got to protect the employees and the citizens on the outside.

00:32:51.560 What she did was just horrendous.

00:32:54.280 She put hands on an officer, like they said, for four years.

00:32:58.180 No one's above the law.

00:32:59.400 You're damn right they're not above the law, even members of Congress.

00:33:02.080 The president isn't above the law, but these are members of Congress.

00:33:04.720 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:33:10.300 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:33:13.960 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:33:17.220 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:33:21.060 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:33:24.860 This is an iHeart podcast.

00:33:27.520 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - May 24, 2025

Elder Abuse or Executive Power, Take It Down Act Targeting Deepfakes Signed plus Tom Homan & the Battle for Border Accountability Week In Review

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript