Verdict with Ted Cruz - Ep. 1 - Trump On Trial

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.060 The first day of President Trump's impeachment trial has just come to a close,

00:00:09.920 and we are joined here by one of the jurors to help us break it all down.

00:00:14.320 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:25.560 You may have noticed that I am not Ted Cruz.

00:00:28.160 I am Michael Knowles. I am joined here by the man himself, Senator Cruz.

00:00:32.560 Senator, busy day?

00:00:34.900 Pretty much business as usual.

00:00:37.200 It was a nice business as usual 13-hour day during the first full day of the impeachment trial.

00:00:43.280 You know, we all know the arguments.

00:00:45.440 We've been hearing about impeachment now since about five seconds after Trump got elected.

00:00:50.220 Did anything change today during these debates?

00:00:54.100 You know, I don't think anyone's mind was changed.

00:00:56.520 I think anyone who came in as a yes is still a yes.

00:00:59.640 Anyone who came in as a no is still a no.

00:01:01.360 I think that's true for the 100 senators, but I think that's also true for the people at home.

00:01:05.340 I mean, we're sitting here right now.

00:01:07.180 It is 2.42 in the morning.

00:01:09.300 Right.

00:01:10.120 You've come here straight from the hill to this studio to do a podcast.

00:01:14.460 I'll ask you why maybe in a little bit, but you're coming right on the heels of this debate, and yet nobody's mind was really changed.

00:01:24.020 Well, we saw 11 motions from the Democrats, one after the other after the other.

00:01:31.260 This was all a battle of pre-trial motions.

00:01:34.280 It was sort of the early battles in a trial.

00:01:37.740 And the weird thing was those 11 motions, it was the same thing over and over again.

00:01:42.860 So I have to admit, I expected the first one and maybe even the second one.

00:01:46.400 I didn't expect them to keep filing basically the same motion, keep making the same arguments over and over again. 0.98

00:01:53.500 It was like Groundhog Day, except they'd get up and have a different House manager stand up and make the same damn arguments. 0.86

00:02:01.140 And you saw, like the senators in the chamber, just their eyes glazing over. 0.61

00:02:05.760 And I'll tell you, Michael, what was revealing.

00:02:07.980 So when we started at 1 o'clock, the Senate gallery was packed.

00:02:12.120 There were lots of reporters up there with the people sitting there.

00:02:14.620 As it went on, within a few hours, the reporters had cleared.

00:02:18.740 Half the reporters were gone.

00:02:20.760 And by 8, 9 o'clock at night, the gallery was empty.

00:02:24.860 Like everyone had left and said, OK, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm bored out of my mind.

00:02:29.340 This is what I was wondering the whole time, because I wasn't really surprised by much of what was going on.

00:02:33.840 We knew what to expect other than the time.

00:02:37.060 What are they thinking?

00:02:38.300 I mean, what is the endgame here for these Democratic House impeachment managers?

00:02:42.300 Look, they're trying to drive a message, but I'm not sure what's gained by just droning on over and over and over again what exactly that they thought was beneficial about talking at 1.30 in the morning.

00:02:58.800 Right.

00:02:59.080 Who was listening?

00:03:01.640 And, you know, it was interesting also.

00:03:05.240 I thought the House managers—look, I'll say at the beginning.

00:03:09.140 At the beginning, I thought the first couple of hours, the House managers were doing a pretty good job.

00:03:14.560 They sounded more reasonable.

00:03:15.920 They sounded less partisan than they were during the House proceedings.

00:03:21.120 It was good political theater.

00:03:22.480 It was—there were some good moments, I'm sure.

00:03:26.100 MSNBC will be clipping little segments of it and saying, oh, this was powerful and wonderful.

00:03:31.580 But then it got, number one, really redundant.

00:03:35.220 But number two, it was striking to see, especially Adam Schiff and Nadler, just lecturing and condescending not only to the senators but to the American people.

00:03:50.420 I mean, it was a harangue.

00:03:53.100 By the end of it, it wasn't designed to convince.

00:03:55.300 Yes.

00:03:55.740 And I want to ask you about the theatrical side of it because it seems to me there are two theories on impeachment.

00:04:03.500 And on the one hand, you've got guys like Alan Dershowitz who are on the president's legal team and actually was a professor of yours in law school.

00:04:11.700 He taught me criminal law.

00:04:12.800 Well, what Professor Dershowitz has said is that there is a legal requirement for impeachment.

00:04:18.040 So it's not just all political theater.

00:04:19.900 There actually is a legal threshold you've got to meet for an impeachable offense.

00:04:24.380 Then on the other hand, you've got guys like former President Gerald Ford who said impeachment is pretty much whatever the Congress says it is and high crimes and misdemeanors are however we want to define it at the time.

00:04:36.840 You are not only a senator.

00:04:38.200 You are a constitutional lawyer, one of the brightest legal minds in the country.

00:04:43.220 Which is it?

00:04:44.000 Is there a legal requirement for impeachment?

00:04:47.100 There absolutely is.

00:04:48.160 The Constitution specifies what's required for impeachment.

00:04:51.080 And the framers, if you look at the standard, you can impeach a president for treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:04:59.800 That's what the Constitution specifies.

00:05:01.880 And if you get to the heart of the problem with the House Democrats case here, it's that they have an alleged treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors.

00:05:12.340 That their disagreement, we heard a lot of this today, is they just don't like the guy.

00:05:16.580 They hate President Trump in case anyone missed that point.

00:05:19.620 And they disagree with him.

00:05:21.340 They disagree with him on foreign policy.

00:05:22.980 They disagree with him on politics.

00:05:24.800 And you know what?

00:05:25.360 They're entitled to have that view.

00:05:26.600 That's the beautiful thing about our democratic process.

00:05:29.240 But disagreeing with someone politically or on policy is not sufficient grounds to impeach them.

00:05:35.960 You've got to demonstrate treason, which they haven't alleged.

00:05:39.660 You've got to demonstrate bribery, which they haven't alleged.

00:05:42.240 Or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:05:44.140 And it's interesting, if you look at, so what is a high crime or misdemeanor?

00:05:48.500 You can actually learn a lot from the history of the Constitution.

00:05:52.880 When the Constitutional Convention began, the text of the Constitution just said treason or bribery.

00:05:58.820 So those were the only two grounds.

00:06:00.900 And then at the convention, George Mason, who's one of the more respected of the founding fathers, said, look, treason and bribery are too narrow.

00:06:08.380 We need to be broader.

00:06:09.380 So Mason proposed adding the word maladministration.

00:06:14.140 So you're just no good at governing.

00:06:16.260 You're no good at your job of being president.

00:06:18.020 And he argued, look, there are circumstances we'd want to impeach a president that are broader.

00:06:22.440 And so let's add this.

00:06:23.940 And James Madison, who is often referred to as the father of the Constitution, he stood up and he disagreed.

00:06:29.520 He said, look, maladministration would be a mistake.

00:06:31.720 What it would mean is you would have a president impeached any time the Senate disagrees with him.

00:06:37.140 Any time there's a disagreement on policy or politics, they'd be impeached.

00:06:41.240 And so it was Madison who proposed, instead of maladministration, other high crimes and misdemeanors.

00:06:47.680 And that was, in turn, what was adopted in the Constitution.

00:06:51.620 This is why I want your historical perspective here as well, because we're joking about how absolutely tedious and boring these impeachment proceedings were.

00:07:00.740 However, this is an historic event.

00:07:03.000 This is the third time that we've done this in American history.

00:07:06.760 You know, we managed to make it almost 80 years in our country before we impeached a single president.

00:07:12.300 Then we made it more than 100 years after that before threatening to impeach another president.

00:07:17.020 Now we've impeached two out of the last four.

00:07:20.240 It seems like this is speeding up.

00:07:23.560 It seems like we're getting into a situation where the Congress is just going to throw out presidents that they don't like.

00:07:29.000 Are we doing this too much?

00:07:30.140 Is this a bad sign for the country?

00:07:31.580 I think it's very dangerous.

00:07:32.640 I think if the House Democrats standard this time, if that's what holds going forward, any time you have a president of one party and a House of a different party, they're going to impeach him.

00:07:42.520 We're just going to see this as a standard tool of political warfare.

00:07:46.280 You know, you look at the two articles of impeachment the House voted out.

00:07:51.560 Neither one of them alleges a crime, right?

00:07:53.880 Like on their face.

00:07:55.140 They don't allege any violation of criminal law.

00:07:57.240 They don't allege any violation of civil law.

00:08:00.360 Well, if you don't allege the law was broken, it's not a high crime or misdemeanor.

00:08:05.440 And that, what was interesting about today.

00:08:09.880 So this was all about whether to call additional witnesses.

00:08:15.060 Now, look, the House had 17 witnesses.

00:08:17.280 They only called prosecution witnesses.

00:08:19.220 They didn't let the defense call witnesses.

00:08:21.480 But getting here, House managers wanted to call a whole bunch more witnesses.

00:08:25.940 They wanted to go on a fishing expedition.

00:08:28.340 And sort of their—

00:08:29.580 And why did they, by the way?

00:08:30.460 Because they were trying to call—they called all these witnesses, and they heard them out, and then they took the impeachment vote.

00:08:36.740 If they wanted more witnesses, why didn't they call them before the impeachment vote?

00:08:40.220 Because they haven't proven the case.

00:08:41.960 Right.

00:08:42.180 And they know they don't have the evidence.

00:08:44.540 You know, rewind.

00:08:45.440 Go back a month or two.

00:08:47.580 You may remember during the House proceedings, there was a time when suddenly all the House Democrats began talking about bribery.

00:08:54.820 And actually, news stories explained why they did it, which is the DCCC, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, did focus grouping and polled it and discovered bribery is really bad.

00:09:07.700 People don't like bribery.

00:09:08.880 They're mad when their president's bribed.

00:09:10.820 And just about every House Democrat, like flipping a switch, began saying bribery, bribery, bribery.

00:09:17.320 Well, you know what?

00:09:18.880 Bribery is an impeachable offense.

00:09:20.440 If you can prove bribery, you got him.

00:09:23.780 But the articles of impeachment don't allege bribery.

00:09:26.880 They considered doing it, right, and then they pulled it back.

00:09:30.300 And that's their problem right now is they heard this witness testimony.

00:09:35.040 They heard all this evidence, and they can't prove their case.

00:09:38.820 So what they want to do is they want to try to bring in as many witnesses as they can and go fishing, try to find something to back up their case.

00:09:48.860 What the Senate ended up doing today is we adopted a procedural order, basically a way of proceeding.

00:09:55.980 And it is very, very similar to what the Senate did in the Bill Clinton impeachment.

00:10:00.280 Bill Clinton impeachment had two phases.

00:10:02.500 Phase one was opening arguments and questions from senators.

00:10:05.900 And there were no witnesses.

00:10:07.360 There was no consideration of witnesses in phase one.

00:10:10.220 And then after that, the Senate debated and fought about should we have additional witnesses.

00:10:14.580 They end up calling a few additional witnesses for depositions.

00:10:18.160 So what we did today, what Senate Republicans did, is took an order very, very similar to the Clinton order.

00:10:24.340 By the way, that order was approved 100 to nothing.

00:10:27.560 It was bipartisan.

00:10:28.820 It was unanimous.

00:10:29.740 Every Democrat, every Republican.

00:10:31.840 But, Senator, that was then.

00:10:33.520 This is now.

00:10:34.520 That was when it was a Democratic president.

00:10:36.780 And now, obviously, and I say this somewhat jokingly, but there is a lot of hypocrisy that's going around between these two impeachments. 0.66

00:10:44.940 There is massive hypocrisy.

00:10:46.580 Now, look, I will recognize hypocrisy as a problem on both sides of the aisle.

00:10:50.460 It's not like Democrats have a monopoly on that.

00:10:53.660 But it is striking the recency of the hypocrisy.

00:10:57.880 You know, there was one moment where Pat Cipollone, the president's White House counsel, who led the defense team, he quoted from Jerry Nadler, who just a few months ago had said a partisan impeachment from just one country would never work.

00:11:12.100 It would be bitter and divisive and rip the country apart.

00:11:15.120 If you had just one party, if you had just one party pushing this, as the Democrats have in this impeachment.

00:11:21.040 And what's interesting is that wasn't Jerry Nadler talking during the Clinton impeachment, although he said that back then.

00:11:26.580 That was him last year.

00:11:28.180 Right.

00:11:28.300 That was him trying to push back the far left in the Democratic Party saying, no, no, no, we can't impeach this guy.

00:11:35.120 Right.

00:11:35.500 Because it can't be partisan.

00:11:38.080 Unfortunately, that's where we are.

00:11:40.380 And I think the way it's going to work going forward is we're going to have opening arguments.

00:11:50.420 It's going to start with the House managers.

00:11:52.660 They've got 24 hours.

00:11:53.820 Initially, by the way, our scheduling order provided for two days, 24 hours over two days.

00:12:00.300 The Democrats were screaming all day.

00:12:01.980 Two days is terrible.

00:12:02.920 We can't possibly do it in two days.

00:12:05.080 You guys are to cover up trying to give us 24 hours.

00:12:07.740 It's not a trial.

00:12:08.480 It's a cover up.

00:12:09.200 By the way, the Bill Clinton impeachment order, 24 hours.

00:12:12.040 Exactly.

00:12:12.460 That's an inconvenient fact, but OK, sure.

00:12:14.260 So it's actually one of the things, actually, that Senate Republicans said, fine, we'll give you three days.

00:12:19.560 So instead of 24 hours over two days, 12 hours a day, we'll give you 24 hours over three days, eight hours a day.

00:12:26.300 I really hope that doesn't mean that the next three days we're going to listen to eight hours of them repeating the same arguments.

00:12:33.560 It was interesting today.

00:12:35.220 This was supposed to be fighting over pretrial witnesses, but the Democrats basically gave their opening argument today.

00:12:41.520 Yes, and that actually was somewhat unexpected.

00:12:43.540 But right out the bat, Adam Schiff seemed to be making the argument on impeachment, not on these questions of whether they're going to call John Bolton or some other relevant witness.

00:12:54.020 Well, and I think that's actually what House Democrats did most effectively today for the first several hours, is they told their story.

00:13:01.680 They treated this pretrial fight as an opening argument.

00:13:04.920 They were talking to the American people.

00:13:06.320 I thought the first couple of hours they were pretty effective.

00:13:08.140 And then it just started getting – they just started repeating it and getting angrier and angrier as the day went on.

00:13:16.720 You know, as I look at the White House defense team, I think they've got some very talented lawyers.

00:13:20.940 I think they made some good arguments today.

00:13:23.340 But I also think they got too mired down in process.

00:13:26.460 There was too much being lawyers and making lawyerly arguments.

00:13:31.460 And what I hope we see in the days to come from the president's defense team is, number one, that they get more into the substantive arguments, not just the process, not just the minutiae, but the fundamental substantive argument, that this was not a high crime or misdemeanor, that it is always within a president's authority and a government's authority to investigate corruption.

00:13:54.660 I mean, to address the substance and also to tell a story.

00:14:00.180 That's something – look, you could see the Democrats are trial lawyers.

00:14:03.740 They're telling stories not just to the 100 senators in the room.

00:14:07.040 Right.

00:14:07.620 But to the folks at home watching.

00:14:10.060 I think we need to do a better job telling a story as well.

00:14:15.740 And it's especially needed because the president hasn't had a chance to tell his story.

00:14:21.360 The whole House proceeding, they shut down the minority, didn't allow minority witnesses.

00:14:26.000 So we need to tell the basic narrative.

00:14:29.320 That's what the president needs to tell.

00:14:30.900 I think that's what the Senate needs to tell is focus on the facts and substance, not a lot of rhetoric, not a lot of anger and emotion.

00:14:39.280 I want to ask you about a specific story that Congressman Adam Schiff, one of the House impeachment managers, was telling today, really because I think most people have no expertise on it at all, including myself.

00:14:49.860 Adam Schiff seemed to suggest that there is pretty much no role for the judiciary in impeachment proceedings.

00:14:58.020 He said, we've got to get the courts out of it.

00:14:59.320 We've got to get the judges out of it.

00:15:00.540 And I thought it was a very odd thing to say while Chief Justice John Roberts was presiding over the impeachment as per the Constitution.

00:15:09.240 Did Schiff just get it wrong?

00:15:10.800 I mean, what is the balance of power here?

00:15:13.620 So, look, if you look at the role of impeachment, impeachment itself is a combination of the two branches.

00:15:19.680 If you look in the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton writes in the Federalist Papers about how the framers struggled with to whom to give trying impeachment.

00:15:29.860 And they wanted a body that was independent.

00:15:32.280 They wanted a body that had credibility.

00:15:34.560 And they chose the Senate.

00:15:35.900 They considered the Supreme Court.

00:15:37.040 So they considered maybe we should have the Supreme Court try impeachment.

00:15:40.340 They said, no, let's give it to the Senate, but let's make the Chief Justice preside. 0.98

00:15:44.720 And so it was sort of a hybrid of the two.

00:15:47.180 If you look at privilege questions, so all of the debate about witnesses comes right down to privilege and executive privilege.

00:15:54.120 Executive privilege is something every president has had.

00:15:57.160 It's the ability to have your closest advisors, your national security advisor, give you candid advice without being hauled into Congress and put on national television.

00:16:08.800 Now, asserting privilege.

00:16:10.660 Look, we're all familiar with attorney-client privilege.

00:16:12.520 You talk to your lawyer.

00:16:14.180 Your lawyer can't be brought in and put in the stand as a general matter to tell everyone what you said to your lawyer.

00:16:20.460 There's spousal privilege.

00:16:21.460 You know, you tell your wife or your husband something at night that they can't force your wife to come into court and testify against you.

00:16:28.600 Now, there are exceptions to it, but privileges are commonplace, and courts routinely litigate privileges.

00:16:35.880 Those are questions courts are used to considering.

00:16:39.340 In this case, the House Democrats, frankly, I think are playing games.

00:16:44.660 And the best way to understand it is look at John Bolton.

00:16:47.860 A lot of the argument today was about John Bolton.

00:16:49.940 I'm John Bolton's national security advisor to the president.

00:16:52.940 So House Democrats said, we want John Bolton to testify.

00:16:56.660 And John Bolton did something very interesting and I think very clever.

00:17:01.360 John Bolton's lawyer went to a federal court in D.C. and filed a pleading that said,

00:17:07.020 Judge, my client has two conflicting obligations.

00:17:12.160 House Democrats have asked him to come testify.

00:17:14.840 But the White House has asserted executive privilege and said he can't testify.

00:17:18.520 And John Bolton's lawyer said, look, my client doesn't know what to do.

00:17:22.400 So, Your Honor, he'll do whatever you tell him to do.

00:17:25.340 We put ourself at the mercy of the court.

00:17:27.920 You, judge, tell John Bolton what he should do.

00:17:32.860 The next step is remarkable.

00:17:35.120 You know what the House Democrats did?

00:17:36.320 They said, never mind.

00:17:39.320 They literally backed off.

00:17:41.420 So there was another guy, Charles Cooperman, who was John Bolton's deputy, who they'd issued a subpoena for.

00:17:46.200 They withdrew the subpoena from Cooperman and they told the court, we're not going to subpoena John Bolton.

00:17:51.280 Never mind.

00:17:52.000 We're not going to call him as a witness.

00:17:53.260 We're not going to subpoena him.

00:17:54.440 We're not going to fight him.

00:17:55.440 And then they get to the Senate and the first thing they want to do is subpoena John Bolton.

00:17:59.280 And they literally passed on it in the House.

00:18:03.380 Contrast that to the impeachment of Richard Nixon.

00:18:05.900 Now, Nixon ultimately resigned.

00:18:07.860 But if you remember, there was a lot of litigation concerning Nixon.

00:18:11.220 And you had a grand jury subpoena for the White House tapes.

00:18:15.260 Remember, in the Oval Office, Nixon had a tape recording system.

00:18:18.660 Bad idea, but he did it.

00:18:20.140 Very bad idea.

00:18:21.740 By the way, as an aside, I don't understand all the people who have Alexa in their house.

00:18:25.240 Like, why exactly you want to bring a tape recorder into your home 24 hours a day?

00:18:29.660 We're just masochists.

00:18:30.900 Glutton for punishment.

00:18:32.480 You know, it really would be different if they renamed Alexa like Tricky Dick. 1.00

00:18:36.460 People would be much, much more nervous about it.

00:18:38.500 But okay, right.

00:18:39.400 Set that aside.

00:18:39.980 But in that case, the litigation went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:18:45.340 And the Supreme Court issued an order to the White House, hand over the tape.

00:18:50.280 And it was, I think, two days later, Richard Nixon resigns.

00:18:53.360 Right.

00:18:53.940 That's actually the right way to do it.

00:18:55.500 Look, if the House Democrats wanted to get John Bolton's testimony,

00:18:59.640 they should have subpoenaed him and they should have fought for it.

00:19:01.960 And the claims of privilege are real.

00:19:04.220 They're serious.

00:19:04.920 You don't laugh about them and dismiss them.

00:19:06.940 You fight about them and litigate them and resolve them.

00:19:09.800 And that can be done relatively quickly, as we saw with Nixon.

00:19:14.180 In this case, they're not interested in that.

00:19:16.480 This is ultimately about a political attack on the president more than anything else.

00:19:21.680 Well, what I want to know is what lunch was like today in the Senate dining hall.

00:19:25.880 By that I mean, is the Senate taking this seriously or does everyone, everyone's just made up their mind and they're dragging it out because, I don't know, you tell me.

00:19:38.580 Well, look, number one, when we have lunch in the Senate, we don't have lunch together.

00:19:42.440 Really?

00:19:42.640 The Republicans have lunch together, all the Democrats.

00:19:45.020 I mean, it's sort of like the Crips and the Bloods.

00:19:46.360 I mean, it is a much geekier, much older version of things.

00:19:51.800 Yeah, you're making the Senate sound really cool.

00:19:53.860 I don't know, very dangerous.

00:19:55.420 That's that, you know, grill cream is a really popular product.

00:20:01.560 It's, and that's true every day in the Senate, but the way it's working now during impeachment, we're starting every day at 1 p.m.

00:20:10.280 Under the Senate rules, that's when the trial starts.

00:20:12.200 Right.

00:20:12.320 So the Republicans were having lunch meeting 1130 or noon each day.

00:20:17.400 So we went and had lunch and we're having a vigorous discussion about the upcoming trial.

00:20:22.760 And it's actually where, so Mitch McConnell had drafted, I mentioned earlier, had drafted that each side would get 24 hours over two days.

00:20:31.460 And the Democrats had been screaming that was a massive cover up.

00:20:34.740 And it was actually Republican senators who said, you know what, if they want an extra day, give them an extra day.

00:20:39.500 Same 24 hours, but if they want three days instead of two, it's not the end of the world.

00:20:44.120 I thought that was a very, I agreed with that.

00:20:45.900 I thought that was a reasonable thing to do.

00:20:48.140 And of course, it didn't stop the complaining at all.

00:20:50.720 You give them what they want and they still say it's a massive cover up.

00:20:54.220 But that was most of the discussion actually at lunch today.

00:20:59.660 Going forward, so we're going to have opening arguments from the House, three days.

00:21:04.800 Opening arguments from the White House, three days.

00:21:07.340 Although I guarantee you, they're not going to go three days.

00:21:09.920 I think they will be much shorter than that.

00:21:12.940 We've then got 16 hours of questions from senators.

00:21:16.940 And the questions are a little bit weird.

00:21:19.360 It's not going to be individual senators asking questions as much as I would love to cross-examine these House managers.

00:21:25.900 And I promise you, I would love, love to go at it.

00:21:28.240 I'm looking forward to it.

00:21:30.040 Senate rules don't allow it. 1.00

00:21:31.420 So our questions have to be written.

00:21:33.300 I've got to write them down.

00:21:34.080 And then the chief justice asks them.

00:21:36.340 And it's 16 hours and it alternates typically Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican.

00:21:41.140 So by the way, anyone listen to this, let me say, if you have a question that you think needs to be asked,

00:21:47.000 needs to be asked of the House managers or needs to be asked of the White House team,

00:21:50.620 use Twitter.

00:21:51.640 I'm at Ted Cruz.

00:21:53.480 And just use the hashtag verdict.

00:21:55.600 And we're going to be watching Twitter to get ideas from you.

00:21:58.680 I have to say, as absolutely tedious as the hearings were today, I was so excited to wait until 3 in the morning to come here because it is not possible to get closer.

00:22:07.900 Michael, you really need to get more.

00:22:08.920 I need to get, I need a hobby.

00:22:10.560 I need, it's really not possible to get closer to this impeachment trial than you.

00:22:16.780 I mean, then one of the jurors who is there, who is enduring all of these, these tedious arguments all the time and who's seeing this truly historical event happen.

00:22:25.740 What I want to ask you, though, is you put in a 13 hour work day, not exactly, probably the most pleasant day you've had in the Senate.

00:22:32.900 And then you decide to come immediately here to this studio and do this podcast.

00:22:38.480 What are you thinking?

00:22:39.740 Why on earth are you doing that?

00:22:41.360 Look, substance matters.

00:22:43.360 This is a time where our country is, is divided.

00:22:47.080 I mean, is angry.

00:22:48.340 I mean, we see emotion.

00:22:50.140 We see bitter anger.

00:22:51.520 I think truth and substance matters.

00:22:53.380 I think facts matter.

00:22:54.460 I think the Constitution matters.

00:22:56.300 And so this podcast, during impeachment, we're going to do it each night, come in and just, just, just talking about what happened that day.

00:23:02.720 We will be covering this every single night as the impeachment trial unfolds.

00:23:06.900 And then, of course, there will be a whole lot more to talk about as well.

00:23:09.660 But, but on issues going forward, I, I, I, you know, if you turn on cable TV, you get people in five, six minute snippets that are yelling at each other, that are engaged in just political rhetoric.

00:23:20.140 We need to be talking the actual, you know, when you asked me about high crimes and misdemeanors, I could just say, this isn't it.

00:23:25.260 Why? Because my party is the one in the White House.

00:23:27.920 Well, that's not the right answer.

00:23:29.020 Let's actually talk about what the constitutional standard is.

00:23:32.000 And that's true on issue after issue, whether it's, it's, it's, it's free enterprise versus socialism, whether it's, it's, it's, it's, it's gun control versus the Second Amendment.

00:23:42.400 Every issue, I think we need to engage more.

00:23:45.960 We need to win people's hearts and minds.

00:23:48.160 And, and so what I hope to do is have, have conversations really talking about issues that matter.

00:23:54.260 And, and, and that's what this podcast is all about.

00:23:56.400 Right.

00:23:56.600 They, they don't necessarily get a hearing on TV.

00:23:59.900 Unfortunately, they often don't get much of a hearing in the Senate, but we're hoping to flesh that out here.

00:24:04.560 And we'll be able to speak, of course, to all of the listeners.

00:24:07.240 So definitely they should send those questions.

00:24:09.020 And it would also be great, of course, if all of the listeners could subscribe to Verdict with Ted Cruz and leave a five-star review.

00:24:17.620 You know, unfortunately, I was just getting excited for us to get into the really important public policy matters, like Mexit, you know, Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.

00:24:27.300 We were going to touch on things that matter, but we've run out of time.

00:24:30.040 And you need to get back to the Hill and, and get back to the Senate within, I don't know, three or four hours or something like that.

00:24:36.080 It's tomorrow, one o'clock.

00:24:38.140 Presumably, we start with opening arguments.

00:24:40.540 Although I don't know if we will see House managers try to do more delay tactics.

00:24:45.540 I hope not.

00:24:46.120 But I hope they actually dive in, into the merits.

00:24:48.140 And I'm looking forward to the president's defense team having a chance to lay out the substantive merits.

00:24:54.560 They need to get into that more.

00:24:55.820 I think it's important for the American people to hear it.

00:24:57.600 And we haven't seen it yet.

00:24:58.960 And maybe we'll see it tomorrow.

00:25:00.280 And certainly whatever happens tomorrow, and all we can expect is the unexpected.

00:25:04.620 We will be right back here breaking it down with as insider review as you can possibly get on the Senate, on the impeachment trial, and, of course, on the Constitution.

00:25:13.820 Be sure to tune back tomorrow.

00:25:15.920 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:25:16.700 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:25:18.540 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:25:39.280 Guaranteed Human.

00:25:41.280 Guaranteed Human.

00:25:41.300 Guaranteed Human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 22, 2020

Ep. 1 - Trump On Trial

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript