Verdict with Ted Cruz - January 05, 2024


Epstein Docs: Bill Clinton "Likes Them Young" and Media Ignores! Plus Mayorkas Impeachment Finally


Episode Stats

Length

39 minutes

Words per Minute

152.89034

Word Count

6,062

Sentence Count

419

Misogynist Sentences

4

Hate Speech Sentences

11


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.660 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.320 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.140 Senator, we've got a lot to chat about, obviously, with what's going on at the border
00:00:13.220 and specifically something that you have been calling for,
00:00:16.860 and that is the impeachment of Mayorkas.
00:00:19.940 That now looks like it could become a big reality on the House side.
00:00:24.860 We're going to deal with that.
00:00:25.980 But before we deal with that, I do want to get your initial reaction
00:00:29.060 because this has been such a big story.
00:00:32.380 With the list and the names and the Epstein documents, a lot of it has come out.
00:00:38.060 We're still waiting for more things to come out.
00:00:40.480 The media has played this as, oh, nothing to see here.
00:00:44.940 Yes, Bill Clinton's name was in there.
00:00:46.900 Yes, Donald Trump's name was in there.
00:00:48.680 And acting like it's just a bunch of names.
00:00:51.000 Give me your initial reaction to what you so far have seen
00:00:56.260 and what you've heard and what you think.
00:00:57.960 Well, I'm glad it's finally coming out.
00:01:01.060 It's taken too damn long.
00:01:02.660 All of this needs to be public.
00:01:04.640 At this point, we've had roughly 40 documents released by the federal district court.
00:01:10.540 There are around 250 documents in total the district court has
00:01:15.300 that the court has indicated they're going to release.
00:01:17.360 So there'll be more information that comes out.
00:01:20.280 But look, what is of real public interest is who participated with Jeffrey Epstein in sex crimes
00:01:29.180 and in abusing young girls, underage girls.
00:01:32.960 And if they participated, if they're guilty of those crimes, they should be prosecuted.
00:01:37.540 We should have the client list.
00:01:40.520 We should have the list of the people who went to his island where he committed these crimes
00:01:45.340 and committed these crimes, according to the testimony, over an extended period of time.
00:01:50.020 And the media has expressed an amazing lack of curiosity on this.
00:01:55.280 And I think the reason is that Jeffrey Epstein palled around with Democrats.
00:02:01.400 One of the interesting things in the documents, you know, the media desperately wants to blame Epstein on Trump,
00:02:08.400 but there's one passing reference to Trump in the documents that essentially when Epstein's plane lands in Atlantic City,
00:02:19.520 he says, oh, we should call Trump.
00:02:22.240 And so that's the lone reference.
00:02:25.040 You want to talk about the most damning thing?
00:02:27.860 The most damning thing is the quote from a 2016 deposition about Bill Clinton, where the quote was,
00:02:37.360 quote, he said one time that Clinton likes them young, referring to girls.
00:02:44.180 Now, I got to say, Ben, can you imagine if the document said the exact same thing,
00:02:50.200 but if it just replaced the word Clinton with Trump?
00:02:52.840 If there were a document here that said Trump likes them young, the media would go nuts.
00:02:58.640 The New York Times would have a banner headline in 42-point font, Trump likes them young.
00:03:05.660 But, of course, it didn't say that.
00:03:07.200 It said Bill Clinton likes young girls, and suddenly it's crickets.
00:03:12.220 The media, what? No, nothing to see here.
00:03:14.380 Nothing at all.
00:03:15.700 It was interesting that you mentioned that because I was talking with my producer and our producer, this show, Diaz.
00:03:22.460 This morning, we went to CNN.com live on my morning show,
00:03:26.060 and some of the headlines that they had above the article that even dealt with Epstein included
00:03:31.900 T.J. Friday's The Restaurant Abruptly Closes 36 Restaurants.
00:03:36.120 See the whole list.
00:03:37.400 Another one, Two Stray Dogs Caused More Than 350 in Damage at a Car Dealership.
00:03:41.700 The World's Most Punctual Airport is in the U.S.
00:03:46.460 Kelly Clarkson says walking in her new home of New York City helped her lose weight.
00:03:51.220 These were the stories that they had above and countless others before you actually got to the Epstein story
00:03:59.540 that also mentioned Bill Clinton likes them young, referring to young girls.
00:04:05.520 That is your media for you in America right now.
00:04:07.960 And also the documents show that Bill Clinton flew repeatedly on the plane.
00:04:12.700 We don't know how many times.
00:04:14.560 And we also know, and this is something we've discussed at length on Verdict before,
00:04:18.680 we know that Dick Durbin and Senate Democrats are going to extraordinary lengths
00:04:23.840 to prevent a subpoena from issuing to get the flight logs of Epstein's planes.
00:04:29.220 So the Senate Democrats don't want the public to know who was on that airplane.
00:04:34.920 And that, when you put it in that context, suddenly the media's utter lack of interest in this
00:04:41.060 makes a whole lot more sense because the media wants to protect the Democrats
00:04:47.300 and the Democrats desperately don't want people to know.
00:04:50.280 Look, as we've talked about, Jeffrey Epstein had a painting of Bill Clinton
00:04:55.580 in a blue dress with red pumps hanging in his house in New York.
00:05:01.760 It's bizarre, but that's what he put on the wall, and the media doesn't want you to know it.
00:05:10.100 Well, and there was also another story that came out that said that there apparently
00:05:13.440 were emails that were going around that were talking about apparently Bill Clinton
00:05:19.000 going into Vanity Fair and threatening them not to write the sex trafficking articles
00:05:26.040 about his good friend Jeffrey Epstein, according to an email from Virginia Giffra.
00:05:32.000 And Senator, if you had that same shocking emails come out tonight,
00:05:37.800 and it was Donald Trump walked into Vanity Fair and threatened them not to write
00:05:42.560 a sex trafficking article about his good friend, quote-unquote Jeffrey Epstein,
00:05:46.320 and you had this in emails, this would also be wall-to-wall coverage.
00:05:50.280 Yet tonight, as you and I are taping this, still crickets on that story
00:05:55.360 of the influence that Bill Clinton had over that story at Vanity Fair.
00:05:59.640 Yeah, look, it's a complete and obvious double standard,
00:06:02.140 and the corporate media is thoroughly corrupt.
00:06:05.140 They are part of the Democrat Party.
00:06:06.800 They share the same left-wing agenda, and they behave in unison to protect each other.
00:06:12.560 Last question on this I want to ask you, and that is,
00:06:15.560 I still am angered by the aspect that there's really been virtually no justice here.
00:06:23.600 There has been, yes, Maxwell, who's in prison.
00:06:26.460 Yes, Jeffrey Epstein was in prison.
00:06:28.860 But if you go back to his first conviction that was a slap on the wrist down in Florida,
00:06:33.860 I think it was back in 16,
00:06:36.020 one of the things you notice here is the federal government has not gone after any of those
00:06:42.780 that were involved in this horrific abuse of young girls, underage girls,
00:06:48.740 but they did seem to go out of their way to actually protect the mighty, the powerful in this country
00:06:57.000 from prosecution or even investigations.
00:07:00.260 How concerning is that to you?
00:07:02.500 Look, I think it's deeply concerning,
00:07:04.200 and that anyone involved in the trafficking or sexual abuse of underage girls should be prosecuted.
00:07:09.880 And you're right, there's a complete lack of interest on the part of the Department of Justice
00:07:16.040 to go after the clients, to go after the other people that were involved in this.
00:07:20.660 There's a complete lack of interest in the media on reporting on it.
00:07:25.160 They are protecting the powerful.
00:07:26.740 And I'll tell you another component of this.
00:07:28.780 I don't know if you saw the story that broke last week that there was reporting
00:07:32.120 that the arrests that were made of two brothels that were in Boston and outside of Washington, D.C. and Virginia,
00:07:44.500 that it appears there's evidence that they were, in fact, honeypot schemes potentially funded by a foreign government
00:07:51.840 that included prominent politicians who were clients of these houses of prostitution,
00:07:57.240 and then that was used to blackmail them.
00:07:59.980 And this is a story that suggests that this was being funded by a foreign government,
00:08:06.200 and it's not clear who, whether China or Iran or who it was.
00:08:13.040 But it also raises the question with Jeffrey Epstein about with powerful people and politicians,
00:08:21.460 people like Bill Clinton, what influence did Jeffrey Epstein have over them,
00:08:30.840 and was any of this material used for blackmail?
00:08:33.880 And given the story that just broke, I think it puts an additional urgency on answering that question.
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00:10:37.040 I want to move also to the big story, and it deals with the border.
00:10:41.000 You have been calling now for quite some time the impeachment of Mayorkas,
00:10:48.620 and there now seems to be real momentum behind this.
00:10:53.820 There have been many talking heads.
00:10:56.200 As I was flying back from New York today, this topic came up on Fox about, you know,
00:11:01.700 it's about time that they moved to impeach Mayorkas.
00:11:05.280 But there's a lot of people that I don't think understand the reasons behind it.
00:11:09.960 There are some that are talking about it more of a, like, political vengeance.
00:11:13.200 Like, well, he deserves to be impeached because he doesn't do his job.
00:11:16.760 And I think what we need to do is go back and lay out for the listeners of Verdict
00:11:21.860 the actual reasons why Mayorkas, you believe, should be impeached,
00:11:29.160 and it's based on actual things within his job, not political vengeance,
00:11:36.000 because there have been some that have just been acting like this should be political vengeance.
00:11:40.240 That's not what this should be about.
00:11:42.200 You should never impeach people for political vengeance.
00:11:44.960 It should be because of dereliction of their duty and their job.
00:11:48.480 So let's go through why you believe personally that Mayorkas should be impeached for not doing his job.
00:11:56.120 Well, let's be clear what the constitutional standard for impeachment is.
00:12:00.580 The Constitution lays out that impeachment lies for bribery, treason, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
00:12:11.880 So, you know, in your question, you said that Mayorkas should be impeached for dereliction of duty.
00:12:18.500 Actually, dereliction of duty alone is not enough for impeachment.
00:12:21.500 And there was a debate among the framers when they were writing the Constitution.
00:12:26.640 And, in fact, one of the earlier drafts of the Constitution, it was suggested that impeachment lie for maladministration.
00:12:34.520 And the framers decided against that.
00:12:36.500 They didn't want a process simply to remove someone for maladministration.
00:12:44.100 They wanted it to be a higher standard of high crimes and misdemeanors.
00:12:48.700 But in this instance, what Mayorkas has done is far greater than negligence, far greater than maladministration.
00:12:57.380 It's not just that Alejandro Mayorkas is bad at his job.
00:13:01.440 It's not just that he's ineffective.
00:13:03.960 It's that he's openly, brazenly, deliberately defying the law, ignoring the law, flouting the law.
00:13:11.740 He is facilitating, he is aiding and abetting an invasion of this country.
00:13:18.820 What is happening at our southern border is such a disaster that, you know, you asked why should Mayorkas be impeached?
00:13:30.000 The simple reason is the strategy of Joe Biden and the Democrats on the border is very simple.
00:13:39.300 They want to ignore it.
00:13:41.040 And they know that the corporate media will be complicit in ignoring it.
00:13:45.500 This is one of the many instances where the corruption and politicization of the media, the destruction of journalism,
00:13:52.200 the the it ends up producing the extremism with elected Democrats.
00:13:58.940 Their strategy is is simply ignore it and cover it up.
00:14:03.520 And so the most important value of impeachment of Mayorkas is to put the facts of the utter disaster that is happening at the border before the American people.
00:14:16.400 So so so let me give you some of the facts in all of fiscal year 2023, the Biden administration deported one hundred and forty two thousand five hundred and eighty people, one hundred and forty two thousand more than twice.
00:14:33.740 That number came across our our border just last month in December.
00:14:39.680 So that's one hundred hundred and forty two thousand out of roughly three million.
00:14:47.660 You look at the month of December that we just finished three hundred and two thousand illegal alien encounters, the highest single month ever recorded.
00:14:58.200 First time it's ever been over three hundred thousand.
00:15:00.520 There have now been since October 1st, more than seven hundred and eighty five thousand migrant encounters at the southern border.
00:15:11.580 Seven hundred eighty five thousand since October 1st.
00:15:14.300 That is the highest first quarter of the year.
00:15:17.160 The way the fiscal of the federal government fiscal year measures, the first quarter is from October one to December 31st.
00:15:23.640 That's the highest first quarter ever recorded.
00:15:27.760 Seven hundred and eighty five thousand people is larger than the city of Seattle.
00:15:33.920 And that's what crossed the southern border in the last three months.
00:15:38.200 And despite all of that, what does the White House say?
00:15:41.320 Corrine Jean-Pierre describes the situation on the border as, quote, not unusual.
00:15:46.200 It's record shattering, horrific, and it is producing a line of body bags of dead illegal immigrants abandoned on Texas farms and ranches.
00:15:57.440 It is producing thousands upon thousands of children horribly abused, brutalized women, thousands upon thousands sexually assaulted, drug overdoses.
00:16:08.140 The value of this impeachment is to overcome the media blockade and to put the facts before the American people.
00:16:16.780 You know, what's even more shocking is their excuses for why this is happening.
00:16:20.600 And one of them, I just have to play it for you because I have to get your reaction.
00:16:25.080 You talk about my orcas and moving forward, this impeachment, it's long overdue.
00:16:30.360 But listen to what my orcas said about what's happening at the border and and more importantly, why it's happening at the border.
00:16:39.320 Take a listen on from MSNBC.
00:16:41.640 As you know, Mr. Secretary, Border Patrol in the month of December processed more migrants entering the United States illegally than any month in the history of that agency.
00:16:51.340 Why is that happening?
00:16:53.080 What how do you explain it?
00:16:54.120 So we are seeing the greatest number of displaced people, not only at our southern border, not only in the Western Hemisphere, but across the globe.
00:17:07.480 You know, I am involved in bilateral and multilateral meetings with my counterparts from foreign countries in Europe, in Asia, in the Indo-Pacific, all over the world.
00:17:20.680 In migration, the challenge of displaced people is a subject that comes up in every single conversation.
00:17:29.300 We have the effects of climate change, poverty, increasing level of authoritarianism.
00:17:35.900 The very many challenges that are at the root cause of the displacement of people around the world.
00:17:43.700 Climate change.
00:17:45.140 So now that's why our country garbage.
00:17:47.640 I mean, I heard it and I almost laughed like he didn't just say that.
00:17:52.460 Did he really just say that?
00:17:53.700 And he did.
00:17:54.860 Look, Ben, that just pisses me off because that man is utterly full of shit.
00:18:00.580 He is just lying.
00:18:01.940 He's brazenly lying.
00:18:03.780 Climate change.
00:18:04.560 You know what?
00:18:05.080 Joe Biden and Alejandro Mayorkas inherited the lowest rate of illegal immigration in 45 years.
00:18:12.420 It changed literally the month Joe Biden became president.
00:18:18.140 Now, even under their idiotic ideology.
00:18:21.300 Did climate change suddenly occur once Biden was president?
00:18:25.940 And I guess there was no climate change when Trump was president.
00:18:28.940 I mean, what he's saying, it is such a brazen lie.
00:18:34.940 It demonstrates why he should be impeached.
00:18:37.560 He's not trying to do his job.
00:18:39.840 He's defying the law.
00:18:41.480 So I'll give it give you an example.
00:18:43.660 Fiscal year 20 to 2023.
00:18:46.780 137,275 unaccompanied minors.
00:18:52.520 Little boys, little girls arrived at the southern border.
00:18:56.040 137,275.
00:18:57.920 How many do you think ICE removed in that year?
00:19:03.760 Honestly, no clue because the numbers are so insane.
00:19:07.580 Out of 137,275, ICE removed 212.
00:19:13.040 Wow.
00:19:13.420 So 137,000 plus remained.
00:19:18.260 And by the way, and look, you and I talked about this on the podcast when I was last down at the border a couple of months ago,
00:19:25.600 where we encountered a group with a lot of young children.
00:19:30.920 A very significant percentage of those children are physically assaulted.
00:19:35.360 They are sexually assaulted.
00:19:36.580 And they are being trafficked and put into sex slavery.
00:19:40.280 And so I get angry when I hear Mayorkas say that because he's saying he does not care about those children being raped.
00:19:54.540 And the reason he's saying that is because if he cared, he would do something to stop it.
00:19:59.680 And he not only won't do something to stop it, everything he's doing is trying to increase the illegal immigration.
00:20:09.660 His focus is on processing illegal immigrants faster and getting them on planes and on buses to every city in America.
00:20:21.080 And so he is deliberately causing this problem and making it worse day after day after day.
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00:21:00.420 You know, Speaker Johnson took a delegation of congressmen down to the border and was in Eagle Pass, a place the president won't go, a place that, you know, the White House press secretary won't go, the place the vice president Kamala Harris won't go.
00:21:15.860 Democrats won't go to where the actual crisis is.
00:21:18.600 And I was on Outnumbered, and they were showing the video of illegal immigrants from different countries yelling out in their native languages, help, to the congressmen saying, we're trying to get through the razor wire.
00:21:36.060 I want you to hear this.
00:21:37.200 It was amazing.
00:21:37.760 The GOP delegation went down to speak to Border Patrol about the unfolding crisis, only for it to unfold around them.
00:21:45.360 Look, you can't make this up.
00:21:46.500 You can see migrants entering our country illegally.
00:21:49.700 This is just feet from where Speaker Johnson was as he spoke with reporters.
00:21:54.600 And as he spoke with them, there were illegal immigrants yelling, ayuda, which means help in Spanish.
00:21:59.520 And take a look there at the barbed wire.
00:22:01.800 So that's razor wire stopping the migrants from entering our country.
00:22:18.320 But it doesn't keep Corrine Jean-Pierre from saying this at the White House podium yesterday.
00:22:24.460 Governor Abbott's razor wire does not prevent.
00:22:27.660 It does not prevent non-citizens from unlawfully crossing.
00:22:30.900 That's not what it does.
00:22:32.440 If anything, it puts at risk.
00:22:34.440 It puts the lives of the Border Patrol at risk.
00:22:37.480 Except we just saw that it did prevent.
00:22:39.500 She also previously said walls don't work.
00:22:41.960 And she had a rather interesting reason why.
00:22:44.840 Instead of providing the needed resources for more border security technology and asylum officers and judges,
00:22:51.880 it would waste taxpayer dollars on an ineffective wall.
00:22:55.860 Again, an ineffective wall that can't even withstand heavy winds.
00:22:59.880 So that's right.
00:23:00.640 I mean, you hear the White House's talking points, Senator, and then you go down there and you see this.
00:23:08.900 And the media did criticize Johnson and the White House criticized Johnson.
00:23:13.060 They said they should be in Washington doing their job and passing a budget and spending.
00:23:18.660 They shouldn't be doing a photo op and a publicity stunt at the border.
00:23:22.720 It's not a publicity stunt.
00:23:24.200 If you don't go to the border and you don't see it with your own eyes, you don't understand how bad it is.
00:23:29.340 When you have a delegation of congressmen and women and the Speaker of the House and a bunch of media and these people are yelling,
00:23:37.080 help, help, help, Venezuela, Venezuela, help, help.
00:23:40.620 You understand that the border is, in fact, wide open.
00:23:44.020 And no one that's coming across the southern border thinks they shouldn't be doing it or shouldn't be trying to turn themselves into Americans.
00:23:50.400 Look, what Corrine Jean-Pierre says, she doesn't give a damn about Border Patrol agents.
00:23:56.500 And in fact, she and Joe Biden regularly demonize Border Patrol agents.
00:24:01.000 I spend a lot of time with Border Patrol agents.
00:24:03.200 I go down there.
00:24:03.900 I go out on Midnight Patrol with them.
00:24:05.420 I join them for their Midnight Muster.
00:24:07.520 These men and women, they are heroes.
00:24:09.760 They are undermined daily by their political leadership who makes their job impossible to do.
00:24:18.760 And she claims, oh, you know, putting barbed wire or razor wire, it endangers Border Patrol agents' lives.
00:24:27.360 You won't find a Border Patrol agent telling you that.
00:24:29.380 That that is a pure political lie.
00:24:35.200 And, you know, Joe Biden was asked this week about the border.
00:24:39.000 And he, again, with it's gotten to the point that where the dictionary defines chutzpah,
00:24:47.140 they ought to have a picture of Joe Biden and Corrine Jean-Pierre and Mayorkas because he said it's Republicans' fault.
00:24:52.520 The crisis at the border is Republicans' fault because they won't fund his request for funding at the border.
00:24:59.980 Now, number one, understand the money Joe Biden is asking for is not to secure the border.
00:25:06.940 It is to process illegal immigrations faster and to bring in more illegal immigrants.
00:25:13.980 He wants money to make the problem worse.
00:25:16.760 And if you want to understand that, you know, I encourage you to go back and listen.
00:25:22.080 You and I did, I think a little over a year ago, an interview that we did at the southern border
00:25:27.720 where we interviewed a very good friend of mine, Brandon Judd, who is the head of the National Border Patrol Union.
00:25:34.080 Yeah.
00:25:34.320 And he sat down with us and he talked about the cause of the problems.
00:25:37.860 And one of the very interesting things that Brandon Judd said is he said, to secure this border, we don't need an additional penny.
00:25:46.060 We don't need more money.
00:25:48.820 What we need is a change in policy.
00:25:52.700 And here's what matters.
00:25:53.600 If you want to secure the border, the single most important question is the following.
00:25:58.200 What happens when someone is apprehended?
00:26:01.760 And it's essentially a binary choice.
00:26:04.720 If the answer is you put them on a plane and you fly them back to the country they came from, the numbers plummet and they plummet immediately.
00:26:14.340 We have seen there's an instantaneous cause and effect.
00:26:18.700 On the other hand, if the answer is that when you apprehend them, you let them go and they get to stay in America, the numbers skyrocket.
00:26:28.700 When I was last down there, we had the group of illegal immigrants that came and turned themselves into us while we were on midnight patrol.
00:26:36.780 It was mostly women and children.
00:26:38.380 We asked them, how many of you all believe that you'll get to stay in America?
00:26:42.260 And every one of them, yes, yes, absolutely.
00:26:44.320 We get to stay.
00:26:45.120 And they laid out all the cities that they wanted to go to.
00:26:47.300 They all knew where they wanted to go.
00:26:48.540 And as long as they believe they will stay, the numbers keep rising.
00:26:55.440 And you have to understand part of the reason it's instantaneous, virtually every illegal immigrant who comes shows up carrying a plastic baggie.
00:27:04.580 They typically have in the plastic baggie.
00:27:06.540 They have some form of identification, a birth certificate, a passport.
00:27:10.280 They have usually a cell phone and they have a name and number of somebody in the U.S.
00:27:18.400 Unfortunately, often it is traffickers who are bringing them in that they're calling.
00:27:22.800 When we were talking to the kids, all of the young girls said they were they were calling their tios.
00:27:28.500 Tio is Spanish for uncle.
00:27:31.300 And yet they wouldn't tell us anything when we asked any questions about who these tios were.
00:27:35.740 But the cell phone is what makes it instantaneous, because when people get here and get released, they immediately text or call their friends and their families back home.
00:27:46.260 And they say, hey, if you come, you get to stay.
00:27:48.880 If on the other hand, if they've gone through a horrendous journey and they've been horribly abused and they get here and they get deported, they get put on a plane and sent back right where they started.
00:27:59.680 Again, they text their friends and families and they say, don't come.
00:28:04.960 They won't let you in.
00:28:06.320 And so the reason those illegal immigrants are calling Iuda, calling for help is because they believe and they believe quite rightly that under Joe Biden, the Biden administration views its job as helping illegal immigrants come into this country and invade this country.
00:28:23.280 We're now upwards of 10 million illegal immigrants under Joe Biden.
00:28:29.120 It is unprecedented.
00:28:30.880 Yeah, it is.
00:28:31.740 And the other part, I think, that's that's also so disingenuous from this White House is the fact that they try to act, as you mentioned, it's about the money.
00:28:39.920 But the executive actions that the president could take instantly could change so many of the policies that are allowing for this crisis, which was created by design by the Biden administration.
00:28:51.460 And that wouldn't even take Congress.
00:28:53.380 It's one of the things that Donald Trump did so brilliantly when he was in office.
00:28:56.640 You could just go back to his same policies and you could do it literally with with the swipe of a pin.
00:29:04.760 Three decisions that Joe Biden could implement tomorrow.
00:29:08.500 Number one, resume building the wall.
00:29:11.980 Number two, end catch and release.
00:29:14.400 Number three, reinstate the remain in Mexico agreement.
00:29:17.020 All of those.
00:29:18.580 He did the opposite his first week in office.
00:29:21.600 That's what caused this border crisis.
00:29:23.960 Joe Biden could solve it in an instant.
00:29:25.760 He does not want to.
00:29:27.800 And he's going to do, I believe, everything he can to prevent it.
00:29:31.060 It's why impeaching.
00:29:32.600 Mayorka should have been impeached over two years ago.
00:29:34.880 I have been calling for it for virtually the entirety of his tenure because it has been we have never seen a cabinet member so utterly defy federal law the way Mayorkas has done.
00:29:48.480 I want to move to something else that is obviously important and significant.
00:29:53.580 We've talked about it and it's a big win on the border to secure the enactment of a streamlined permitting process for new and expanded bridges across the Rio Grande in Brownsville, Laredo and Eagle Pass, Texas.
00:30:08.640 It is something that you were a part of and led on.
00:30:13.820 It's now actually become law.
00:30:16.080 You were down in Laredo.
00:30:17.420 And I want to play for people part of what you had to say at this very, very big moment.
00:30:22.880 We're here today to celebrate bipartisan legislation that was signed into law in December of last year that will expedite building new bridges and expanding bridges between Texas and Mexico.
00:30:39.560 We're here at the World Trade Bridge, the largest land port in the United States.
00:30:46.300 Every year, Texas and Mexico have roughly $800 billion in trade and commerce that comes across this border.
00:31:00.460 That's jobs in Texas.
00:31:03.460 That's jobs in Mexico.
00:31:05.760 That's the lifeblood of South Texas.
00:31:10.220 This is obviously significant, not just from the standpoint of security that you talked about and orderly commerce coming across the border in a safer manner.
00:31:19.440 But it's also a really big deal from the fact that, as you mentioned, it was bipartisan.
00:31:24.800 Talk about how significant this is going to be for this country and for Texas.
00:31:29.420 Well, the audio you just played was for a press conference that I did in Laredo yesterday morning.
00:31:34.420 And it was right at the World Trade Bridge, right on the southern border.
00:31:38.120 And I did that alongside Henry Cuellar, the Democrat congressman who represents Laredo.
00:31:43.380 And Henry and I worked hand in hand in this.
00:31:45.660 And it was a huge victory.
00:31:47.760 The Texas Business Association that was down there with us, and there was a large group of people celebrating this legislative victory that we had just two weeks ago,
00:32:00.160 described the legislation that I introduced and passed as the biggest positive step for jobs and commerce in Texas since the U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement was negotiated.
00:32:17.900 It is literally billions of dollars of additional trade and commerce and tens of thousands of jobs.
00:32:25.460 And real quickly, what happened?
00:32:27.400 So there are four bridge projects that have been proposed in South Texas, two in Laredo, one in Brownsville, one in Eagle Pass.
00:32:35.760 And the Biden administration had put bureaucratic barriers.
00:32:38.800 They were delaying every one of these bridge projects.
00:32:41.620 The World Trade Bridge that I was at yesterday morning, that bridge right now is eight lanes.
00:32:47.440 They have proposed to expand it to 18 lanes, to more than double the size of it, which enables commerce to move much more rapidly.
00:32:57.320 That benefits farmers.
00:32:58.460 That benefits ranchers.
00:32:59.540 That benefits manufacturers.
00:33:01.180 That benefits small businesses.
00:33:02.640 That benefits consumers by lowering prices at the grocery store.
00:33:06.160 It also benefits national security by making it easier to bring manufacturing back from China,
00:33:12.080 either back to the United States or nearshoring it, bringing it back to Mexico,
00:33:16.600 where we can have trade and commerce with Mexico rather than China.
00:33:21.300 So all of those are good outcomes.
00:33:24.340 And what happened?
00:33:26.440 So in order to build a bridge ordinarily, you have to do what is called Federal Environmental NEPA Review.
00:33:34.820 It's to go through a process of reviewing the environmental impact of a bridge.
00:33:38.340 That's true for any bridge.
00:33:41.200 If you're building a bridge across an international border, there's an additional legal requirement.
00:33:46.840 You need a permit from the president of the United States.
00:33:51.100 Now, the way this used to be done is the president would grant that permit contingent on the completion of the NEPA review.
00:34:01.140 And what that did is accelerated the process, enabled it to move through quickly.
00:34:06.700 When Joe Biden became president, he announced they were reversing that policy.
00:34:12.840 And Biden was going to grant zero presidential permits for cross-border bridges unless and until the NEPA environmental review was fully completed.
00:34:26.500 The effect of that was to add two, three, four, five years to these bridge projects, to delay them all.
00:34:33.580 It also made it harder for them to get funding because the banks were reluctant to commit capital until the presidential permit had been granted.
00:34:44.180 So there was a chicken and egg problem.
00:34:46.180 And the Biden administration dug in.
00:34:48.680 And so what I did is, number one, unified the congressional delegation in South Texas.
00:34:54.300 And so I brought together a coalition of myself and John Cornyn, the other Texas senator, along with Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, Monica De La Cruz, a Republican, Vicente Gonzalez, a Democrat, and Tony Gonzalez, a Republican.
00:35:08.660 All of the South Texas congressional delegation, we jointly pressed the Biden State Department, reversed this idiotic policy.
00:35:19.040 This is hurting Texas and hurting America.
00:35:21.800 The Biden administration dug in.
00:35:23.780 And they refused to change.
00:35:25.380 And so I authored legislation mandating that they expedite the process, got bipartisan support in the Senate, passed it out of the Senate, and then passed it out of the House.
00:35:37.660 And Joe Biden signed it into law on December 22nd.
00:35:41.940 It was actually my birthday that he signed it into law.
00:35:45.440 And so it was a pretty great birthday gift because it's a huge victory for jobs in the state of Texas.
00:35:52.380 And it's an example of, you know, I got to say, it's also an example of the bizarre hypocrisy.
00:36:01.580 I mean, let me ask you seriously, Ben, explain to me the mind of a whack job liberal that you want totally open borders and 10 million people invading this country illegally,
00:36:13.860 including human traffickers and drug traffickers, on the one hand.
00:36:17.940 But on the other hand, you want to put bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of legal trade and commerce from farmers and businesses while you're allowing illegal immigrants to flow with no restraint.
00:36:31.140 Yeah, it makes no sense, especially when every year Texas and Mexico, as you mentioned, have roughly 800 billion in trade and commerce that come across this border.
00:36:39.980 And this does it in a more orderly fashion, but also with the issue of national security involved in it, keeping it orderly with safety and security,
00:36:48.980 especially with all the drug trafficking, fentanyl and everything else coming across the border.
00:36:53.240 It makes no sense.
00:36:54.820 Look, that's exactly right.
00:36:56.880 And we ended up building the bipartisan coalition to pass this into law.
00:37:03.040 And so the way the law works is December 22nd is when Joe Biden signed it into law.
00:37:08.420 On that date, which was the date he signed it, the legislation starts a shot clock of 60 days and the State Department has a 60 day time limit to submit its recommendations to the White House as to whether he should grant the permit for these four bridges.
00:37:26.160 After that 60 day period, a second shot clock starts and the president has 60 days to make a determination on the permit.
00:37:37.760 If the president does nothing after that second 60 days, the permit is deemed automatically granted by operation of law.
00:37:48.020 What that means is because it was signed on December 22nd, that by April 20th, we will have these presidential permits, which will expedite these bridges going forward.
00:37:59.320 That is an enormous victory, despite the Biden administration putting roadblocks in the way every step of the way.
00:38:06.460 Well, congratulations.
00:38:07.420 And like you said, it's awesome that it was done in such a bipartisan manner.
00:38:11.240 And it's great for commerce, great for the country, great for Texans.
00:38:15.360 This is a huge win, especially when you're having to deal with an administration like the Biden administration.
00:38:20.560 So congratulations on that job.
00:38:22.380 Well done.
00:38:22.720 I'm glad the president didn't know it was your birthday the day that he signed that because they probably would have delayed it.
00:38:27.340 But they would have said we're not giving Cruz that birthday gift.
00:38:30.220 So well done on there.
00:38:31.680 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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