Verdict with Ted Cruz - Fauci's Unhinged Arrogance, Any Path to Guilty for Trump & Was Biden's D-Day Speech Politicized to go After DT Week In Review

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.520 Welcome.

00:00:05.240 It is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:07.300 Week in review.

00:00:08.780 Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:10.020 And my oh my, did we have a week filled with some major stories.

00:00:14.040 First up, Anthony Fauci was in front of Congress this week with exactly what you would expect

00:00:20.080 from him.

00:00:20.660 A man filled with arrogance, especially now as he's having to deal with the facts of

00:00:26.260 how many things he got wrong when it came to COVID-19 and the lockdowns.

00:00:30.700 Jim Jordan and others went after him.

00:00:32.900 We're going to talk about that.

00:00:34.920 Also this week, the judge in the Donald Trump trial made it very clear to the jury, I'm going

00:00:41.360 to let you find any path you want to give me a guilty verdict in that Donald Trump trial.

00:00:48.360 We'll break down that a little bit as well.

00:00:50.700 And finally, the 80th anniversary of D-Day was this week.

00:00:54.060 Senator Cruz was in Normandy for that anniversary, a special day.

00:00:59.780 And now many are criticizing Biden, claiming that his speeches have been politicized to

00:01:05.220 go after Donald Trump.

00:01:06.700 Did it really happen that way?

00:01:08.300 We'll talk to the senator about it.

00:01:09.580 Who is there?

00:01:10.640 It is the Week in Review and it starts right now.

00:01:14.480 You mentioned that he's unapologetic.

00:01:16.500 Congressman Jim Jordan, a good friend of the show here, he questioned Fauci on U.S.

00:01:21.720 tax dollars going to a grant recipient to the lab directly in China.

00:01:28.940 I want you to hear what he had to say when he was asked about this.

00:01:32.780 It was honestly a little bit shocking to hear just the arrogance from Fauci.

00:01:37.820 Prior to that call, it would have been on the call.

00:01:39.580 Well, the call was arranged by Jeremy Farrar.

00:01:41.840 You should ask him.

00:01:42.700 Did U.S. tax dollars flow through a grant recipient to the lab in China?

00:01:48.280 I'm sorry.

00:01:49.200 Did U.S. tax dollars flow through a grant recipient to the lab in China?

00:01:53.840 Yes, of course.

00:01:54.820 It was a sub-award to the Wuhan Institute.

00:01:56.780 And who approved that award?

00:01:58.500 Excuse me?

00:01:59.100 And who approved that award?

00:02:00.080 What agency approved that award?

00:02:01.460 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

00:02:03.880 Your agency approved that, right?

00:02:05.640 Yes, it did.

00:02:06.680 Does that have anything to do with this downplaying of the lab leak theory?

00:02:10.700 No.

00:02:11.800 Nothing to do with it?

00:02:12.760 Nothing.

00:02:14.580 This is a guy that still wants you to believe that the lab leak theory was a theory and not reality,

00:02:19.900 and that this somehow came from a wet market there.

00:02:22.480 And then the other question that was asked of him was from Representative Brad Winthrop, a Republican from Ohio.

00:02:30.580 This was the question he asked, and listen to the anger from Fauci.

00:02:35.400 The vaccine saved millions of lives, and I want to thank you for your support and engagement on that.

00:02:41.040 However, despite statements to the contrary, it did not stop transmission of the virus.

00:02:47.320 Did the COVID vaccine stop transmission of the virus?

00:02:50.760 That is a complicated issue because in the beginning, the first iteration of the vaccines did have an effect, not 100%, not a high effect.

00:03:02.780 They did prevent infection and subsequently, obviously, transmission.

00:03:09.420 However, it's important to point out something that we did not know early on that became evident as the months went by,

00:03:18.800 is that the durability of protection against infection and hence transmission was relatively limited,

00:03:27.140 whereas the duration of protection against severe disease, hospitalization, and deaths was more prolonged.

00:03:35.480 We did not know that in the beginning.

00:03:38.040 In the beginning, it was felt that, in fact, it did prevent infection and thus transmission.

00:03:43.880 But that was proven as time went by to not be a durable effect.

00:03:50.020 I mean, just there, he's like, well, I didn't really get it wrong.

00:03:53.680 It was just, you know, the science that I'm in charge of was not what we thought it was.

00:03:57.920 Because they'll never admit they really screwed up on any of this.

00:04:02.120 So, listen, let me give a moment of benefit of the doubt to Fauci.

00:04:07.280 I agree when this pandemic was starting, people didn't know what we were facing.

00:04:12.860 No doubt.

00:04:13.580 And people were concerned and there were people dying.

00:04:16.420 And in the face of a pandemic, I understand the decisions.

00:04:22.080 Look, Donald Trump signed off on shutdowns early on.

00:04:25.860 The decision to have shutdowns for a week or two.

00:04:30.700 Yeah, it was two weeks.

00:04:31.520 Remember to stop the spread.

00:04:32.720 Two weeks to stop the spread.

00:04:34.660 In hindsight, that was a mistake.

00:04:36.720 But I can understand why people made the decision at the time.

00:04:39.800 We didn't know.

00:04:40.740 We didn't know what the spreading was.

00:04:42.980 We didn't know what the lethality was.

00:04:45.380 And it was trying to save lives.

00:04:48.440 If Fauci said, listen, we had limited information.

00:04:50.980 We were trying to do steps to stop the spread of a contagious virus.

00:04:55.880 And these were steps that made sense.

00:04:58.340 That would not be a crazy thing to say.

00:05:00.500 But by the way, he doesn't admit any mistakes.

00:05:03.680 And what Fauci did that was fundamentally wrong is he elevated politics above science.

00:05:10.140 If he admitted we didn't know at the time, we made those decisions in hindsight, some of those decisions were right, some were wrong, that would be rational.

00:05:19.860 But his position is everything we did was right.

00:05:23.440 Be glad we shut your schools down. 0.85

00:05:25.820 Be glad your children didn't go to school for a year.

00:05:28.400 Be glad their math scores and reading scores have dropped.

00:05:31.180 Be glad that they will face learning loss for the rest of their lives.

00:05:34.820 Be grateful that we, the benevolent dictators, did that.

00:05:38.880 There is an arrogance.

00:05:41.080 This man, look, he publicly says, when you attack me, you're attacking the science, because I am the science.

00:05:49.180 There is an arrogance.

00:05:51.160 He embodies the leftist arrogance.

00:05:53.840 And to be clear, look, he early on, when people asked him, okay, are masks, do they make sense?

00:06:04.000 He said, no, you shouldn't wear masks.

00:06:05.520 They don't do any good.

00:06:06.900 A mask is not going to stop the spread of a virus.

00:06:11.000 And then going forward, he said, everyone's got to be masked.

00:06:13.880 And he didn't explain the change.

00:06:15.980 And by the way, when it came to the Wuhan lab leak, understand, Anthony Fauci personally funded the research that I believe created the COVID virus. 0.99

00:06:26.860 He was desperate to cover his own ass. 0.98

00:06:29.480 He was desperate to argue, no, came from a wet market. 1.00

00:06:32.860 We now know that is false.

00:06:34.460 But he reached out.

00:06:35.840 He asked Mark Zuckerberg, will Facebook suppress any allegations that this came from a Chinese government lab?

00:06:44.140 And to be clear, I want you to go back.

00:06:46.560 If you look at this podcast in March and April of 2020, right at the beginning of COVID, we did two different podcasts on verdict, where we laid out the evidence then early on that I thought the clear evidence was this virus escaped from a government lab.

00:07:06.200 I think that is now overwhelming and it is almost indisputable as strong, but it is clearly the overwhelming way to the evidence is that it escaped from a Chinese government lab.

00:07:18.800 And I think the majority of the evidence, this is not as strong, but I think it is greater than 50 percent, is that this virus was deliberately created by the Chinese government. 0.87

00:07:29.700 Now, I don't think they created it because they wanted people to die.

00:07:32.820 I think they were creating it because they were engaged in research and they were irresponsible and reckless.

00:07:36.880 But they took viruses and they made them that they engaged in in gain of function research, which which is they made them more deadly and they made them more transmissible to humans.

00:07:49.260 And then I think the virus escaped in the world faced pandemic.

00:07:53.220 There's something else that's also very shocking, and that is Dr.

00:07:56.940 Fauci was asked a very simple question and I'll wrap with this, but it's an important one.

00:08:02.440 And that was about the unvaccinated.

00:08:06.080 And I want you to hear just some of the kind of disdain.

00:08:09.080 They're still shaming the unvaccinated.

00:08:11.620 Yes, it's proven that.

00:08:13.140 And do you also agree that it's saved hundreds of thousands and possibly millions of lives in America and across the world?

00:08:20.820 That is absolutely correct.

00:08:22.820 And it's very clear that it's saved millions of lives here and throughout the world.

00:08:28.840 The Europeans have done the same studies that we have and the and the the data are incontrovertible that they save lives.

00:08:36.860 Sir, and do you think the American public should listen to America's brightest and best doctors and scientists or instead listen to podcasters, conspiracy theorists and unhinged Facebook memes?

00:08:49.120 You know, listening to people who you just described is going to do nothing but harm people because they will deprive themselves of lifesaving interventions, which has happened.

00:09:00.920 And, you know, some have done studies.

00:09:05.000 Peter Hotez has done an analysis of this and shows that in people who refuse to get vaccinated for any variety of reasons, probably responsible for an additional two to three hundred thousand deaths in this.

00:09:19.020 An additional two to three hundred thousand deaths in this country.

00:09:22.300 They're still shaming anyone to ask the question.

00:09:25.680 Remember the Ivermectin.

00:09:26.940 Oh, you guys are doing horse to warmers.

00:09:29.000 I mean, the list goes on and on.

00:09:31.580 And by the way, in a subsequent pod, we should play Chris Cuomo when he was called out for his lying on Ivermectin.

00:09:41.440 But but but it is the corporate media crawled in bed with Anthony Fauci crawled in bed with with with with the left wing, dishonest, political, scientific, medical world.

00:09:55.740 And they just lied to people.

00:09:57.300 And I will say, if you look at something like covid vaccines for children, for children under six, there was zero scientific evidence to back that.

00:10:08.160 I get why someone who was 80 or 90 or even someone who was 50 or 60 made the decision to get the covid vaccine, because, look, you could make a rational cost benefit analysis that we don't know everything about this vaccine.

00:10:21.200 There are risks to it.

00:10:22.280 But we also know this is a very infectious disease.

00:10:24.940 And they're particularly for people who are health compromised.

00:10:28.480 It can be really damaging.

00:10:30.020 And so people who are older could make a rational decision to get the vaccine for a five or six year old.

00:10:38.160 I think there was no rational decision to give a child that because the rate of fatality behind that as there was behind the six foot rule, which apparently he's admitted now.

00:10:48.640 Yeah, we just kind of made it up.

00:10:49.660 He just just made it up.

00:10:51.080 And it this was all about politics and power.

00:10:56.500 And Fauci was willing to put politics and power above medicine and science.

00:11:01.360 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.

00:11:08.160 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97

00:11:14.460 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:11:18.180 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:11:19.380 And I'm Catherine Clark.

00:11:20.600 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

00:11:30.100 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:11:33.080 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:11:39.080 Now on to story number two.

00:11:41.880 The jury was just told, well, if it if it could influence the election, you've got to find it's a violation of law.

00:11:47.520 That is flat out false.

00:11:49.300 And they were not told.

00:11:51.680 If Trump had done what Alvin Bragg said he needed to do, the FEC would have charged him with a personal use violation with using campaign funds illegally.

00:12:03.160 Clearly, the jury didn't know that because the judge didn't want him to know that.

00:12:07.460 And that's why they said you can't come and testify.

00:12:10.660 Yes.

00:12:10.980 And he also prevented the lawyers from arguing this.

00:12:15.180 But by the way, so that was one ground.

00:12:17.340 The other two grounds that could be unlawful means.

00:12:20.080 And you could have three jurors on one and five on another and four on it like they could mix and match.

00:12:24.880 The other ground.

00:12:25.580 Have you ever heard of a jury where that was it?

00:12:27.360 No.

00:12:27.420 OK.

00:12:27.800 I don't think people understand.

00:12:29.320 This is weird.

00:12:30.200 That usually it's you either got to be all in lockstep.

00:12:33.460 Yeah.

00:12:34.240 Or you're not.

00:12:35.000 So it's either you're innocent or guilty because the 12 agree and or if they disagree, one of them disagrees, we're done.

00:12:40.740 Find the elements of the crime.

00:12:41.920 He said find your own path to to guilty.

00:12:45.920 Yeah.

00:12:46.160 Whatever you want.

00:12:47.180 The objective is guilty.

00:12:48.560 You come up with however you want to get there.

00:12:50.740 All right.

00:12:50.940 So one was the federal campaign finance law and his instructions are woefully deficient.

00:12:56.080 He only includes part of the rule.

00:12:57.560 He leaves out the other half, which is explains why Trump shouldn't have done so.

00:13:02.320 And it would have been a mistake to do it the way the prosecutor wanted him to.

00:13:05.680 And he would have been charged with it.

00:13:07.100 I mean, it would have been he would have been violating the law to do what Alvin Bragg is saying he should have done.

00:13:14.920 Another supposed basis of unlawful means was falsification of other business records.

00:13:21.920 The second of the people's theories, this is from the jury instruction, the second of the people's theories of unlawful means, which I will define for you now, is the falsification of other business records.

00:13:31.880 For purposes of determining whether falsifying business records in the second degree was an unlawful means used by a conspiracy to promote or prevent election here, you may consider the bank records associated with Michael Cohen's account formation, the bank records association with Michael Cohen's wire to Keith Davidson,

00:13:47.680 the invoice from investor advisory services and the 1099 misc form, the Trump organization issued to Michael Cohen.

00:13:53.860 So, in other words, there are 34 counts of false business records.

00:14:00.740 They're all the identical charge.

00:14:03.680 They just occur 34 different times, 34 different entries in the bookmarks.

00:14:07.960 What he's saying is, you know what?

00:14:10.160 Every one of these is a misdemeanor.

00:14:11.740 But if you say you made one of these entries to assist in another of these entries, then they're all felonies.

00:14:19.580 Wow.

00:14:20.440 Like, like it is the most circular reasoning that just makes no sense.

00:14:27.020 And by the way, let's go to the third one, because the third one just makes me laugh out loud.

00:14:32.700 The people's third theory of unlawful means, which I will define for you now, is a violation of tax laws.

00:14:40.220 Under New York State and New York City law, it is unlawful to knowingly supply or submit materially false or fraudulent information in connection with any tax return.

00:14:48.520 Likewise, under federal law, it is unlawful for a person to willfully make any tax return statement or other document that is fraudulent or false as in any material matter,

00:14:56.300 or that the person does not believe to be true and correct as to every material matter.

00:15:01.720 Now, listen to this last sentence.

00:15:04.200 Under these federal, state and local laws, such conduct is unlawful, even if it does not result in the underpayment of taxes.

00:15:12.280 So, in other words, he told the jury, by the way, you can find a violation of tax laws, even if you paid, you didn't pay any less taxes, even if you didn't defraud anyone,

00:15:22.020 even if you're not using it to cheat on your taxes, if you think there's something in the tax laws.

00:15:27.240 And by the way, there is no person on planet Earth who understands all of the tax laws.

00:15:31.760 You know, there was a book that was written years ago called Three Felonies a Day.

00:15:35.200 And it argues that all of us living in this complex world commit three felonies a day between tax laws and environmental laws.

00:15:42.060 There's just so much regulations.

00:15:43.940 If you are doing anything, if you're filling out a credit card application, an aggressive prosecutor can find three felonies a day that Ben Ferguson has committed.

00:15:52.900 In this instance, that jury instruction says, well, if you can figure out, if you think there was any violation.

00:15:59.500 Come up with your own theory, basically.

00:16:01.040 Come up with your own theory.

00:16:01.940 And by the way, the violation of tax law doesn't have to have taken a penny of taxes from New York City, New York State, or the federal government.

00:16:10.300 And if you think there was some amorphous violation of tax law that didn't result in any underpayment of taxes, suddenly, presto chango, these misdemeanors that we can't prosecute, the statute of limitations is extended.

00:16:26.900 They're now felonies.

00:16:27.880 And we can sentence Donald Trump to 100 years in jail, 134 years in jail.

00:16:32.260 In other words, orange man bad, find your way to figure out how to say he's guilty.

00:16:37.180 That's exactly what this was all about.

00:16:41.000 This is politics.

00:16:42.900 It'll get reversed on appeal.

00:16:45.200 But the judge doesn't care.

00:16:46.720 He knows that.

00:16:48.300 The purpose is what Alex Soros said.

00:16:51.840 The purpose is what Joe Biden said.

00:16:54.140 The purpose is all the Democrats and all the media get to call him a felon over and over and over again between now and Election Day.

00:17:02.400 This is a five-month battle.

00:17:03.980 It's not a five-year battle.

00:17:05.060 The purpose is not to put Donald Trump in jail.

00:17:07.860 They know that's not going to happen.

00:17:10.020 It costs the election.

00:17:11.220 They are trying to win.

00:17:13.440 This is about keeping Joe Biden, the Democrats, in power because it's all they care about and they're willing to burn the justice system to the ground.

00:17:22.500 Senator, final question for you.

00:17:24.540 And this goes back to the last podcast.

00:17:26.920 You were conflicted on what Trump's plan should be next.

00:17:32.200 Do you go to the Supreme Court?

00:17:34.040 Do you try to get there quickly?

00:17:36.300 Or is there a way to force this case moving forward?

00:17:39.880 Now, knowing the jury instructions and what they were given and, most importantly, what they had admitted from them, does this open up any different legal pathway for the Trump team to say, OK, we need to get this seen even quicker?

00:17:54.680 So it isn't, hey, we got what we wanted.

00:17:57.700 We get to say you're a convicted felon all the way through Election Day.

00:18:00.600 Can this speed up the process or no?

00:18:02.320 So let me answer that.

00:18:04.680 But let me answer that in connection to a question that people ask quite a bit, which is what's the sentence going to be?

00:18:09.720 We've got the sentence.

00:18:10.640 We know that it's just a few days before the Republican convention.

00:18:13.100 And a lot of folks are asking, is the judge going to sentence Trump to jail time?

00:18:18.420 I think there's a very real chance the judge sentenced Trump to jail time.

00:18:21.960 I think this is a vicious partisan.

00:18:24.440 I think he hates Donald Trump.

00:18:25.740 I think he's willing to abuse his power.

00:18:27.200 But I will wager large sums of money, regardless of what he sentences him to, jail time or something else, that if there is incarceration, he will suspend it pending appeal.

00:18:40.500 I think that I could see the judge at sentencing saying, I sentence you to four years in jail.

00:18:46.640 Or 40.

00:18:47.560 No, no, I don't think he would.

00:18:48.900 I do think you've got four years for each of these 34 counts is the maximum amount.

00:18:54.020 Typically, they would run concurrently, which means they would all run at the same time.

00:18:59.640 You could run them consecutively, which is how you get over 100 years.

00:19:03.300 In any ordinary circumstance, number one, a judge of Trump's age that does not have any prior offenses in New York would never serve a day of jail time in any other case.

00:19:12.440 I mean, look, you can physically assault someone.

00:19:14.920 You can repeatedly, violently beat people up.

00:19:17.840 You can engage in all sorts of crimes and not serve jail time in New York.

00:19:22.340 That being said, I think it's entirely possible this judge is enough of a partisan to say, you're the president.

00:19:29.620 What you did mattered.

00:19:31.320 I'm sentencing you to four years in jail.

00:19:33.380 I could see him.

00:19:34.260 He would love that.

00:19:35.460 That would be the crowning moment of his life to utter those words.

00:19:39.620 It'd also be useful politically because then not only can you say he's a convicted felon, but then you can say, do you want a guy going to the White House that's about to go to jail?

00:19:47.720 Yeah. So what I do not think he will do is sentence him to jail and say, take him into custody and put him there right now.

00:19:56.460 He could.

00:19:57.700 But I think if he did that, it would prompt an immediate emergency appeal and he would get reversed.

00:20:03.460 I assume this guy is smart enough to know that he doesn't want to get reversed and he especially does not want to get reversed before Election Day.

00:20:13.160 He's engaged in politics. So he's not going to do something, I think, that will prompt an immediate reversal because that undermines the political value of the charade that he's conducting.

00:20:25.140 So if the sentence is imprisonment or it could be home confinement, if the sentence is something like that, I think he'll suspend it pending the resolution of the appeal.

00:20:38.540 In that case, I think the odds are quite high.

00:20:41.580 This appeal will have to go through the New York state system first.

00:20:45.380 We talked about in Friday's pod. And by the way, you should go back and listen to Friday's pod.

00:20:50.220 We did Friday's pod late Thursday night.

00:20:53.160 We did it on the road as I was driving from Dallas to Houston.

00:20:56.060 It was right after the verdict came down and it was analyzing the next steps and in much greater detail than we have in this pod.

00:21:04.440 And so you ought to listen to the two pods together.

00:21:06.520 But the ordinary course of appeal would be to appeal from the trial court to the intermediate appellate court in New York in the state court system.

00:21:15.420 And then if you lose in the intermediate appellate court to appeal to the top appellate court in New York called the New York Court of Appeals.

00:21:23.100 And then finally, if you lose there, then you could appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

00:21:27.660 That's normally how a criminal case would proceed.

00:21:30.040 It is possible you can file an extraordinary writ to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene right now.

00:21:38.520 But it is very, very, very rare.

00:21:42.020 There is a chance, and as I'm sure the Trump legal team is debating this right now, there's a chance the court would say yes.

00:21:49.640 But I think it's probably unlikely.

00:21:52.180 I think the court's instinct, particularly if a sentence is suspended,

00:21:56.120 if the judge ordered Trump put in jail, the Supreme Court would say yes.

00:22:01.380 It would force the court to say yes.

00:22:03.960 So if the sentence is suspended and Trump is free to campaign, free to debate, free to go to the convention,

00:22:10.480 I think the justice's instincts will be, you know what?

00:22:15.120 The New York state courts might correct this.

00:22:17.220 The court of appeals might reverse this.

00:22:18.660 The intermediate court of appeals might reverse this.

00:22:20.740 They might get it right.

00:22:22.160 And there's a long ethos at the court, which is if we don't need to act, we don't need to act.

00:22:27.820 If someone else can fix this, if another level of the justice system can fix this, the U.S. Supreme Court doesn't need to step in.

00:22:34.560 That's their general approach.

00:22:37.160 If they were to deny the extraordinary writ, I suspect you would have some justices write and say something like,

00:22:44.260 there are lots of reasons to be concerned here, but right now the sentence is suspended.

00:22:48.660 The verdict can be overturned on appeal, and so we'll allow the state proceedings to go forward.

00:22:56.180 If there was an order of immediate incarceration, it would force their hands.

00:23:01.620 I think the whole game here from the D.A. and from the judge is the political advantage not actually sending Trump to jail.

00:23:10.200 They know these jury instructions will never survive an appeal.

00:23:15.280 If you had anything resembling fairness in the judicial system, the New York courts of appeals should reverse it.

00:23:21.820 I got to say, based on the absolute disgrace we just saw play out, I have no confidence of that.

00:23:27.920 The New York justice system is, I suspect, forever a global laughingstock.

00:23:33.480 And you put this on top of the prior civil case where they took a half billion dollars, they're trying to take a half billion dollars from Trump.

00:23:39.620 The combination, the message New York has said, is if we don't like you, if you are politically disfavored, welcome to communist Cuba.

00:23:48.160 We will treat you the same and you have the same rights as you would have locked in a gulag. 0.79

00:23:54.040 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.

00:24:02.700 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world around them. 0.98

00:24:09.860 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.

00:24:13.580 I'm Jennifer Stewart.

00:24:14.780 And I'm Catherine Clark.

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00:24:25.520 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

00:24:28.500 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

00:24:34.520 I want to get back to the big story number three of the week you may have missed.

00:24:38.940 I want to go to the president's speech.

00:24:41.420 Lloyd Austin spoke and then the president spoke and I actually played some of that on my show.

00:24:48.420 And I said this at the beginning.

00:24:50.180 I said I always root for the president of the United States of America on moments like this, on todays like this, to have an amazing speech.

00:24:59.560 And I root for the president always, my president, always when it comes to national security issues, especially and when it comes to honoring our men and women in uniform.

00:25:11.540 And the president gave a speech and I was watching it with the best of intentions.

00:25:19.560 I wanted to root for this speech.

00:25:22.220 But there were some moments in that speech that that caught me a little bit by surprise.

00:25:27.960 And I wanted to know your thoughts on this.

00:25:30.840 There was a couple points where Biden tried to invoke Ukraine and he also said this, which the media even picked up on.

00:25:42.820 Here's what he had to say during the speech about democracy in America.

00:25:47.420 Now the question for us is, in our hour of trial, will we do ours?

00:25:51.760 We're living in a time when democracy is more at risk across the world than at any point since the end of World War II, since these beaches were stormed in 1944.

00:26:04.580 Now we have to ask ourselves, will we stand against tyranny, against evil, against crushing brutality of the iron fist?

00:26:13.940 Will we stand for freedom?

00:26:15.740 Will we defend democracy?

00:26:17.660 Will we stand together?

00:26:18.780 My answer is yes, it only can be yes.

00:26:23.500 That was an interesting point for me because he said democracy is more at risk now than at any point since World War II.

00:26:29.700 He talked about it on a domestic side, which was implying, I think, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy.

00:26:35.660 And then he implied it with, obviously, Russia and Ukraine.

00:26:38.400 And I wanted your reaction to that.

00:26:40.960 You know, I'm going to say this is an interesting example of having a different reaction to something when you're physically there.

00:26:48.780 versus watching it on TV or watching it on Twitter.

00:26:53.280 Look, I know on the way after the speech, like looking at Twitter and people's reactions, I know people are upset that they view Biden as politicizing it.

00:27:07.220 I've got to say it didn't feel that political being there in person.

00:27:11.820 And maybe it's because, frankly, you're paying attention to the veterans and the heroes you're in front of.

00:27:18.780 And it's so dominated things that, you know, what Biden said, I barely paid attention to it.

00:27:25.620 Like, it was not, it wasn't the dominant event of the day.

00:27:30.820 And, you know, it was fine.

00:27:32.220 He said, okay.

00:27:32.860 You know what was actually stood out much more to me than anything Biden said?

00:27:38.200 What was that?

00:27:38.640 Was McCrone did something that was really cool, which is he awarded the French Legion of Honor to, it was about eight or ten American GIs.

00:27:51.860 And, you know, he, and each of them, they're almost all in wheelchairs.

00:27:58.120 Each of them would stand for it and they're teetering and they'd have someone helping them.

00:28:02.600 But they wanted to stand and he would pin on their chest the French Legion of Honor.

00:28:07.300 That I wasn't expecting.

00:28:08.600 And that was just powerful.

00:28:09.840 That was just like, he was literally, and then it was funny.

00:28:13.320 McCrone would lean in and he would kiss them on both cheeks, as is the French way.

00:28:17.320 And you could kind of see these old dudes being like, hey, why does this French got a kiss? 0.97

00:28:23.480 But, you know, it's, you're being awarded the French Legion of Honor.

00:28:26.800 That's a pretty damn big deal.

00:28:29.480 And you think about it for someone who was 19 and, and was right there.

00:28:35.280 I mean, understand we're doing this like right next to the beaches where, where they saw their friends die.

00:28:40.940 Right next to the beaches where, I'm going to have to assume that was the most hellish day they've ever experienced.

00:28:47.100 There was certainly one of them.

00:28:48.320 Although, those that continue to fight in the war, there may have been others that, that rivaled it.

00:28:54.220 But, you know, you think about it.

00:28:58.280 Imagine being a hundred years old and the president of France.

00:29:01.100 Thanking you for liberating France and, and pinning the, the, the Legion of Honor on your chest.

00:29:08.720 It was, I, look, most of us had tears in our eyes during that.

00:29:13.100 Anthony Blinken came out afterwards.

00:29:15.920 He did an interview from Normandy with the backdrop behind him of, of many of the, the heroes and, and the crosses of those, of those tombstones of somebody that lost their lives.

00:29:27.580 He had this to say, marking the 80th anniversary of, of, of D-Day.

00:29:32.840 And, and I want to get your reaction.

00:29:34.740 And joining us now from Normandy, the United States Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken.

00:29:40.480 Thank you very much for joining us here on Morning Joe.

00:29:43.820 Uh, what should our allies and enemies, uh, take away from the president's speech this morning in Normandy?

00:29:51.760 The same resolve that the extraordinary men and women that we're celebrating today showed then, he's showing now.

00:30:01.180 Uh, because they did what they did, uh, we're here today.

00:30:04.700 And we not, not only have responsibility to honor what they did, but the real way to honor it is to make sure that we're good in our time, in our moment, in standing up to the challenges that we face.

00:30:14.740 And one of those, uh, we see now is aggression from Russia, not only against Ukraine, but against the very principles at the heart of the international system that were put in place after World War II to try to make sure that we didn't have another World War, that we maintain peace and security.

00:30:29.540 And president's determined to make sure we're standing up today just as they stood up 80 years ago.

00:30:35.420 And the president talked about Ukraine, uh, as one of the current challenges, uh, that exemplified the, um, fight against dark forces that never fade.

00:30:45.840 Um, and he made another, yet another commitment.

00:30:50.540 He reinforced the commitment to Ukraine.

00:30:54.260 Um, and by the way, if I may, we're watching live pictures right now of president Biden and the first lady walking through the cemetery in Normandy, France.

00:31:07.280 And as we look at these pictures, uh, which really symbolize the losses 80 years ago on D day and talk about the losses that Ukraine is incurring right now from the same type of aggression.

00:31:22.580 Um, um, the president did say that the support for Ukraine would continue, that we will be there for Ukraine.

00:31:31.780 How does that, how does that parallel with some of the reticence we have seen in Washington that actually delayed the much needed aid Ukraine needed to push back against Russian aggression?

00:31:45.480 Well, you know, Mika, that aid should have gotten there a long time ago, but I'm glad it's there now and it's making a difference.

00:31:52.960 Every single day we're pushing it out to the front lines, making sure the Ukrainians who need it against this Russian aggression have it, uh, and can use it.

00:31:59.660 But, you know, there's a really powerful parallel too, between what we're commemorating today and what we're doing now.

00:32:05.800 Um, back then it wasn't just the United States.

00:32:08.420 Here in Normandy, 12 countries came together, 160,000 men coming to this beach, coming to start the final fight that ultimately 11 months later led to victory in World War II.

00:32:19.080 Uh, in Ukraine, we have more than 50 countries standing up, standing together, making sure that Ukraine has what it needs to defend itself and to push back this aggression.

00:32:26.720 And that's the power of our alliances.

00:32:28.780 And that's the biggest difference maker we have in the world.

00:32:31.380 Our adversaries, our competitors, they don't have the same kind of voluntary alliances.

00:32:35.060 Yeah, sometimes they coerce countries into helping them, or maybe they pay them off.

00:32:38.640 Here, we have country after country that volunteers to stand together, uh, stand together in defense of principles that we share and no need defending.

00:32:47.360 We're seeing that in Ukraine.

00:32:48.780 We saw that 80 years ago here in Normandy.

00:32:52.160 You listened to that.

00:32:53.720 It was very clear that NBC was wanting to make that, and Blinken wanted to make that connection.

00:33:00.760 And this deals with the reality of foreign policy, Senator.

00:33:03.420 He said, in his exact quote, there's a really powerful parallel between D-Day and the Ukraine war.

00:33:10.800 Yeah, no, there's not.

00:33:12.660 Um, that's, look, this White House,

00:33:17.360 does all politics all the time.

00:33:19.620 It's what they do.

00:33:20.360 They spin, spin, spin.

00:33:23.380 And, and the two are fundamentally different.

00:33:26.980 Um, you know, I wish they would treat a solemn commemoration like this for what it is,

00:33:35.720 a solemn commemoration, and not treat it as another day of politics.

00:33:40.080 Now, I will say, President Zelensky was there.

00:33:44.340 He, he was at the event.

00:33:46.520 Uh, and so that did add some of the focus to it.

00:33:49.700 And actually, I think tomorrow we're going to be sitting down and meeting with President Zelensky.

00:33:52.940 And, and listen, I agree that we want Russia to lose, that Russia is our enemy. 0.94

00:33:59.740 Now, Vladimir Putin is not Adolf Hitler.

00:34:02.260 Um, he's our enemy.

00:34:04.100 Uh, but he doesn't have concentration camps or he's murdering six million people right now.

00:34:08.760 Um, he is our enemy, and he does not wish us well. 0.87

00:34:15.620 And so I think Vladimir Putin is a KGB thug.

00:34:19.260 It's in America's interest for Russia to lose. 0.98

00:34:22.720 But, and we've talked about this at great length on the pod,

00:34:27.280 it is Joe Biden's fault and Tony Blinken's fault that Ukraine war happened in the first place.

00:34:32.720 Joe Biden gave multi-billion dollar gifts to Vladimir Putin when he waived sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,

00:34:41.560 sanctions that I authored.

00:34:42.960 I wrote the legislation, wrote them into law,

00:34:45.680 and Putin stopped building that pipeline the day President Trump signed my sanctions legislation into law.

00:34:53.580 If Biden had not waived those sanctions, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.

00:34:58.380 And if Donald Trump were still in the White House, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.

00:35:03.400 It's Joe Biden's weakness that caused the war in Ukraine.

00:35:08.260 And by the way, as much as Biden and Blinken want to see themselves as Churchill and FDR,

00:35:13.760 if there is a World War II analogy, then Biden is Neville Chamberlain.

00:35:20.700 He is the one who is weak.

00:35:22.580 He is the appeaser.

00:35:23.920 He is the one who gave billions to Russia.

00:35:25.960 He is the one who gives billions to Iran.

00:35:28.420 He's the one that constantly shows weakness to our enemies,

00:35:33.320 which is why we went from peace and prosperity, what he inherited three and a half years ago,

00:35:39.320 to two simultaneous wars playing out across the face of the globe.

00:35:43.380 And look, I'm glad Biden says he stands for freedom against tyranny.

00:35:48.420 He can't seem to figure that out in Israel because he's blocking weapons going to Israel

00:35:55.680 and at the same time blowing money to Iran that goes to Hamas.

00:36:01.140 And so when it comes to freedom and tyranny, he manages to be on the wrong side of that an awful lot.

00:36:07.860 Yeah, no doubt about it.

00:36:10.120 I'm really thankful that you got to be there and we got to talk about this and honor our amazing, brave men who went and fought

00:36:20.620 and the women that were involved as well. 0.94

00:36:23.720 By the way, you know who I met?

00:36:25.060 I met the original Rosie the Riveter.

00:36:28.220 No way.

00:36:29.820 No way.

00:36:30.600 That was really cool.

00:36:31.820 She's like 100 years old, but she was the original Rosie the Riveter in those ads, you know, drumming up support for the military. 0.99

00:36:41.860 That was very cool.

00:36:43.540 As always, thank you for listening to Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:36:48.360 Don't forget to download my podcast and you can listen to my podcast every other day.

00:36:52.020 You're not listening to Verdict or each day when you listen to Verdict afterwards.

00:36:55.280 I'd love to have you as a listener to, again, the Ben Ferguson podcast.

00:36:58.900 And we will see you back here on Monday morning.

00:37:01.820 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:37:05.160 Guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 08, 2024

Fauci's Unhinged Arrogance, Any Path to Guilty for Trump & Was Biden's D-Day Speech Politicized to go After DT Week In Review

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