Verdict with Ted Cruz - December 17, 2025


FBI STOPS Anti-American Islamists from Bombing Los Angeles plus Biden DOJ ADMITTED No Probable Cause for Mar-a-lago Raid


Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

162.85905

Word count

5,615

Sentence count

347

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) joins Sen. Ben Ferguson (D-NJ) to discuss the latest terror plot foiled by the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to raid Mar-A-Largo.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.500 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.280 Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.440 And Senator, we've got a big show today, including starting with a thwarted terror attack.
00:00:15.560 Yeah, the FBI arrested five terror suspects who were allegedly planning a bombing in Los Angeles for New Year's Eve.
00:00:23.140 Pro-Palestinian, radical Islamist, anti-American, far left.
00:00:27.180 We're going to break down the details of who they are, what they were caught doing, and what it means for you.
00:00:34.960 We also have stunning news from the Department of Justice and the FBI, which is during the Biden DOJ,
00:00:42.580 the FBI and DOJ believe they did not have probable cause to search Mar-a-Lago.
00:00:49.480 And nonetheless, political appointees in the Biden DOJ overrode the career employees and said, search it anyway.
00:00:58.580 And finally, Scott Besson, the Treasury Secretary, broke important news that rents are dropping across America
00:01:08.160 because President Trump is deporting millions of illegal aliens,
00:01:13.120 that it is having exactly the effect the president told the American people,
00:01:17.480 and the result is the rents that Americans are paying are going down.
00:01:21.140 All of that on today's podcast.
00:01:23.720 Operation Overlord.
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00:02:23.680 Senator, you and I have been talking about this for quite some time,
00:02:26.860 and that is the national security threats that we face in this country.
00:02:30.520 A lot of it is because of the open southern border that happened under the Biden administration.
00:02:35.520 Countless number of people coming across the border that we didn't know who they were,
00:02:38.820 where they were coming from, and catching people that were also on the terrorist watch list.
00:02:43.700 What we're now witnessing is the government sounding the alarm that, hey,
00:02:47.780 we have a lot of people in this country, in the thousands,
00:02:51.160 who are here that we do believe either have ties to terrorism or directly connected to terrorist organizations.
00:02:58.600 And then we see the news break about the thwarting of this attack from L.A. all the way to New Orleans.
00:03:04.900 This was a major operation that had a plan to kill a lot of Americans.
00:03:09.440 Yeah, week after week we're seeing terrorists or radical Islamists
00:03:14.020 either carrying out acts of violence or being prevented from carrying out acts of violence.
00:03:19.460 But there's a consistent pattern we've seen that many of them were admitted to this country,
00:03:24.660 allowed in this country by Joe Biden and the Democrats.
00:03:27.660 We saw that, for example, with the Afghan radical who traveled to D.C. and shot two National Guardsmen, 0.53
00:03:35.840 one of whom he murdered, the other of whom he severely injured.
00:03:39.380 Well, this story now, the federal authorities say they disrupted a credible terrorist threat over the weekend.
00:03:46.920 They arrest four alleged members of a radical pro-Palestinian extremist group
00:03:52.560 accused of planning coordinated New Year's Eve bombings in Los Angeles.
00:03:58.400 The FBI said that the members self-identified as part of a radical offshoot of the Turtle Island Liberation Front.
00:04:07.540 We're going to tell you more about that group.
00:04:09.100 It really is a whack job group.
00:04:11.240 It is an extremist group motivated by pro-Palestinian, anti-law enforcement, and anti-government ideology.
00:04:17.440 According to the FBI, they were allegedly planning coordinated bombing attacks on New Year's Eve
00:04:22.940 using improvised explosive devices targeting five separate locations across Los Angeles.
00:04:31.860 Four of them were arrested in Lucerne Valley, where they were believed to be preparing to test explosive devices ahead of the planned attacks.
00:04:40.260 And they've each been charged with conspiracy and possession of a destructive device.
00:04:45.500 A fifth individual was arrested Monday in New Orleans, connected to the same extremist group,
00:04:53.980 and was allegedly planning a separate attack.
00:04:58.020 I want you to listen to Fox News covering this breaking news.
00:05:01.020 The FBI now reports that it's disrupted a planned New Year's Eve terror attack in Los Angeles.
00:05:07.900 Four suspects in custody.
00:05:09.520 The FBI identified them as members of a pro-Palestine extremist group.
00:05:14.380 They're suspected of planning coordinated IED attacks targeting five different locations in Los Angeles.
00:05:20.700 But based on the reporting now, that plot has been foiled.
00:05:24.340 We will wait for more out of L.A. or out of Washington, D.C.
00:05:28.180 Senator, you hear this report, and I think what's so concerning to so many Americans is
00:05:33.520 we seem to be having more and more of these reports.
00:05:36.460 It's also got to be incredibly frustrating law enforcement because this was avoidable.
00:05:41.540 The number of terrorists and random groups, just like this one I've never heard of before,
00:05:47.160 is concerning.
00:05:48.260 And knowing that there are thousands and thousands of terrorists in this country,
00:05:53.540 and law enforcement's got about 1,000, otherwise Americans die.
00:05:57.680 That is incredibly frustrating when you hear another report like this.
00:06:01.700 Yeah, look, this is what globalized the Intifada means.
00:06:06.180 You look at the horrific mass murder in Australia on Bondi Beach,
00:06:11.780 and that was globalizing the Intifada.
00:06:14.340 The father-son who committed that mass murder.
00:06:16.560 However, there's evidence that they were connected with ISIS,
00:06:19.820 and they were waging jihad in this instance.
00:06:23.520 Let me ask you, this group, the Turtle Island Liberation Front,
00:06:27.400 have you ever heard of Turtle Island before?
00:06:29.720 You know, it's funny.
00:06:30.600 I literally had to Google it because until this report came out,
00:06:33.140 I'd never heard of it before.
00:06:34.880 And then I said it, and what was even funnier was my wife was like, 0.99
00:06:38.100 what movie are you talking about?
00:06:39.400 I'm like, I'm not talking about a movie.
00:06:40.740 This is like a terrorist organization I've never heard of before.
00:06:44.160 Yeah, look, I hadn't heard the phrase Turtle Island.
00:06:46.300 So let me tell you what it is.
00:06:49.180 The Turtle Island Liberation Front Instagram account says its founding chapter is in Los Angeles,
00:06:54.860 and its goal is to free Turtle Island,
00:06:58.140 which is an indigenous name used to refer to North America.
00:07:04.180 What do they want to free North America from?
00:07:06.640 Quote, the illegal American empire.
00:07:10.180 The account posted, free Palestine, free Hawaii, free Puerto Rico.
00:07:16.740 Freeing the world from American imperialism is the only way to a safe and peaceful future.
00:07:24.060 And let me also give you a little bit more information about this group,
00:07:28.320 because these guys really are whack jobs.
00:07:30.140 The group's Instagram page has 939 followers, which is one of the reasons we probably haven't heard of them.
00:07:38.120 Now, 939 is not a lot unless you're talking about people who are committed to terrorism and carrying out acts of violence.
00:07:44.760 On the Instagram page, you have phrases like death to America and peaceful protest will never be enough.
00:07:53.400 And there's a video on the Instagram account that features a woman who just says her name is Mary.
00:07:59.660 And she explains the group's name.
00:08:02.220 Here's what she says.
00:08:03.200 Quote, so that's what the natives called it, was Turtle Island.
00:08:07.160 So that's the decolonized name of the Americas.
00:08:10.680 And Turtle Island Liberation Front is looking for reparations and land back for these indigenous groups.
00:08:17.440 This is dangerous.
00:08:19.980 By the way, TILF also had materials the FBI released.
00:08:24.120 One read death to ice.
00:08:26.140 Another read death to America.
00:08:27.960 Long live Turtle Island and Palestine. 1.00
00:08:32.100 And so, once again, this is the Intifada.
00:08:34.540 This is free Palestine, attack America, kill Americans, and these bombs. 1.00
00:08:40.720 So the bombs they were found building, here's what the federal criminal complaint says.
00:08:45.340 It says the individuals who were arrested had drafted a written attack plan.
00:08:50.320 They had shared bomb-making instructions, and they had planned pre-operational surveillance of their targets.
00:08:56.340 It says three of the four individuals brought potassium nitrate, PVC pipes, charcoal, sulfur powder, and other bomb-making components to a campsite in the Mojave Desert for testing.
00:09:11.340 Quote, while in the desert, the co-conspirators took steps to begin construction of the device, including unloading the bomb-making materials, e.g. precursors, PVC pipes, and fuses, from their cars,
00:09:24.860 and beginning to assemble the materials on a table, constructing a tent to keep bomb materials shaded from the sun, wiping down the interior of one of the PVC pipes.
00:09:34.440 And they were building it when FBI agents intervened to prevent them from actually assembling a functional explosive device.
00:09:45.920 Incredible.
00:09:46.560 This is dangerous, and this is a pattern that we keep seeing happen over and over and over again.
00:09:53.340 You know, the good news is that we have an administration and a president that's made it very clear that we're going to go find these people.
00:09:59.780 This is part of the reason why immigration reform and shutting down our southern border was so important. 0.97
00:10:06.440 Tom Homan has talked about this.
00:10:08.080 He said far too many people on the terrorist watch list got across.
00:10:11.560 And I go back, and I just, for the visual aid, Senator, remember, this is a government under Joe Biden's leadership
00:10:19.420 that went to Texas, where they had put down barriers, and they used a forklift to lift up those barriers in the barbed wire to allow illegal immigrants into America.
00:10:29.820 Many of them were not detained.
00:10:32.760 The background checks were not checked on them.
00:10:35.260 And people released and got a ways into this country.
00:10:38.300 So now we are having to deal with radical groups and other terrorist groups that we've never even heard of,
00:10:45.440 all because they said, well, let's flood America with illegal immigrants. 0.77
00:10:48.600 And my worry is it's going to cost American lives at some point.
00:10:52.840 Yeah, look, and it already has.
00:10:55.760 You look at, for example, the National Guardsmen who were shot by the Afghan Islamist radical
00:11:02.620 whom the Biden administration imported into America.
00:11:06.160 We are seeing multiple attacks from violent illegal immigrants that the Biden administration rolled out the red carpet to. 1.00
00:11:15.540 Final question on this one.
00:11:17.160 What are you expecting moving forward from Congress on this as we continue to find more?
00:11:23.080 And the FBI, I've got to say to them, God bless them for doing their job,
00:11:26.480 grabbing these radical pro-Palestinian groups, these individuals.
00:11:30.760 And now I'm assuming there's going to be even more that we can expect as they find out who they were working with
00:11:36.480 and who their friends were and who was instructing them or who was a part of this.
00:11:41.280 But listen, this is what happens when you have the FBI and the Department of Justice actually focused on going after criminals.
00:11:48.620 You know what the Biden DOJ said their single largest operation was?
00:11:51.960 Going and persecuting many of the peaceful protesters from January 6th, the little old ladies who were singing God bless America and waving flags.
00:12:01.840 The Biden administration, they devoted their time, the DOJ and FBI, to political persecution, to going after their political enemies.
00:12:09.160 They devoted massive time to going after Donald Trump directly.
00:12:12.400 So instead of looking for terrorists, which, mind you, they were flying into this country, allowing to come into this country,
00:12:17.460 instead of looking for ICE gangbangers and criminals and murderers and rapists, they were engaged in political persecution.
00:12:25.000 The Trump Department of Justice, the Trump FBI, is going after bad guys.
00:12:30.580 And the result of that is that's making Americans much safer.
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00:13:33.160 It brings me to actually a perfect example of what you were just describing, and that
00:13:38.000 is new files are revealing that the Department of Justice and the FBI, quote, did not have
00:13:43.080 cause to raid Mar-a-Lago.
00:13:45.520 Hold on a second.
00:13:46.560 You're telling me the people in charge of the government, Senator, under the Biden regime
00:13:50.640 knew that they were going after Donald Trump for political reasons and not because they
00:13:54.600 thought he broke a law?
00:13:55.400 Can't.
00:13:55.800 I could not imagine this.
00:13:57.180 You know, it really is astonishing.
00:13:59.300 So the Department of Justice and FBI handed documents over to the Senate Judiciary Committee,
00:14:03.960 and here's what Fox News has reported about those documents.
00:14:07.240 FBI doubted probable cause for Mar-a-Lago raid, but pushed forward amid pressure from Biden
00:14:12.080 DOJ, emails reveal, quote, very little has been developed related to who might be culpable
00:14:18.080 for mishandling the documents, an FBI official wrote.
00:14:20.760 The FBI did not believe it had probable cause to raid President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago
00:14:27.080 home in 2022, but moved forward amid pressure from the Biden Justice Department, with an
00:14:32.160 official saying he didn't, quote, give a damn about the optics of the search, newly declassified
00:14:38.580 documents reveal.
00:14:41.640 And you have emails between the FBI and the Justice Department in the months leading up
00:14:46.260 to the August 2022 raid of Mar-a-Lago, and FBI officials explicitly expressed concern about
00:14:52.660 a lack of probable cause to execute the search warrant on the president's residence.
00:14:58.860 Quote, very little has been developed related to who might be culpable for mishandling the
00:15:04.080 documents.
00:15:04.560 This is written by an FBI agent serving as the assistant special agent in charge to another
00:15:08.940 FBI official.
00:15:10.360 Quote, from the interviews, the Washington field office has gathered information suggesting
00:15:15.040 that there may be additional boxes, presumably of the same type as were sent back to NARA
00:15:19.700 in January at Mar-a-Lago.
00:15:21.680 The Washington field office has been drafting a search warrant affidavit related to those
00:15:25.400 potential boxes, but has some concerns that the information is single source, has not been
00:15:30.420 corroborated, and may be dated.
00:15:33.760 DOJ CES opines, however, that the search warrant meets the probable cause standard.
00:15:39.900 Quote, even as we continue down a path towards a search warrant, the Washington field office
00:15:44.580 believes that a reasonable conversation with the former president's attorney stating that
00:15:49.440 the FBI and DOJ are readying a search warrant and developed information there may be more
00:15:53.200 documents at Mar-a-Lago ought not to be discounted.
00:15:57.100 At a minimum, even if the former president's attorney is correct and the documents were all
00:16:01.380 declassified or believed to be declassified, it can be reasonably argued that the documents
00:16:07.280 remain sensitive and should be properly secured until the matter of classification is sorted
00:16:11.340 out.
00:16:12.160 This conversation could easily be accomplished at the same time that the Washington field
00:16:16.620 office presses forward with the investigation and continues building out the search warrant.
00:16:21.340 Weeks later, an FBI agent writes in a new email, quote, and this is stunning,
00:16:26.200 we haven't generated any new facts, but keep being given draft after draft after draft.
00:16:33.600 Absent a witness coming forward with recent information about classified on site,
00:16:38.040 At what point is it fair to table this?
00:16:42.320 The agent writes.
00:16:43.940 It is time-consuming for the team and not productive if there are no new facts supporting probable cause.
00:16:53.000 Another email revealed that the FBI's Washington field office, quote,
00:16:58.320 did not believe and has articulated to DOJ CES that we have established probable cause for the search
00:17:04.780 warrant for classified weapons, uh, of classified records at Mar-a-Lago and the response, quote,
00:17:28.640 DOJ has opined that they do have probable cause, requesting a wide scope, including residence,
00:17:34.180 office, storage space, and the FBI also said a raid would be, quote, counterproductive
00:17:40.880 and suggested, quote, alternative, less intrusive, and likely quicker options for resolution
00:17:47.840 to reclaim any potential classified records.
00:17:50.820 This is stunning.
00:17:52.940 I mean, I can't, I don't think you can, you can overstate how stunning this is.
00:17:58.260 The field office, they're saying this is stupid, this is abuse of power in essence,
00:18:03.380 and they're to the point where they're putting it in writing.
00:18:06.360 And by the way, what it means if you don't have probable cause for a search warrant,
00:18:12.040 but you nonetheless engage in the search, the search is illegal.
00:18:17.160 Without probable cause, you don't have a basis for the search.
00:18:21.420 That is justified.
00:18:22.860 And if the FBI is saying it would be illegal to search President Trump's home, apparently
00:18:28.380 the Biden Department of Justice, they were so partisan, their objective was not to actually
00:18:33.960 prosecute a crime.
00:18:35.540 Their objective was to stop the American people from voting for Donald Trump.
00:18:39.420 They were acting as political operatives.
00:18:41.740 And so their view, as one of the officials said, they don't give a damn about the optics.
00:18:46.260 The optics they wanted was President Trump in a mugshot.
00:18:49.600 They got that optic, but it backfired on them, backfired bigly, as President Trump might have
00:18:55.660 said in the first term.
00:18:57.320 But this was a political persecution.
00:19:00.080 And what's stunning is they knew it at the time.
00:19:03.700 Well, let's go to accountability.
00:19:05.240 And this is where some of you are listening and watching this on Facebook or on YouTube are
00:19:12.840 going to want to ask the question that I'm going to ask you now.
00:19:17.240 It's clear abuse of power.
00:19:19.280 Where's the accountability?
00:19:20.320 Because at this point, it's like, we know they did it.
00:19:24.880 We've got the information.
00:19:26.580 We know that they were breaking the law or the rules.
00:19:30.540 And no one seems to be held accountable for this.
00:19:33.480 So in the rest of my lifetime, I have a feeling there's going to be a Democrat that's going
00:19:37.180 to get back in the White House.
00:19:38.520 What then?
00:19:39.400 Why would there be an incentive for them not to abuse their power and go after any other
00:19:43.460 conservatives in the same way?
00:19:44.780 So there wouldn't be an incentive.
00:19:46.620 And look, who knows?
00:19:47.420 It may not be a Democrat in the White House.
00:19:49.480 The Democrat Party may have radicalized so much that maybe the next nominee will be a
00:19:54.100 member of the Turtle Island Liberation Front.
00:19:56.560 I mean, that's how extreme these guys are getting.
00:19:59.660 Look, there has to be accountability.
00:20:01.120 There has to be people who engage in the abuse of power need to be fired.
00:20:04.460 Now, the Trump Department of Justice and FBI have fired a number of people.
00:20:08.580 That's moving in the right direction.
00:20:10.100 But anyone who knew they were participating in an abuse of justice and abuse of power
00:20:15.300 and anyone who knew that it was illegal, let me ask, why was there not anyone who stood
00:20:22.440 up and said, this is not right at the Department of Justice to abuse our power?
00:20:28.120 Why were there no whistleblowers?
00:20:29.460 Why was there no pushback from within DOJ?
00:20:36.780 Let me ask you that question.
00:20:38.120 There's a lot of appointees, and I want to get in the weeds here on this because I do
00:20:41.520 think it's important to paint the picture.
00:20:43.600 When I was in the Bush administration, there are political appointees and there's nonpolitical.
00:20:48.780 There's lifers.
00:20:49.680 There's people that stay in certain positions at the DOJ, for example, at the FBI.
00:20:54.260 They don't change based on the election or who is in the White House or who's in charge
00:20:59.900 of the House or the Senator of Congress in general.
00:21:03.100 Those individuals are the ones that you would hope would stand up here.
00:21:06.740 The problem seems to be that there's either massive fear when the Democrats were in charge
00:21:12.940 that their careers would be over, A, or B, that they just put in so many of their liberal
00:21:18.600 friends that the entire DOJ leadership and those below them that were supposed to be the
00:21:23.700 nonpolitical appointees were actually incredibly partisan.
00:21:27.920 I go back to Peter Strzok and Lisa Page or whatever the hell their names were.
00:21:31.860 I mean, there's two examples of, quote, nonpolitical people that were absolutely political.
00:21:38.260 There are far too many extreme partisans who burrowed into both agencies, the FBI and the
00:21:44.520 Department of Justice.
00:21:45.820 As you know, a book I wrote a few years ago was called Justice Corrupted, How the Left
00:21:51.220 Has Weaponized Our Legal System.
00:21:53.000 And I detailed, this was written at the beginning of the Biden administration, so I did not cover
00:21:58.720 the prosecutions of Trump or the Mar-a-Lago raid because it hadn't happened yet.
00:22:02.880 By the way, how right were you on writing that book?
00:22:05.520 I mean, knowing what happened afterwards.
00:22:07.220 Good grief.
00:22:08.220 And the book starts, chapter one is actually about Watergate.
00:22:11.580 It's about Nixon.
00:22:12.380 And I am not a Richard Nixon fan.
00:22:14.200 I think he was corrupt and dishonest and he abused power.
00:22:18.520 But if you look at one of the things Nixon tried to do is get the Department of Justice
00:22:23.760 and the FBI to go after his political enemies.
00:22:26.940 But at the time, DOJ and the FBI and the IRS, they all resisted.
00:22:32.400 They pushed back and said, no, that's an abuse of our power.
00:22:35.880 We're not going to do that.
00:22:37.940 And what Richard Nixon tried to do, Joe Biden succeeded in doing.
00:22:44.140 Why?
00:22:44.700 Because nobody, not a political, not careers, nobody pushed back effectively and stopped it.
00:22:51.500 And we saw that started with Barack Obama.
00:22:56.440 Barack Obama weaponized the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS.
00:23:01.560 And then when Trump became president, those partisans...
00:23:04.460 And by the way, he was just slicker about it.
00:23:05.380 I do want people to understand that.
00:23:06.680 He was very smart about it compared to the blaze and abuse of power by the Biden administration.
00:23:12.340 But there were...
00:23:13.560 And I want to remind just a couple examples of the abuse of power under Barack Obama.
00:23:19.660 Give us a couple of those highlights so people remember what they did do and how this started a long time ago.
00:23:24.300 And the reason why is, Senator, there were a lot of people that got into the DOJ and the FBI then that were lower in rank
00:23:32.520 who are now running the damn place if you fast forward to the Biden years.
00:23:36.160 Yeah, you look at, I mean, one of the classic examples is Lois Lerner at the IRS. 0.81
00:23:41.300 And the IRS deliberately targeted conservative groups.
00:23:45.220 It targeted Tea Party groups.
00:23:46.820 It went after them.
00:23:47.900 It persecuted them.
00:23:49.600 And the search words, among things they were looking for is any group dedicated to the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.
00:23:56.020 Yeah.
00:23:56.200 And mind you, they didn't mean the ACLU.
00:23:58.680 They didn't mean leftist groups.
00:24:00.320 They meant anyone that was conservative, any pro-Israel groups they targeted.
00:24:05.220 I mean, it was an ideological purge.
00:24:08.660 And it was an ideological purge that the political officials did everything they could to cover up.
00:24:13.580 And ultimately, you know, you look at Eric Holder, who was attorney general, described himself as Barack Obama's wingman.
00:24:23.260 And he ended up being held in contempt of Congress, which was stunning.
00:24:28.120 But it began during the Obama administration when Trump became president.
00:24:34.300 Many of those partisans, they burrowed into senior career positions at the agency.
00:24:39.380 And for four years of the first Trump term, they waged war on Donald Trump from within the agency, trying to overturn the duly elected president, trying to overturn an election.
00:24:50.760 And then when Biden got into power, they came out in the open and they were brazen.
00:24:56.200 And part of the reason Biden was so much worse than Obama is they saw there were no consequences when it happened under Obama, that it worked, that they were able to weaponize the system.
00:25:05.480 And I suspect many good people just left the agencies, and many of those who remained were either they were afraid or they were willing to go along with it.
00:25:17.260 But it's why one of the most important obligations, responsibilities that the Trump DOJ and the Trump FBI have is to restore integrity to those agencies,
00:25:28.540 to go after criminals and bad guys, like terrorists planning to set off bombs in Los Angeles, rather than using it to target political opponents.
00:25:38.320 What will accountability look like specifically on these emails and the people there?
00:25:42.780 And will Congress get involved in this, now seeing this letter, Grassley, etc.?
00:25:48.360 Yeah, look, I would certainly expect we'll see hearings in Congress.
00:25:52.040 I'd like to see the Senate Judiciary Committee hold hearings on this and engage in oversight.
00:25:57.300 This was released by Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
00:26:00.940 So that's beneficial.
00:26:02.940 And, you know, look, I want to commend the Trump Justice Department for handing these emails over.
00:26:07.820 Part of the reason that the Biden DOJ wrote these is because they thought no one would ever know.
00:26:13.440 That they thought Biden was going to be reelected or Kamala Harris was going to be elected.
00:26:18.280 And so this would remain hidden forever.
00:26:20.680 However, what changed the rules is you have a new attorney general and a new FBI director who decided we're going to give this to we're going to show the American people exactly what was going on.
00:26:30.520 That was the right thing to do.
00:26:32.320 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders and the world around them. 0.97
00:26:38.360 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:26:42.280 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:26:43.460 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:26:44.740 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
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00:26:57.420 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:27:01.460 Finally, I want to move to another shocking, breaking news story, and that is if you get rid of people in this country, they're here illegally, then you don't have to compete for them, Senator, for housing. 1.00
00:27:14.980 We have seen the medium age of first time homebuyers, the numbers skyrocket to 40 plus years old, depending on where you live.
00:27:23.780 It's the highest we've seen and certainly in my lifetime and the highest we've seen since World War One, I think, if I looked at the data correctly.
00:27:29.760 That was something that should be very eye-opening.
00:27:33.940 Rental prices have also skyrocketed because, well, you're competing when it comes to renting a home, especially those entry-level homes with tens of millions of illegal immigrants. 1.00
00:27:44.760 We are now finally seeing Donald Trump's deportations and the shutting down of the southern border completely turning into, guess what, lower rent and lower home prices for Americans.
00:27:55.820 Yeah, and look, this is, at the end of the day, very simple economics.
00:28:01.120 And in Economics 101, you learn that prices are determined by two factors, supply and demand.
00:28:09.700 And they're graphed and where they intersect is where the price is.
00:28:14.040 So supply, it's pretty simple to understand.
00:28:16.720 The more of something there is, the lower the price is.
00:28:20.380 If there are a whole bunch of houses, the price of housing goes down.
00:28:25.680 If there are a whole bunch of bananas, the price of bananas go down.
00:28:29.720 But the other thing that determines price is demand.
00:28:32.940 If there are a ton of people that want to buy houses or bananas, the price goes up.
00:28:38.640 And so those two counterbalance each other.
00:28:40.640 And actually, rising prices typically are a market signal that we need more supply.
00:28:46.100 And so if banana prices skyrocket because suddenly people decide they really, really like bananas, you know what's going to happen?
00:28:53.420 People are going to plant more bananas and grow more bananas to meet the demand and the price will fall.
00:28:58.420 Well, what did Joe Biden do?
00:28:59.720 Joe Biden imported, allowed more than 12 million illegal aliens to come into this country.
00:29:06.760 Now, when they came into this country, most of those illegal aliens didn't live in a tent. 0.98
00:29:10.860 They didn't sleep on a park bench.
00:29:12.600 They went and rented an apartment or they rented a house or they bought a house and you bring in 12 million people.
00:29:18.680 That's 12 million people that are trying to rent.
00:29:21.080 And when demand goes up a lot, you end up having prices go up.
00:29:26.200 Now, here's what Scott Besson reported.
00:29:29.500 Scott Besson said that last month, apartment rents fell 1.1 percent compared to the same time last year.
00:29:38.360 And they dropped 5.2 percent compared to the same time period in 2022 when rents had peaked under Joe Biden.
00:29:47.800 And Besson did an interview on Fox Business Channel where he said rents are down and the story of the Biden administration doesn't want to talk about.
00:29:56.540 The mass unfettered immigration that pushed up rents, especially for working Americans. 0.95
00:30:02.720 And he continued to say there's a recent study out from the Wharton School that shows every 1 percent increase in population, rents went up 1 percent.
00:30:14.380 So President Trump, by enforcing the border and sending home more than 2 million illegals, we're now seeing rents coming down substantially.
00:30:23.860 I think that will continue for the rest of the year.
00:30:26.100 We brought down interest rates, and so we brought mortgage rates down, and I think everything else will follow that.
00:30:32.680 That is a major victory.
00:30:34.040 And by the way, it's exactly what President Trump said on the campaign trail, which is that if we deport the illegal aliens that Joe Biden's open borders brought into this country,
00:30:43.900 the result is going to be rents are going to come down and housing is going to be more affordable.
00:30:48.260 We now have the data backing that up.
00:30:50.200 You know, messaging, I think, Senator, is going to be so important going into the midterms.
00:30:54.240 And one of the things I do think we have not messaged well enough on our side is what is about to happen in 2026.
00:31:02.220 And there are laws that were passed in 2025 that are enacted in 2026.
00:31:07.520 You combine what you just said about home prices and what the Treasury Secretary was talking about there with something that's going to have a huge impact on our economy.
00:31:17.240 No tax on tips is coming in this new year.
00:31:20.420 No tax on overtime is coming this year.
00:31:23.320 And no tax on Social Security for seniors is coming.
00:31:27.200 Those are three massive victories that I think many Americans have actually kind of forgotten about that are going to be implemented this year.
00:31:34.640 That's going to have a very big impact on our economy, but also affordability and living.
00:31:40.660 No, that's exactly right.
00:31:42.120 And I've got to say, by the way, for people that make substantial tipped wages or overtime, millions of Americans are going to be entitled to a refund from the IRS starting in January.
00:31:55.220 Starting in just a couple of weeks, they'll be entitled to a refund because of those tax cuts, because of the working family tax cut.
00:32:02.060 And look, the latest mantra of both Democrats and the media, because in many instances they're one and the same, is affordability.
00:32:13.360 Now, affordability, I am certain that that came from a focus group the Democrats put on, that that was a word they could blame and blame on Trump.
00:32:22.740 Affordability, about 12 minutes ago, used to be called two things, jobs and inflation.
00:32:27.020 That's how we used to talk about it.
00:32:29.120 Jobs, we're seeing economic growth, and that is coming from the historic tax cut we passed, and it's coming from President Trump's incredible leadership cutting job-killing regulation.
00:32:40.240 And then inflation, we are seeing inflation coming down, and this is interesting, the HUD Department, the Housing and Urban Development Department, published this month a report, an investigation that concluded Biden's importing of millions of migrants drove up prices for Americans who are low-income but who do not receive public assistance.
00:33:05.200 And here's what the report concluded, quote, one key cause of elevated worst-case needs is immigration.
00:33:12.080 Between 2021 and 2024, the foreign-born population of the United States increased more than 6 million, the largest such increase over such a short period in American history.
00:33:23.900 This immigration-driven increase in households has contributed to a significant increase in housing demand, thus driving up housing prices.
00:33:33.200 In fact, in some markets, immigration has accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand in recent years.
00:33:42.560 That is hurting affordability.
00:33:45.200 Accounting for nearly all. Nearly all.
00:33:47.180 What else do you need to know?
00:33:49.100 Yeah, that's Democrat policies, killed jobs, and drove up inflation.
00:33:53.980 And right now, under common-sense conservative policies, we're seeing jobs come back, and we're making progress, turning around and driving down the Biden inflation that hurt so many Americans.
00:34:06.760 Yeah, it's a great point.
00:34:07.880 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, so hit that subscribe or auto-download button.
00:34:12.480 You can also watch on Facebook and on YouTube as well, so make sure you watch the episodes there if you'd like to do that.
00:34:17.980 And the senator, I will see you back here in a couple of days.
00:34:23.040 All right, let's do the promo. 0.97
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