Verdict with Ted Cruz - FIGHT NIGHT： Why Trump Will Kick Biden's Ass Tonight!

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.

00:00:05.320 Welcome.

00:00:06.100 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.

00:00:09.900 And I got to say, if you're a person that loves the world of politics,

00:00:14.900 even when it can be annoying sometimes, Senator,

00:00:18.260 there is nothing more fun than getting ready for a debate day.

00:00:21.580 And we're finally here.

00:00:23.680 Donald Trump on stage with Joe Biden.

00:00:27.760 Well, that's exactly right.

00:00:28.880 Today is debate day, and we wanted to do a special podcast today.

00:00:32.860 We didn't do Wednesday's pod because we wanted this to come out on the day of the debate.

00:00:36.760 And this is, as Muhammad Ali put it, the rumble in the jungle.

00:00:39.940 This is the debate tonight between Trump and Biden.

00:00:42.860 We're going to break it down.

00:00:43.800 We're going to talk about what to expect.

00:00:45.560 We're going to talk about what each side wants to do, needs to do,

00:00:48.760 and where the media is going to fall out in all of this.

00:00:51.420 We're also going to talk about breaking news that the Department of Homeland Security has announced.

00:00:57.260 They've identified over 400 illegal immigrants brought to the United States by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network.

00:01:07.420 And about 50 of them remain unknown.

00:01:09.660 They don't know where they are.

00:01:10.720 It is frightening, and it underscores the risk of terrorism that every day keeps getting higher and higher and higher under Joe Biden and the Democrats' open borders.

00:01:20.100 Yeah, it's a shocking story, and there are a lot of people that got in through this ISIS network that we're still searching for right now.

00:01:28.600 We're going to break all that down for you.

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00:03:17.580 Senator, I got a lot of questions that I want to ask you about debates.

00:03:22.440 You've done a lot of them.

00:03:24.520 You've been on stage in a debate with Donald Trump.

00:03:27.460 How did you get ready for a debate?

00:03:32.300 And it's, you know, Donald Trump says, hey, I don't do it the traditional way.

00:03:36.340 I'm certainly not going to lock myself away for a week at Camp David and take a lot of naps.

00:03:41.420 He says he's not really a traditional debate prepper.

00:03:45.120 That can be good or bad.

00:03:46.460 It's cost him, I actually think, some debates in the past.

00:03:49.180 So what is your strategy when you get ready?

00:03:52.580 Well, my strategy is, I think, different from a number of people.

00:03:55.580 What I do is I sit down with a team.

00:03:57.660 It's typically a team of somewhere between five and ten people.

00:04:00.640 And I'll spend at least a full day talking through the debate.

00:04:04.580 I don't do a lot of play acting.

00:04:06.560 I don't generally have people that are mock acting as whoever else it is I'm debating.

00:04:13.380 But rather, I have really smart people, often they're Supreme Court lawyers, who are sitting down thinking through, all right, what are the likely questions?

00:04:21.940 What are we going to talk about?

00:04:23.040 What are the topics that are going to come up?

00:04:26.120 Part of it is we start with a meta strategy.

00:04:28.460 What is my objective in this debate?

00:04:30.200 You know, in a presidential debate, particularly in the primaries where you're having a bunch of debates, there are different times when you have different strategies.

00:04:37.600 There's different times when you want to draw a greater contrast with one candidate versus another.

00:04:41.720 And so for debate prep, I'll often start with, all right, what's my objective?

00:04:46.600 A question that I will ask my team over and over again is, what's a win?

00:04:50.440 What do we want the headline to be at the end of the debate?

00:04:53.140 And let's think backwards how we produce that.

00:04:56.040 What is the outcome we want to be?

00:04:58.600 And then we'll talk through who are the moderators?

00:05:01.180 What are the questions that are going to come?

00:05:03.020 And then for me, rather than practicing an answer, I don't want answers to sound rehearsed.

00:05:08.120 I don't want to just stand up and give a set piece.

00:05:10.860 We'll talk instead about, all right, what are the likely questions?

00:05:15.520 And what is the strategy or approach for answers?

00:05:19.580 And we'll go through that at considerable length and talk back and forth about, okay, how is my opponent going to come back after that?

00:05:27.660 And what's the strategy?

00:05:28.760 What do I want my opponent to say?

00:05:30.800 And what's my response to where they're going?

00:05:33.040 And so it will be – it's actually been – for me, debate prep is very much the same way I would prepare for Supreme Court arguments.

00:05:41.240 I would do moots at times, but particularly as I had done more and more Supreme Court arguments, I ended up arguing nine times in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly for the later ones.

00:05:53.640 Rather than actually play-acting out the argument, I would do the same thing.

00:05:59.040 I would talk through with smart strategists where we wanted to go and what we wanted to get done.

00:06:07.460 I love getting ready for debate prep and have gotten to be a part of it several different times at different levels.

00:06:13.680 And I've also seen the candidate that overprepares.

00:06:18.840 How do you make sure you don't do that?

00:06:20.720 Because when you get too many thoughts and too much information and too many lines that, as you described, can sound pre-rehearsed, that I've seen be a disaster for candidates.

00:06:32.020 We've seen this on the national stage in presidential debates before as well.

00:06:36.560 Yeah, that's exactly right.

00:06:37.760 You don't want to be wooden.

00:06:39.500 You don't want to be over-rehearsed.

00:06:41.820 You don't want to come off as over-rehearsed.

00:06:44.040 I think the most notable example of that was in 2016 in the primaries, the New Hampshire debate where Chris Christie went after Marco Rubio.

00:06:55.420 And I was standing there.

00:06:56.940 I was right next to Chris.

00:06:59.000 And, I mean, what Chris did to Marco was as brutal as we've ever seen in any debate because he was going after Marco and accusing him of being a robot.

00:07:07.640 And Marco kept saying the same thing over and over again.

00:07:12.760 And Chris just pounded him for it.

00:07:17.360 And it ended up, I mean, I have to say for the rest of us, we were kind of like, all right, enough, Chris.

00:07:22.780 You know, you're like, you're killing the guy.

00:07:25.780 But it was Marco ran into trouble because he had a set piece that I guess he'd practiced that he repeated, I think, three separate times in a row.

00:07:35.440 And Christie really took advantage of it.

00:07:37.600 That's not something you want to have happen.

00:07:40.660 Now, the good news is I think the chances of Trump doing that are zero.

00:07:44.380 That's not how he prepares for a debate.

00:07:46.520 And I don't think there's any risk of him doing that.

00:07:48.220 Yeah, there's been a lot of this, and let's move to Trump, about, hey, is he getting ready the way that he should be getting ready?

00:07:57.780 He had a weak debate against Joe Biden in the last presidential cycle that some believe may have cost him the White House.

00:08:04.920 He also said in an interesting article in the Washington Examiner, quote,

00:08:09.280 So I've been in 16, 17 debates, Trump answered it in response to a question.

00:08:14.860 He said, quote, I think I've won almost all of them.

00:08:17.440 I did well against Ted Cruz.

00:08:20.360 That would be you.

00:08:21.540 Who is a good debater?

00:08:22.900 All these guys.

00:08:24.080 I became president.

00:08:25.640 Some people say I became president because of these debates.

00:08:28.920 You can't tell until you get up on the stage because it depends on how he comes out.

00:08:35.660 And I think, you know, he's referring, obviously, to Joe Biden.

00:08:39.060 Yeah.

00:08:39.560 Now, look, that's right.

00:08:40.700 And Trump is very loose in debates.

00:08:44.080 He can be all over the place.

00:08:46.740 But but but he tends to punch back.

00:08:48.800 That's his instincts.

00:08:50.560 You know, in terms of how he prepares for debates, particularly now, I think what he does is he does rallies.

00:08:56.440 He goes to rallies and he riffs and he finds themes that that he thinks might work.

00:09:01.080 And he sees how people react.

00:09:02.340 I think a great example of that is the Las Vegas rally he did not too long ago where he rolled out the idea of no taxes on tips.

00:09:11.260 And actually, you know, when when I had lunch with Trump week before last, he talked to talk to me and all the other Republican senators about where that came from.

00:09:21.620 And he said he was sitting in the hotel room right before the rally.

00:09:26.000 And he was having some food and the waitress came up and he said the waitress, he said she was beautiful.

00:09:32.200 She was beautiful.

00:09:33.260 We all believe we all believed him.

00:09:34.900 And he said that she was she was complaining about the burden of of all the record keeping for her tips and that it was really a pain and that she didn't like it.

00:09:45.000 And Trump said he just pull out pulled out a pen and and wrote down no taxes on tips.

00:09:49.420 And and he he told us, he said, look, this didn't come from a white paper.

00:09:53.620 This didn't come from a bunch of tax experts.

00:09:55.740 This just came from the conversation I had with the waitress.

00:09:58.360 And then he said at the rally, I decided to say it.

00:10:01.980 And I said, no taxes on tips.

00:10:03.580 And he said, and they went crazy.

00:10:05.360 They went wild.

00:10:07.000 And I got to say, by the way, I think is a policy proposal that that one is is is political genius.

00:10:13.040 And in fact, so much so that the week after he did it, I drafted legislation and filed legislation to make tips tax free, because I actually agree with the idea strongly.

00:10:25.160 And I think Republicans should be the party of waiters and waitresses and bartenders and barbers and hairstylists and taxi cab drivers and Uber drivers.

00:10:35.560 And we're a blue collar party.

00:10:37.640 And I think no taxes on tips is right at the heart of it, a tax relief proposal that goes goes exactly to the people we're fighting for.

00:10:45.360 But but that's isn't it amazing, by the way, that Trump now two of his biggest things have connected, whether it's 2020 or 2016, we're kind of off the cuff.

00:10:53.320 The build the wall part, which became the center point, the cornerstone of his campaign 16 was the same thing.

00:11:01.060 It was a riff.

00:11:02.360 Yeah.

00:11:02.500 And he talks about that, how at a rally, he'll he'll essentially field test things.

00:11:07.480 He'll put something out and see how people react.

00:11:09.880 And listen, the man has a really strong, instinctual sense of people.

00:11:15.400 Look, I think the proposal of no taxes on tips without exaggeration, I think that policy alone could could win in the state of Nevada.

00:11:24.920 There's an enormous number of casino workers who who get a significant part of their compensation from tips.

00:11:30.960 There's a reason that crowd went wild, because it spoke directly to people who are struggling, who are working towards the American dream.

00:11:37.880 And I think you're right.

00:11:39.220 He did that with build the wall that he tries different riffs and themes.

00:11:42.620 And so I would expect that that same dynamic.

00:11:46.640 You know, it's interesting that that interview you were reading with Byron York, with Trump on debates, there was a portion of it that I thought was was very interesting, which is he talked about the rules of this debate.

00:12:00.020 And here's what Trump said. He said, quote, what they did, I'm pretty sure, is that they approached me with a debate that I couldn't take.

00:12:07.940 Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, whom Trump referred to as fake Tapper in the interview.

00:12:14.440 No audience sitting down, originally sitting down a dead debate.

00:12:18.580 Turn off the mics when you're not speaking.

00:12:20.040 So I can't interrupt him.

00:12:21.560 They knew I wouldn't accept that because it was CNN.

00:12:24.260 It was Dana Bash, Jake Tapper.

00:12:25.940 And I like an audience and probably he doesn't.

00:12:28.100 Who knows? So so they thought they would present it.

00:12:31.540 I would say no.

00:12:33.020 And then they would say we can't debate because Trump said no.

00:12:37.040 So I said yes before they even gave me the terms.

00:12:40.720 So he got roped into it.

00:12:42.860 All right. I agree with every word of what Trump just said there.

00:12:45.780 And it's interesting.

00:12:46.700 Listen, I think this this debate, every one of these rules is stacked to be against Trump.

00:12:53.460 The fact that it is in a studio with no audience, Trump feeds off an audience.

00:12:57.620 He plays to an audience.

00:12:59.500 Biden's terrified by an audience.

00:13:00.900 There's a reason he turns out six people to his events.

00:13:03.640 So that favors him.

00:13:05.080 CNN, Tapper and Bash are going to come after Trump relentlessly.

00:13:10.440 It's not going to be Trump versus Biden.

00:13:12.680 It is going to be Trump versus Biden and CNN. 0.99

00:13:16.280 And and and then the turning off the mics bit really is garbage. 0.91

00:13:21.660 It's it's because Biden can't actually handle real conflict in the debate. 0.54

00:13:27.580 And so he's asked CNN, please stop mean Mr. Trump from from saying anything when I'm talking.

00:13:35.220 And listen, all of that skews towards Biden.

00:13:38.080 But I also agree with with Trump's instinct, which is if he had pushed back, the Biden team desperately wanted to get out of this debate.

00:13:45.460 They wanted to cancel it.

00:13:46.540 And so they wanted to propose rules that that that were so skewed, Trump would push back and they could say, oh, it was Trump who canceled the debate.

00:13:54.520 Yes, we can't have it.

00:13:55.860 And so I completely agree with the decision.

00:13:58.320 Fine.

00:13:59.040 You get all the rules.

00:14:00.240 It's skewed for you.

00:14:01.560 We're going to have a debate.

00:14:02.600 And listen, I'm going to make a prediction right now. 0.99

00:14:05.300 My prediction is tonight, Donald Trump is going to kick Joe Biden's ass in this debate is how's he going to do that? 0.99

00:14:14.380 And I want to go back to 16, for example. 0.99

00:14:17.660 You know, he was on defense a lot.

00:14:19.660 He enjoyed that aspect of the debates.

00:14:22.540 I think at some point when he felt like, OK, I'm the front runner and everybody's coming at me on the left and the right of the stage.

00:14:27.940 Then in the last presidential debates that he was involved with, he was on defense because of COVID and the economy and inflation and things that were happening.

00:14:38.260 And this time he's not on defense.

00:14:41.040 He can absolutely go on offense.

00:14:43.040 But does he have to be careful about his demeanor?

00:14:45.700 Does he need to philosophically get the audience from point A to point B and kind of tone it down a little bit and make it clear?

00:14:53.920 Hey, look, I'm I'm running because people are hurting and people that were not hurting when I left office are now hurting.

00:15:01.940 Is that a strategy that he should implement?

00:15:04.420 What what should his demeanor be?

00:15:06.540 Yeah, look, I think it is very important that that that he be toned down, that he not come in with a chainsaw.

00:15:15.260 And if you look at the first debate in 2020, the first debate in 2020, he came out swinging.

00:15:22.760 He was attacking.

00:15:23.660 He was relentless.

00:15:24.700 And I think the consequence of it is he bailed Joe Biden out.

00:15:28.960 Joe Biden was not doing well, but Trump interrupted so much that that it actually gave Biden an excuse just to shut up and let Trump be super aggressive.

00:15:38.840 And particularly when Biden's answers are not very good, you've got to give him a chance to give him and give him the rope to hang himself.

00:15:47.600 And it's interesting in this same interview Trump did with Byron York, he addresses this.

00:15:52.700 So Byron York asks him, says, quote, a lot of people thought in the first debate with Biden that you were somewhat over amped, that you just went after him too much.

00:16:02.500 Trump responds that I interrupted him.

00:16:05.100 Yeah, I think.

00:16:05.960 And Byron York says, do you agree with that?

00:16:07.720 And here's what Trump said.

00:16:09.680 Hmm, huh.

00:16:11.200 Then after a short pause, he defended the interruptions before conceding that, yes, there were too many.

00:16:16.320 Quote, he lies so much, Trump said.

00:16:19.240 He's going on.

00:16:20.260 Everything he says is a lie.

00:16:21.500 So I would call him, call him because calling him out two minutes later is very tough because, you know, it's a lie.

00:16:26.820 It's a lie.

00:16:27.300 Everything's a lie.

00:16:28.160 I've never seen anything like it.

00:16:29.820 So when I would interrupt, it looked like I agree, though.

00:16:32.720 The second debate, I handled it much differently and got very good marks.

00:16:35.820 And so, look, I understand he was in the attack mode and that's fine.

00:16:41.320 But it ended up bailing Biden out.

00:16:45.000 I also agree with his comment there that Trump was much more effective in the second debate against Biden than in the first.

00:16:51.400 And what I hope we see tonight is that Trump very calmly lays out the facts that Biden has screwed everything up, that Biden inherited peace and prosperity.

00:17:05.480 And that right now inflation is hammering working people, that right now the economy, people are hurting, that right now crime is rising far too high, that right now the border is in absolute chaos and people are dying and it's the worst in history.

00:17:21.360 That on foreign policy, when Biden came into office, Donald Trump had just finished signing the Abraham Accords.

00:17:29.000 We had peace in the Middle East.

00:17:30.180 We now have two simultaneous wars.

00:17:33.340 And what I hope that Trump does is simply lay out the facts that on almost every measure, the American people were better off when Trump was president than when Biden is president.

00:17:47.120 And I think those facts are strong enough that he doesn't need to beat Biden over the head with tone or rhetoric.

00:17:55.780 I'd let the facts do the work and force Biden to defend himself.

00:18:00.320 I would also try very much to surprise Biden, to cause him, to ask him questions, to challenge him, not in a yelling manner.

00:18:12.120 And because his microphone will be turned off if he doesn't have the podium, that will be limited.

00:18:16.840 But to challenge him very directly, to ask him questions that he can't give a set memorized answer to, because I think Biden's prep team is giving him lots and lots of set memorized answers.

00:18:30.380 They're trying to feed him substance that he can just regurgitate.

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00:19:04.260 Final question on this.

00:19:07.520 What do you think is the top maybe one, two, three subjects that Donald Trump has to make sure that he spends quality time on?

00:19:19.120 And I may shock you on this one.

00:19:22.060 You may disagree.

00:19:23.220 I think there's certain issues that you don't spend a lot of time on.

00:19:26.600 For example, I don't think you spend that much time on the Biden crime family because I think you can get into the weeds and waste valuable time talking to the average American that might not care that much about that compared to the economy or an open border or fentanyl coming across the southern border.

00:19:43.900 The list goes on and on.

00:19:46.240 Yeah, look, I agree with that.

00:19:47.720 There's lots of concerning evidence about Biden corruption, but I think a lot of voters are not following that very closely.

00:19:55.360 Those that are know about it.

00:19:56.620 The rest, I don't think, are going to be persuaded by it.

00:19:58.720 I would have just about every comment Trump makes be about how your life is different.

00:20:07.580 Look, the classic question in any election is, are you better off today than you were four years ago?

00:20:14.920 And on almost every metric, the answer is clear for the vast majority of Americans.

00:20:21.120 Things were better when Trump was president than now.

00:20:24.180 And so I would have it.

00:20:25.920 I would have immigration front and center.

00:20:27.580 I think it is quite likely that Trump is going to talk about Jocelyn Nungary, the 12-year-old beautiful girl who was assaulted and murdered in Houston just a few days ago by two illegal immigrants Joe Biden released.

00:20:44.740 I think he's going to talk about Rachel Morin, the beautiful mother of five who was raped and murdered in suburban Maryland by illegal immigrants that Joe Biden released. 0.96

00:20:53.980 I think he's going to talk about the 13-year-old girl just a few days ago who was raped in a public park in New York by an illegal immigrant that Joe Biden released.

00:21:02.720 And I think he's going to talk or he should talk about the eight suspected terrorists, ISIS-K terrorists from Tajikistan who were just arrested on suspicion of a terrorist attack, a plot, and again, who Joe Biden released.

00:21:18.340 And I hope he walks systematically through one after the other after the other.

00:21:24.720 You know, you look at how on defense, how unprepared Biden was for Lake and Riley during the State of the Union, where his defense during the State of the Union was, well, an illegal killed her.

00:21:37.640 Well, legals kill people, too. 1.00

00:21:39.500 You know, if that's Biden's defense, that's not going to go well.

00:21:42.260 You know, and given how horrific the facts are here, I think Trump, you know, there's an old line in a court of law, which is if you have the facts, you bang the facts.

00:21:55.240 If you have the law, you bang the law.

00:21:58.260 If you have neither, you bang the table.

00:22:02.320 There's some truth to that.

00:22:03.840 But the facts of just how bad Biden's record is are so compelling that Trump doesn't need to be overstated.

00:22:13.440 And in fact, in the same interview, he went on a little bit more and he said, quote,

00:22:18.440 I was very aggressive in the first one, talk about the 2020 debate with Biden.

00:22:23.480 The second one, I was different.

00:22:25.160 And I got great marks on the second one.

00:22:27.280 It was a little unfair because in the second one, a lot of votes had already been cast.

00:22:31.400 So I'm probably going to look at the scene at the time.

00:22:34.400 It's like a fight.

00:22:35.320 It depends on what the situation is.

00:22:37.860 And so I think I hope he's going to try more to emulate how he how he conducted the second debate.

00:22:46.220 I think he was much stronger in the second debate.

00:22:48.740 And I think you asked what topics that Trump is going to be sure to raise.

00:22:55.300 And that's actually when you asked me before, Ben, about preparing for debates.

00:22:59.180 Because when I thought about a Supreme Court argument, I would always come up with a list of what I call must raise points.

00:23:06.380 And they're typically three to five points.

00:23:08.200 And my test for it was if when the argument was done and I sat down, if this point had not come out of my mouth, would I be pissed?

00:23:19.140 Would I be kicking myself saying, how did I get through this oral argument and not make this point?

00:23:23.580 Because it is critical. It is why we should prevail in the Supreme Court argument.

00:23:28.860 I would think about debates the same way.

00:23:31.280 And when I prepare for them, I do.

00:23:33.380 I think about, all right, what are the substantive points that more than anything else,

00:23:39.160 I want people at the end of the debate to remember and to say this is what the election is all about.

00:23:45.100 So I think immigration is going to be a huge part about it.

00:23:49.120 I think it's the biggest issue in this election.

00:23:51.540 I think inflation and the economy is right behind it.

00:23:54.680 And I think people are really unhappy with inflation and the economy.

00:23:57.760 And I think, I hope, Trump does a good job of laying out, for example,

00:24:02.460 the connection of energy and the Biden administration's war on American energy and why that's driving inflation.

00:24:09.720 I think that's a very powerful point.

00:24:11.100 And then I also think on foreign policy, look, Trump is going to point out,

00:24:15.840 what is it with Democrats and forever wars that when Trump was president, he got us out of a war.

00:24:21.500 He defeated ISIS and ended the war.

00:24:24.260 And Joe Biden gets into office and he goes from peace and prosperity to the biggest war in Europe since World War II

00:24:33.180 and the worst war in the Middle East in 50 years.

00:24:35.460 And objectively, the whole world is on fire.

00:24:38.100 And I think Biden, Biden has a lot of hubris, a lot of arrogance.

00:24:43.900 He thinks he's a foreign policy expert.

00:24:46.740 And I think Trump making the point that, that, Joe, you've screwed the entire world up,

00:24:53.880 that there has not been a president who's messed foreign policy up this badly since Jimmy Carter.

00:24:59.800 I think that will drive Biden crazy.

00:25:02.520 And as a point, I really hope Trump makes.

00:25:04.220 There's another debate that's going to take place outside of the Trump, the Biden debate.

00:25:11.680 And that is the debate that could happen with CNN and the commentators.

00:25:15.760 The two people that have been chosen are huge hacks that cannot stand Donald Trump.

00:25:22.900 The evidence, here it is.

00:25:24.740 The dehumanizing rhetoric of Adolf Hitler is once again alive and well on a national political stage.

00:25:32.020 This time, of course, in the United States.

00:25:34.580 This time given life by former president and current Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump.

00:25:39.920 If you were to open up a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf,

00:25:43.880 you would find the Nazi leader describing the mixing of non-Germans with Germans as poisoning.

00:25:50.420 There's really no other way to say it.

00:25:51.960 Donald Trump's language mirrors this directly.

00:25:55.640 Longstanding anti-Semitic trope that the true allegiance for Jews is to their religion rather than their country.

00:26:02.900 It was used in Nazi Germany to justify the arrests, persecutions and mass killings, attempted extermination of the Jewish people.

00:26:10.600 And Trump has been pushing this trope for years.

00:26:12.660 Those are your two moderators of the debate, Senator.

00:26:19.560 And look, I worked with Dana.

00:26:21.700 I've done presidential debates with Dana.

00:26:24.160 I've done pre- and post-election coverage, convention coverage, debate coverage with her and with Jake Tapper.

00:26:33.220 I witnessed it for seven years behind the scenes.

00:26:36.700 They both hate Trump.

00:26:38.440 They both hate conservatives.

00:26:40.460 This is normal.

00:26:41.600 There's no way this is going to be a fair fight.

00:26:44.200 How would you deal with it?

00:26:46.240 Yeah, look, they're going to come after him relentlessly.

00:26:48.600 You're right.

00:26:49.280 I've done lots and lots of interviews with both Jake and Dana.

00:26:54.540 I've done presidential debates with Jake and Dana.

00:26:57.280 They're going to come in with an agenda.

00:26:58.700 You know, it's ironic the portion you raised.

00:27:01.700 You look at right now where all of the vicious anti-Semitism is coming from, and it's the left.

00:27:07.200 It's the radical left that are protesting on campus.

00:27:09.640 It's the squad.

00:27:10.840 It's the Democrat Party.

00:27:11.940 And yet, in CNN world, it's Trump that is anti-Semitic.

00:27:18.120 And it's just – it is – they're coming in with a clear agenda.

00:27:22.660 I don't expect them to ask difficult questions.

00:27:25.320 Biden, I expect them to go after relentlessly.

00:27:27.680 I think they're obsessed with January 6th.

00:27:30.520 I think you're going to get multiple questions about January 6th.

00:27:33.340 They're going to try to prosecute them January 6th.

00:27:36.280 I also – we've seen CNN is obsessed with the trials.

00:27:39.900 I think you're going to get questions about Gene Carroll.

00:27:42.240 I think you're going to get questions about Stormy Daniels.

00:27:44.380 By the way, none of which matters to an American family who's worried about putting food on the table, who's worried about keeping their kids safe.

00:27:54.160 But CNN is not trying to ask questions that are helpful for a voter to decide whom to vote for.

00:28:02.960 Instead – and when I said Trump should be overstated, I meant really with respect to Biden.

00:28:08.580 If CNN acts like you and I both think they're going to act, which is as wild-eyed partisans, I think Trump should be perfectly fine just calling them out on it.

00:28:21.100 And they're so thin-skinned.

00:28:23.480 They're so sensitive.

00:28:25.680 You know, it was really striking this week when you had a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign on CNN, and she was laying out both Jake and Dana's long history of antagonism to Trump.

00:28:37.500 And CNN ended the interview.

00:28:39.600 They're like, no, no, I'm not going to let you talk badly about my colleagues.

00:28:42.360 We're done.

00:28:43.120 You can't say that.

00:28:45.060 And I've got to say, Ben, when a so-called journalistic outlet censors what you say and says, you can't criticize us.

00:28:55.540 We are beyond criticism.

00:28:57.800 That's not journalism.

00:28:59.160 And I think they are really thin-skinned, and I think we're going to see that tonight.

00:29:04.420 Yeah, no doubt about it.

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00:31:02.640 Senator, I want to move to another shocking story.

00:31:07.080 And it is one that I wish I could say I didn't think we would see.

00:31:14.440 Unfortunately, you predicted it.

00:31:16.280 We've talked about it, that this was going to keep happening.

00:31:19.220 This one, though, is extremely concerning.

00:31:22.300 The Department of Homeland Security has identified now, quote, over 400 migrants brought to the U.S.

00:31:29.200 by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network.

00:31:33.780 And now they are desperately trying to find people they had caught and released.

00:31:40.620 Now, over 150 of them have been arrested.

00:31:43.080 But the whereabouts of over 50 remain unknown.

00:31:48.760 Your reaction?

00:31:49.660 Look, this is a shocking story that in some ways is not shocking because we know that this administration, that Joe Biden and the Democrats have effectively rolled out the red carpet and with open borders have given an invitation to terrorists to come into the country.

00:32:06.300 But even so, the degree of naivete and reckless disregard for the safety of Americans is remarkable.

00:32:15.200 So here's the story according to NBC, and I'm just going to quote NBC, quote, the Department of Homeland Security has identified over 400 immigrants from Central Asia and elsewhere who crossed into the U.S.

00:32:27.400 in the past three years as subjects of concern because they were brought by an ISIS-affiliated human smuggling network.

00:32:35.900 Three U.S. officials tell NBC News, while over 150 of them have been arrested, the whereabouts of over 50 remain unknown, the officials said.

00:32:44.900 And Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to arrest them on immigration charges when they are located.

00:32:50.960 One of the U.S. officials and people said people affiliated with ISIS are operating as human smugglers in Central Asia and helping people there leave their countries and travel to the West where they are smuggled into the U.S.

00:33:05.160 It is not known whether the human smuggling activity directly funds ISIS activities or whether ISIS members are making personal money through human smuggling on the side, the U.S. official said.

00:33:17.180 The official added that the U.S. has no indication that the more than 400 migrants brought to the U.S. by the network had plans to carry out terrorism in the U.S., but immigration agents are looking to arrest them out of an abundance of caution.

00:33:33.320 And here's a quote from from the Biden administration, quote, in this case, it was the information that suggested a potential tie to ISIS because some of the individuals involved in smuggling migrants to the borders that led us to want to take extra care.

00:33:48.420 And out of an abundance of caution, make sure that we exercised our authority in the most expansive and appropriate way to mitigate risk because of this potential connection being made.

00:33:58.980 Now, that's the quote.

00:34:00.520 And what utter and complete garbage out of an abundance of caution. 0.96

00:34:04.800 Yeah, we let 400 people go that ISIS had smuggled into the country because we're so cautious. 0.97

00:34:09.500 And then we realized, wait a second, there's an election.

00:34:13.080 There's an election coming up in five months.

00:34:14.860 And all these people that ISIS smuggled in, if they carry out a terrorist attack and people realize we let them go, that's going to be a real problem. 0.99

00:34:22.160 Oh, crap. 0.96

00:34:22.560 Does anyone know where they are? 1.00

00:34:23.880 Like, like what an insane statement?

00:34:28.400 Well, and not just insane, but it's also interesting to see now how the media is covering this.

00:34:33.500 NBC Nightly News actually ran this on the Nightly News and called it an NBC investigation.

00:34:41.720 Listen.

00:34:42.460 Tonight, NBC News has learned more than 50 migrants with potential ties to an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network are at large in America.

00:34:51.380 Many illegally crossed the border and were released into the U.S. by Border Patrol because there was no information suggesting terror ties at the time.

00:34:59.000 Now, their whereabouts are unknown as immigration agents look to arrest them.

00:35:03.500 U.S. officials tell us, saying they're among a group of over 400 migrants DHS identified in the U.S. from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Russia as subjects of concern because they were brought to the U.S. by an ISIS-affiliated smuggling network, something the FBI director warned about earlier this year.

00:35:24.320 Some of the overseas facilitators of the smuggling network have ISIS ties that we're very concerned about.

00:35:31.020 ICE has located and arrested over 150 of the 400 migrants so far, with some already deported from the U.S., officials say.

00:35:39.240 Adding authorities are not panicking because their ties to ISIS are not certain, but they're prioritizing their arrest out of an abundance of caution.

00:35:47.020 The problem is the volume of people coming across the southern border, individuals from ISIS and other affiliated groups, have recognized it as a weak point in our defense, and they're using this opportunity to try to sneak in.

00:36:02.420 NBC News was first to report on a similar arrest of a Uzbek man in Baltimore whose country alerted the U.S. he was affiliated with ISIS.

00:36:10.240 That man, like the others apprehended so far, was arrested on immigration charges, not terrorism-related charges.

00:36:17.380 ISIS-K has claimed responsibility for deadly terror attacks in Russia and Iran in the past year.

00:36:23.140 And recently, the DHS inspector general sharply criticizing vetting at the U.S. southern border, saying DHS is at risk of admitting dangerous persons into the country or enabling asylum seekers who may pose significant threats to public safety and national security to continue to reside in the United States.

00:36:41.760 Two senior law enforcement officials told NBC News they are not tracking a terror plot from this group of migrants, but their arrest on immigration charges come out of an abundance of caution.

00:36:51.720 Lester?

00:36:51.980 They sure do like that word, Senator, abundance of caution.

00:36:55.440 I also love in there that one line that really just made me laugh is, quote, authorities are, quote, not panicking.

00:37:03.560 Really?

00:37:04.160 That's supposed to make me feel better?

00:37:06.420 Well, remarkably, though, what they're not panicking about is not the actual public safety threat.

00:37:13.620 It's not keeping Americans safe.

00:37:15.720 It's the political exposure.

00:37:18.020 They're freaked out because there's an election in a few months.

00:37:21.520 And they realize, oh, no, this could look really bad for us.

00:37:25.780 It has been the consistent pattern of this White House that they do not prioritize national security.

00:37:32.900 Everything, everything, everything is partisan politics.

00:37:36.340 And, okay, what I'm about to say, it's not hyperbole.

00:37:40.460 It is accurate. 0.80

00:37:41.060 Day after day, week after week, month after month, for three and a half years, Joe Biden and the Democrats have released illegal immigrants who are murderers, who are rapists, who are child molesters, who are gang members, and who are being smuggled in by ISIS-K. 0.79

00:38:02.360 A known terrorist organization, and they're letting them go.

00:38:08.740 They're letting them go.

00:38:10.160 The 400 notice, notice in that NBC report, they said they were released by the Biden administration.

00:38:15.300 So we apprehended them.

00:38:17.080 Said, oh, look, ISIS-K bringing someone in. 0.99

00:38:19.300 All right, let's let them go.

00:38:20.120 Like, that is, it defies words.

00:38:27.480 And if there were not an election in five months, I don't think the Biden administration would be doing anything at all about it.

00:38:33.380 This is all about cover it up until after election day, and then we can let them go again.

00:38:39.180 And I don't get, actually, I do not understand the thought process.

00:38:45.080 If you're Alejandro Mayorkas, help me on this, Ben, seriously.

00:38:49.260 If you're Alejandro Mayorkas, you're like, hey, 400 people ISIS-K smuggled in. 0.77

00:38:53.420 Should we let them go?

00:38:55.040 Like, what is, how do the brain synapses fire for your answer to be, yep, let them go?

00:39:01.540 Yeah, and the scary part is, I think they just say, this is just part of the, you've got to take the bad with the good.

00:39:08.420 And their definition of good is letting millions in.

00:39:10.920 So, hey, we know there's going to be bad actors in those millions.

00:39:13.740 We can't check them all out fast enough as we're allowing them to flood into this country. 1.00

00:39:18.260 So, that's just our policy.

00:39:20.400 There may be terrorists to get in here.

00:39:22.160 Oh, wait, there are terrorists to get in here.

00:39:23.740 We know there's people on the terrorist watch list, and we're just going to do it anyway.

00:39:27.000 But right before the election, we're going to clean it up a little bit and look like we're being proactive.

00:39:32.340 I've said this multiple times, but I very much believe it.

00:39:35.520 We are today at a greater risk of a major terrorist attack than we have been any time since September 11th.

00:39:42.500 And the director of the FBI has been saying that over and over and over again in congressional testimony.

00:39:50.180 What the FBI is looking at, I'm confident, is even worse than what we're talking about.

00:39:55.680 And that is the direct consequence of utterly reckless policies of open borders.

00:40:04.060 And to tie this to what we started at the beginning, I think this should be front and center what Trump is talking about tonight at the debate.

00:40:12.660 I was going to ask you, that was going to be my final question for you, is if CNN doesn't bring it up, do you force the issue?

00:40:19.360 Because I have a feeling they're going to be playing defense for Joe Biden.

00:40:23.460 So does the president go all in on these type of issues, even if they don't bring them up?

00:40:28.320 Yes. Yes, absolutely. Yes.

00:40:30.920 Bring it up no matter what. I love it.

00:40:33.260 We're going to be obviously giving you guys a lot of reaction to the debate.

00:40:37.600 Don't worry, we'll be doing that.

00:40:39.740 As you know, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and we do a weekend review on Saturday for what you may have missed during the week.

00:40:46.240 Make sure you hit that subscribe or auto download button.

00:40:50.080 Share this podcast, please, wherever you are on social media.

00:40:54.020 And on those in-between days, grab my podcast, the Ben Ferguson podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

00:40:59.780 And there's Senator and I will see you after, obviously, the debate.

00:41:03.760 Enjoy watching it.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 27, 2024

FIGHT NIGHT： Why Trump Will Kick Biden's Ass Tonight!

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