Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 06, 2021


#FreeBritney


Episode Stats


Length

40 minutes

Words per minute

159.61273

Word count

6,435

Sentence count

411

Harmful content

Misogyny

26

sentences flagged

Toxicity

28

sentences flagged

Hate speech

15

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Ted Cruz and Michael Knowles discuss why Britney Spears should be free of a mental health conservatorship, and why it s a bad idea. They also debate whether or not Spears should have been able to make her own decisions.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.480 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.460 The Department of Justice is suing the state of Georgia
00:00:07.640 over its voting rights law.
00:00:10.000 There is a new voting rights law up for discussion
00:00:12.640 named after the late Congressman John Lewis.
00:00:16.220 There's a major court case
00:00:17.920 that the Supreme Court refused to hear
00:00:19.780 on whether or not there's a constitutional right
00:00:22.300 for men to use the women's bathroom. 1.00
00:00:24.600 But there is one legal issue on the mind of America
00:00:28.520 before any of the others.
00:00:30.980 That, of course, would be when will we hashtag
00:00:34.640 free Britney Spears.
00:00:36.940 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.
00:00:44.060 Welcome back to Verdict.
00:00:45.420 I'm Michael Knowles.
00:00:47.120 Oops, I did it again. 0.78
00:00:49.280 I did not lead with the most important story
00:00:52.560 and one that I really want to get into.
00:00:54.080 Senator, so good to be with you to touch on
00:00:56.580 all the important legal issues of the day.
00:00:58.980 Well, if there's anything this podcast is known for,
00:01:02.020 it is focusing on the issues
00:01:04.600 that will determine the fate of the republic.
00:01:06.640 And so I'm glad we can continue in that tradition today.
00:01:09.140 In that case, Senator, hit me baby one more time. 0.92
00:01:12.720 I want to know what the real details are of this case.
00:01:16.200 I actually, I'm only being half facetious here
00:01:18.740 because we've seen this pop up in the culture.
00:01:21.960 Every now and again, you'll see the hashtag
00:01:23.620 free Britney movement.
00:01:26.120 She's under a conservatorship.
00:01:28.600 You know, a lot of us grew up with her
00:01:30.700 as a very important figure,
00:01:32.460 especially the young men out there.
00:01:33.620 She occupied a lot of space in our minds.
00:01:35.740 And she's been under this conservatorship for some time.
00:01:38.500 So she doesn't appear to have any real legal rights.
00:01:41.560 I read somewhere that she has a birth control device 1.00
00:01:44.740 that her doctors will not remove
00:01:47.640 and that her family will not allow her to remove.
00:01:50.220 I mean, this seems like, in some cases,
00:01:52.500 the stuff you hear about in communist China,
00:01:54.860 and yet that's permitted to go on here.
00:01:56.800 So do you know anything about this
00:01:59.420 or, you know, conservatorships more generally
00:02:01.560 and how people can be deprived of their civil rights?
00:02:03.980 So I will say this,
00:02:05.200 this may be an illustration
00:02:06.820 of something of a generational divide,
00:02:09.180 whereas you grew up with Britney Spears on your wall.
00:02:14.440 I was more of a Farrah Fawcett guy,
00:02:16.180 but, you know, the decades have a way of passing on.
00:02:20.540 So I will readily confess,
00:02:22.340 I am no expert in Britney Spears' music.
00:02:25.800 That was not particularly my cup of tea.
00:02:28.680 But I got to say,
00:02:30.180 on the question of the conservatorship,
00:02:33.840 I am squarely and unequivocally in the camp
00:02:37.100 of free Britney. 0.99
00:02:39.020 I think this is frigging ridiculous, 0.98
00:02:42.140 what is happening to Britney Spears 0.98
00:02:43.720 and a need stand.
00:02:44.700 Can you tell me any,
00:02:46.700 I don't even really understand the idea
00:02:48.340 of the conservatorship more broadly.
00:02:50.180 I understand if someone has personal troubles,
00:02:52.740 then someone else can be designated
00:02:54.560 to make legal decisions for them.
00:02:56.120 But how broad is it?
00:02:57.480 Because just knowing what I read in the newspapers,
00:02:59.920 it seems deeply un-American.
00:03:02.180 It seems deeply wrong.
00:03:03.280 What is happening to this woman? 1.00
00:03:04.820 So it is incredibly broad.
00:03:07.040 And look, there are various steps in the law
00:03:09.840 that an individual can forfeit,
00:03:12.600 their freedom, their liberty. 1.00
00:03:15.520 If you're seriously mentally ill, 0.74
00:03:18.340 you can be involuntarily committed. 0.83
00:03:20.160 But for you to be involuntarily committed,
00:03:22.420 you've got to be typically a danger to yourself
00:03:24.680 or a danger to others.
00:03:25.580 And that's got to be demonstrated.
00:03:27.580 It varies state by state,
00:03:29.400 but usually with a pretty high evidentiary standard
00:03:31.480 for your freedom to be taken away from you
00:03:33.940 and you to be incapacitated.
00:03:35.500 A conservatorship is similar to that.
00:03:37.480 The demonstration under California law
00:03:41.400 for a conservatorship to be entered into,
00:03:43.240 for someone else to have the ability
00:03:45.340 to make life decisions for you,
00:03:47.040 either about you, your person, your health,
00:03:49.640 like what you can do with your life,
00:03:51.280 or your finances.
00:03:55.080 The threshold is quite high
00:03:56.520 and they're typically used for people
00:03:58.280 who are very, very elderly,
00:04:00.180 for people whose faculty have lost them.
00:04:02.540 If you have, say, Alzheimer's
00:04:03.860 and you're no longer able to care for yourself,
00:04:06.600 then there's a role for a conservatorship.
00:04:08.340 If you have someone whose mental capacity is not there.
00:04:12.000 What is bizarre about what happened to Britney Spears
00:04:14.660 is she's a 39-year-old woman.
00:04:18.200 She's a mother of two.
00:04:19.880 She, you know, has she had issues in life?
00:04:24.780 Sure.
00:04:25.680 Has she had issues with mental illness?
00:04:28.800 Perhaps.
00:04:29.260 I don't know.
00:04:29.740 I'm not her doctor.
00:04:30.540 I haven't seen that demonstrated.
00:04:31.960 Has she had issues with substance abuse?
00:04:35.060 So, you know, she's been to rehab,
00:04:36.460 but I got to say,
00:04:37.940 if you're going to lock up everyone in Hollywood
00:04:41.000 who's had substance abuse issues,
00:04:43.060 you're going to have a long, long line.
00:04:46.100 And in fact, Sunset Boulevard might be empty.
00:04:50.360 That's true.
00:04:50.900 Real estate prices would plummet.
00:04:52.340 It'd be great.
00:04:52.960 So the threshold, it is bizarre.
00:04:57.160 And this conservatorship, it happened in 2008.
00:05:00.740 It happened while she was in the midst of
00:05:05.080 and coming out of a nasty custody dispute
00:05:07.820 with her ex-husband over her kids. 0.69
00:05:09.440 Look, custody disputes get ugly.
00:05:11.500 And she had had an incident.
00:05:12.880 You know, she went and took an umbrella to a paparazzi. 0.99
00:05:16.360 Now, listen, you know,
00:05:18.240 I don't know any of us that would react well
00:05:21.240 to people hounding you every moment you go outside,
00:05:26.120 when you go to the 7-Eleven,
00:05:28.940 when you go to the grocery store,
00:05:29.940 when you do anything,
00:05:30.700 people taking pictures,
00:05:31.660 constantly being in your face.
00:05:33.080 You know, I'm reminded of the scene in The Untouchables,
00:05:39.700 to use a movie example,
00:05:40.940 where Al Capone, played beautifully by De Niro,
00:05:45.520 gets mad at a photographer and grabs the camera
00:05:47.960 and breaks it.
00:05:49.820 Like that reaction, while perhaps not the best reaction,
00:05:55.920 is an incredibly human and understandable reaction.
00:05:59.360 And the idea that,
00:06:02.520 and so, all right, she shaved her head.
00:06:05.240 Okay, last I checked,
00:06:06.460 shaving your head is not a capital offense.
00:06:09.160 She had pretty hair,
00:06:10.260 but who the hell's business
00:06:11.080 that is if she wants to shave her head or not? 0.52
00:06:13.300 The threshold for taking away
00:06:17.400 someone's liberty and capacity to make decisions
00:06:20.200 properly under the law is very high,
00:06:23.200 and it should be high.
00:06:24.340 And at this point, we're looking at, what,
00:06:26.940 13 years of a grown woman
00:06:30.260 having every decision made by her father.
00:06:34.560 Now, it might even be a different story
00:06:38.080 if her father had been a caring,
00:06:40.080 nurturing figure throughout her life,
00:06:41.900 had helped her through a career,
00:06:43.560 was someone who had demonstrated enormous love for her.
00:06:46.620 As best I can tell from her history,
00:06:48.620 her father was out of her life
00:06:50.960 for much of the period of her life,
00:06:53.140 had his own drinking problems,
00:06:56.040 his own issues,
00:06:57.080 as she was rising up as a pop star.
00:06:59.960 And then when she got super rich,
00:07:02.100 just kind of parachuted in there and said,
00:07:03.940 hey, I like me some hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:07:06.940 Well, I get that he might,
00:07:09.800 but that seems absurd.
00:07:12.940 And then let me put really the finishing touch on it.
00:07:17.060 If for the last 12, 13 years,
00:07:19.400 she had been severely mentally ill, 0.56
00:07:22.300 if she was sitting in the corner, 0.76
00:07:24.140 you know, playing with blocks and counting on her toes. 0.91
00:07:27.840 Okay, maybe you could say,
00:07:28.860 all right, this is someone not able to function.
00:07:32.920 There is an important place in the law
00:07:34.840 for protecting someone who's not able to function.
00:07:37.760 But during the last 13 years,
00:07:39.660 she's done hundreds of shows.
00:07:42.080 She's made hundreds of millions of dollars. 0.96
00:07:45.080 She's able to stand up on stage 0.93
00:07:46.780 and sing and perform and dance
00:07:48.380 over and over and over again.
00:07:51.060 Look, I got to admit,
00:07:52.280 you and I couldn't do that to save our lives.
00:07:55.040 Well, maybe you could,
00:07:55.700 but I couldn't do that to save my life.
00:07:58.560 And everything I have seen about this case,
00:08:02.220 it seems like an enormous abuse
00:08:05.000 of the judicial process
00:08:07.220 going right down to
00:08:09.020 when the conservatorship was first put in place.
00:08:12.200 She tried to hire a lawyer to fight it. 1.00
00:08:15.460 And the California district judge
00:08:17.800 threw her lawyer out,
00:08:19.120 says, no, she's not capable of hiring a lawyer. 1.00
00:08:22.360 I've got a medical report that proves it,
00:08:24.620 and I'm not going to show it to you.
00:08:26.420 So I've got a secret report.
00:08:28.120 By the way, I have a secret report
00:08:29.420 right here on Michael Knowles.
00:08:30.880 It says that you're not capable of handling yourself.
00:08:33.960 And so, by the way,
00:08:35.040 your vast hundred dollar fortune,
00:08:37.900 I'm taking over right now.
00:08:40.540 Senator, no one would dispute that.
00:08:42.520 I think in that particular case,
00:08:44.380 it's public knowledge.
00:08:45.800 Different for Britney. 1.00
00:08:46.660 But what an asinine situation 0.93
00:08:48.540 for a judge to throw out a lawyer 0.99
00:08:51.260 that she tried to retain
00:08:52.820 and appoint instead another lawyer.
00:08:56.760 The entire process throughout it
00:08:59.500 seems designed to just trample on her rights. 1.00
00:09:03.540 And I don't have any dog in the fight
00:09:08.420 of saying that she's the wisest
00:09:12.200 and most capable person on earth.
00:09:13.940 I don't know.
00:09:14.320 I don't know her.
00:09:15.760 But there are no outside indicia
00:09:19.280 of the level of lack of competence
00:09:23.380 that should be required
00:09:25.340 to justify a conservatorship
00:09:27.760 for one week,
00:09:29.300 much less for 13 years.
00:09:31.360 And I think part of the reason
00:09:32.680 why people care about this story
00:09:34.420 is not just because Britney Spears
00:09:36.520 actually wasn't a very important
00:09:38.060 pop culture figure
00:09:38.880 for a lot of people.
00:09:39.980 But I think it's also because
00:09:41.780 all around our country,
00:09:44.060 we're seeing people's civil rights
00:09:45.600 being taken away.
00:09:46.700 We're seeing abuses
00:09:47.540 of the judicial process.
00:09:48.800 It seems that this is sort of
00:09:50.160 one particular sensational story
00:09:53.160 that is representative of corrosion
00:09:55.760 around the justice system.
00:09:57.880 Maybe I'm reading too much into it,
00:09:59.560 but there are other examples
00:10:02.020 of these major abuses.
00:10:03.340 No, I think that's right.
00:10:04.640 And there are a couple of other points.
00:10:07.440 One, in ordinary circumstances,
00:10:11.000 she's not someone 0.70
00:10:12.020 who would be considered powerless.
00:10:13.600 This is someone who has made
00:10:15.740 hundreds of millions of dollars,
00:10:17.580 has vast resources,
00:10:18.840 which may explain why vultures
00:10:20.840 are circling around
00:10:21.740 and want access to her money. 0.77
00:10:24.880 Two, the entire affair,
00:10:28.420 there seems enormous misogyny
00:10:30.680 connected with this.
00:10:31.540 It's difficult to imagine
00:10:33.640 a similar situation with a man.
00:10:38.040 I mean, you want to talk about
00:10:39.360 people who are irresponsible
00:10:40.960 with their money.
00:10:42.940 You don't have to stretch
00:10:44.300 to find some pro athletes
00:10:45.580 who hemorrhage cash like crazy
00:10:48.360 and spend money on everybody on earth.
00:10:50.340 You don't have to stretch
00:10:51.240 to find rock stars and people who,
00:10:53.900 look, all of us have watched
00:10:56.120 the sort of, you know,
00:10:57.680 late night eon television series
00:11:00.760 of they started off young and bright
00:11:02.780 and then to the descent
00:11:04.240 into drugs and alcohol.
00:11:05.420 And it always ends.
00:11:06.400 And then sometimes there's a redemption
00:11:08.380 and then they cleaned up
00:11:09.720 and are living their life.
00:11:11.440 In this instance,
00:11:12.580 it seems that Britney Spears
00:11:15.160 encountered the kind of challenges
00:11:16.980 with fame and success
00:11:18.240 that many, if not most people
00:11:21.080 who have experienced that encounter.
00:11:23.440 But for her, that was used
00:11:25.860 as an excuse to strip away her liberty. 1.00
00:11:28.880 And you mentioned
00:11:30.000 one of the more stunning allegations.
00:11:32.760 She gave a recent interview
00:11:33.980 where she said that they put an IUD,
00:11:36.160 a birth control device,
00:11:38.420 in her involuntarily
00:11:42.080 because they didn't want her
00:11:43.460 to have kids.
00:11:45.500 I mean, good God,
00:11:46.600 that sort of forced prevention
00:11:50.140 of childbirth for sterilization.
00:11:53.640 It has an ugly, ugly legacy.
00:11:56.620 It goes on in China, 0.90
00:11:57.840 communist China all the time.
00:11:59.080 But we have an ugly legacy
00:12:00.160 in the United States 0.99
00:12:01.860 of people with mental retardation 0.99
00:12:04.860 being forced to be sterilized.
00:12:06.420 And that is grotesque.
00:12:08.080 And the idea that the court
00:12:10.180 would step in and say
00:12:11.380 she doesn't have a right 1.00
00:12:12.900 to make a decision
00:12:14.040 to have a child,
00:12:16.160 that is stunning.
00:12:19.120 I'm not I don't know
00:12:20.980 that that fact is confirmed,
00:12:22.300 but it's an allegation she's made.
00:12:24.460 And and the judicial system
00:12:27.260 ought to be protecting her rights, 0.95
00:12:29.940 not treating her like a child
00:12:34.360 because she's not a child.
00:12:36.120 That was the fact
00:12:37.440 that really pushed me over the edge.
00:12:39.720 It's just intrinsically evil.
00:12:42.620 It is just the kind of thing
00:12:43.780 that you read about
00:12:44.620 in communist China.
00:12:46.460 This for all intents and purposes,
00:12:48.340 forced sterilization.
00:12:50.200 It's it's just,
00:12:52.100 you know, if the allegation is true,
00:12:54.020 it is just such a stunning overreach.
00:12:57.080 And so I agree.
00:12:57.940 I am entirely with you
00:12:58.900 on the hashtag free Britney train.
00:13:01.080 I was wondering if we could also,
00:13:03.080 if you could enlighten me
00:13:04.020 on some of these broader overreaches,
00:13:06.920 because I just from the legal,
00:13:08.760 I have my own political views
00:13:10.060 and my own philosophical views.
00:13:11.320 But from the legal perspective,
00:13:12.540 it would be good to get an expert here.
00:13:14.620 What is going on between the DOJ and Georgia?
00:13:19.480 Georgia passed a voting rights law.
00:13:21.240 We've now heard that Merrick Garland,
00:13:22.600 the AG, is going to sue Georgia.
00:13:24.800 The people of Georgia don't have the right 0.99
00:13:26.360 to pass their own election laws.
00:13:28.360 Apparently not.
00:13:29.420 Look, if you look at the Department of Justice
00:13:31.420 under Joe Biden,
00:13:33.680 Merrick Garland had been a judge
00:13:35.220 for a couple of decades.
00:13:36.780 It actually earned a reputation
00:13:38.220 of being relatively fair and impartial.
00:13:41.880 So when he was first nominated,
00:13:43.460 I was cautiously optimistic
00:13:45.000 that this was not a wild-eyed partisan.
00:13:49.180 That optimism was substantially shaken
00:13:53.160 during his confirmation hearing,
00:13:54.600 where Merrick Garland refused to answer
00:13:57.400 just about any question.
00:13:58.500 No matter what you asked,
00:13:59.900 he wouldn't make even the barest commitments.
00:14:02.480 He just basically dodged everything.
00:14:04.060 And that was disconcerting.
00:14:05.200 I voted against Garland's confirmation.
00:14:07.860 But then it got much worse
00:14:09.560 because I saw Biden's subsequent nominations.
00:14:12.940 And in particular, two in particular,
00:14:14.780 Benita Gupta, who's the number three lawyer
00:14:17.160 at the Department of Justice now,
00:14:18.920 and Kristen Clark, who is the head lawyer
00:14:20.860 at the Civil Rights Division.
00:14:22.960 The two of them are both radicals.
00:14:25.840 And in fact, I've dubbed them the radical twins.
00:14:28.720 They're both, they're two of the leading proponents
00:14:31.240 of abolishing the police in this country.
00:14:33.720 And by the way, we're not talking about a long time ago.
00:14:35.540 We're talking about last year, both of them
00:14:38.720 either gave testimony or in writing advocated
00:14:41.640 for defunding or abolishing the police.
00:14:44.300 These are now two-
00:14:44.900 Can I just ask at a very practical level, Senator?
00:14:47.520 How is it that two of the top cops in the country
00:14:50.660 would end up be advocating for abolishing the police?
00:14:53.720 Doesn't that seem a little self-undermining?
00:14:56.320 It should, because Biden has handed control
00:14:58.920 of the agenda over to the radicals.
00:15:01.120 And by the way, at their testimony,
00:15:02.640 for both their confirmations, they said,
00:15:05.280 well, okay, A, they denied that they'd written it
00:15:09.000 even when you read them the words back at them.
00:15:11.380 I mean, and it was almost like a, you know,
00:15:14.120 Obi-Wan Kenobi, these aren't the droids you're looking for.
00:15:16.300 They're just like, nope, I didn't say that.
00:15:17.520 And you'd read the words, nope, that's not what that says.
00:15:19.960 And then more importantly, they just say,
00:15:21.900 I do not advocate abolishing the police today.
00:15:24.820 By the way, the politicized fact checkers.
00:15:30.920 So today, the Washington Post fact check a sort of joking tweet
00:15:35.580 I made about Joe Biden's anti-crime agenda.
00:15:38.520 I laid out five points, one of which was abolish the police.
00:15:41.480 And they came out, four Pinocchios.
00:15:44.000 Why?
00:15:44.380 Because they say, well, no, no, no, Joe Biden himself
00:15:46.660 has not advocated abolishing the police.
00:15:49.640 Well, you know what?
00:15:50.500 When you nominate not one, but two senior officials
00:15:53.260 at your Department of Justice
00:15:54.500 who are among the leading advocates
00:15:56.400 for abolishing the police in the country,
00:15:58.260 you don't get to pretend you're on the other side.
00:16:01.600 So one of them, Kristen Clark,
00:16:03.680 is leading the Civil Rights Division.
00:16:04.940 And she has been a radical partisan her entire life.
00:16:09.180 By the way, in law school,
00:16:11.200 she put on a conference celebrating cop killers as heroes.
00:16:16.320 This is the kind of radical that she is,
00:16:18.840 that people who murder police officers
00:16:21.780 are heroes to be lionized.
00:16:24.540 So what did the department-
00:16:25.100 You know, I seem to recall that Kristen Clark also wrote,
00:16:28.140 I believe it was in the Harvard Crimson.
00:16:29.700 It may have been in some other publication at Harvard.
00:16:31.760 She wrote a piece about the biological racial superiority 0.98
00:16:36.300 of black people over whites.
00:16:38.900 And I didn't believe it when I saw the allegations.
00:16:41.620 I actually had to go look it up in the newspaper.
00:16:43.640 And there it is with her name in the byline.
00:16:46.840 She did.
00:16:47.340 Now, she claims that was satirical.
00:16:51.300 Whether it was or not, I don't know.
00:16:53.460 But that's her explanation today.
00:16:56.200 Regardless, both she and Vanita Gupta
00:16:58.140 have had an entire career decades
00:17:00.460 of being hard partisan radicals.
00:17:02.920 So what happens?
00:17:04.120 Georgia passes a voter integrity law.
00:17:08.100 Democrats in the press demonize that voter integrity law.
00:17:11.120 And now we see the Department of Justice
00:17:12.800 is the enforcement arm for the radical left
00:17:16.900 because the Department of Justice sued Georgia
00:17:19.340 under what's called Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
00:17:22.360 And here's what the Department of Justice is arguing,
00:17:24.100 that it violates the Voting Rights Act
00:17:26.900 for Georgia to do things like, for example,
00:17:29.380 not send absentee ballots to people who didn't request them.
00:17:36.240 I got to tell you, there are a whole bunch of states all across the country,
00:17:39.480 including Texas, that don't send absentee ballots
00:17:42.900 to people who don't request them.
00:17:44.760 Now, in 2020-
00:17:46.800 Not yet.
00:17:47.220 Not until the Biden DOJ gets its way.
00:17:50.200 In 2020, with COVID, a lot of states, including Georgia,
00:17:54.380 relaxed or failed to enforce their voting laws
00:17:58.640 to make voting, to lessen the protections against voter fraud.
00:18:03.680 And it was justified because of the pandemic.
00:18:06.220 Set aside for a second,
00:18:07.840 which of those justifications were and weren't right?
00:18:10.900 Look, providing absentee ballots to people who request them
00:18:14.060 is the way an awful lot of states across the country do it
00:18:16.920 and have done it for a long, long time.
00:18:18.720 The idea that that violates the federal voting rights law is absurd.
00:18:23.540 Another element of Georgia's bill is a requirement of voter ID.
00:18:28.040 80% of Americans support voter ID.
00:18:31.560 Over 60% of Democrats support voter ID.
00:18:34.400 Over 60% of African-Americans support voter ID.
00:18:38.680 The Department of Justice is suing,
00:18:40.580 saying the fact that Georgia passed a law
00:18:43.900 with ID requirements violates the federal civil rights laws.
00:18:47.220 This is, I believe, an abuse of the justice system.
00:18:51.580 And it really is the fruits of what happens
00:18:55.560 when you put partisan radicals in senior positions
00:18:58.940 of the Department of Justice.
00:19:00.560 They turn around and use the Department of Justice
00:19:02.840 as a partisan weapon.
00:19:05.220 But could I push back on their behalf?
00:19:07.520 Sure.
00:19:07.680 Because what they're going to say is,
00:19:09.380 they're going to say,
00:19:10.500 look, when you have widespread mail-ins,
00:19:12.380 more people vote, right?
00:19:13.600 We had something like seven zillion people vote
00:19:15.620 in the last election.
00:19:16.820 When you don't have voter ID,
00:19:18.340 you're going to get more people to vote.
00:19:19.760 Some of those people might be dead
00:19:21.000 and some of those people might be foreign nationals.
00:19:23.480 And as we actually talked about on this show,
00:19:25.580 in the federal attempted takeover
00:19:27.560 of many of these elections,
00:19:29.200 there was actually a provision
00:19:30.340 to give legal immunity to foreign nationals
00:19:32.680 who would vote in the elections.
00:19:33.760 But I guess that's a point for another episode.
00:19:36.280 My point is,
00:19:37.200 if these Democrat policies
00:19:39.840 expand the number of people who vote,
00:19:42.580 and if the Georgia law will,
00:19:45.380 whether for right or wrong,
00:19:47.360 make it more difficult to vote,
00:19:49.660 whether it's because you have to show an ID,
00:19:51.360 and it could be a perfectly legitimate policy,
00:19:53.140 but still will make it more difficult to vote,
00:19:55.140 then do they have an argument
00:19:57.080 that by the Voting Rights Act
00:19:59.200 and by these other provisions of the law,
00:20:01.340 we need to expand the vote?
00:20:03.700 No, they don't.
00:20:05.740 Nothing in the Voting Rights Act
00:20:07.600 requires you to allow people to vote
00:20:10.440 for whom it is illegal for them to vote.
00:20:14.080 The Voting Rights Act does not require 0.97
00:20:16.280 you to turn the other way to voter fraud,
00:20:18.980 for you to allow people to vote illegally.
00:20:21.140 And the argument that it does is pretty crazy.
00:20:26.480 You know, there's right now litigation
00:20:28.580 at the Supreme Court
00:20:29.840 concerning laws restricting ballot harvesting.
00:20:34.620 Ballot harvesting is the practice 0.96
00:20:36.420 where you send a paid political operative
00:20:38.380 to collect the ballots of other people,
00:20:44.180 of other voters.
00:20:45.500 And it is an instance
00:20:47.440 that is particularly ripe for voter fraud.
00:20:51.140 That case, as we sit here today,
00:20:52.980 has not been decided by the Supreme Court.
00:20:54.560 It's expected to come out any day now.
00:20:56.080 I led an amicus brief
00:20:58.380 of a number of senators in that case
00:21:00.200 arguing that protecting the integrity of elections
00:21:03.620 is entirely consistent with the Voting Rights Act.
00:21:07.180 And in fact, it furthers the Voting Rights Act.
00:21:09.660 You know, the Supreme Court has said for a long time
00:21:11.480 that when you allow voter fraud,
00:21:16.400 it steals the right to vote from legal voters.
00:21:19.500 A number of years ago,
00:21:21.280 when I was solicitor general of Texas,
00:21:24.300 Indiana passed one of the first photo ID laws for voting.
00:21:28.800 And Indiana was promptly sued.
00:21:30.220 A bunch of Democratic plaintiffs came in
00:21:32.780 and they sued
00:21:33.420 and they argued that this discriminated against minorities.
00:21:36.460 Now, by the way,
00:21:37.060 the argument that minorities can't figure out 1.00
00:21:41.200 how to get an ID is asinine. 0.98
00:21:45.320 The last time I checked, 0.99
00:21:47.040 African-Americans are perfectly capable of getting IDs.
00:21:49.680 Hispanics, look, I'm Hispanic.
00:21:51.320 You know what?
00:21:51.640 I got a driver's license in my pocket.
00:21:53.800 You know, I'm not under a conservatorship in California.
00:21:58.500 I am actually capable of going to the DMV
00:22:00.860 and sitting there for 19 hours in an endless line.
00:22:03.500 And the sort of paternalistic, condescending argument
00:22:08.840 that minorities can't get IDs is absurd.
00:22:13.580 And by the way, you need a photo ID
00:22:15.300 to get on an airplane,
00:22:17.680 to drive a car,
00:22:19.160 to get a beer,
00:22:22.200 to go into an R-rated movie
00:22:24.240 if you look like you're under 17.
00:22:26.160 There's a reason why over 60% of African-Americans 1.00
00:22:28.680 support voter ID laws
00:22:30.160 because they recognize that getting an ID
00:22:34.040 is not a difficult thing
00:22:35.400 and protecting the integrity of elections is.
00:22:38.340 Well, I led a coalition of states
00:22:40.660 in front of the U.S. Supreme Court
00:22:42.060 in that Indiana photo ID law.
00:22:45.380 And we ended up winning 6-3.
00:22:47.220 Actually, the decision was written
00:22:49.740 by Justice John Paul Stevens,
00:22:52.560 one of the most prominent liberals on the court,
00:22:54.940 who explained that
00:22:56.860 protecting the integrity of elections
00:22:59.840 actually protects the right to vote
00:23:02.940 and looking the other way on voter fraud
00:23:06.440 undermines the right to vote.
00:23:08.560 Sadly, the Department of Justice
00:23:10.840 under Joe Biden has turned that upside down.
00:23:13.720 Well, I will not, like a white liberal,
00:23:16.220 presume to tell my Hispanic senator friend
00:23:18.500 that he can't go get an ID.
00:23:20.040 I think you've disavowed people
00:23:22.260 of that crazy notion.
00:23:23.820 Muchísimas gracias.
00:23:26.500 De nada.
00:23:27.820 Ah, qué bueno, mira eso.
00:23:29.300 Yo no sabía que tú podías hablar español.
00:23:33.200 Okay, we've reached your limits.
00:23:35.460 That's about, I think, we go.
00:23:36.960 When we get to the biblioteca, that's about it.
00:23:38.980 But we have established,
00:23:40.620 in English and perhaps in Spanish as well,
00:23:42.420 that the Voting Rights Act
00:23:43.180 does not currently prohibit
00:23:44.760 these sorts of things.
00:23:45.700 But right now on Capitol Hill,
00:23:48.040 many people that you go to work with every day
00:23:50.320 are discussing an expansion
00:23:51.960 of the Voting Rights Act.
00:23:53.320 So under this proposed expansion,
00:23:56.220 what does that mean for voter fraud
00:23:58.060 and election integrity measures?
00:23:59.680 Yeah, well, as you know,
00:24:00.960 last week the Senate took up S-1,
00:24:04.380 which many of us are calling
00:24:05.760 the Corrupt Politicians Act.
00:24:07.140 And we've talked about all the different ways
00:24:08.860 the Corrupt Politicians Act
00:24:10.220 was going to federalize elections,
00:24:12.300 strike down protections against voter fraud,
00:24:15.160 strike down voter ID laws,
00:24:17.160 mandate ballot harvesting,
00:24:19.960 register millions of illegal aliens,
00:24:22.740 allow criminals and felons to vote,
00:24:25.220 provide welfare for politicians
00:24:27.200 and billions of dollars
00:24:28.420 in federal funding for politicians,
00:24:30.720 turn the Federal Election Commission
00:24:32.020 into a partisan enforcement arm.
00:24:35.520 All of that's in the Corrupt Politicians Act.
00:24:37.280 We voted on it last week.
00:24:38.580 It was a 50-50 vote, so it failed.
00:24:41.180 Because under the filibuster,
00:24:42.600 it takes 60 votes to move to legislation.
00:24:44.920 And at least right now,
00:24:47.760 only 48 Democrats would end the filibuster.
00:24:50.860 There are two who would not.
00:24:52.120 Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia,
00:24:54.480 and Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona.
00:24:56.200 We've covered all of that before.
00:24:58.100 So the next iteration on this front
00:25:01.640 that Democrats are expected to push
00:25:04.020 is a different change to the voting laws.
00:25:06.420 And it's a law called
00:25:07.860 the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
00:25:10.400 And it's named after legendary civil rights
00:25:13.400 pioneer John Lewis,
00:25:15.040 who was a member of Congress.
00:25:18.860 Let me say a couple of things on that.
00:25:20.500 Number one, let me just talk about
00:25:21.560 John Lewis for a minute.
00:25:22.320 I actually, I knew John Lewis.
00:25:23.580 I got to know him.
00:25:24.280 I didn't know him well.
00:25:25.720 But I got to spend significant time with him
00:25:29.020 back in December 2013
00:25:31.020 because we went together
00:25:32.960 to Nelson Mandela's funeral.
00:25:35.640 And it was my first year in the Senate
00:25:37.660 and Mandela passed away.
00:25:39.980 And every member of Congress was invited
00:25:41.920 if you want to go to the funeral, you can.
00:25:43.780 And I remember I was in Texas.
00:25:45.520 I was in Austin meeting with my team at the time.
00:25:47.580 We got the invitation.
00:25:48.880 I'm like, are you freaking kidding me?
00:25:50.540 Of course I'm going to go.
00:25:51.260 Like to go to Mandela's funeral.
00:25:52.700 What an incredible honor and privilege.
00:25:55.640 And so I went.
00:25:57.700 And here's the astonishing thing, Michael.
00:26:00.360 Out of 100 senators,
00:26:01.640 do you know how many senators
00:26:02.320 went to Mandela's funeral?
00:26:04.180 I can't.
00:26:04.840 I couldn't even guess.
00:26:06.000 One.
00:26:07.180 No, really?
00:26:07.840 No other senator went.
00:26:10.100 I was astonished.
00:26:12.940 I didn't know how 99 senators
00:26:14.780 could say no to that.
00:26:16.540 There were a number of House members who went.
00:26:18.580 It was essentially me
00:26:20.080 and about half of the Congressional Black Caucus.
00:26:22.780 So they were almost all Democrats.
00:26:25.100 And so I flew over with John Lewis.
00:26:27.340 I flew over with Maxine Waters,
00:26:29.100 who, you know, my mom said,
00:26:31.600 if you don't have anything nice to say,
00:26:33.040 don't say anything.
00:26:33.960 So I've said everything I'm going to say
00:26:35.540 about Maxine.
00:26:36.640 Right, right.
00:26:38.220 But John Lewis, I mean,
00:26:39.760 talk about someone who was legendary.
00:26:43.660 And I spent much of that trip,
00:26:45.940 you know, long trip to South Africa.
00:26:47.680 We went to the funeral together.
00:26:49.320 Long trip home.
00:26:51.600 I spent a lot of it just listening to him
00:26:54.160 and saying, you know,
00:26:54.740 can you tell me stories
00:26:56.220 about being on the Edmund Pettus Bridge
00:26:59.040 in Selma,
00:27:00.180 about standing up for civil rights
00:27:01.820 as a young man,
00:27:03.300 about standing with Dr. Martin Luther King
00:27:06.080 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
00:27:08.820 as he gave the I Have a Dream speech.
00:27:11.660 I mean, you know,
00:27:12.040 as a young, young teenager,
00:27:14.840 John Lewis was a leading figure
00:27:16.980 in the civil rights movement.
00:27:18.260 And he was charming.
00:27:21.040 He was courageous.
00:27:23.920 And his leadership in the civil rights movement
00:27:28.180 made a big difference.
00:27:30.340 And he's passed.
00:27:32.900 And so Democrats doing what they do
00:27:35.400 are taking his name
00:27:37.300 and trying to use it
00:27:40.300 to pass a bill that would be a terrible bill.
00:27:43.120 Yeah, yeah.
00:27:44.580 I was wondering.
00:27:45.960 If they have a bill
00:27:46.920 to erect a statue of John Lewis,
00:27:49.520 sign me up.
00:27:50.780 If they have a bill
00:27:51.900 to tell John Lewis's life story,
00:27:54.300 sign me up.
00:27:56.020 If they have a bill
00:27:57.580 to vindicate the legacy of John Lewis
00:28:00.580 by defending people's civil rights,
00:28:02.860 sign me up.
00:28:04.080 But what this bill does
00:28:05.720 is it reinstates Section 5
00:28:09.900 of the Voting Rights Act
00:28:11.100 and extends it to everyone.
00:28:13.380 All right, what does that mean?
00:28:14.640 That's lawyer gobbledygook.
00:28:17.000 There are two main sections
00:28:19.280 of the Voting Rights Act
00:28:20.400 that have had significant teeth
00:28:22.960 over the years.
00:28:24.440 Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act,
00:28:26.640 which prohibits diluting the votes,
00:28:29.840 reducing the right to vote of minorities.
00:28:34.160 That's the provision
00:28:35.560 under which the Department of Justice
00:28:37.320 is suing Georgia.
00:28:38.920 Section 2 still applies,
00:28:40.200 where it typically applies
00:28:41.840 is where you have,
00:28:43.560 say, a redistricting effort
00:28:45.400 that is designed
00:28:46.440 to dilute the votes of minorities.
00:28:49.200 So, for example,
00:28:51.360 white Democrats for decades
00:28:53.720 had a path
00:28:55.220 to elect more white Democrats.
00:28:56.920 And we actually had,
00:28:58.640 back in the early 2000s,
00:29:01.760 I was the lead lawyer
00:29:03.020 for Texas on redistricting
00:29:04.340 and argued
00:29:06.760 the Texas redistricting case
00:29:08.100 in front of the U.S. Supreme Court,
00:29:09.280 won that case,
00:29:10.840 5-4.
00:29:12.240 And in that case,
00:29:13.100 we went through the history
00:29:14.380 of white Democrats in Texas.
00:29:16.220 What they discovered
00:29:17.040 is that
00:29:18.680 if you design a district
00:29:21.000 that has
00:29:22.300 just enough African-American voters 0.96
00:29:25.640 and just enough Hispanic voters
00:29:27.360 that neither one
00:29:28.500 can win a primary,
00:29:29.540 in Democratic primaries,
00:29:32.500 they found traditionally
00:29:33.620 the African-American voters
00:29:34.980 and the Hispanic voters
00:29:35.880 would vote differently
00:29:36.600 than each other,
00:29:37.860 that you made sure
00:29:40.260 you didn't put
00:29:41.060 from their perspective
00:29:42.000 too many African-Americans 1.00
00:29:43.180 or too many Hispanics, 0.97
00:29:44.600 what would happen is
00:29:45.740 if you had, say,
00:29:46.360 an African-American Democrat
00:29:47.520 against a white Democrat,
00:29:49.580 the Hispanics and white Democrats
00:29:51.120 would vote for the white Democrat.
00:29:52.380 Um, likewise,
00:29:54.280 if you had
00:29:55.300 a Hispanic Democrat
00:29:56.500 versus a white Democrat,
00:29:58.340 the white Democrats
00:29:59.840 and the black Democrats
00:30:00.700 would vote for the white Democrat
00:30:01.880 over the Hispanic Democrat.
00:30:03.460 And, and,
00:30:04.240 and Southern Democrats
00:30:05.420 had this down to a science
00:30:07.000 in terms of
00:30:07.700 how to have
00:30:08.520 just enough minorities 1.00
00:30:10.040 to be sure
00:30:11.580 to win the general
00:30:12.500 because they would all
00:30:13.240 come together
00:30:13.740 and vote for the Democrat
00:30:14.560 and the general,
00:30:15.120 but not too many
00:30:16.900 that you could actually
00:30:18.600 have an Hispanic
00:30:19.320 or African-American
00:30:20.200 win a Democratic primary.
00:30:21.460 It was all about
00:30:22.140 stopping minorities 1.00
00:30:23.360 from winning
00:30:24.280 Democratic primaries.
00:30:25.280 And that was
00:30:25.700 the cynical strategy
00:30:26.820 Democrats pursued
00:30:28.380 in Texas
00:30:29.020 and, and in states
00:30:30.760 across the South.
00:30:32.060 In Texas,
00:30:33.060 in the 2003 redistricting,
00:30:34.980 essentially when the Republicans
00:30:36.460 took control
00:30:37.080 of the legislature,
00:30:38.660 essentially what they did
00:30:40.200 is they created
00:30:41.960 a new African-American
00:30:43.920 Democrat district.
00:30:45.020 They created a new
00:30:45.700 Hispanic Democrat district
00:30:47.140 and they obliterated 0.97
00:30:49.120 all the white Democrats 0.81
00:30:50.060 who had gerrymandered
00:30:51.060 their seats
00:30:51.580 so they could stay in power.
00:30:53.840 And Democrats
00:30:55.580 were furious about it.
00:30:56.640 They didn't want
00:30:57.500 new Hispanic Democrats
00:31:00.140 and new African-American
00:31:01.420 Democrats elected.
00:31:02.640 And so we had
00:31:03.280 testimony at the trial
00:31:04.940 about how this had been
00:31:06.100 the long strategy
00:31:07.300 of white Democrats
00:31:09.920 to disenfranchise minorities.
00:31:14.320 Anyway,
00:31:15.180 all of that is analyzed
00:31:17.360 under Section 2
00:31:18.740 of the Voting Rights Act.
00:31:19.720 And so part of the reason
00:31:20.520 why we won
00:31:22.360 virtually every claim
00:31:23.400 in the Texas redistricting case
00:31:24.760 because we laid out
00:31:26.300 that the effect
00:31:26.880 of this redistricting
00:31:27.880 actually increased
00:31:28.780 minority representation.
00:31:30.880 And so that,
00:31:32.080 the results
00:31:32.920 satisfied the legal test.
00:31:35.200 That's Section 2
00:31:36.180 of the Voting Rights Act.
00:31:37.040 So what's Section 5?
00:31:38.480 Section 5 is a provision
00:31:40.080 the Voting Rights Act
00:31:41.120 had
00:31:41.640 that for certain jurisdictions
00:31:44.820 that were almost exclusively
00:31:46.760 jurisdictions in the South
00:31:48.280 where there had been
00:31:50.180 a history
00:31:51.220 of significant
00:31:52.620 prior discrimination.
00:31:54.640 That those jurisdictions
00:31:56.560 required what's called
00:31:58.140 preclearance.
00:31:59.740 What that means
00:32:01.040 is if the legislature
00:32:02.060 changed any voting law,
00:32:03.860 made any change
00:32:04.680 in voting laws
00:32:05.340 at all,
00:32:06.500 that change
00:32:08.700 had to be submitted
00:32:09.620 to the Department of Justice
00:32:10.800 for preclearance
00:32:14.240 by the Department of Justice.
00:32:16.500 And so what you would have
00:32:17.580 was unelected bureaucrats,
00:32:19.740 career lawyers
00:32:20.480 who work in the Civil Rights Division,
00:32:22.500 who are almost 100%
00:32:24.000 hard-left liberal Democrats.
00:32:27.280 Yeah.
00:32:27.540 They were required
00:32:28.940 to determine
00:32:29.880 whether a change
00:32:31.180 in voting rights law
00:32:32.160 could go into effect.
00:32:33.440 And it was only
00:32:34.880 a limited number
00:32:36.440 of jurisdictions
00:32:37.140 that were subject
00:32:37.940 to preclearance.
00:32:38.780 And essentially
00:32:39.900 in the South.
00:32:41.660 Texas was a 0.61
00:32:42.760 preclearance jurisdiction
00:32:43.860 not based on
00:32:45.600 actually
00:32:46.160 discrimination
00:32:47.160 concerning African Americans
00:32:48.540 but based on
00:32:49.780 a determination
00:32:50.780 of discrimination
00:32:51.740 concerning Mexican Americans
00:32:53.040 is what made
00:32:53.620 the state of Texas
00:32:54.280 subject to it.
00:32:55.420 But, you know,
00:32:56.300 the entire Northeast
00:32:57.540 where there's
00:32:58.840 rampant
00:32:59.740 history of discrimination,
00:33:01.960 sadly,
00:33:02.720 as there is
00:33:03.740 across much
00:33:04.460 of planet Earth,
00:33:05.440 that bigotry
00:33:06.300 is something
00:33:06.720 we've wrestled with
00:33:07.740 as long as man
00:33:09.480 has been on the planet.
00:33:10.800 much of the country
00:33:14.700 was exempt from this.
00:33:16.040 Well,
00:33:16.420 a few years ago,
00:33:18.360 the Supreme Court
00:33:19.380 struck down
00:33:20.240 Section 5
00:33:21.000 of the Voting Rights Act,
00:33:21.840 struck down preclearance.
00:33:23.660 The Supreme Court
00:33:24.720 30, 40 years ago
00:33:25.960 had upheld it
00:33:26.680 and said,
00:33:27.120 look,
00:33:27.580 this really
00:33:29.700 stretches
00:33:30.340 our constitutional system
00:33:31.940 to have
00:33:33.380 an unelected
00:33:34.220 federal bureaucrat
00:33:35.380 having veto power
00:33:37.320 over laws
00:33:38.180 passed by elected
00:33:39.240 state legislatures.
00:33:40.620 But the Supreme Court
00:33:42.060 concluded
00:33:42.700 that the history
00:33:43.780 of the Civil War
00:33:45.200 and segregation
00:33:46.160 was so profound
00:33:48.420 and pervasive
00:33:49.080 that it justified
00:33:50.120 a massive departure
00:33:52.600 from the ordinary
00:33:53.700 constitutional structures.
00:33:56.000 Now,
00:33:56.540 whether or not
00:33:57.040 that decision
00:33:57.520 is right or wrong,
00:33:58.360 that decision
00:33:58.860 was made
00:33:59.440 40 plus years ago.
00:34:01.500 Supreme Court
00:34:02.000 a few years ago
00:34:02.920 said, however,
00:34:03.640 the formula
00:34:05.500 to determine
00:34:07.300 which jurisdictions
00:34:08.560 are subject
00:34:09.120 to Section 5
00:34:10.140 was 50 years old.
00:34:12.800 The Supreme Court
00:34:13.240 said, look,
00:34:13.640 this formula
00:34:14.140 is out of date.
00:34:14.880 The entire country
00:34:15.600 has changed.
00:34:16.780 Most of the people
00:34:17.560 who were alive
00:34:18.300 at the time
00:34:18.780 of this formula
00:34:19.340 are dead now.
00:34:20.780 There's a whole new population.
00:34:22.460 People have moved in,
00:34:23.200 move out.
00:34:24.140 And for this kind
00:34:26.340 of extraordinary remedy,
00:34:27.900 you've got to have
00:34:29.380 a current
00:34:30.260 evidentiary basis
00:34:31.860 of a pattern
00:34:33.460 of pervasive
00:34:34.940 discrimination
00:34:35.560 that justifies
00:34:36.960 such a remarkable step.
00:34:39.320 Democrats in the media
00:34:40.540 screamed and hollered 0.61
00:34:41.860 and said,
00:34:42.320 oh, the Supreme Court
00:34:43.220 has struck down
00:34:44.200 the Voting Rights Act,
00:34:45.040 which is not true.
00:34:45.820 It was one provision
00:34:46.680 of the Voting Rights Act,
00:34:47.780 which was a fairly
00:34:48.660 extraordinary provision.
00:34:50.320 So what does
00:34:50.820 the John Lewis bill do?
00:34:53.140 Reinstate Section 5
00:34:54.320 preclearance,
00:34:55.080 but instead of
00:34:55.820 defining a formula
00:34:56.760 based on a history
00:34:57.640 of discrimination,
00:34:59.420 it subjects
00:35:00.580 the entire country
00:35:01.420 to it.
00:35:01.780 So it says
00:35:02.320 every change
00:35:04.180 in voting rights laws
00:35:05.260 anywhere in the country
00:35:06.300 cannot go into effect
00:35:08.700 until the Department
00:35:10.780 of Justice
00:35:11.440 authorizes it.
00:35:13.040 Now,
00:35:13.580 what I'd like to
00:35:14.620 know about this
00:35:16.640 is,
00:35:17.960 you know,
00:35:18.420 look at me.
00:35:19.320 I don't have
00:35:19.620 a law school education,
00:35:20.560 so it would seem
00:35:21.020 pretty simple.
00:35:21.640 If they struck it down
00:35:22.660 before,
00:35:23.420 if they struck down
00:35:24.040 the more modest
00:35:24.780 version of this,
00:35:25.700 and now there's
00:35:26.240 an even more
00:35:26.800 ambitious version
00:35:27.640 of this,
00:35:28.380 surely the court
00:35:29.080 would strike it down.
00:35:30.140 Now,
00:35:30.680 the court has given
00:35:31.300 us a lot of
00:35:32.500 disappointing decisions,
00:35:34.340 actually,
00:35:34.940 just in recent days.
00:35:36.000 They've now
00:35:36.400 discovered some
00:35:37.860 right of men
00:35:39.820 to use the women's 1.00
00:35:40.720 bathroom,
00:35:41.540 and multiple
00:35:42.400 ostensibly
00:35:43.320 originalist judges
00:35:44.520 voted for that
00:35:45.700 as well.
00:35:46.240 So it would seem
00:35:47.260 very obvious
00:35:47.840 that the court
00:35:48.620 should strike this down.
00:35:50.120 That would just
00:35:50.600 seem logical,
00:35:51.620 and the court
00:35:52.020 has given us
00:35:52.960 a lot of terrible
00:35:53.500 decisions.
00:35:54.040 So something tells
00:35:55.540 me that that is
00:35:56.280 not necessarily
00:35:57.300 what's going to
00:35:57.820 happen.
00:35:58.040 So it's not
00:35:59.340 at all clear
00:35:59.820 the court
00:36:00.200 would strike it down.
00:36:01.200 I agree that it
00:36:01.860 should.
00:36:02.900 More fundamentally,
00:36:03.880 we talked about
00:36:04.680 Kristen Clark
00:36:05.260 a minute ago.
00:36:06.720 Kristen Clark
00:36:07.300 is the head
00:36:07.720 of the Civil Rights
00:36:08.340 Division.
00:36:09.420 So what Democrats
00:36:10.200 are proposing
00:36:10.880 is that Kristen Clark,
00:36:12.760 this hard leftist
00:36:14.480 radical,
00:36:15.800 who advocated
00:36:17.140 abolishing the police,
00:36:18.760 who organized
00:36:20.280 a conference
00:36:20.920 celebrating and
00:36:21.820 lionizing cop 0.79
00:36:22.780 killers, 0.71
00:36:24.040 that she should 1.00
00:36:25.060 be in charge
00:36:25.960 of deciding
00:36:26.700 what voting
00:36:27.400 rights laws
00:36:27.920 are allowed
00:36:28.420 and what
00:36:28.740 voting rights
00:36:29.240 laws are not,
00:36:30.240 and she should
00:36:30.820 have veto power
00:36:31.960 over every
00:36:32.900 state legislature
00:36:33.800 in the country
00:36:34.520 if she disagrees
00:36:35.880 with what they're
00:36:36.440 doing.
00:36:37.500 The reason the
00:36:38.420 Democrats want 0.51
00:36:39.120 this is they
00:36:39.620 know the
00:36:40.080 Civil Rights
00:36:40.600 Division,
00:36:41.600 even under
00:36:42.060 a Republican
00:36:42.580 president,
00:36:43.620 the career
00:36:44.180 lawyers are
00:36:44.880 hard leftist
00:36:46.480 activists.
00:36:47.020 Here's the
00:36:47.320 consequence
00:36:47.880 if this
00:36:48.800 so-called
00:36:50.060 John Lewis
00:36:50.560 bill were
00:36:50.940 to pass.
00:36:52.640 No state
00:36:53.440 in the country
00:36:53.880 could ever again
00:36:54.580 pass a voter ID
00:36:55.460 law because
00:36:56.040 the Department
00:36:56.520 of Justice
00:36:57.040 career bureaucrats
00:36:57.940 would strike
00:36:58.300 it down.
00:36:59.340 No state
00:36:59.800 in the country
00:37:00.200 could pass
00:37:00.700 a prohibition
00:37:01.340 on ballot
00:37:01.800 harvesting.
00:37:02.560 Lawyers
00:37:02.940 at the Department
00:37:03.420 of Justice
00:37:03.800 would strike
00:37:04.260 it down.
00:37:05.420 No state
00:37:06.120 could pass
00:37:06.820 any provisions
00:37:08.780 designed to
00:37:10.380 prevent dead
00:37:10.940 people from
00:37:11.500 voting,
00:37:11.920 to prevent
00:37:12.200 illegal aliens
00:37:12.840 from voting,
00:37:13.560 to prevent
00:37:14.200 felons and
00:37:14.780 criminals from 0.65
00:37:15.360 voting because
00:37:16.460 the hard
00:37:17.560 political activists
00:37:18.500 at the Department
00:37:19.060 of Justice
00:37:19.660 would veto the
00:37:21.060 decision of
00:37:21.680 democratically
00:37:22.240 elected
00:37:22.800 legislatures.
00:37:24.080 And what this
00:37:24.460 all comes down
00:37:25.200 to,
00:37:26.040 Democrats
00:37:26.640 today don't
00:37:27.520 believe in
00:37:27.960 democracy.
00:37:29.280 Just like 0.99
00:37:30.120 the Corrupt
00:37:30.520 Politicians Act,
00:37:31.700 they want to
00:37:32.560 rig the system
00:37:33.480 so that they
00:37:35.360 win,
00:37:35.900 heads they win,
00:37:36.680 tails you lose,
00:37:37.700 and it's all
00:37:38.540 about disempowering
00:37:39.980 the voters,
00:37:40.660 ironically enough,
00:37:42.000 in the name
00:37:42.460 of voting rights.
00:37:43.880 Right, right.
00:37:44.520 It's an
00:37:45.580 interesting point
00:37:46.800 that we seem
00:37:48.040 to be okay
00:37:48.920 right now
00:37:49.400 on the Corrupt
00:37:49.820 Politicians Act.
00:37:50.600 That seems to be
00:37:51.200 on the back burner
00:37:51.800 for the moment.
00:37:52.340 So now
00:37:53.160 the Democrats
00:37:53.960 are trying
00:37:54.380 to achieve
00:37:54.860 perhaps an
00:37:56.200 even more
00:37:56.560 ambitious
00:37:56.900 power grab 0.89
00:37:57.500 from another
00:37:58.260 angle.
00:37:59.100 All of this
00:37:59.900 is enough
00:38:00.260 to depress
00:38:00.800 one unless
00:38:01.680 you knew
00:38:03.040 that we
00:38:04.280 are going
00:38:04.500 to be taking
00:38:04.920 verdict on
00:38:05.400 the road.
00:38:05.940 We are
00:38:06.160 partnering with
00:38:06.780 the Young
00:38:07.040 America's
00:38:07.520 Foundation.
00:38:07.940 We're going
00:38:08.740 to multiple
00:38:09.920 schools.
00:38:10.300 I think we're
00:38:10.540 going to six
00:38:11.180 schools and
00:38:12.080 universities
00:38:12.640 with
00:38:13.920 YAF.
00:38:14.700 You can
00:38:14.940 go to
00:38:15.160 YAF.org
00:38:16.620 slash
00:38:17.180 verdict
00:38:17.700 right now
00:38:18.880 to request
00:38:19.920 that we
00:38:20.500 come to
00:38:21.200 your school.
00:38:22.140 The deadline
00:38:22.500 is August
00:38:23.100 18th.
00:38:24.240 Senator,
00:38:24.660 should we
00:38:25.060 go to
00:38:26.280 the really
00:38:26.700 nice,
00:38:27.180 wonderful
00:38:27.560 conservative
00:38:28.120 schools
00:38:28.620 with the
00:38:29.680 Young
00:38:29.780 America's
00:38:30.120 Foundation
00:38:30.440 or should
00:38:30.880 we go
00:38:31.100 to the
00:38:31.320 crazy, 0.99
00:38:32.060 leftist, 1.00
00:38:32.860 insane 0.91
00:38:33.260 schools 0.83
00:38:33.700 that are
00:38:34.160 going to
00:38:34.340 run us
00:38:34.580 out of
00:38:34.780 town
00:38:34.920 on the
00:38:35.120 rail?
00:38:35.560 Well,
00:38:35.700 it seems
00:38:35.980 to me
00:38:36.240 that should
00:38:36.600 be up
00:38:36.900 to the
00:38:37.340 listeners
00:38:37.860 of
00:38:38.060 verdict
00:38:38.260 to
00:38:38.460 decide.
00:38:39.040 So you
00:38:39.720 tell us
00:38:40.220 if you're
00:38:40.540 a student
00:38:40.920 right now,
00:38:42.040 you might
00:38:42.700 be at
00:38:43.060 one of
00:38:43.360 the few
00:38:44.000 havens
00:38:45.120 of
00:38:45.260 sanity
00:38:45.640 and you
00:38:46.080 say,
00:38:46.400 hey,
00:38:46.640 come cheer
00:38:48.040 us on
00:38:48.640 and reach 0.95
00:38:51.260 out to
00:38:51.740 us.
00:38:51.940 On the
00:38:52.120 other hand,
00:38:52.640 you might
00:38:53.040 be behind
00:38:53.740 enemy lines
00:38:54.540 surrounded
00:38:55.020 by Bolsheviks
00:38:55.860 and Mensheviks
00:38:56.660 and looking
00:38:58.320 for a
00:38:59.380 Berlin airlift.
00:39:01.260 My guess
00:39:02.520 is we're
00:39:03.080 open to
00:39:03.440 do it
00:39:03.640 a little
00:39:03.840 of both,
00:39:04.500 but it's
00:39:05.060 really the
00:39:05.580 incredible
00:39:06.100 listeners
00:39:06.640 of
00:39:07.740 verdict
00:39:08.000 who are
00:39:08.540 going to
00:39:08.720 make that
00:39:09.040 decision.
00:39:09.760 We want
00:39:10.040 to free
00:39:10.320 Brittany.
00:39:11.360 We want
00:39:11.780 to free
00:39:12.320 the students
00:39:12.880 on campus.
00:39:13.500 We want
00:39:13.720 to free
00:39:14.100 all of
00:39:14.540 us here
00:39:14.900 in this
00:39:15.220 country.
00:39:15.940 So make
00:39:16.220 sure you
00:39:16.460 get those
00:39:16.760 names in
00:39:17.280 yaf.org
00:39:18.080 slash
00:39:18.840 verdict.
00:39:19.540 August 18th
00:39:20.180 is the
00:39:20.440 deadline.
00:39:21.540 But we'll
00:39:21.860 be speaking
00:39:22.340 much more
00:39:22.860 before then.
00:39:23.820 Until then,
00:39:24.700 in the
00:39:24.880 meantime,
00:39:25.400 I'm
00:39:25.560 Michael
00:39:25.760 Knowles.
00:39:26.480 This is
00:39:26.740 Verdict
00:39:27.080 with Ted
00:39:27.560 Cruz.
00:39:35.180 This episode
00:39:36.240 of Verdict
00:39:36.860 with Ted
00:39:37.380 Cruz is
00:39:38.040 being brought
00:39:38.540 to you by
00:39:38.960 Jobs,
00:39:39.580 Freedom,
00:39:39.960 and Security
00:39:40.560 Pack,
00:39:41.140 a political
00:39:41.660 action
00:39:42.140 committee
00:39:42.540 dedicated
00:39:42.920 to
00:39:43.320 supporting
00:39:43.720 conservative
00:39:44.260 causes,
00:39:45.120 organizations,
00:39:45.980 and candidates
00:39:46.660 across the
00:39:47.380 country.
00:39:48.020 In 2022,
00:39:49.260 Jobs,
00:39:49.680 Freedom,
00:39:50.000 and Security
00:39:50.500 Pack plans
00:39:51.280 to donate
00:39:51.760 to conservative
00:39:52.480 candidates running
00:39:53.400 for Congress
00:39:54.060 and help the
00:39:54.840 Republican Party
00:39:55.760 across the
00:39:56.600 nation.
00:39:57.560 This is an
00:39:58.000 iHeart Podcast.
00:39:59.900 Guaranteed
00:40:00.600 Human.
00:40:00.900 have
00:40:18.520 been.