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


Summary


Transcript

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.
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.
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.
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
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.
00:02:39.020 I think this is frigging ridiculous,
00:02:42.140 what is happening to Britney Spears
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?
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.
00:03:15.520 If you're seriously mentally ill,
00:03:18.340 you can be involuntarily committed.
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.
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.
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?
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,
00:07:22.300 if she was sitting in the corner,
00:07:24.140 you know, playing with blocks and counting on her toes.
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.
00:07:45.080 She's able to stand up on stage
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.
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.
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.
00:08:46.660 But what an asinine situation
00:08:48.540 for a judge to throw out a lawyer
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.
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
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.
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.
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,
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
00:12:01.860 of people with mental retardation
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
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,
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
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
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
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
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
00:21:41.200 how to get an ID is asinine.
00:21:45.320 The last time I checked,
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
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
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
00:29:43.180 or too many Hispanics,
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
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
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
00:30:49.120 all the white Democrats
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
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
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
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
00:36:22.780 killers,
00:36:24.040 that she should
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
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
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
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
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,
00:38:32.060 leftist,
00:38:32.860 insane
00:38:33.260 schools
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
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.