Verdict with Ted Cruz - #FreeBritney

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.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - July 06, 2021

#FreeBritney

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript