Verdict with Ted Cruz - Fueling Russia's Aggression

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.560 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.640 As tensions ratchet up between Moscow, Russia, and the West,

00:00:10.040 Germany is inviting Putin right into the heart of Europe.

00:00:13.960 And the worst part of all is very few people even know that it's happening.

00:00:17.520 Well, we know one person who knows it's happening,

00:00:19.340 who's been very involved in this now for years.

00:00:22.360 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:23.560 Welcome back to Verdict.

00:00:30.800 I'm Michael Knowles, joined as ever by Senator Ted Cruz.

00:00:34.380 Senator, this is a subject which I will just put it out on the table.

00:00:38.500 I know absolutely nothing about.

00:00:40.380 I have heard little rumblings here and there,

00:00:42.960 but there is something called Nord Stream 2.

00:00:46.040 I know this involves oil going to Europe.

00:00:49.140 I know this involves Germany.

00:00:50.640 I know this involves Russia.

00:00:52.300 That's all I know, but it's apparently a very big deal

00:00:55.740 and nobody's talking about it.

00:00:57.620 All right.

00:00:57.800 Well, I hope somebody knows something or else this is going to be a very short podcast.

00:01:01.580 But so Nord Stream 2 is a natural gas pipeline

00:01:06.300 that is being constructed from Russia to Germany.

00:01:09.920 And Russia has massive oil and gas resources.

00:01:14.100 And in fact, I remember John McCain used to refer to Russia.

00:01:21.920 He used to say Russia is a gas station with a country attached.

00:01:29.060 Russia fuels its aggression through the export of oil and gas.

00:01:34.840 And Nord Stream 2, right now, Europe relies on Russia for energy resources.

00:01:42.240 But much of that right now comes through Ukraine.

00:01:46.480 Now, this is hearkening back to impeachment.

00:01:49.940 You recall we talked a lot about Ukraine and how Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union,

00:01:53.960 broke off.

00:01:54.620 And Russia and Germany reached an agreement to build a new pipeline,

00:01:59.260 a pipeline that cuts Ukraine completely out

00:02:01.360 and that carries the natural gas straight to Germany.

00:02:05.400 And the problem is building this pipeline would do several things.

00:02:09.560 Number one, it would enrich Russia. 0.78

00:02:11.520 It would put billions of additional dollars in Putin's coffers,

00:02:15.900 which he then uses to build their military,

00:02:18.380 to be aggressive, to pressure, to invade his neighbors, to wreak havoc.

00:02:25.460 Number two, though, it actually hurts Europe

00:02:28.540 because it makes Europe more dependent on Russia.

00:02:31.920 It gives Putin more control over Europe.

00:02:35.480 And so I began over a year ago, last year in 2019,

00:02:41.160 really leaning in aggressively,

00:02:43.560 trying to stop Nord Stream 2 from being constructed.

00:02:47.240 So you saw this happening early on,

00:02:50.020 but I guess you saw it happening at a time where

00:02:52.520 the relationship that we have to Putin,

00:02:55.600 the relationship we have to China is all kind of in flux.

00:02:58.880 And so I'm wondering now, without having had my head in it,

00:03:02.580 how should the United States even look at Vladimir Putin,

00:03:05.120 even look at Russia?

00:03:06.040 Are we still in the Cold War?

00:03:07.640 Is it different from the Cold War?

00:03:08.600 Is it still a threat to Europe?

00:03:10.000 Where's that relationship?

00:03:11.560 Putin is a bad guy.

00:03:13.140 He is a KGB thug.

00:03:14.720 He is not our friend.

00:03:15.960 And we should be trying to minimize his power.

00:03:18.380 We should be trying to minimize his ability to do damage to America

00:03:22.400 and damage to Europe.

00:03:24.460 And you may recall when President Trump went and spoke to NATO,

00:03:29.800 he leaned in hard and he took on Angela Merkel, 1.00

00:03:33.280 the head of Germany,

00:03:34.380 for why are you doing this Nord Stream 2 thing?

00:03:36.500 This is terrible.

00:03:37.440 You're hurting Europe and helping Putin. 0.63

00:03:39.860 So I was in the Senate.

00:03:41.760 I'm on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

00:03:43.220 And I said, all right, let's do something about it.

00:03:45.560 And so I teamed up with a Democrat, with Gene Shaheen,

00:03:49.120 who's a Democrat from New Hampshire.

00:03:51.000 And we introduced legislation that was tough sanctions focused on any company

00:03:58.120 that was helping build the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

00:04:00.940 And it was designed to be surgical.

00:04:04.540 There were only five companies in the world that had the technology to be able to build

00:04:08.920 the deep sea pipeline needed.

00:04:10.860 And so we were targeting those fives to try to cut them off. 0.99

00:04:14.800 Well, when I introduced the legislation, it was very interesting.

00:04:17.620 Russia has been aggressive in their counter propaganda.

00:04:21.120 They were putting out this legislation has no chance of passage.

00:04:24.960 It will never pass.

00:04:26.320 It can't go anywhere.

00:04:27.460 I remember Rick Perry was energy secretary talking to Rick at the time,

00:04:32.020 who was who was in Europe and was saying, look, you need to understand

00:04:34.920 Cruz's legislation is going to pass.

00:04:37.300 This is going to pass.

00:04:38.160 These sanctions are going to happen.

00:04:39.560 And the Russian disinformation was fighting with Rick Perry.

00:04:43.420 Well, Senate Foreign Relations, we take up my bill

00:04:46.560 and it passes the committee by a vote of 20 to 2.

00:04:51.640 So overwhelming bipartisan passage.

00:04:54.780 I then sought to take it up and pass it on the floor of the Senate and to use a mechanism

00:05:00.780 called unanimous consent, which is the way a lot of things get passed.

00:05:04.340 But unanimous consent, as the name suggests, it's got to be unanimous, which means any senator

00:05:09.020 can object.

00:05:10.460 In this instance, Rand Paul voted against it in committee and he'd objected to taking it

00:05:15.460 up on the floor.

00:05:16.300 And one senator can kill unanimous consent or you see is what everyone calls it.

00:05:20.540 Could I just ask, not asking for you to tell any tales out of school here, but what was

00:05:25.320 the objection to, I mean, this seems like a sort of common sense piece of legislation.

00:05:30.960 Listen, I'll let Rand speak for himself.

00:05:33.500 He is very skeptical of sanctions generally.

00:05:37.060 He doesn't.

00:05:37.660 He often opposes efforts to use sanctions against foreign countries, including sometimes our enemies.

00:05:43.720 I actually think sanctions are a very effective tool and they're a tool far, far short of warfare.

00:05:50.600 Look, Rand and I agree at times and that we're both, as does the president, that we should

00:05:56.160 be very hesitant to use military power and only use it when critically necessary to defend

00:06:02.060 the nation.

00:06:02.940 But I think sanctions are an effective tool of power short of military force.

00:06:08.340 So when Rand objected, I had to find another way to pass this.

00:06:13.540 And in 2019, the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the big bill that passes every

00:06:18.900 year authorizing our military defense, that was moving forward.

00:06:23.440 And I've been an active part of passing the NDAA year after year after year.

00:06:28.860 And so we decided, all right, let's try to attach this bill to the NDAA.

00:06:33.420 Now, to do that, we had to get a lot of sign off to do that.

00:06:39.640 I had to get, number one, the chairman, a Republican and the ranking member, a Democrat

00:06:43.740 of the Senate Armed Services Committee to sign off because the Armed Services Committee passes

00:06:48.520 the NDAA.

00:06:49.580 So we did that.

00:06:51.020 I had to get the chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

00:06:56.860 to sign off because since that's the committee that had jurisdiction over my bill, foreign

00:07:02.100 relations could have vetoed it and said, no, we're not going to allow it to go onto the

00:07:07.380 NDAA.

00:07:08.220 Yeah.

00:07:08.860 So I was able to do that, got both the chairman and ranking.

00:07:11.600 And then I had to do the same thing on Senate Banking, the Senate Banking Committee, because

00:07:15.980 sanctions often go through banking.

00:07:18.640 Banking could have vetoed it also.

00:07:21.040 And so I had to get the chairman and ranking member of Senate Banking to sign off on.

00:07:25.540 And then I also had to get Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer to sign off on, the majority

00:07:29.600 and minority leader.

00:07:30.560 So we managed to do all of that.

00:07:33.760 It got attached to the NDAA and it passed through the Senate.

00:07:38.280 Then I had to do the exact same thing in the House.

00:07:41.020 So get the chairman and the ranking on armed services, on foreign relations, on banking and

00:07:47.160 majority leadership.

00:07:48.880 So we're talking phone call after phone call after phone call as I'm talking to multiple

00:07:53.000 members.

00:07:54.200 Jean Shaheen is helping with the Democrats.

00:07:56.240 She's talking to multiple members.

00:07:58.020 In the House, we almost had it derailed from a completely unrelated education provision.

00:08:07.580 I don't remember what it was, but it was threatening to derail at the House.

00:08:11.220 So I had to be on the phone to Kevin McCarthy trying to like navigate through that and stop

00:08:16.840 the objectives.

00:08:17.600 So once we get it passed, then the question is, well, is the pipeline going to stop?

00:08:28.980 Because they were building the pipeline and the pipeline was 90 to 95 percent complete.

00:08:34.620 Wow.

00:08:35.360 Right.

00:08:35.640 Because I mean, I think it's easy as we as we think about this legislation going through

00:08:39.820 the Senate and then the House, we as Americans like to think that whatever we say goes, but

00:08:44.240 that's only getting the American response set.

00:08:48.000 But obviously, Germany can do whatever it likes.

00:08:50.460 So the question is, are these sanctions going to work?

00:08:52.740 Yeah.

00:08:53.320 And let me pause for a second and point out what was truly miraculous.

00:09:00.460 December 2019.

00:09:01.880 Can you think of anything else that was going on then?

00:09:03.940 You know, I seem to recall it was a busy political time.

00:09:09.200 The House was literally impeaching the president and impeaching the president over Ukraine.

00:09:17.860 Now, mind you, stopping Nord Stream 2 benefits Ukraine.

00:09:22.880 It is a frigging miracle is a Christmas miracle on 34th Street that we got this done.

00:09:30.040 And we passed bipartisan legislation through both houses of Congress that concern Ukraine.

00:09:34.920 I didn't mention Ukraine at all.

00:09:36.080 Every time I talk to people, I said Germany, Russia, Ukraine, never heard of it.

00:09:39.160 I don't know where it is.

00:09:40.180 Don't have my map doesn't have Ukraine on it.

00:09:42.020 Don't know anything about it.

00:09:43.320 Like in the midst of that partisan mess to get this national security win was miraculous.

00:09:49.720 But then once it happened, there was a company, a Swiss company called Allseas that was actually

00:09:55.020 building the pipeline.

00:09:56.020 It was almost done.

00:09:56.800 And so they're rushing to just finish the pipeline.

00:09:59.480 And so it was like, well, tough luck.

00:10:00.560 We're done.

00:10:01.340 So what I did then is drafted a letter to the CEO of Allseas.

00:10:07.500 And it is a letter that says this is to put you on formal notice that your company is in

00:10:11.900 direct jeopardy of facing crushing economic sanctions on your shareholders and your senior

00:10:19.780 employees that will effectively put your company out of business.

00:10:23.600 And there were a couple of questions that could arguably be ambiguous.

00:10:29.580 Number one, the way the statute was written, the State Department had to do a report.

00:10:35.100 I think it was 60 days later.

00:10:36.860 And so you could say, oh, well, we got 60 days to get this done.

00:10:41.180 And number two, the statute allowed what was called a wind down period.

00:10:44.980 So you didn't just stop immediately and cause environmental damage.

00:10:48.800 Our letter explained, although the report is due 60 days later, under the terms of the

00:10:53.380 letter, your liability attaches instantaneously.

00:10:57.800 And the sanctions are mandatory.

00:11:01.020 The executive has no discretion over whether to impose them.

00:11:05.600 And so what I wrote in the letter to the CEO, I said, you need to be aware the instant

00:11:10.060 the president signs this bill.

00:11:13.760 Your company faces exposure and your only reasonable option is halt construction

00:11:19.820 instantaneously and before the bill is signed.

00:11:23.280 Now, both houses of Congress have passed it.

00:11:27.620 There's a big lobbying press in Washington.

00:11:30.180 Suddenly, all C's hires a lobbyist.

00:11:32.200 They're reaching out.

00:11:33.360 So suddenly there's word that at the NSC, there may be an effort to try to undercut these

00:11:38.380 sanctions.

00:11:39.560 So I pick up the phone and I call Robert O'Brien, the national security advisor, who's a close

00:11:43.940 friend of mine.

00:11:44.840 Robert was headed to a Christmas party.

00:11:46.220 I said, look, Robert, I need you to come out.

00:11:47.980 And I talked to him about it and said, this would be, don't listen to this podcast.

00:11:53.280 Dumbass lobbying effort.

00:11:55.280 This is a huge national security win for the country.

00:11:58.460 Thankfully, NSC, Robert's a great guy and NSC didn't bite.

00:12:03.880 We then had a fight, an interagency fight between the State Department, the Treasury Department

00:12:10.660 and the Energy Department.

00:12:12.540 So I'm on the phone with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

00:12:16.340 I'm on the phone with Energy Secretary Dan Briette.

00:12:19.560 Mike Pompeo was in Europe.

00:12:20.880 I forget where he was, but I'm texting Mike on my phone.

00:12:23.940 All three of them, state and energy were in the right place, which is wanting these sanctions

00:12:30.700 to be robust.

00:12:31.920 Treasury, unfortunately, was pushing on the other side.

00:12:36.380 And so it was a big fight.

00:12:38.000 So I'm talking to all three, leaning in hard.

00:12:42.680 At the end of the day, state and energy and National Security Council won that interagency

00:12:49.580 battle.

00:12:50.220 And so the sanctions remained tough.

00:12:54.540 The president signed that bill.

00:12:56.680 I believe it was a Thursday at 7 p.m., if I'm remembering the time correctly.

00:13:02.200 About 15 minutes earlier, Thursday, 645 p.m., All Seas puts out a press release.

00:13:10.860 We are lifting anchor and leaving, and we have immediately halted all construction of

00:13:17.060 Nord Stream 2.

00:13:18.060 So where does this put the pipeline now?

00:13:20.960 I mean, so after there's a sort of Herculean effort, it finally gets through all the chambers

00:13:26.300 of the Congress and then gets through the departments and it goes into effect.

00:13:29.280 But where does that leave the pipeline?

00:13:32.640 So for several months, it just left it stopped.

00:13:35.380 So it's 95 percent built.

00:13:37.660 But remember, a pipeline that is 95 percent built is zero percent built.

00:13:42.200 The pipeline doesn't work until you connect both ends.

00:13:44.820 So right now, it's a hunk of metal on the bottom of the ocean, like it's not doing nothing.

00:13:50.500 So Russia was then scrambling, all right, how do we build it?

00:13:53.880 And they didn't have the technology to do it.

00:13:55.780 They're trying to do it using a Russian ship called the Akademik Chersky.

00:14:00.020 Now, to do that, they had to get a new environmental permit from Denmark.

00:14:04.520 So I was on the phone to the Danish ambassador, pressing on the Danish ambassador, saying, don't

00:14:08.660 grant the permit.

00:14:10.360 Unfortunately, Merkel and Germany are on the phone with Denmark, leaning on them hard.

00:14:15.240 Please grant the permit.

00:14:17.300 They ended up granting it.

00:14:18.540 By the way, there are serious environmental risks to how Russia wants to do it.

00:14:22.240 Among other things, one of the ways they're looking at doing it is dragging an anchor on

00:14:26.620 the seafloor.

00:14:27.980 Yeah.

00:14:28.180 And there are actually unexploded chemical munitions on the seafloor from World War II

00:14:35.460 that if you hit them, you could have an environmental complete mess.

00:14:40.360 Wow.

00:14:40.800 And it's not like the Russians are very good at this. 0.98

00:14:43.080 They don't know how to do this, which is why they had to hire a Swiss company to build

00:14:47.060 it initially.

00:14:47.660 Well, Senator, you mentioned the world wars here, and maybe this is a stupid question,

00:14:52.380 but just knowing the little little idea of history, the Germans and the Russians have

00:14:56.140 not always had a wonderful relationship.

00:14:58.440 And I'm just wondering, why is Germany so hell bent on getting this pipeline in this

00:15:04.120 relationship with Russia?

00:15:05.200 Is it just money?

00:15:06.800 You know, Michael, I don't have a great answer.

00:15:09.100 I think it is not in the German people's best interest. 1.00

00:15:11.740 Merkel is leaning in really hard.

00:15:14.000 The European Union actually voted, I think it was about a year ago, to condemn Nord Stream

00:15:19.880 2 as harmful to Europe.

00:15:21.440 And the vote was something like 400 to 100.

00:15:24.420 I mean, it was an overwhelmingly lopsided vote condemning Nord Stream 2.

00:15:30.160 And so the Russians have been scrambling to move forward.

00:15:33.940 I have been since then.

00:15:35.820 And by the way, all of the naysayers who were trying to stop our legislation, what they kept

00:15:40.960 saying was it'll never work.

00:15:43.020 It won't actually stop the pipeline.

00:15:44.760 There's no chance of it succeeding.

00:15:46.400 And of course, it worked like a charm.

00:15:47.920 It stopped it in its tracks.

00:15:50.660 Now, the Russians are trying to retrofit their ship to be able to finish it.

00:15:56.980 And so what I've done, I've been working very closely with state and energy still and

00:16:00.900 treasury.

00:16:02.240 But I introduced a second set of sanctions that is even it's a tougher set of secondary

00:16:07.340 sanctions that basically says anyone else who's affiliated with it, you're getting

00:16:12.240 sanctioned to like if you if you touch this project, you're screwed.

00:16:16.800 Yeah.

00:16:17.720 Again, I did it with Gene Shaheen.

00:16:19.420 It was bipartisan, Republican and Democrat.

00:16:21.860 And and we passed passed it through the Senate attached to the next NDAA.

00:16:27.700 And so and so we got that through.

00:16:29.460 It's pending.

00:16:30.080 It hasn't been signed into law.

00:16:31.340 But we got it through the Senate again.

00:16:35.060 And I'll tell you, I recently joined with a couple of other senators and sent a letter

00:16:40.200 to the German port where Russia is retrofitting the academic Chersky and trying to to to lead

00:16:49.700 its efforts to finish this pipeline.

00:16:51.520 The German ports name.

00:16:53.020 I'm sorry.

00:16:53.700 It's a German name, a long German name that I can't remember.

00:16:56.300 But it it it had a whole lot of consonants and they usually do.

00:17:01.140 So I sent them a letter pointing out, look, under the terms of these sanctions, you are

00:17:06.000 facing serious sanctions under what Congress has passed.

00:17:12.160 I got to say, Germany is is the German government is flipping out, is losing their minds.

00:17:18.720 They're very upset.

00:17:20.220 Russia is very upset.

00:17:21.420 Now, other players in Europe, like I spoke two weeks ago to the Polish ambassador, Poland

00:17:27.520 thinks, you know, Europe has seen the danger of Russian aggression.

00:17:34.660 You know, for Poland, Soviet tanks in the streets are real memories.

00:17:39.640 They know what that's like.

00:17:41.120 And and part of the reason you don't want Europe totally dependent on Russia for energy

00:17:47.200 is because Putin's demonstrated he'll shut off the energy in the middle of a brutal winter

00:17:51.780 in order to extract concessions from people he wants to get concessions from.

00:17:56.540 And so he uses it.

00:17:58.260 You know, it's a little bit like saying, you know, I'm going to I'm going to make myself

00:18:03.080 dependent on on the mafia, on the mob.

00:18:06.340 You know, you know, you know, Vito Corleone, I'm going to put him in charge of of of air and

00:18:11.660 water for my house.

00:18:12.880 That's a really bad idea because Vito will come to you sometime and ask for a favor.

00:18:20.640 That's right.

00:18:21.420 Putin has a lot of Vito Corleone.

00:18:23.480 Apologies to Marlon Brando somewhere.

00:18:25.480 He's rolling over in his grave.

00:18:26.640 It was very close.

00:18:27.600 It was it was like I was watching the film.

00:18:32.060 But so this battle is ongoing right now.

00:18:38.980 Here's the bottom line.

00:18:40.200 I don't believe this pipeline will ever get constructed, but we are literally fighting

00:18:45.400 both Merkel and Putin right now, who billions of dollars are at stake to complete this pipeline.

00:18:54.200 We have managed to keep a bipartisan coalition throughout the government in Congress and the

00:19:00.580 executive branch, Republicans, Democrats, all the other issues we're fighting about.

00:19:05.140 We've managed to keep this coalition together on national security.

00:19:09.440 And if we continue to stop the pipeline, which we've done so far, it hurts Putin taking billions

00:19:15.740 of dollars out of its pockets.

00:19:17.360 It helps Europe by making it less dependent on Russia.

00:19:21.640 And it helps America because if Europe because Europe, it would be much better for Europe for 0.57

00:19:27.300 them to be importing energy from America, creating jobs in the United States of America rather

00:19:32.020 than enriching Putin.

00:19:34.020 And so this is a win win all around.

00:19:37.540 And it's an active diplomatic battle that that it is ongoing right now.

00:19:41.940 And I think that's an important point.

00:19:43.240 First, first of all, it serves American interests.

00:19:45.940 Second of all, it serves European interests.

00:19:48.360 And third of all, this harkens back to something that we talked about very early in the podcast

00:19:53.260 during impeachment, which is I think a lot of our focus now is on China.

00:19:56.960 Obviously, we're living in this pandemic and these lockdowns that were caused by China. 1.00

00:20:00.960 And so people are saying, OK, China is the real threat.

00:20:03.660 You know, Russia was the threat during the Cold War, but now China is the real threat. 0.99

00:20:07.180 This doesn't have to be an either or here.

00:20:09.440 It's not the case that just because China is now threatening us in a way that we hadn't 0.68

00:20:13.780 seen before, that all of a sudden Vladimir Putin is our best friend.

00:20:17.440 Surely he does not have our interests at heart.

00:20:20.200 Now, that's exactly right.

00:20:21.900 Listen, in terms of magnitude of threats, China is the far bigger geopolitical threat.

00:20:27.620 I think it's the biggest threat we have over the next century.

00:20:30.820 But Putin and Russia remain dangerous and we need to be vigorous against them.

00:20:35.020 And for that matter, a nuclear Iran would be profoundly dangerous. 0.99

00:20:39.100 North Korea is dangerous. 0.82

00:20:40.100 So there are lots of dangerous places on Earth.

00:20:42.680 China, strategically, their economic might makes them, I think, a different level of magnitude

00:20:49.200 than every other player for the next century.

00:20:51.460 Yeah.

00:20:52.180 But but Russia is dangerous and and putting billions of dollars in Putin's pockets to

00:20:59.300 use against us is a really bad idea.

00:21:01.640 Well, moving from the realm of foreign policy to touch on domestic affairs here in our last

00:21:06.760 few moments, want to get to the mailbag.

00:21:08.160 Rob asks, he says, I would like Ted's thoughts on the recent comments by Dems that a Trump landslide

00:21:15.460 on election night could be a mirage that basically you could get Trump winning on election night.

00:21:21.800 But then some mail in ballots come in weeks later and all of a sudden the election goes

00:21:25.760 to Joe Biden.

00:21:27.380 Well, look, I think it is a moment where the Democrats actually said out loud the things

00:21:32.080 that they meant to keep quiet, which which which is they're admitting from a Democratic

00:21:37.180 perspective, there are one of two outcomes.

00:21:40.240 Either they win in November or they're going to scream the election is illegitimate.

00:21:45.600 They're going to file litigation in every state and jurisdiction they can.

00:21:49.400 And they're going to do everything they can to steal the election that they the outcome

00:21:54.420 of Trump winning that they there's so much rage at Adam that I and you can see them setting

00:22:00.700 the predicate for them.

00:22:01.720 You can see them already setting the stage to challenge the legitimacy of the election.

00:22:07.380 And and you know, it's interesting there have been prominent Democrats, Hillary Clinton

00:22:13.460 asking, you know, would Trump accept it if he lost?

00:22:17.300 And there's an odd thing that that a lot of Democrats do.

00:22:21.100 I mean, it's a Freudian projection, which is they accuse the other side of doing what

00:22:26.180 they're doing.

00:22:26.760 Look, it's the Democrats that still haven't accepted they lost in 2016.

00:22:31.140 You know, it's Stacey Abrams who still thinks she's governor of Georgia. 1.00

00:22:35.580 And I am very concerned that that they are unless they win, in which case it will be Hosanna,

00:22:45.980 Hosanna, in come the socialists.

00:22:48.520 But but if they if there's any outcome other than they're winning on election night.

00:22:54.560 Hold on tight, because they're going to do everything they can to dispute the outcome.

00:22:58.500 Right.

00:22:58.640 It's very funny, because Hillary Clinton said in 2016 that Donald Trump is threatening

00:23:03.160 not to accept the results of the election.

00:23:05.000 This is a threat to democracy.

00:23:06.500 She then went on to dispute the election for four years. 0.96

00:23:09.000 And now she's saying Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.

00:23:14.320 You know, if there were self-awareness on that side of the aisle, I'm I'm sure we could

00:23:18.800 all laugh about it.

00:23:19.540 But sadly, there seems not to be.

00:23:22.040 So, Michael, let me jump in actually on a mailbag topic.

00:23:25.100 And this is actually a correction from prior mailbag.

00:23:28.560 Hold on, Senator.

00:23:29.080 I've got to stop you right there.

00:23:30.500 I I'm shocked.

00:23:31.920 I'm edified, but shocked that you would correct something on the air, because if this were

00:23:36.000 the New York Times and you had said something wrong, you would bury the correction in page

00:23:40.240 three thousand and fifty of some supplemental book that no one would read.

00:23:43.760 But you are going to make a correction right here on the show.

00:23:47.040 I am.

00:23:47.740 And I'm going to shine a light on it, which is which is several episodes ago.

00:23:51.700 We were doing a mailbag and and and we had a question from from from one listener whose

00:23:58.900 handle on on Twitter, you and I both referred to as Bay Lamb's donkey.

00:24:07.640 Yes.

00:24:08.340 And and we were talking about it.

00:24:10.100 Well, you know, and we were sort of we made some jokes.

00:24:13.260 Well, I got to tell you afterwards.

00:24:15.420 Yeah.

00:24:15.940 A dear, dear friend of mine, a guy named Willie Langston is one of my closest friends on

00:24:20.260 earth and and Willie is is a a deep, devout Christian, a godly man and and a he knows

00:24:30.300 the Bible through and through.

00:24:31.400 And I got to say, Willie had a little bit of fun making fun of you and me.

00:24:35.800 Yeah, I know.

00:24:36.700 I know where this is going for our lack of biblical literacy, because what it actually was referring

00:24:44.920 to is Balaam's donkey.

00:24:47.260 Yeah.

00:24:47.440 And who is Balaam?

00:24:48.640 And I had to be reminded I didn't remember this.

00:24:50.760 And Willie laughingly recounted.

00:24:53.600 So if you look in the book of Numbers, you know, chapter 22, so Balaam, he wasn't an Israelite.

00:25:01.120 He was with the Mennonites and the Moabites, but but he was someone to whom God spoke.

00:25:07.140 And the story in Numbers 22, and I actually want to read the story because I remembered

00:25:11.780 it, but I didn't remember it when we were talking about it.

00:25:13.920 And it's worth remembering.

00:25:16.300 So Numbers 22, starting with verse 22.

00:25:18.660 But God was angry because Balaam was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in

00:25:25.300 the way as an adversary against him.

00:25:28.140 Now, he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.

00:25:32.620 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way with his drawn sword in

00:25:36.840 his hand, the donkey turned off the other way and went into the field.

00:25:41.000 But Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back into the way.

00:25:44.480 Then the angel of the Lord stood in the narrow path of the vineyards with a well on the side

00:25:49.740 and a wall on that side.

00:25:52.080 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself into the wall and pressed 1.00

00:25:56.820 Balaam's foot against the wall.

00:25:58.540 So he struck her again.

00:26:00.840 The angel of the Lord went further and stood in a narrow place where there was no place

00:26:04.860 to turn to the right hand of the left.

00:26:06.620 When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she laid down under Balaam.

00:26:10.320 So Balaam was angry and struck the donkey with his stick.

00:26:14.480 And the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey.

00:26:18.620 And she said to Balaam, what have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?

00:26:26.040 Then Balaam said to the donkey, because you have made a mockery of me.

00:26:29.740 If I'd had a sword in my hand, I would have killed you by now.

00:26:32.800 This is the guy talking to his donkey.

00:26:34.460 The donkey said to Balaam, am I not your donkey on which you have ridden all your life to this 0.96

00:26:39.880 day?

00:26:40.240 Have I ever been accustomed to do so to you?

00:26:43.260 And he said, no.

00:26:44.520 Then the Lord opened the eyes of Balaam and he saw the angel of the Lord standing in the

00:26:49.780 way with the drawn sword in his hand.

00:26:51.680 And he bowed all the way to the ground.

00:26:54.460 And the angel of the Lord said to him, why have you struck your donkey three times?

00:27:00.020 Behold, I have come out as an adversary because your way was contrary to me.

00:27:06.080 But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times.

00:27:10.360 If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now and let her, 1.00

00:27:17.720 the donkey, live.

00:27:18.580 And so our listener, Balaam's donkey, was a wonderful biblical reference that as a graduate

00:27:27.200 of Second Baptist High School, I am embarrassed that I did not recognize immediately.

00:27:32.900 But Willie, I'm fessing up and fessing up for all to hear.

00:27:35.840 You know, it's so funny you mentioned it, Senator.

00:27:37.940 I did have this thought.

00:27:38.940 I was thinking about Balaam.

00:27:40.420 What is that?

00:27:41.140 And after the episode, I thought, oh, my gosh, I actually did read numbers probably two years

00:27:46.060 ago.

00:27:46.420 I had never read all of numbers.

00:27:47.860 It's two or three years ago.

00:27:48.960 And, you know, it's not it's a little bit dry as far as books of the Bible go.

00:27:53.620 And but I thought, oh, gosh, this is very bad.

00:27:56.320 And I unlike Balaam's donkey, I deserve to be struck three times. 0.99

00:28:00.480 We do on this show for our biblical ignorance.

00:28:04.340 We've really covered a lot of ground.

00:28:06.020 We've not only gone to modern day Russia, we've gone to the ancient Mideast.

00:28:12.260 We've covered everything in between all the way from heaven to earth.

00:28:15.720 We'll have to stop it there and we will see one another next time.

00:28:20.040 And I'm going to catch up on my Bible in the meantime.

00:28:22.080 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:28:23.220 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:28:30.480 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security

00:28:38.920 PAC, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:28:44.060 and candidates across the country.

00:28:46.100 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom and Security PAC plans to donate to conservative candidates running

00:28:51.760 for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:28:56.020 This is an iHeart Podcast.

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Verdict with Ted Cruz - September 10, 2020

Fueling Russia's Aggression

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