Verdict with Ted Cruz - Holy Crap, What a Week

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.480 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.300 The media have declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

00:00:09.880 But under our constitutional system, it turns out that the media don't actually get to pick

00:00:15.700 who the president is.

00:00:18.160 Fortunately, we are joined by a constitutional expert, somebody who knows a lot about elections.

00:00:23.820 He will help us understand the nitty gritty and who, in fact, will be the president.

00:00:28.860 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:37.040 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:39.120 I am Michael Knowles.

00:00:40.660 Senator, I am no constitutional expert.

00:00:43.840 I did not go to law school, but I think I am right in saying this.

00:00:48.060 The media don't get to pick the president, right?

00:00:50.700 Thankfully, although Lord knows they're trying.

00:00:54.100 It is the voters who decide.

00:00:56.380 And, you know, I got to say, so you and I are filming this on Tuesday night.

00:01:02.220 Election Day was a week ago.

00:01:04.480 We haven't done a podcast since before Election Day.

00:01:07.600 I kind of feel like Thomas Jefferson in the musical Hamilton coming back saying, so what did I miss?

00:01:14.820 Like, holy crap, what a week this has been.

00:01:23.400 There's never been a week like this in politics, in media, in life. 0.97

00:01:30.480 And the consequence for the nation are enormous.

00:01:35.500 You know, we've gotten a lot of messages, people asking, why didn't you do an episode during the election or the day after the election?

00:01:42.380 And I think people sometimes forget you are a sitting U.S. senator.

00:01:46.460 You know, you do have a pretty busy schedule.

00:01:48.360 And the events have been changing in real time.

00:01:51.920 Obviously, on election night, you had certain cable networks calling Arizona, for instance, for Joe Biden.

00:01:58.900 Then it seems like people were walking that back.

00:02:01.080 Now it seems unclear who's going to get Arizona.

00:02:03.520 You had a lot of votes come in really late in Pennsylvania, in Wisconsin, in Michigan.

00:02:08.200 You had the polls counting stopping just at 10 o'clock at night.

00:02:13.520 And then it was supposed to not resume until the morning.

00:02:15.800 Now there are reports that resumed in the middle of the night.

00:02:17.420 And there's just so much disinformation, misinformation.

00:02:22.080 And I, on the legal front, obviously, there are so many questions.

00:02:26.040 So I know you have been through this actually before.

00:02:28.860 You were a lawyer on President George W. Bush's team during the Florida recount and the questions of the 2000 presidential election.

00:02:36.860 What are we looking at here in terms of President Trump's chances for a second term, in terms of the ability to find fraud in Philadelphia, for instance?

00:02:46.420 Where are we on the legal front?

00:02:48.360 Well, I'll start with a radical proposition, which is that elections are decided when the results have been counted and the legal proceedings are over.

00:02:59.920 That that didn't used to be a controversial proposition.

00:03:03.380 You know, think back to election night.

00:03:08.080 I was here in Houston.

00:03:10.220 I was at an election party with a number of friends.

00:03:12.820 That night was a great night.

00:03:15.260 Republicans were winning.

00:03:17.160 We were winning the Senate.

00:03:18.680 We were winning House seats.

00:03:20.140 And President Trump was winning re-election early on.

00:03:25.520 Florida was called for the president early on.

00:03:27.640 Ohio was called for the president.

00:03:29.880 And we were leading.

00:03:31.420 I went home to go to bed about two in the morning.

00:03:33.400 And we were leading in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin.

00:03:37.860 I mean, it looked like a really strong night.

00:03:41.120 And then I suspect a lot of us went to bed and we woke up in the morning.

00:03:44.720 And it's like, what happened?

00:03:50.020 There are multiple lawsuits all over the country right now playing out.

00:03:55.260 There are going to be recounts in multiple states.

00:04:00.360 All of those proceedings have to be concluded before we know who actually will be the winner state by state by state.

00:04:08.500 And that's going to take, in all likelihood, several weeks.

00:04:11.860 It's not going to take six months, but the litigation is not going to be over by tomorrow.

00:04:17.060 And the night of the election, number one, the media, two outlets, Fox News and AP, were really precipitous calling Arizona.

00:04:25.580 That was clearly a mistake.

00:04:28.200 You know, when CNN is calling out Fox for being too anti-Trump, you know somebody's jumped the shark somewhere.

00:04:36.140 I mean, that's a problem.

00:04:37.940 But the instant the vote totals shifted to Joe Biden, we've seen virtually the entire mainstream media try to engage in an immediate coronation.

00:04:51.560 Big tech engage in total censorship of any view to the contrary.

00:04:55.060 And they're behaving with this weird, you know, I mean, it's almost like they're persecuting heretics.

00:05:04.400 If you dare say, well, let's wait till the litigation is resolved, they scream at you, you're undermining democracy.

00:05:13.600 That's nutty.

00:05:15.160 No, democracy means if there are legal challenges, you resolve the legal challenges.

00:05:20.920 And by the way, this happens in elections all the time.

00:05:23.360 But we see recounts, we see litigation, we see disputes over if there were votes that were illegally cast.

00:05:32.360 That litigation has to be resolved.

00:05:34.940 And, you know, the way it plays out, there are cases in state court, there are cases in federal court.

00:05:40.300 The cases in state court will be adjudicated in a trial court.

00:05:45.780 They will, in many instances, go up to an intermediate court of appeals.

00:05:49.460 They would go up maybe to the state Supreme Court.

00:05:52.760 And then the U.S. Supreme Court can take it from the state system.

00:05:56.340 There will also be cases in federal court that start in federal district court, maybe go up to the court of appeals.

00:06:01.540 And they can go up to the Supreme Court.

00:06:03.380 So if you look at Bush versus Gore, as you know, my book, One Vote Away, it's a whole chapter on Bush versus Gore.

00:06:10.820 And it goes into great detail. Bush versus Gore took 36 days.

00:06:15.620 When we arrived in Florida, within days, we had a chart of seven different cases that were all pending, just in one state, just in Florida, any one of which could have cost the presidency of the United States.

00:06:30.060 And it was chaos.

00:06:31.560 We went to the Florida Supreme Court twice.

00:06:33.560 We went to the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

00:06:35.180 And when I say went to the U.S. Supreme Court, I mean briefed the case, argued it, and got a written decision from the Supreme Court twice in those 36 days.

00:06:45.540 Wow.

00:06:46.220 And by the way, we also tried a full case in the Florida trial court in addition to multiple other arguments.

00:06:52.980 So the court system can operate, but all of us should expect the courts to resolve these claims.

00:07:00.740 There are lots of claims of voter fraud.

00:07:05.480 I don't know which claims are accurate and which aren't.

00:07:08.660 You don't know which claims are accurate and which aren't.

00:07:10.780 That's why we have a legal system. 0.58

00:07:12.540 That's what courts do. 1.00

00:07:15.880 And in today's world where you see, you know, this Twitter allegation, that Twitter allegation, all sorts of things, it's really hard to know, all right, what really is the state of affairs?

00:07:25.560 Well, we ought to allow the legal system to actually hear evidence, to examine the data, to listen to witnesses, to examine evidence, and to make factual determinations.

00:07:38.500 That's why we have a judicial system. 0.99

00:07:40.700 Of course.

00:07:41.140 And the idea that there was no fraud whatsoever seems to me very difficult to believe.

00:07:45.980 You called this out.

00:07:47.220 Right.

00:07:47.340 And I have to tell you, I don't mean to flatter you, Senator, but you were one of the few elected Republicans who actually came out strongly on this, specifically in Philadelphia.

00:07:56.180 You had Republican poll watchers show up every election.

00:07:59.640 You got poll watchers from both campaigns.

00:08:01.380 They show up.

00:08:02.100 They make sure there are no shenanigans going on.

00:08:04.660 Republican poll watchers were turned away.

00:08:06.640 There was then a court order that said you have to let the Republican poll watchers in.

00:08:10.120 What happened?

00:08:10.720 They still encountered resistance trying to take a look at these polls.

00:08:14.160 That is outrageous.

00:08:15.580 That is illegal.

00:08:17.520 And who knows if that threw an election?

00:08:19.900 We can't know that.

00:08:20.880 Obviously, a legal process has to play out.

00:08:22.680 But to say that there is no evidence whatsoever and we need to certify these results and move on and waiting even five days is too long and unprecedented, that just seems to be not in correspondence with reality.

00:08:34.600 Well, and let's take that component for a moment.

00:08:36.520 I've been trying to be very active both as on on social media and also in on media media engaging in these issues and leading the fight.

00:08:50.720 It's interesting. 0.98

00:08:52.360 The media talking points and the damn talking points on the Pennsylvania ballot observers is, well, no, no, no. 0.99

00:08:57.920 They were in the room. 0.99

00:08:59.840 What they ignore is that they were being kept 20 feet away or 25 feet away. 0.99

00:09:05.880 If you've ever tried to actually look at a ballot 25 feet away, you can't see the damn ballot. 0.97

00:09:11.340 You are not actually an observer if you're 25 feet away. 0.96

00:09:14.760 Ultimately, they went to a Pennsylvania state court and got an order to be six feet away.

00:09:20.000 To be honest, it's hard to observe a ballot six feet away if you're trying to see, are the guys cheating?

00:09:26.280 And that's a second point to understand.

00:09:29.040 It can sound like, oh, it's a technicality.

00:09:32.800 It's a procedural issue whether there were observers there.

00:09:35.800 But the reason that the law mandates the observers be there is to prevent people from engaging in fraud, to prevent people from stealing votes.

00:09:46.220 You look at Bush versus Gore.

00:09:48.540 One of the first things the Democrats did is they sought recounts in four overwhelmingly Democratic counties in Florida.

00:09:55.540 And I talk about in my book, One Vote Away, how on the Bush legal team, and I was a young lawyer at the time.

00:10:07.900 I was in my late 20s and was part of it was an incredible legal team that came together for George W. Bush.

00:10:14.040 We had a big debate about, OK, do we counter by asking for recounts in four overwhelmingly Republican counties?

00:10:22.240 So if they're going to go seek recounts in Democratic counties, does it help us to get recounts in Republican counties?

00:10:28.420 We didn't do so.

00:10:29.840 We decided, no, let's not do so.

00:10:32.200 And I'll tell you the reason why.

00:10:34.380 Because we believe to a person that in the Democratic recounts that the hard leftist partisans would cheat, that they'd be sitting there.

00:10:43.580 Those had chads and they'd literally be poking them out with their fingernails. 0.96

00:10:46.440 Like if you didn't look, boom, there you go.

00:10:48.140 Another vote for Gore.

00:10:48.900 And what we said is, look, our guys won't cheat.

00:10:52.880 Like if we do a recount in a Republican county, it doesn't help us because the guys counting us are going to come up with basically the same count that thankfully I'm glad our guys won't cheat.

00:11:04.700 Now, look, some observers may say, oh, that's a pretty partisan view of things.

00:11:09.460 I can't prove as a conclusive fact that the Democratic counters cheat significantly more than the Republican counters do.

00:11:18.220 What I can tell you is the reason we didn't seek a recount in the Republican counties is that all of our lawyers, all of George W. Bush's lawyers believe that.

00:11:26.880 Right.

00:11:27.080 And so we didn't seek a recount.

00:11:29.080 And as they recounted it, you kept seeing the numbers for Gore grow and grow and grow.

00:11:33.900 I mean, it clearly played out in the pattern we anticipated.

00:11:38.500 And just for people who think there isn't historical precedent here, obviously, you've got Bush v. Gore.

00:11:43.600 You've got the 2000 recount.

00:11:44.940 But actually, your predecessor in the Senate from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, who obviously went on to become president.

00:11:50.780 There's great controversy about his 1948 election to the Senate, where I think it was about a million votes cast.

00:11:57.480 And he won by something like 87 votes.

00:12:00.560 You know, it was fewer than 100 votes.

00:12:02.400 And it all came from box 13.

00:12:05.940 Box 13, a box of ballots from a notoriously corrupt county.

00:12:10.540 And there was allegations that it had been stuffed.

00:12:13.200 President Roosevelt actually joked about stuffing ballot boxes at the time.

00:12:18.100 This is an American tradition.

00:12:19.180 Unfortunately, it is.

00:12:21.900 There has been significant voter fraud.

00:12:24.760 And by the way, in these big Democratic cities, cities like Pennsylvania, cities like Philadelphia, cities like Detroit and Michigan.

00:12:31.940 In Detroit, they put poster board and covered up the ballot counting areas to hide them.

00:12:38.640 You know, an analogy I used this weekend on one of the Sunday shows.

00:12:42.680 I said, listen, if someone goes into a bank and shuts off all the security cameras.

00:12:49.480 What is the natural inference that leads?

00:12:52.140 Right.

00:12:53.320 It's not that they're intending to do nothing wrong.

00:12:56.320 I mean, if you're shutting off the mechanism for observing it, that people naturally say, well, there's a reason you don't want people to see what you're doing.

00:13:04.320 But but but let me say, OK, in terms of where we are, I mean, a lot of people are asking, all right, where do we go?

00:13:11.880 What's next?

00:13:12.660 Yeah.

00:13:13.260 Let me give you good news and bad news.

00:13:15.540 OK, give me the good news first.

00:13:17.460 OK, the good news first, there is reason for some optimism because, listen, this was a weird election with covid and and you had massive mail in votings and in-person voting.

00:13:30.760 The the data show that on Election Day, the people that went physically to the polls and voted in person, that Trump won those by a significant margin.

00:13:40.400 The data also show that in many states on the mail in votes that Biden won those by a significant margin.

00:13:48.260 So here's the good news in a recount or in an election contest litigation.

00:13:54.860 In-person Election Day votes are significantly less likely to be deemed illegal.

00:14:02.520 Right.

00:14:02.860 Right.

00:14:03.260 It's it's harder to cheat.

00:14:04.860 Those votes, generally, the count is what it is.

00:14:07.520 And the in-person election.

00:14:08.880 It's a good point.

00:14:09.540 Votes rarely change.

00:14:12.100 Mail in votes.

00:14:12.960 If you look at recounts, if you look at election contests, some significant percentage of mail in votes fairly predictably are excluded as this doesn't meet the legal standards.

00:14:22.760 This is whether it's, you know, someone, a dead person, whether it is someone who didn't sign the thing, like for whatever reason, that varies state by state.

00:14:32.600 But mail in voters have a significantly higher percentage of being excluded.

00:14:37.120 In this instance, mail in voters are predominantly for Joe Biden.

00:14:42.240 So we may well see as these recounts go forward.

00:14:46.620 A larger percentage of Biden votes being deemed illegal than Trump votes.

00:14:51.800 We don't know that, but but there's reason to have optimism.

00:14:56.140 Now, let me give you the flip side.

00:14:57.960 OK, I'm braced for it.

00:14:59.280 What's the bad news for the Trump team to prevail?

00:15:03.360 They can't just win in one state.

00:15:07.820 They've got to run the table.

00:15:09.720 So let me give you some of the numbers, because it's this.

00:15:12.200 This is the challenging piece.

00:15:14.520 So so right now.

00:15:16.380 All right.

00:15:16.980 I'm using the New York Times election results as one source.

00:15:20.920 New York Times has Biden with a 279 electoral lead to 214.

00:15:26.420 You need 270 to be elected president.

00:15:28.700 So it has Biden with 279.

00:15:31.400 So the Times hasn't called Georgia.

00:15:34.480 Right now, Biden has a 14,000 vote lead in Georgia.

00:15:38.520 So we need to pick up 14,000 votes in Georgia.

00:15:41.900 The Times hasn't called Arizona.

00:15:43.680 Right now, Biden has a 12,000 vote lead in Arizona.

00:15:47.280 Now, let's talk about the states that they have called for Biden.

00:15:52.420 Wisconsin with 10 electoral votes.

00:15:54.560 Biden has over a 20,000 vote lead in Wisconsin.

00:15:58.540 Nevada with six electoral votes.

00:16:00.580 Biden has over a 36,000 vote lead in Nevada.

00:16:04.920 Michigan with 16 electoral votes.

00:16:08.260 Biden, unfortunately, has 148,000 vote lead in Michigan.

00:16:13.560 That that's a big lead.

00:16:14.760 Yeah.

00:16:15.280 And then Pennsylvania, which is the big enchilada in terms of the most electoral votes of the

00:16:20.200 states we're talking about.

00:16:22.140 Biden has right now but a 45,000 vote lead.

00:16:25.700 That is a lot of votes to shift in a recount or a contest litigation.

00:16:31.240 If you look at Florida and Bush versus Gore, the whole course of it, we were talking about

00:16:35.940 a few thousand votes.

00:16:37.300 Right.

00:16:37.560 At the end of the day, George W. Bush won by 537 votes.

00:16:41.460 Right.

00:16:41.760 Right.

00:16:42.300 The totals in Florida started out much, much closer than where these totals are.

00:16:48.980 And if we were talking about one state, you could be more optimistic about what the result

00:16:57.240 would be.

00:16:57.620 In this instance, the Trump team has got to win in a whole bunch of states.

00:17:02.760 Right.

00:17:02.960 I suppose even when you hear those numbers, I mean, it's amazing how thin some of Michigan

00:17:08.860 accepted how thin some of the margins are in Georgia, for instance, or Arizona or Wisconsin

00:17:13.980 even.

00:17:14.820 But, you know, that is that is very tricky because time is running out.

00:17:18.920 I suppose one cause for hope is that we are in this bizarre year of the universal unsolicited

00:17:23.560 mail-in.

00:17:23.980 And so perhaps that gives a greater opportunity to flip them, but perhaps not.

00:17:28.200 I mean, that's a lot of votes in a lot of states.

00:17:30.760 So what you're saying is let the legal process play out.

00:17:34.400 Do not in no way declare the winner, you know, or go along with the media, but maybe don't

00:17:39.200 pop the champagne yet.

00:17:40.400 There's still a long hill to climb.

00:17:41.860 Well, and look, there are instances, let's take there was a county in Michigan that has

00:17:46.700 publicly admitted that there was a what they called a software glitch that shifted 6,000

00:17:55.600 votes from Trump to Biden.

00:17:58.140 Now, thankfully, they caught it.

00:18:00.300 They caught it and they did a hand recount and discovered, wait, our results are way off

00:18:04.800 what we anticipated.

00:18:05.700 And, and they said, it's a glitch.

00:18:08.460 This, this software is used, I believe in 47 counties in Michigan.

00:18:13.500 So look, if there were 6,000 votes shifted in all 47 counties, that would be enough to,

00:18:17.960 to, to move the margin.

00:18:20.480 Yeah.

00:18:20.920 What the Michigan officials are arguing, however, is that this quote glitch is idiosyncratic to

00:18:28.440 just this county and that it's not present more widely.

00:18:33.040 Now, now this is an example of, there's a reason to be skeptical of their sort of self-serving

00:18:40.740 explanation, but it actually is going to take the lawyers proving this in court.

00:18:48.820 It's going to take right now.

00:18:51.720 And I've been on the phone with the president.

00:18:54.480 I've been on the phone with Jared Kushner.

00:18:55.980 I've been on the phone with the White House.

00:18:57.260 I have been urging them to bring in a stronger legal team, more serious, high-powered litigators

00:19:06.780 and to go make their case.

00:19:08.980 At this point, yelling about it isn't going to change it.

00:19:14.460 You got to go into court.

00:19:15.760 Yeah.

00:19:16.280 And you got to put on evidence and, and demonstrate to a court a legal basis that

00:19:24.080 the margins we're talking about state by state, that that portion of the votes were illegally

00:19:30.500 cast.

00:19:30.980 And that's got to be proven with cross-examination, with evidence.

00:19:36.000 And we're not there yet.

00:19:37.160 I hope we get there, but that's not an easy task.

00:19:40.640 And it takes some, some real hard, careful, diligent work.

00:19:47.220 Right, right.

00:19:48.480 Okay.

00:19:48.880 You have not completely thrown me into despair.

00:19:51.400 There is still some cause for hope.

00:19:53.520 And obviously we'll see that play out.

00:19:55.240 One of the reasons I think a lot of people want President Trump to get reelected is because

00:19:59.780 they are so infuriated at the blob, the deep state, the administrative state, the, you know,

00:20:07.320 out of control agencies, whatever you want to call it.

00:20:09.400 And, uh, you know, speaking of, uh, legal questions, I was wondering if you were going

00:20:14.120 to be arrested for murder earlier today because you eviscerated Mr. Andrew McCabe, one of these

00:20:19.960 corrupt officials who was involved in the, the entire hoax and the scandals of 2016 surrounding

00:20:26.060 that election and thereafter, uh, it's not getting any play.

00:20:29.700 I noticed the testimony of Andrew McCabe is not getting any play because everyone's focused

00:20:32.960 on the presidential, but I thought it was extraordinarily telling.

00:20:35.620 It's one of the most important issues of the past four years and maybe going forward.

00:20:39.560 Could you just take us through a little bit of what happened first?

00:20:41.920 We'll just play a little clip of your grilling of Mr. McCabe.

00:20:46.460 Mr. McCabe, yesterday on MSNBC, Ben Rhodes, the former deputy national security advisor to

00:20:52.060 President Obama said that foreign leaders are already having conversations with Joe Biden,

00:20:57.340 quote, talking about the agenda they're going to pursue January 20th.

00:21:01.720 Mr. McCabe, based on that testimony, do you believe Joe Biden is violating the Logan Act?

00:21:06.780 I'm not aware of Ben Rhodes' statements or, or, or take it on faith.

00:21:11.080 He said what I read, assuming he's, that quote is accurate.

00:21:14.220 It's a verbatim quote.

00:21:15.380 Is that a violation of the Logan Act under any plausible theory?

00:21:19.560 I am not prepared to take your statement on faith.

00:21:23.500 And I am also not prepared to conduct legal analysis.

00:21:27.140 All right.

00:21:27.340 You're a lawyer.

00:21:28.180 Have you ever answered a hypothetical in court?

00:21:30.200 If it is correct that I am accurately quoting it, something the Department of Justice frequently

00:21:35.900 did wrong in, in, in this investigation, if that is what Ben Rhodes said, if Joe Biden

00:21:41.640 is talking with foreign leaders right now, does it violate the Logan Act?

00:21:44.800 Yes or no?

00:21:45.780 I'm not going to opine on a hypothetical question about what the Biden campaign is.

00:21:50.940 He is talking with foreign leaders and it doesn't violate the Logan Act because the Logan

00:21:54.600 Act is unconstitutional, which is why it's never been used to prosecute anyone.

00:21:58.220 You authorized using it to go after General Flynn as part of a political persecution.

00:22:04.200 I can give you the answer.

00:22:05.380 Hell no.

00:22:05.780 Joe Biden is not violating the Logan Act.

00:22:07.820 The reason you won't say it is because that was your flimsy political basis to go after

00:22:13.340 a decorated war hero because you disagreed with politically with President Trump.

00:22:17.180 Well, look, McCabe was the deputy director of the FBI today was significant because there's

00:22:24.900 been a conflict.

00:22:25.600 There's been a conflict for a couple of years between McCabe and James Comey, his boss, over

00:22:31.060 whether Comey authorized him and directed him to leak to the press.

00:22:37.540 Comey's testified now repeatedly under oath, under penalty of perjury that he did not, that

00:22:42.240 he never has, that he didn't.

00:22:45.600 McCabe had told the press that Comey had authorized him.

00:22:51.060 But today was the first time McCabe ever said that under oath.

00:22:55.220 So so that's a big deal.

00:22:56.820 It's one thing.

00:22:58.240 Look, it ain't a crime to lie to the press.

00:23:01.380 May not be a good idea.

00:23:02.800 It may not be honorable or ethical, but it is not.

00:23:06.020 It doesn't carry a prison term to lie to the press.

00:23:09.540 If you lie to Congress under oath, that that is a crime.

00:23:16.300 And so my objective in in in this cross-examination was to get and Comey testified before the election.

00:23:23.400 I got him on record again saying, no, he didn't authorize McCabe to do this.

00:23:29.380 McCabe.

00:23:29.980 Now, he you want to talk about a slippery witness.

00:23:32.140 Boy, this guy, he's he's smarmy and political and hates Trump and is a hardcore Democrat.

00:23:38.080 And and it was up to his eyeballs in the political persecution of the president.

00:23:44.380 But finally, after trying to wriggle away repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly, he said on the record, yes, Comey did authorize me.

00:23:52.980 And.

00:23:53.040 Critically, I ended this cross-examination by saying.

00:23:59.140 Mr.

00:23:59.620 McCabe, the FBI has the records to demonstrate who's telling the truth.

00:24:04.360 Either you're telling the truth or Comey's telling the truth.

00:24:06.680 You can't both be one of you is lying.

00:24:08.280 Do you think the FBI should release.

00:24:14.580 The the the records, whether emails or memoranda or whatever documents they have to to if you're telling the truth to vindicate you to show that you're telling the truth.

00:24:23.580 And if Comey's telling the truth to vindicate him, do you think the FBI should release the materials?

00:24:28.500 And McCabe said, yes, they should release the materials.

00:24:32.060 Well, hot diggity damn, I can tell you, I pulled my chief counsel aside right after the hearing and said, all right, I want you to draft a letter to Bill Barr and to Chris Ray, which we will send in the next day or two. 0.61

00:24:43.040 Hmm. 0.98

00:24:43.440 Quoting Comey's testimony, quoting McCabe's testimony, pointing out they're directly in conflict, that the FBI has records demonstrating who's lying and who's telling the truth.

00:24:54.240 And now even McCabe is calling for them to be released.

00:24:58.040 And I'm going to ask Barr and Ray, release them now.

00:25:02.480 And and let us know who who committed perjury, because they can't both be true.

00:25:08.440 True.

00:25:08.800 One said yes.

00:25:09.480 One said no.

00:25:10.320 So it is impossible for both to be testifying truth truthfully.

00:25:14.820 And this is the issue we hope for in in Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's words.

00:25:19.320 We hope for a smooth transition into a second term for the president.

00:25:22.360 But in any case, there is no reason not to get this information out now.

00:25:26.640 You know that you won't get it under a Democratic administration.

00:25:29.720 So very important.

00:25:31.140 I thought I thought the grilling was just terrific to watch.

00:25:34.680 And I do hope that we can see the release of this kind of material.

00:25:39.060 And I do hope that these people are held to account.

00:25:41.780 Speaking of these these agencies that are out of control, I want to get to two mailbag questions.

00:25:47.020 First one from Kim.

00:25:48.740 Joe Biden, if he is named president, wants to issue a lot of executive orders that would overturn Trump's executive orders.

00:25:55.340 How easy is that to do after the Supreme Court upheld one of Obama's unconstitutional executive orders?

00:26:00.700 Doesn't that make it harder for Biden to overturn Trump's EOs if Biden actually gets elected, that is?

00:26:07.520 What is the deal here?

00:26:08.380 We've always told, you know, live by the executive order, die by the executive order, that they're easy to overturn.

00:26:13.720 But sometimes the court has shown us that they're not so easy to overturn.

00:26:17.540 So that is a really smart, savvy question.

00:26:20.140 If we were living in a world of principle and reason, the answer to that should be yes, it does make it harder.

00:26:31.720 All right.

00:26:32.740 Let me step back and answer it a little bit differently.

00:26:34.960 In any ordinary world where you're following the law, a president can issue an executive order.

00:26:42.340 The next president can rescind the executive order and the power to do so is unlimited.

00:26:47.660 Now, it's a different question whether the executive order is legal, but the power to rescind an executive order is is complete and total.

00:26:55.660 And an executive order, by the way, should not be making law.

00:27:00.020 It is directing the executive.

00:27:01.600 Their executive order is going back to George Washington.

00:27:03.480 But those are instructions from the president to the executive branch.

00:27:08.860 Here's how you are to execute the law.

00:27:12.240 So it's an so and that that's an authority.

00:27:15.460 Obama abused it by trying to change the law, which an executive order can't do.

00:27:21.520 The Supreme Court.

00:27:25.740 Lawlessly in the most egregious example of it was this past summer in June, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's.

00:27:33.480 Revoking Obama's amnesty executive order.

00:27:37.980 And it was John Roberts and the four liberals.

00:27:40.840 And John Roberts wrote what I think was a deeply unprincipled opinion where the chief justice didn't dispute that Obama had no authority to issue the executive order.

00:27:52.840 And he said, of course, Trump can rescind it.

00:27:55.960 But he didn't provide enough explanations as to why.

00:28:01.480 So we're going to call a process foul and send it back.

00:28:05.280 And the thing that is utterly and completely hypocritical is the chances that John Roberts holds a Joe Biden presidency to the same standards are zero.

00:28:14.120 It was clearly a pretext to to reinstate amnesty.

00:28:21.840 And it's frankly, it's the same pretext John Roberts and the four liberals did the prior term in the census case where the Trump administration was going to ask in the census.

00:28:34.340 Are you a U.S. citizen, a question that has been asked for 200 years?

00:28:39.560 It's been asked over and over and over again in censuses.

00:28:42.720 Are you a citizen?

00:28:44.360 Well, left wing activists don't like that question because they don't want how many people are here illegally. 1.00

00:28:49.620 Yeah.

00:28:50.020 And Roberts played the same game, said, well, of course, you can ask that question.

00:28:56.000 But the memo laying it out, you didn't have good enough reasons.

00:29:00.600 So we're striking it down and saying, show your work, go show your homework a little more.

00:29:05.300 And it was a political game because they ran out of time and so didn't didn't ask the question.

00:29:10.320 That gamesmanship will only apply to Trump.

00:29:15.360 Biden will, I think, repeal executive orders.

00:29:18.900 I think if Biden is president, he will reenter the Paris climate agreement.

00:29:26.220 If Biden is president, I think he will reinstate many aspects, if not the entirety of the Iran nuclear deal.

00:29:33.760 There's a lot the president can do unilaterally.

00:29:37.540 If Republicans keep the Senate, we can stop the worst legislative things.

00:29:42.640 That's that's also something I suppose to hope for.

00:29:44.800 Now, Senator, I know you don't want me to bug you about future plans, so I will not.

00:29:50.260 But I felt this was a very important question.

00:29:52.220 So I'm going to include it.

00:29:53.380 This is from Tommy.

00:29:55.100 If Senator Cruz ever seeks higher office, will he keep the beard?

00:29:59.600 I think he should.

00:30:01.380 Senator, your answer. 1.00

00:30:03.360 Damn to find out. 1.00

00:30:04.700 The beard's been fun. 0.99

00:30:06.000 And I grew it on a whim.

00:30:07.620 I've had fun with it at some point.

00:30:10.780 Heidi is not crazy about the beard.

00:30:13.100 So so there is some pressure to get rid of it.

00:30:17.180 Well, we'll see how it shakes out.

00:30:18.720 I'm having fun with it right now.

00:30:20.400 Senator, I would like on the record.

00:30:22.500 You know, I won't be like Andy McCabe here.

00:30:24.060 I won't try to be weaselly about my answers.

00:30:26.460 I am fully 100 percent pro beard.

00:30:29.680 I think if for the verdict listeners, if you agree with my position on this, please let us know on Twitter.

00:30:35.940 I think it's great.

00:30:37.240 It's very has lots of Abraham Lincoln vibes.

00:30:39.520 I think it's cool.

00:30:40.100 If I were able to grow a beard, I would.

00:30:42.100 Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work out on me, but maybe someday in the future.

00:30:45.820 Well, I will say that the baby face is a good look for you.

00:30:50.780 Well, that's very kind.

00:30:51.800 Thank you, Senator.

00:30:52.500 I appreciate that very much.

00:30:54.080 And I will I will try to keep the baby face.

00:30:56.140 We will, I'm sure, the next time we speak, have a million more developments in this crazy, crazy end to a crazy, crazy year.

00:31:03.760 In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.

00:31:05.400 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:31:16.080 This episode of Verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack,

00:31:21.840 a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations and candidates across the country.

00:31:28.940 In 2022, Jobs, Freedom and Security Pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for Congress and help the Republican Party across the nation.

00:31:38.480 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:31:40.940 Guaranteed human.

00:31:41.780 I'll see you in the right of the wrong way that the Predicts can be trusted as a man who 장reeves in business.

00:32:00.720 Thank you, Mrs.

00:32:01.600 Harris.

00:32:02.360 On the right of the right of игра, Susan.

00:32:04.620 I see you all here.

00:32:06.080 Thank you.

00:32:06.720 Thank you.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - November 12, 2020

Holy Crap, What a Week

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript