Verdict with Ted Cruz - How Do We Start The Economy Again？

00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.

00:00:02.460 Guaranteed human.

00:00:04.640 3.3 million Americans lost their jobs two weeks ago.

00:00:09.280 Another 6.7 million Americans lost their jobs last week.

00:00:14.060 And we have got at least another month of shutdown to go.

00:00:18.580 This is Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:27.040 Welcome back to Verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:00:29.000 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:00:30.100 Senator, I'm sorry to be joining you in these unpleasant conditions.

00:00:34.660 I was hoping by now we could be doing shows in person again.

00:00:37.800 Instead, we are quarantined and the economy is collapsing all around us.

00:00:41.680 So we've got so much to get to.

00:00:43.920 10 million Americans have lost their jobs in two weeks.

00:00:47.580 At what point does this shutdown become economically untenable?

00:00:52.840 Well, we've got two disasters that are playing out simultaneously.

00:00:55.840 Obviously, we've got the public health crisis and it is real.

00:00:59.620 The numbers keep growing.

00:01:01.100 The fatalities keep growing.

00:01:03.560 And that all of us are struggling to deal with that.

00:01:07.460 At the same time, we've got an economic crisis that's playing out.

00:01:11.320 And the economic crisis is caused by the government's policies put in place to deal

00:01:16.920 with the public health crisis.

00:01:18.360 That economic crisis is producing devastation.

00:01:22.240 10 million people have lost their jobs in the last two weeks.

00:01:25.380 Small businesses are shutting down one after the other after the other.

00:01:29.620 Restaurants, bars, nail salons, movie theaters.

00:01:36.160 People are hurting and we don't know how long this is going to last.

00:01:41.740 That being said, we're seeing, I think, the federal government, the legislation that was

00:01:46.080 passed last week will begin to provide some much needed relief to a lot of people who are

00:01:51.060 hurting.

00:01:51.760 But we've got to get through this crisis.

00:01:53.480 We've got to defeat the pandemic.

00:01:55.600 That's when the economic calamity is going to end, when we defeat the disease.

00:01:59.980 Well, because I noticed that there's this balance that people are trying to strike.

00:02:03.600 And yet you hear some people like New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said, if we can

00:02:07.540 save just one life, then all of these policies will have been worth it.

00:02:11.680 But of course, people die in economic collapse as well.

00:02:15.080 Suicide spike, drug overdoses spike.

00:02:17.860 So is there any pushback within the government, people that you're talking to, that perhaps,

00:02:23.540 as we've heard, the cure might be worse than the disease here?

00:02:27.020 Look, of course there is.

00:02:28.080 I mean, there's very real debate.

00:02:30.680 I mean, if we're looking at two, three months from now, 20%, 25%, 30% unemployment, I mean,

00:02:39.860 those are Great Depression numbers.

00:02:41.520 You and I have never been alive for that.

00:02:43.920 I mean, if we end up destroying our domestic economy and destroying the international economy,

00:02:49.500 that legacy could last a long, long time.

00:02:52.740 And you're right that that kind of poverty and suffering will also take lives.

00:02:58.820 That inevitably, when you see economic devastation, you know the consequences of that are going

00:03:04.380 to be with an increased poverty.

00:03:06.000 You're going to have increased depression, increased suicides, substance abuse.

00:03:11.920 All sorts of problems flow from economic devastation.

00:03:16.900 So there is a trade-off that has to be made.

00:03:18.920 But on the public health side, look, my view is we need to listen to the science and the physicians

00:03:25.980 about how to combat this epidemic, how to contain it so that we don't overwhelm our health system.

00:03:32.960 We haven't seen that happen yet, but we have seen it happen in places like Italy.

00:03:37.380 What is happening in Italy, none of us want to see happen here.

00:03:41.320 And so I think there has to be a balance between the two.

00:03:46.680 We have to see when we've got the virus under control, when it's not spreading at dramatic rates,

00:03:53.020 that's when we're going to have to be looking to ease up on some of the restrictions.

00:03:59.360 But if we do it early, and look, part of the problem is think for a minute about the political dynamics.

00:04:04.580 Let's say, Michael, you woke up tomorrow and you were the mayor of a large city.

00:04:08.460 Would you want to be the mayor who said, OK, everybody go back to work, everyone go back to the restaurant,

00:04:14.900 and then two weeks later, 500 people die in your city?

00:04:18.920 And they all say it was Mayor Knowles who killed them.

00:04:22.560 The blood is on your hands.

00:04:23.960 And look, as you know, people will use rhetoric that hot and nasty and personal.

00:04:30.080 The incentives are such you've got a lot of leaders who are struggling with what to do

00:04:35.380 because you want to save people's lives, but there does, over time, there has to be a balance.

00:04:41.780 Of course.

00:04:42.360 This is what keeps running through my mind when I'm thinking, is President Trump overreacting?

00:04:47.180 Is Andy Cuomo overreacting?

00:04:49.420 Is Gavin Newsom overreacting?

00:04:50.620 Is what if I were in that position?

00:04:52.640 What if any of us were in that position?

00:04:54.300 And you just don't know.

00:04:55.760 None of us can predict the future.

00:04:57.360 A lot of the models are disagreeing with one another.

00:05:00.000 Do you want to be the guy where the headlines all say, Senator so-and-so,

00:05:05.360 or I suppose in this case, Governor or President so-and-so,

00:05:07.420 is responsible for killing all of these people?

00:05:10.440 Of course not.

00:05:11.520 However, we don't want this thing to go on forever.

00:05:14.800 And I know initially the president had said that he was hoping this would be over by Easter.

00:05:19.940 Then that became April 30th.

00:05:22.620 Then now Dr. Fauci is suggesting we might have to maintain the mitigation efforts after April 30th.

00:05:30.540 I think what a lot of people want to know is not even when is this going to end,

00:05:34.020 but what criteria is the government using to determine when this will end?

00:05:39.540 Is it when there are no more cases?

00:05:41.080 Is it when we're past the top of the curve?

00:05:42.980 Is it when there are no more deaths?

00:05:44.700 What are we looking at?

00:05:46.200 Well, I started this morning on a conference call with Dr. Fauci and also with Stephen Mnuchin,

00:05:51.980 the Treasury Secretary.

00:05:54.520 And Fauci this morning was talking about how there are all sorts of measures that we're looking at.

00:06:00.000 We're looking at cases.

00:06:00.920 We're looking at hospitalizations.

00:06:03.580 We're looking at those who are in critical conditions.

00:06:06.060 And we're looking at deaths.

00:06:07.540 And we want to see each of those indicators start to slow the rate of new cases,

00:06:14.960 the rate of new hospitalizations, the rate of new deaths.

00:06:17.900 But each of those is a lagging indicator to the other.

00:06:20.800 So even as we begin to see, hopefully, a decline in new cases,

00:06:26.780 the rates of deaths is typically lagging several weeks behind.

00:06:30.440 And so we may see those numbers, one set of numbers going down while another is still on the upswing.

00:06:36.780 But one of the challenges is testing still.

00:06:41.800 There are not that many people who have been tested.

00:06:43.400 So we don't know really how widespread things are.

00:06:47.300 We have the numbers from the United States.

00:06:50.580 The United States is starting to test more widely.

00:06:52.880 It was a big problem three weeks ago getting a test.

00:06:56.500 It's still challenging in some circumstances getting tested.

00:06:59.620 But we're doing a lot more testing, which is one of the reasons our numbers are going up.

00:07:03.700 It's clear there are places like New York City.

00:07:06.740 The outbreak there is serious.

00:07:08.100 And it's concentrated.

00:07:09.780 You have a lot of people close in, in a close geographic location.

00:07:15.620 And the challenge is, listen, I've asked the CDC, I've asked the medical experts over and over again,

00:07:21.900 okay, how long is this going to last?

00:07:23.820 Is this another two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks?

00:07:26.280 What are we talking about?

00:07:28.380 The simple answer is they don't know.

00:07:30.440 They have lots of models, but the models, if you adjust the variables even slightly in terms of the rates of contagion,

00:07:39.380 how many people have it, it makes a massive difference in terms of how widespread this is.

00:07:45.680 So, listen, when the president said that he hoped everything would be open by Easter,

00:07:50.360 I think that was a perfectly good aspiration to say, listen, we all want to get back to work.

00:07:54.400 We want to get back to normal.

00:07:56.180 And you saw the media kind of lose their minds about it.

00:08:00.540 And obviously, if the numbers are spiking and more and more people are getting sick,

00:08:06.060 nobody is going to step in and say, all right, all right, let's all go to a basketball game.

00:08:13.280 I mean, that's not going to happen.

00:08:15.960 It's also the case, so for example, all of the American press really gullibly reported

00:08:22.660 that America has now passed China for infections.

00:08:26.580 Well, that's only because China is absolutely lying about every aspect of this pandemic, 0.99

00:08:34.220 including, look, China claims in the last month that their cases went from 80,000 to 81,000. 0.99

00:08:41.220 What utter garbage. 0.94

00:08:43.480 So it spread like an epidemic and then suddenly halted altogether. 0.99

00:08:48.300 I don't think anyone believes that.

00:08:50.980 And to see the American media just parrot propaganda, I don't think is helpful.

00:08:57.880 We do know the Chinese communist government, they tried to cover up this outbreak.

00:09:02.220 They tried to suppress this outbreak.

00:09:04.320 They were complicit in, I think they didn't want to be embarrassed.

00:09:07.840 So imagine a different world of when this outbreak first started in Wuhan.

00:09:13.820 If the Chinese government had brought in health experts, if they'd quarantined the first people, 0.85

00:09:19.080 we could have stopped maybe this epidemic from becoming a pandemic.

00:09:23.540 We could have held it to a regional location, but instead they covered it up and tourists and

00:09:28.700 travelers went from Wuhan all over the world.

00:09:31.520 You had Chinese travelers going to Italy, which produced a big outbreak there. 1.00

00:09:35.740 And so their cover up played a big part in the worldwide catastrophe we're seeing right now.

00:09:42.300 And speaking of parroting this Chinese communist propaganda, I mean, one of the

00:09:46.620 institutions that did that most persistently and successfully was the World Health Organization.

00:09:52.280 A lot of people were looking to them.

00:09:53.880 And yet, for some reason, it would seem that they've installed a patsy to run the WHO.

00:09:58.700 They covered it up.

00:09:59.700 They didn't send experts over there for months and months.

00:10:02.300 I think the question on a lot of people's minds here is, how are we going to hold people

00:10:08.940 responsible?

00:10:10.080 One, how are we going to ascertain the guilt here?

00:10:13.000 I mean, one study said that China could have reduced the spread of this pandemic by 95% if

00:10:18.120 they had just acted three weeks earlier.

00:10:20.480 How are we going to hold them responsible once this is all said and done?

00:10:24.040 Well, look, I think the first step is accountability.

00:10:26.640 We need to find out what happened.

00:10:29.080 We need to find out where the virus originated.

00:10:31.360 We've talked before about how where the virus originated is just miles away from the Wuhan

00:10:37.820 Institute of Virology, one of only about three dozen P4 testing facilities that test and

00:10:47.100 contain very deadly viruses.

00:10:49.260 Not only that, we know that at that institute, they weren't just testing viruses.

00:10:54.100 They were testing coronaviruses.

00:10:56.220 And it wasn't just coronaviruses.

00:10:58.560 They were testing coronaviruses from bats.

00:11:02.500 And the odds, I mean, if you think of all the towns, all the cities in the world, the

00:11:08.940 odds that this outbreak just happens to occur miles away from a lab that is testing coronaviruses

00:11:15.960 and bats.

00:11:16.600 Those odds are minuscule.

00:11:18.080 Now, here's what here's what a lot of the American mainstream media is.

00:11:21.920 There was a very concerted effort to respond to questions like that.

00:11:25.340 But by screaming, this is a tinfoil hat conspiracy and conspiracy theory.

00:11:30.680 Right.

00:11:31.160 And we know they say that this virus wasn't manufactured, that that was their response.

00:11:37.300 And I'll tell you, that's what the CDC doctors have told me.

00:11:40.180 I asked them early on.

00:11:41.260 Look, there were questions about, is this a bioweapon?

00:11:43.660 And I asked our doctors, is there any evidence of that?

00:11:46.020 They said, no.

00:11:46.820 They said, looking at the genome and the sequencing, it does not appear to be anything that was

00:11:53.340 manufactured in a lab.

00:11:54.680 It appears to be something that occurred in nature.

00:11:57.000 So that's what the experts have told me.

00:11:59.580 But the next and obvious question is, okay, fine.

00:12:02.360 If it wasn't created in a lab, was this novel coronavirus a virus they were studying at the 0.79

00:12:10.000 Wuhan Institute of Virology, that they'd gotten from nature, that it occurred naturally in a bat

00:12:14.540 or some other creature that they were studying?

00:12:16.820 And was there some sort of accident?

00:12:18.840 Did someone get infected?

00:12:20.280 Did an animal get infected?

00:12:21.800 Did it somehow get out?

00:12:23.140 There have been numerous stories written in the press before this outbreak about the poor

00:12:28.880 efforts at security and keeping the viruses contained at that particular institution.

00:12:35.880 From the Chinese government.

00:12:36.880 They more or less admitted it in certain documents that were distributed at that Institute of

00:12:42.040 Virology, rather.

00:12:43.420 And so it strikes me as entirely plausible that it accidentally escaped.

00:12:49.140 That explains why the Chinese government would be so embarrassed about it, why they would work 1.00

00:12:54.120 so hard to try to suppress any evidence of it, why they would punish the whistleblowers,

00:12:59.740 including the doctor who lost his life to COVID-19, but who first blew the whistle where the Chinese

00:13:06.820 government came down on him.

00:13:09.440 And that dynamic, and I got to say, with the exception of a handful of journalists, and I'll

00:13:16.040 give a shout out to Tucker Carlson.

00:13:18.400 I think Tucker Carlson has been courageous in addressing this.

00:13:21.920 I actually called Tucker yesterday as I was going for my walk with my family.

00:13:25.580 I called him on the cell phone.

00:13:27.440 I just said, hey, Tucker, thank you.

00:13:28.720 Thank you for having the backbone to ask these questions because most of the mainstream media,

00:13:37.020 they're so desperate.

00:13:39.380 The network executives want to be in the Chinese market.

00:13:42.440 The Chinese market is billions of dollars, and because of the money, they won't raise 0.96

00:13:48.440 these questions.

00:13:50.100 And the first step is ensuring that we have accountability, that we know what actually

00:13:55.220 happened.

00:13:56.000 You know, I have to tell you, yesterday was April Fool's Day, as you know, Senator, and

00:13:59.500 I was just waiting for that government bulletin to come out and say, hey, guys, it was all a

00:14:04.100 big joke.

00:14:04.620 April Fool's, you can all go back to work now.

00:14:07.080 Unfortunately, that didn't happen.

00:14:08.220 Well, I will say last night as I was going to bed, the girls, you know, called me in.

00:14:13.740 Heidi said, come in the bed. 0.98

00:14:15.100 And she was already going to bed.

00:14:16.680 And as I walked in, Caroline had set a cup of water on the door to dump on my head. 1.00

00:14:24.720 Then as I was putting him to bed, it was kind of late.

00:14:26.940 It was about 1130 at night.

00:14:28.180 I was trying to get him down to bed.

00:14:29.460 And Catherine said, I'm not going to bed until you pull an April Fool's prank on us. 1.00

00:14:33.820 So I went to our bathroom and I got a can of shaving cream.

00:14:38.220 And came in and sprayed the girls with shaving cream, which which obviously they run and 1.00

00:14:44.220 scream and they run into Caroline's room. 1.00

00:14:46.580 Then the door opens and Caroline has a full can of shaving cream she had hidden in her 0.99

00:14:52.300 room.

00:14:53.240 So we had a giant shaving cream fight last night.

00:14:56.300 I finally got the girls in bed.

00:14:58.220 Note to self, never get on the wrong side of Senator Cruz's daughters.

00:15:02.880 They really sounds like they were planning this out long before April Fool's Day.

00:15:06.700 I think also another bit of evidence that all of us staying at home, whether we're in

00:15:12.040 California or New York or even if we're a U.S.

00:15:14.280 senator, we're all going a little bit crazy with this quarantine.

00:15:17.260 And so now shaving cream everywhere and a cup of water on dad's head when people are

00:15:21.500 cooped up together.

00:15:22.220 I mean, there are only so many things you can do.

00:15:24.140 I'm just been binge watching Tiger King.

00:15:26.460 Is Tiger King not the most surreal thing you have ever seen?

00:15:30.280 I like every episode.

00:15:32.820 You're like, all right, it cannot get any more insane.

00:15:36.060 And then the episode ends and you go, you got to be kidding me.

00:15:40.860 I mean, it's just into the next one.

00:15:43.500 You know, I mean, those are all the positive aspects of it.

00:15:46.700 And I think it is very important in times like this not to panic, not to only look at

00:15:51.280 everything that's awful.

00:15:52.060 We're getting a lot of mailbag questions in because because people are sitting around at

00:15:57.220 home.

00:15:57.380 They're not allowed to go out anywhere.

00:15:58.900 And so I think it's important if we can get to as many as we can, because there are a lot

00:16:02.760 of specific questions.

00:16:03.800 I obviously don't know the answer to any of them, but possibly, Senator, you do.

00:16:07.760 A first question from Mimi.

00:16:09.220 I heard that if you're on Social Security, you have to file a new and separate tax return.

00:16:14.760 How is that going to work?

00:16:16.580 Well, there was guidance that came out earlier this week in which the Treasury Department said

00:16:21.400 that if you hadn't filed a tax return in 2018, if you're on Social Security and you didn't

00:16:25.580 make enough that you had to file a tax return, that you had to file a new special tax return. 1.00

00:16:30.960 That was a stupid policy. 1.00

00:16:32.680 It was a stupid idea. 1.00

00:16:34.340 A number of us were quite critical of it. 1.00

00:16:36.820 And thankfully, yesterday, Treasury rescinded it.

00:16:39.640 They said, you don't need to file this special tax return.

00:16:43.600 If you're receiving a Social Security check, you will receive your relief check.

00:16:47.440 That was the right outcome.

00:16:48.520 It's where they should have started, but I'm glad they got there.

00:16:52.540 Right.

00:16:52.880 Of course, you don't want people who are on a fixed income, who are particularly vulnerable

00:16:56.860 to this virus, to be specifically the ones excluded from receiving the relief.

00:17:01.420 That makes a lot of sense.

00:17:02.260 That's exactly right.

00:17:02.900 From JJ.

00:17:04.480 JJ asks, can required minimum deductions from 401ks be relaxed due to the stock market being

00:17:14.920 depressed, meaning every year, at a certain point, you will have to pull a certain amount

00:17:20.120 of money from your 401k.

00:17:21.840 But if you do it now, obviously, we're in the midst of an economic crisis.

00:17:25.060 Is there any way to stop that?

00:17:26.980 So good news on that.

00:17:28.480 The answer is yes.

00:17:29.620 And that was in the bill that passed Congress.

00:17:31.500 So the required distributions from 401ks and IRAs are halted for the year precisely for that,

00:17:39.060 that you don't want to force people.

00:17:40.880 If they don't have to withdraw the money, you don't want to force them to do it.

00:17:45.160 But also in the legislation passed last week, there is the ability, if you need to access

00:17:51.380 your retirement savings just for cash flow to provide for your family, the penalties have

00:17:57.380 also been lifted for accessing those as well.

00:18:00.520 So there are positive policies on both ends on that front.

00:18:05.720 Great.

00:18:06.060 Well, for those of us who haven't read every single page of that relief bill, that's very

00:18:09.960 useful information.

00:18:10.840 From Mike, when is the Small Business Administration going to provide responses to applications and

00:18:17.980 inquiries?

00:18:18.880 The application format has changed.

00:18:20.580 Nobody's getting any information or updates or funding.

00:18:23.800 So how can small business owners who are probably under a lot of constraints right now get that

00:18:27.900 relief money from the SBA?

00:18:28.920 So that should be coming.

00:18:31.600 It is supposed to be live and starting as soon as tomorrow, as soon as Friday.

00:18:36.840 And it's being administered.

00:18:38.780 I'd say your resources, I'd go, number one, to the Small Business Administration website.

00:18:43.280 That's one resource there that should be able to answer some questions.

00:18:46.640 And number two, if you're a small business owner, go to your local lenders.

00:18:50.760 The way that this program will be implemented is through local and community banks.

00:18:56.740 And any small business and any business that has 500 employees or fewer will qualify for

00:19:03.300 a guaranteed loan.

00:19:05.200 That loan can be up to $10 million.

00:19:07.640 And that loan, if you use those loan proceeds to pay for payroll for your employees, to pay for

00:19:17.080 mortgage or rent for your business, or to pay for utilities, that amount of the loan that is

00:19:23.960 paid for, that is used for those purposes will be forgiven.

00:19:26.980 It becomes a grant.

00:19:28.040 Oh, wow.

00:19:28.880 And so that's designed, the whole purpose of that is to keep as many people as possible

00:19:34.000 employed and getting a paycheck.

00:19:36.320 Um, and, and, and so it, it is.

00:19:39.400 And by the way, if you're a small business owner, let's say two weeks ago, you laid off

00:19:44.300 or you furloughed a bunch of employees, you can bring them back and the loans will apply

00:19:50.380 to their salaries as well.

00:19:51.880 So, so it's designed.

00:19:53.340 So if you've already laid off workers, don't, it's not just the workers you have today.

00:19:57.320 If you, if you have workers that you laid off a week or two ago, you can hire them back

00:20:01.740 so that employees will get a paycheck.

00:20:04.100 But from the small business owner's perspective, that amount will be forgiven.

00:20:08.880 We'll be, we'll be, we'll be a grant.

00:20:10.940 I'm not seeing that information anywhere.

00:20:13.100 And I know that nobody's read this entire bill.

00:20:15.120 So that is extremely hopeful news and good news for small business owners and for employees

00:20:20.400 of small businesses.

00:20:21.260 That even if you're one of the 10 million people who lost your job in the last couple

00:20:25.780 of weeks, if you're working for a small business, uh, you, you can be rehired.

00:20:29.540 There is a path to do that.

00:20:31.040 Uh, next question.

00:20:32.480 Is there a limit to how much money the federal government can borrow without severe consequences?

00:20:38.540 You know, now president Trump is talking about a possible infrastructure bill that could,

00:20:43.180 I mean, we're, we're not talking in even 1 trillion anymore.

00:20:45.960 We're talking about many trillions of dollars.

00:20:48.480 Is there a limit where we say we can't do anymore?

00:20:51.760 Look, Michael, we, we, we don't really know.

00:20:54.360 It depends how bad this crisis gets.

00:20:56.500 Last week, Congress spent $2 trillion in an afternoon.

00:21:02.000 I mean, that's nearly 10% of our total national debt.

00:21:05.460 That is breathtaking.

00:21:07.180 And, and it's worth noting in, in, in the Senate, it passed unanimously.

00:21:10.840 It was 96 to nothing.

00:21:12.400 That means Bernie Sanders voted yes.

00:21:14.420 And I voted yes.

00:21:15.320 And every Senator in between voted yes.

00:21:18.660 I mean, I mean that, and the reason is this, this is a crisis unlike any we've ever seen.

00:21:24.840 Um, and it's a crisis that, that the people who are hurting, they didn't do anything to cause this problem.

00:21:32.360 All the restaurant owners, the, the, the bar owners, the movie theater owners, that they didn't, this is not like TARP.

00:21:39.300 This is not like where the financial firms, uh, were taking advantage of the system and, and, and created a crisis here.

00:21:46.100 It's not their fault that, that this, this, this worldwide pandemic began.

00:21:51.080 And from a governmental perspective, the costs are coming anyway.

00:21:55.220 So for example, let's take the loans to small businesses that $377 billion was appropriated.

00:22:03.260 Well, we could have not done that in which case those small businesses all would have gone out of business and those employees would all filed for unemployment.

00:22:11.540 And, and, and, and you would have seen in more and more employees on a, on, on, on unemployment, on welfare.

00:22:17.900 That's, those are massive government expenditures anyway.

00:22:21.140 And so we made the determination, you know what, it's, we're in a better situation to try to essentially give a bridge loan to the small business owners to try to keep that business in existence.

00:22:32.560 Try to keep them hopefully in, in a few weeks or, or, or maybe longer, we will get past this, this, this shutdown and, and go back to work.

00:22:45.920 And we'd like to have as many of those small businesses still viable.

00:22:49.420 And as many people still have the jobs that they had a month ago.

00:22:53.260 Right.

00:22:53.780 Of course.

00:22:54.340 I mean, you've only got bad options here, right?

00:22:56.560 You're, this is going to have an, a major cost just by virtue of it being a pandemic.

00:23:01.020 So the question is, do you have that cost and lose all your businesses?

00:23:04.360 You try to keep some of your businesses, very difficult decision.

00:23:07.260 Last question is a little controversial, but people sometimes forget there's a presidential election going on.

00:23:14.400 I know that it's not exactly in the news these days, but we will elect a president in November.

00:23:19.480 Question is from Twitter, uncomfortably quarantined.

00:23:23.060 What happens if Joe Biden is found to legitimately have competency issues by a physician, yet he was selected as the nominee?

00:23:31.020 What happens then as far as who is on the ballot?

00:23:34.600 You know, who knows?

00:23:38.760 Listen, Biden, I'll tell you one of the odd things about Biden, it seems like the guy is in witness protection.

00:23:44.480 I mean, what, what has happened to him?

00:23:46.320 I mean, it's, can you recall in your lifetime ever seeing anyone effectively wrap up a nomination and then disappear?

00:23:57.680 I mean, I guess he did, did what was it?

00:23:59.800 A Facebook, uh, live town hall that, that he like wandered off the camera and, and

00:24:05.420 It didn't go very well.

00:24:06.440 It did not go well.

00:24:07.420 Look, I like Joe personally.

00:24:08.920 He's an affable guy, but, but, you know, I gotta say he has slowed down more than a step or two.

00:24:16.420 And I've heard more than a little speculation that get to the convention, Democrats are going

00:24:23.520 to want to pull the plug and, and abandon ship.

00:24:26.580 I don't know if that happens, uh, under their rules, the superdelegates, you know, it's

00:24:31.580 interesting that Democratic party believes, believes in the state and believes in government.

00:24:37.920 So they're much more authoritarian.

00:24:39.660 So they have these things called superdelegates, which are elected officials that are basically

00:24:44.420 free to do whatever they want at a convention.

00:24:46.700 Republicans don't have superdelegates.

00:24:48.940 Yeah.

00:24:49.260 No, no.

00:24:49.480 It's interesting.

00:24:50.200 Republicans, Republicans don't have superdelegates.

00:24:52.460 Republicans actually follow the votes of the people.

00:24:56.280 The Democrats have, have a much more top down power driven system.

00:25:02.240 Uh, you know, I've heard interesting speculation about Andrew Cuomo suddenly becoming the dark

00:25:07.540 horse candidate.

00:25:08.720 Um, I don't know.

00:25:11.040 Um, it, I will say this, the longer this crisis continues, the more the question for every

00:25:20.580 voter is going to be, what leader do I trust to lead this country in a time of, of crisis

00:25:28.260 and calamity?

00:25:29.560 I, whether it's a public health crisis or an economic crisis.

00:25:33.160 And I, and I think that issue is likely to become the only issue for the Democrats at

00:25:38.640 their convention and, and the only issue, uh, or at least the dominant issue in November

00:25:43.660 of the general election.

00:25:44.580 Of course.

00:25:45.320 I mean, that's the theme that everybody's talking about is unemployment and it could affect

00:25:48.680 a restaurant worker and it could affect the democratic nominee for president. 1.00

00:25:52.860 Uh, there's a wide spectrum here and a lot of uncertainty.

00:25:56.420 We will try to clear up more of it next time as things are changing day by day, but that's

00:26:01.100 all the time we have for today.

00:26:02.800 Thank you, Senator.

00:26:03.640 I'm Michael Knowles.

00:26:04.640 This is verdict with Ted Cruz.

00:26:06.400 This episode of verdict with Ted Cruz is being brought to you by jobs, freedom and security

00:26:19.020 pack, a political action committee dedicated to supporting conservative causes, organizations

00:26:24.160 and candidates across the country.

00:26:26.220 In 2022 jobs, freedom and security pack plans to donate to conservative candidates running for

00:26:32.100 Congress and help the Republican party across the nation.

00:26:35.460 This is an I heart podcast guaranteed human.

Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 03, 2020

How Do We Start The Economy Again？

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